Scum Within, Scum Without
Since my last report (available here), I’ve been to a Store Champs at Firestorm Cards in Basingstoke (where I finished 8th with 3–2). I wasn’t happy with my 3–2, losing to a Dengar, Fenn and Inaldra Mindlink list as well as Miranda, Biggs and stress Breylan.
I’d bought a ticket for Ibuywargames SC on the 15th of July a while back, as Ian is a top bloke and while Woking isn’t exactly a cheap day out by train from London, it’s well worth it for tournaments. Zombie Squadron had put bounties on all 186th players attending on their turf, so the day would prove to be fun.
Rather foolishly, I forgot to book the Friday evening off work, which meant only getting three and a half hours sleep before the tournament. Fuelled by caffeine, the day started.
I decided to bring Parajanni, as it’s a decent list, that is very similar to Paratanni, which I started flying at the beginning of the year.
There were 39 people at Ibuy, so one lucky/unlucky person would get a Bye.
Round one, Bye
So first round and I get my second first round Bye, I went to Tesco, bought more caffeine and played some Hearthstone while waiting for round two.
Round two, Nick Tregunna flying RAC and Whisper (100–87)
Nick had VI, Gunner, Vader crew, Engine Upgrade on RAC, and a typical Whisper.
That Decimator was rather scary for poor Fenn, so this would be an interesting game. My lack of sleep really hurt my ability to play. Nick ganged up on Asajj, who promptly died, while Fenn only got 1 shot off which whiffed before he exploded. However his Deci and Whisper both had only two hull remaining vs my pretty healthy Scout, who then killed the Deci.
Nick then took the phantom into range one of the scout and put him down to four hull. What followed was an amazing bout of luck for me and bad luck for poor Nick.
Round Three, Brendon Dart, flying Norra, Stresshog and Warden with Sabine (100–0)
Bombs still scare me, and I was very cautious with Fenn, however I managed to successfully stress out the warden with Asajj, limiting the bombing options. He dropped one set of clusters that missed and then died. Fenn and Asajj chased down Norra while the Scout took out the stresshog.
Round four, Alex Bert, one third of the 186th podcast team, flying mindlink Dengar, Fenn and Inaldra (100–0)
I had played and lost to Alex at Basingstoke a few weeks earlier in this exact match up.
Overclocked R4 and Inspiring recruit on Dengar makes this list quite tough.
When we engaged, I managed to get the aproach down better, and Alex tried to take out Asajj. I then damaged his Fenn and Dengar. A bout of lucky rolls, focus and evade and three stress tokens removed meant that Asajj only lost one shield from 13 attack dice thrown at her! I then managed to kill Inaldra, and eventually took down Fenn, then Dengar, without any of my ships reduced to 50%.
Round five, Vid Cleal, yet another 186th member, flying mindlink Fenn and two Contracted Scouts (100–34)
A list that Parajanni does well against, however with Boba crew on one of those boats, a lucky roll could make the game interesting.
The opening enagement was pretty weak for both of us. However a few turns later, I flew my Scout onto a rock, blocking both of his jumps, and also blocking his Fenn with my own. This let me destroy a Jump for little loss. I then managed to take out the remaining boat, however not before my Fenn had his Mindlink removed by Boba (which sounds kinda painful). Vid managed to reduce both my large ships to 50% or lower before I finally pinned down his Fenn.
Five wins later, and I’ve won swiss again! I also won the first raffle ticket called out. Ian had provided Yavin loot at the draw in the form of target locks, but being as I had already won and then sold off a similar set to finance my own weekend at Yavin 2017, I plumped for a shiny new Scurrg bomber.
With the top 4, I was paired against Tom Forstner, flying Quickdraw, Backdraft and Vessery with X7. I really liked the look of this squad, however I wasn’t quite sure how to deal with it, as all three ships were pretty tough. Tom won the roll for Initiative and quite rightly gave it to me, which made the fight all the harder.
Our opening engagement saw a flurry of really good natural rolls on both sides. I attempted to focus down on Backdraft to deny the extra shots from Quickdraw, however I ended up killing Quickdraw first, due to positioning. I managed to strip all the shields from Backdraft and Vessery, however I ended up losing my 1 hull scout to being flown off the table due to an illegal move then Asajj rolling cold vs Vessery. We go to time with Fenn left vs Backdraft and Vessery. I lose in the first stage of knockout again.
This was without a doubt my most enjoyable game of the day. Great banter but also great sportsmanship. I made an illegal move with my scout near the edge due to a Shaken Pilot crit and Tom rightly flew the ship off. You may think this harsh, however in an earlier turn he had reminded me that Quickdraw was suffering with Blinded Pilot. Sportsmanship and honour.
Tom went on to win his next game and is the Ibuy store champ! well done Tom :D
