Tat’s Yavin Open Report
Foreword
OK, let’s begin at the end. I write this from a table in the Birmingham Hilton Metropole. I’m kept company, purely by the pint of Becks on the table and the novel I am semi-engrossed in. A few doors down, round 7 of the Yavin System Open has just begun. I have dropped after going a disappointing 2–4. I am happy. I am relaxed. I am at one with my decision.
I know when I write this report, I’ll have a hard time with it. I have disappointed myself today and, while I want to explore how and why this happened, I will try to keep it as upbeat as possible.
I’ll tell you how I got here.
12 hours previous
Yavin! This is massive people! Approximately 370 people! That makes it just under four times bigger than any event I have played in before now. I’m going with Paratanni again; I know it, I probably have roughly 40 games under my belt with it now and I’ve done really well with it at the past two tournaments I’ve attended.
I must take the opportunity to say a massive thanks to all the staff and organisers. You all did so much work to make this such a special event for the community. We all really appreciate it.
Joel and I arrived at the Hilton on Saturday morning and joined the other 186th members who were in attendance, set up, and waited for the first round pairings. It was around this time that I really realised how many friends and acquaintances I’ve made playing X-Wing. I must have bumped into at least 20 people I knew, had played before, chatted to at previous events. It’s a pretty stellar community we have going on here :)
Anyway, round one pairings went up on the Yavin facebook event (a great idea) and we were off!
Match One vs Nathan Hoyle
Kanan — FCS / Autoblaster Turret / Rey / Jyn
Miranda — TLT / Extra Munitions / Homing Missiles / Sabine / Cluster Mines / Ion Bomb / Advanced SLAM / Seismic Charges
Before we started, the Yavin organisers mentioned that Jesper Hills (186th Squadmate and ex-national champion) had not been able to make it today, due to it being his wedding day. So all 370 of us went on video to wish him congratulations. Did I mention how great a community this is?
Anyway…
That is one fat Miranda! At best, I can only describe this as an (ir)rational fear of Miranda.
So, the first thing to state here is that Nathan was a fantastic opponent. Very friendly and cheerful throughout the match.
We had a very cagey start, neither of us wanting to give too much away. When we did go in for the engagement, the first thing I did, was land Fenn on a rock! Yes, my first significant act, in the first match of the biggest tournament I had ever played in to was to take one hull off my own Fenn Rau. A veritable own goal…
To cut a long (and quite painful) story short, Nathan, quite rightly capitalised upon this mistake and shot a five dice homing missile at Fenn… Dead Fenn, before he’d even shot. Oh dear.
From this point on, I plinked away, hoping to get half points on the Ghost, which I did (by a single hull point) by the time Asajj and Manaroo had gone down.
Not the best start to the day, but it’s not over yet. five wins out of seven games gets you into day two — Let’s do this!
Loss 23–100
*** Interlude ***
Operation submarine is go. I’ve lost my first match, now I’ll have a nice easy game and begin my leisurely climb to a 6–1 result.
The pairings go up… Duncan Callendar… Submarining to meet the current National Champion does not seem like a wise plan.
*** End of interlude ***
Match Two vs Duncan Callendar
Rey — VI / Kanan / Finn / Engine / Sloop title
Warden — Advanced SLAM / Sabine / Conner Net / Cluster Mines / Seismic Charges / Extra Munitions
OK then, head back in the game. The odds don’t look too good but let’s not blow it before we’ve started.
My first priority was to take down the K-wing, I’ve played against these things enough to know that they can cause serious havoc if left to run loose. So I went in hard for it. In the initial engagement, I had Fenn in range one and Asajj and Roo (behind a rock) at range 2. I managed to get his shields down but not much else. In going for the range 1 shot with Fenn, I had put him in bombing range of the K, however, he was in such a position where the only bomb that the K could put on him, would be a Conner Net.
In another great move, typical of today’s performance, I then moved Fenn to put him facing a rock for his next turn. Knowing that I was going to earn some ion tokens should have made me think harder about that decision!
So Fenn took two damage from the Conner Net and then died in the next round to the rock and I thought all was lost for the second time in two matches.
I plinked away at Rey for a bit and got a few good hits through and then stressed her so she couldn’t sloop back around. By this point, the K was coming back around after it’s bombing run on Fenn. I pounced on this opportunity. Both my ships went full tilt for the K and killed it (It did manage to get Asajj with a seismic before it died, but still).
Now, with Asajj and Manaroo still alive, I was able to clean up on Rey. A win!!!
Win 100–52
Match Three vs Jason Barton
OGP — Palp / Collision Detector
Ryad — PTL / x7 / Twin Ion Engine mk II
Vessary — Juke / x7
When I sat down opposite Jason, he looked at my list and said “Oh! I’ve never beaten your list with this before”, I then said the same to him… soon, one of our records would be broken…
So we both did our own version of fortressing for a few turns before we ended up committing to an approach.
In the first engagement, I managed to boost Fenn into range one of Ryad (by about a millimetre!) and scalped three shields. I was feeling good. I had, however, taken a bit of a risk getting in that close, as it left me in range 2 of his shuttle… which got a crit through on Fenn. Blinded Pilot. I’m OK with that trade.
In the next engagement, I tried to use Fenn to block the shuttle but slightly misjudged it meaning I had to barrel roll out of range one of his firing arc.
The next turn saw Jason’s shuttle do a very cheeky one bank towards the edge of the board, he didn’t want me getting a shot on Palp so was hoping to block Fenn. He didn’t make the block but, instead, I was stuck at range one of the shuttle with no arc. Neither a boost, nor barrel roll would allow me to get Fenn out of this predicament — you guessed it, dead Fenn.
Manaroo and Asajj were doing their best to break through Ryad and Vessary but to no avail. Manaroo went down and then time was called.
Jason had beaten his first Paratanni, a feat which he went on to do once more at Yavin and scored an 8–2 record. Well done, mate.
Loss 0–60
Match Four vs Rob Taylor
Dengar — Expertise / K4 / R4-B11 / Glitterstim / Punishing One
Asajj — Wired / Zuckass / Glitterstim / Gyroscopic Targeting
Taking influence from Jeff Berling’s build, this list scares my Fenn. You never know, I could make it four games out of four that I’ve killed him off needlessly.
To explain the Degar build to those that don’t know it, Dengar does a green move to gain a target lock on an opponent and then, if Dengar rolls well, he keeps the target lock for when his opponent rolls their green dice, at which point, he can use R4-B11 to force re-rolls on any or all of those dice. It’s a slightly more finicky Zuckass-like ability.
I made a point of going after Asajj first, due to the fact that I thought she would be the easier target and the fact I wanted to cut down on Dengar’s revenge shots. I also figured that the K4 and R4 combo was not quite as reliable as the Dengar and Zuckass combo. It turned out I was (mostly) right and almost all the time Dengar shot, Rob used the K4 target lock to modify his attack roll instead of my defence roll. So, I kept on at Asajj and eventually got her down with a few well placed crits on a range one Fenn shot. Rob managed half points on my Manaroo and I got half on his Dengar. My Fenn survived a game!
Win 72–14
Match five vs Ian Holmes
Tansari Point Veteran — Atanni Mindlink / Heavy Scyk / HLC
Tansari Point Veteran — Atanni Mindlink / Heavy Scyk / HLC
Manaroo — Atanni Mindlink / APL / K4 / R4 Agromech / Gonk / Punishing One
Another great list that I’d like to try out at some point — Who knew Sycks were good ships?
Ok, so, unfortunately, as I write this battle report, I am beginning to see a patten emerging. The way I played Fenn today, he dies. This is something I really need to work on.
The first engagement saw Fenn bumping Ian’s Roo and taking a hit from APL. The next round, I tried to go in hard for the Sycks to get into range onee. I managed to bump one (which I’m fine with, because no shots) but was still in range two of the other… it’s OK, I have three hull left, I probably won’t completely disintegrate… four hits, one evade. Dead Fenn.
Totally my own fault for putting him there, but still a little heartbreaking.
I did manage to one shot a Syck at range one with Asajj (the well placed Direct Hit! was a nice touch) but then couldn’t follow through with the other one (even though I got another Direct Hit! through) The difficult part is that they become pseudo /x7 Defenders with Mindlink. Manaroo gives them both focus tokens and then they take an evade. Tanky as £u$k!
Asajj died, and then Roo died and that was that.
Loss 27–100
Match Six vs Robin Farndon
Paratanni!
A mirror match. First things first, Robin was a great opponent, chatty, friendly, all things you could hope for when going into a game with a 2–3 result.
We both knew we weren’t making day 2, but this game was to decide who would have a chance at getting one of those coveted Yavin Open Target Locks.
We began and, quite honestly, it looked like I had it in the bag for a while. At one point, Robin’s Fenn had 2 damage on it and his Manaroo was dead. I had no damage on my Fenn and all my ships were still alive.
The game did begin to swing very slowly though as Robin managed to separate my Roo from the rest of the pack and hammer her until she went down. With two damage on his Fenn, it still looked OK.
Robin’s Asajj was down to half health. It was the last turn, my Fenn had a range one shot on Asajj (she had an evade token and had stressed everyone so it was very unlikely to kill her) or a range two shot at Fenn and my Asajj had a range one shot on Robin’s Fenn, who only had one focus… for reasons I just cannot explain now, I went for Asajj with my Fenn and then Fenn with my Asajj, his Fenn lived with one hull left and got my Asajj down to half points.
Why didn’t I go for the range two Fenn on Fenn shot? With this obviously idiotic decision weighing heavily on my mind, we went to final salvo, which I lost. I deserved that.
Loss 48–48 (final salvo to Robin)
OK, so I’m now 2–4. I could play another game but the difference between 2–4 and 3–4 is negligible. I was also, at this point, a bit down about the day and did not want to project that on to my next opponent.
So I decided to drop. I’ve never done it before. It was an odd feeling writing my name on the drops sheet, a bit like admitting failure but also, realising that the day was not going my way, and not fighting that feeling — accepting it.
So, I didn’t win Yavin. That’s unfortunate, however, the big question is did I learn anything? If the answer is no, the whole weekend would be slightly pointless, right? (Other than the pure enjoyment of games, of course). Well, at the time, I didn’t think I had leant anything, I just put the poor result down to my generic “bad flying”. However, forcing myself to put it all down in a blog post has been an illuminating experience indeed (as it should be. That’s why I started doing this in the first place).
I was being WAY too greedy with Fenn and not thinking things through. In all the games I lost (barring the final salvo against Robin) I had lost Fenn in the first or second turn of combat. Take, for example, my game against Jason Barton where I boosted into range 2 of the Palp Shuttle to get a range 1 shot on Ryad. That Shuttle had a focus AND Palp ready, what did I think was going to happen? He would roll all blanks and then only Palp one result to a crit? Even on an average roll he would get a hit, eye and blank, focus and Palp brings that up to hit, hit, crit which is terrible for Fenn at range two.
I must remember to actually weigh up the options before “Leroying” Fenn into danger, just to get that lovely five dice attack.
Until next time X-Wingers!
Tat
