Daventry regional — Battlefield Games and Hobbies — 11–03–17
Well, here we are at the last regional of the season. I’ve attended 3 major events in the past few months and done well at 2 of the 3.
At the Exeter regional I came 20th just narrowly missing the top cut by 4 places (Full-on was 17th place… that’s got to be a worse feeling), at Warboar I came 9th in swiss and was then knocked out in my top 16 match by Alex Birt. Yavin was a bit of a downer, I went 2–4 and dropped instead of playing the seventh game.
You can read my reports on those events here: Exeter Warboar Yavin
If you’ve been keeping up with my progress you know that I have been flying the dreaded Parattanni in all those tournaments! I had contemplated giving it up for Daventry and flying something else, just for the change but, for a few reasons, I decided to stick with it.
1) I know it — I’ve probably got over 100 games in with it now (in person and on Vassal) and although my performance at Yavin was poor, I had since done a fair amount of work on improving my outlook and tactics with the squad.
2) From a journalistic point of view I feel it would be useful for me to play the same list for a whole season and then write a post about how I’ve changed with the list, how people’s reaction has changed towards it and how the meta has changed to counter it. (More on this in a later blog post)
So, Parattanni it is then!
Battlefield Hobbies. I won’t sugar coat it, there was a bit of a lack of communication going into this regional. As the new FAQ had just come out, there were a lot of people asking, via the facebook event page, whether this FAQ would be put in place for the event. No information was forthcoming from the Battlefield team until a few days before the event. (They were, rightly so, not putting the new FAQ into play, as the effective date for it was the Friday of the week after) Also, on the second day, whilst the top cut was going on, it was announced that Battlefield would be running side events, however, even with people asking via facebook again, no one told us what these side events would be. We were only given that information on the first day of the actual event. (They were quarter 1 kits with the standard 100 point dogfight format so nothing fancy, but it would still have been nice to know in advance)
However, upon arrival at Battlefield Hobbies, we were greeted warmly by very friendly and helpful employees and after finding out that this was actually their first ever regional and that they had only opened around a year and a half ago, all was forgiven.
So, onto the matchups!
Match 1 vs Craig Bradford
Quickdraw — Draw Thier Fire / FCS / Lightweight Frame / title
Whisper — Operations Specialist / FCS / VI / ACD
Pure Sabacc — Adaptibility / Lightweight Frame / title
I’ll come straight out and say this, Craig’s dice were awful. Awful enough for me to feel bad for him.
In my initial engagement, I misplayed and ended up with all of Craig’s guns pointing at Asajj. I do sometimes use this as a tactic, leave Asajj out there as bait with 2 focus tokens, an evade and a free evade from Latts, but this felt wrong on this occasion.
However, Asajj managed to get through that round only having lost 1 shield… against Whisper, Sabacc and Quickdraw… 11 red dice… yep, Craig’s dice were that bad.
To cut a long story short, Fenn got a range one shot on an uncloaked Whisper (thanks to Asajj’s stress) and took her off the board. Then bumped Quickdraw in the next round and killed him with Asajj. Shortly after, Sabacc was down as well.
A good start!
Win 100–0
Match 2 vs Manuele Santoro
Biggs — M9-G8 / Integrated Astromech
Zeb (shuttle) — title
Kanan — FCS / Tactical Jammer / TLT / Rey / Finn / title
Manuele seemed like a really fun opponent. Unfortunately, I was never to find out whether this would be the case or not, because it was about this time that the organisers announced that the Tome tournament software had decided to be an idiot… time for the entire player-base to be re-paired.
Match 2 vs David Cooney
Gold Squadron — TLT
Gold Squadron — TLT
Gold Squadron — TLT / R5-P8
Gold Squadron — TLT / Overclocked R4
Sooooo, quad TLT, eh? This is one list I have never flown against before. By the time I started playing, it had gone out of fashion. These days, because of all the anti-ace tech (and thus, the departure of Autothrusters from the meta on the whole) the list is making a comeback.
The start of the game was very much about positioning, I knew I needed to get into range one with Fenn and try to take two Ys off before Fenn went down. The first few rounds went OK for me. I managed to get into range 1 with Fenn and within the first two turns I had taken a Y-wing off the board and got another one down to half health.
Fenn had a Major Hull Breach crit and 2 hull left. I did the ballsy thing of T-rolling through an asteroid to get a range 1 shot on the half health Y-wing. So I rolled for it and got a hit. The current crit made this a faceup damage card. I would be fine, as long as it wasn’t a Direct Hit! Or Major Explosion… it was a Direct Hit! Dead Fenn. I’m pretty sure that decided the game actually.
On the penultimate turn, there was a full health Y-wing and Asajj just above half health. She fell below half on that turn and that was game to David.
Quite honestly, I’m pleased at how I did in this match, having never attempted the dreaded quad TLT matchup, I’m OK with how I dealt with it. I think the game would have been mine if I’d had slightly more luck with Fenn and the fateful T-roll turn.
Not bad MOV for this match either!
Loss 73–80
Match 3 vs Matthew Todd
Dengar — PTL / K4 / Unhinged / Glitterstim / title
Bossk — Mangler / K4 / Boba / Outlaw tech / Burnout SLAM
I set up Asajj and Roo in my right corner and Fenn in my left corner. Bossk was set up to joust Asajj and Roo and Dengar set up to joust Fenn.
Everyone slow rolled for a bit and then both of Matthew’s ships committed to Fenn. During this turn, both Roo and Asajj had good shots on Bossk, so he SLAMed out of range. Which ended up putting him at range one of Fenn with no shots due to SLAMing. Dengar then moved up to range one of Fenn as well.
Fenn took a big chunk out of Bossk and Dengar managed to get a crit through on Fenn, can anyone guess which one it was? Yep, Damaged Cockpit! PS0 here we go again.
To be fair to Fenn, he did a beautiful job in the next few turns, he consistently blocked Dengar and got a few more good shots on Bossk before he went down in flames.
Shortly after, Bossk died. At this point, Dengar was triple stressed from a red maneuver, popping Glitterstim and getting an Asajj stress, it was now a case of chasing down Dengar with Manaroo and Asajj.
A few turns later, Dengar got a Stunned Pilot crit and had one hull left, so I moved into blocking position with Manaroo and Dengar blew up due to his bump. A rather anti-climactic way to end the game but a win nonetheless.
Win 100–32
Match 4 vs Ben Cox
Delta Squadron — /x7 / Stealth Device
Delta Squadron — /x7 / Stealth Device
Ryad — /x7 / Stealth Device / Predator
Hands down, one of the nicest people I have ever played against! Ben is part of the Weekend Warlords and was an absolutely stellar opponent, this game was so relaxed and friendly that it felt like a normal practice night with friends at Dark Sphere. If you get a chance, play this man. You won’t be disappointed!
I also really like the list. It’s similar to the one I ran at Lost Ark Games in Stevenage just after Imperial Veterans was released and is tanky as f&%k.
I fed Asajj to the Defenders and she did her job as bait amazingly. All of the Defenders shot her and she only lost one shield. God I love that Nightsister! In the next turn Fenn came in and smashed a range 1 Delta in the face. This was to be the flavour of the game. Ben called it the “Fenn Rau Special”.
The “Fenn Rau Special” happened four or five more times in this game and the combination of this and Asajj’s stress gave me the game.
Win 100–0 and a hug from Ben :)
Match 5 vs Scott Reed
Bossk — Crack Shot / Homing Missile / Chips / Zuckass / 4-LOM / Dengar
Ketsu — PTL / K4 / title / Engine / Glitterstim
Well, here’s a thing… I usually put one of the pictures I’d taken from the game here. This game was so intense that I forgot to take any! Sorry about that.
Wow! X-Wing royalty right here. I’d never met any of the Reeds before but they have such a high reputation in the X-Wing community and this was a game that seriously didn’t disappoint.
So we set up to joust. I was intending to keep Fenn out of the fight and bumping Ketsu with Roo so as to make sure she didn’t get her ability off (or if she didn’t she wouldn’t be able to shoot Roo) I managed this and in that turn I got half off Bossk and Asajj took a crit (Loose Stabilizer, which I never managed to clear!)
In the next turn, Fenn bumped into the front of Ketsu (which, as Scott commented, was really not good for him). He died, but not before he chewed a hole in Ketsu. Bossk also died this turn.
What followed was the best game of cat and mouse I have ever witnessed, let alone been involved in!
Ketsu, spent the next 40 minutes on 4 health, Asajj on 5 health and Roo on one health! Scott kept trying to bait me into splitting my ships, which I fell for once or twice and then had to seriously pay for by running away at top speed with Roo and then trying to get bumps in so that Asajj could catch up. We honestly must have done a full tour of the board.
In the last turn, everyone was at range one of each other. Ketsu killed Roo and then Asajj got an absolute God roll, four hits. Ketsu didn’t evade any of them.
I’d just beaten Scott Reed. Re-read that.
Yep. I’d just beaten Scott Reed.
Bloody hell!
Win 100–80
Match 6 vs David Peet
Yorr — Palpatine / Collision Detector
Whisper — VI / FCS / ACD / Kallus
Omega Leader — Juke / Comm Relay
Rematch! I had faced David at the first regional of my season (Exeter) and now we would face each other again at the last regional of the season.
David mentioned that, after playing against me and Andy Cameron (the eventual winner of the Exeter regional, who was also playing Parattanni), he had decided that his original list of Vessary, Whisper and Omega Leader was not going to cut the mustard. He had swapped to the “Mynock Special” due, in no small part, to being able to negate Asajj’s stress mechanic with Yorr. It worked really well throughout the match, I didn’t get a stress on anything else other than Yorr for the whole game.
In the opening engagement, I had all guns on Whisper. I managed to get her down to one hull but she brutalized Roo in return. In the next few turns there was a lot of bumping and Asajj went down to half health. Then we looked at the clock… EIGHTEEN MINUTES REMAINING!!! I had been considering my moves so carefully that I had totally lost track of time… and I was down on points.
Step. Up. The. Pace.
The next turn was critical. Whisper and Fenn ended up at range one of each other. If Whisper had barrel rolled she would have had an unanswered shot on Fenn (as David had initiative, this wasn’t apparent during Whisper’s activation). Fenn got a good roll and, although Whisper had to spend Focus, evade and Palp, she survived, Asajj managed to finish her off though and she left the board that turn.
Omega Leader S-looped in front of Fenn in a last ditch, desperate attempt to take him down. This left her at range one of Asajj with only an evade token and 2 hull (she had taken hull damage earlier). The combination of both Fenn and Asajj’s range one shots took her out and David called it there.
Win 67–20
5–1, what an achievement! I came 4th! Second highest of the 5–1s behind Tom Reed. What an amazing feeling.
Before I went home, I had a look at the standing and realised I would be playing against James Finlayson in my top 16 match (who I’d played against at Warboar) and it turns out he was running Kanan, Zeb, Ashoka… this would be tough.
***Interlude***
I got to bed around 11.30. At least I would have a good night’s sleep.
Suddenly, I wake up, my mind is racing:- Ghost / Ashoka? How the hell do I beat that? It can boost in the combat phase. It can throw 4 TLT shots at me. It can nerf my shots back. How do I beat it? I look at the clock: 4.30am
So much for the good night’s sleep.
Balls!
***End of interlude***
Top 16 vs James Finlayson
Kanan — TLT / Rec Spec / FCS / Engine / Plasmas / “Chopper” / title
Zeb — Autoblaster / title
Ashoka — VI / Captured TIE / title / EMP device / Rey
OK, so the idea of this list is that it can shoot for TLT shots a turn. Ashoka is there to make sure it can boost in the combat phase if needs be. Kanan with Rec Spec allows 2 of my shots per turn to be nerfed with Kanan’s ability.
So I did some maths, if I’m firing all my guns at Kanan in a single turn, all at range 2, I get 8 red dice. If he uses Kanan to nerf the shots, I’m actually only throwing 6 red dice. If that happens in 3 turns, I end up throwing 18 red dice at a ship with 16 health and no defence. I need to not whiff my rolls.
The other thing to consider is that If my ships are not well positioned. He can boost away and hopefully (for him) just have one of my ships at range 3. If he can shoot at any of my ships, they would go down quickly. I have to accept that, to get shots, I will end up taking shots back, but it’s all about making it a good trade. If I lose 4 hull on Manaroo but have all guns on Kanan and manage to take 6 health from him, I’m OK with that trade.
Essentially, what I need to do is get into a position where I can get all of my ships from out of range into range 2 on a single turn, that way he can’t boost out of range and isolate one of them.
OK, maybe I should start talking about the actual game now!
I set up to fortress in my right corner and he set up in the opposite corner. James flew the Ghost and TIE down the board, then K-turned them back up towards him. There came a turn where I realised he didn’t have enough room to K-turn again so I assumed he was going to turn, and fly across his board edge. I was correct and I advanced down my edge of the board slowly. What I really don’t want in this matchup is to be chasing the Ghost… that would be suicide.
So he then K-turns and makes me chase him back toward his starting corner. This was the position I really didn’t want to be in. Grrrrr.
The chasing slightly helped me here as I was able to move Manaroo just into range of Kanan, take a target lock and pass it off at the end of the turn. I did this three times so that each of my ships would have the most accurate attacks when combat rolled around.
I’m not generally a patient player, but I knew that my only option now was to bide my time until I could trap Kanan in a corner. We got to a point where my ships were on James’ side of the board and his had almost reached my side. I realised this was silly and decided that I had to go through the rocks to cut him off at the pass (as it were). I’m really proud of how I handled those rocks. I turned everyone in and all of them were within a few millimetres of rocks but no one hit anything.
I was in a good position here and I decided to press the advantage. (after all, there was only about 25 minutes left on the clock!) I managed, over the next few turns to get Fenn into range of the Ghost and did a few damage. Asajj got EMP device’d and very nearly went off the board (a hard 2 just about saved her). The turn after this saw Fenn with 2 hull left and the Ghost on half health.
At this point, James got desperate and shot Fenn at range 1 with Ashoka. He did no damage and the combined efforts of Asajj and Manaroo took her off the board in one turn.
Time was about to be called, one more round, Manaroo blocked Kanan and the shuttle popped out. It Autoblastered Fenn but he lived with one hull remaining.
Win 54–0
SHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICE
Did I mention SHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICESHINYDICE
For winning my top 16 match, I got some shiny dice. Which was nice.
Top 8 vs Adam Stainton
Omnicron — Palp / Collision Detector
Ryad — /x7 / TIE mk II / PTL
Vessary — /x7 / Juke
Battle of the nerfed lists!
We both went into this match with smiles on our faces. I was elated about winning shiny dice (did I mention that?) And we both joked about being slightly complacent in this match.
Adam set up to joust Roo and Asajj and I thought I’d do my usual trick of hanging Asajj out as bait. It didn’t work so well this time though, and she took 5 damage in the first engagement.
Then comes the most crazy bit of (bad) flying in the whole day. I managed to squeeze Fenn through a ridiculously tight gap between the 2 K-turned defenders giving them both range 1 out of arc shots on Fenn. Fenn took 3 damage. Sad Fenn. If I had bumped either of them, the game would probably have gone very differently.
I was slightly annoyed at myself now and in the ensuing turn, managed to rock Asajj by doing a 2 hard instead of a three hard. She died that turn due to my silly mistake. Had I 3 harded, not only would I not have rocked myself BUT the two defenders (who just managed to get range 3 shots on her) would have been out of range.
So a 1 hull Fenn and Roo vs all of Adam’s list. To be fair, I think I did a great job of flying in this endgame. I got a fair few Fenn Rau Specials off but it was a serious uphill battle. Adam’s defenders finished the job and there ended my regional.
Loss 29–100
Incidentally, Adam went on to win the entire event so I can’t be too salty. I just wished I had played better in that last game.
So that is that. I managed top 8! Something I would never imagine being able to do 2 months ago. I’m really happy with my performance, however, there is always room for more improvement.
I’m hanging up Parattanni for the moment, I had planned to do this at the end of the season anyway, and the nerf just solidified that for me. I do plan on writing a bit about my experience as a whole with Parattanni, the regional season and the nerf so watch this space over the next few weeks.
As for now, I can’t wait for the new meta to rear it’s head and see what joys and horrors await us!
Until next time, fly casual, fly better and most importantly of all, have fun!
