AAR for the Titan Games Store Championship (X-Wing)

So, AAR for the Store Championship at Titan Games…

I ran :

Emon Azzameen — Firespray-31	36
Seismic Charges	2
Tactician	2
Proximity Mines	3
Proximity Mines	3
Andrasta	0
Kavil — Y-Wing	24
Ion Cannon Turret	5
Unhinged Astromech	1
N'Dru Suhlak — Z-95 Headhunter	17
Lone Wolf	2
Cluster Missiles	4
Munitions Failsafe	1

Record wise?  Yeah, not so good…  But got in 5 great games, and the first big loss was one I might well have had a good chance at winning.  Played Tyler, an excellent player who won several SCs and he fielded a decked out Soonter Fel and 5 TIE fighters.  Killed off the Interceptor, but then promptly messed up and flew my Firespray INTO his TIE swarm rather than away as I thought I was doing…  Doh.  Went down fighting and got MOST of his stuff before dying, but that kind of set the tone for the day.  Don’t get me wrong, had a great time, played against a lot of friendly and excellent players, so this was NOT like my experience playing MtG or even 40K in tournaments.  I understand that there were some issues with people measuring movement with their hands, etc. at some of the top tables, but being down in the middle I did not see that of course.  All around a great tournament from my perspective but per usual, YMMV and I am sure other perspectives felt differently about it.

Now, I define things a bit differently I guess than a lot of other folks, so I should probably go over that a bit.  Swarm or “Swarmish” is what I refer to as a build that has 5+ ships in it.  Now, to get 5 or more ships in at 100 points of course you are talking TIE Fighters, Z-95’s, M-3’s and maybe Y-Wings I guess for the most part.  So, a bunch of cheap, low quality ships to fit into the philosophy of “Quantity has a Quality all its own”.  In general I do not buy into this, being brought up a product of the American military I tend to go the other way and like to have smaller, better forces.  Not perhaps the true top of the line, but that is not out of the question by any means of course. 

So in any case I saw a LOT of Swarmish builds there.  Typically either a big ship like a YT or Firespray and a bunch of Z-95’s, or an Ace and friends…  There was one lad who brought a dual TIE Phantom list with the named Pilots to get in one more run before “nerfing” with the recently released FAQ.  Good player, but honestly I am thrilled that FFG made that change to those things.  Stark contrast to GW and the Wave Serpent, but I digress J…  In any case, I saw only a single Decimator and I think only 2 YT-2400’s.  A few Aggressors, several other Firespray builds (they were quite popular) but the top tables were dominated by the YT-1300’s.  At least 2 guys up there had dual YT-1300’s fully decked out “Fat Han” style.  So, things easily almost guaranteeing 3 Evades/shot and loads of Hull/Shields with a good Turret.  Pretty sure I would not have done so well against that sort of build.  Almost need something to completely shut down their actions via Stress, blocking or the like…  But seems to be the current build to beat in the “larger than local” meta as it were.  Amusing I guess as no one local plays that sort of ship that I had seen, certainly NOT a pair of them.  To be fair, I DID consider seriously bringing the Falcon with Chewie along with Dash, so close but…  Lacking a few of the things that make “Fat Han” what it is, I think it would have been good, but not nearly so good as those builds.

Emon Azzameen — Firespray-31	36
Seismic Charges	2
Tactician	2
Seismic Charges	2
Proximity Mines	3
Andrasta	0
IG-88B — Aggressor	36
Expert Handling	2
Fire-Control System	2
Heavy Laser Cannon	7
Autoblaster	5
Inertial Dampeners	1
Autothrusters	2

This is what I am looking at as my “current” build I guess.  That or 3 B-Wings, 2 of them with HLC/Fire Control and the third with Ten Numb, Mangler Cannon and FC.  Lots of heavy accurate fire, and should be able to cover each other as they slowly move across the board to shoot up the enemy…