2015 Store Championships.

I played in my first Store Championship (and first X-Wing event of any kind) with:

Lambda Shuttle - Omicron, Vader
TIE Defender - Vessery, Veteran Instincts
TIE Phantom - Echo, Veteran Instincts, Fire Control System, Recon Specialist, Advanced Cloaking Device

Pulled second place! Was really happy with my performance with the exception of game 2, and the list pulled together really nicely. General game plan was to use the shuttle to get in the way/joust with the main body of enemy ships, use the two PS8 fighters to strip shields/cause damage and then Vader to finish something off, with the Shuttle and Echo feeding Vessery Target Locks. This combo gave me at least 1 kill in every game on the initial joust, sometimes at PS8 before it had even gotten to fire, with the shuttle normally surviving and Echo/Vessery taking no damage in the initial pass - I was very careful to keep Vessery at R3/out of arc/behind rocks as much as possible, making him almost as hard to hit as Echo, and forcing bad target choices on my opponent.

Game 1 vs 4 HWK-290s including Roark and Kyle, 1x Ion, 3x Blaster turrets.

Flanked with Echo, went up the middle with Vessery and the Shuttle. On the turn when shooting started, he pulled hard turns on every ship to try to get shots on Echo, but he was able to dance out of range, due to turrets being only R1-2, although he still took an Ion hit. In return I killed the Ion Hwk and stripped the shield off another. Next turn I tanked the turret shots with Echo cloaked on an Evade, and killed Roark with Vessery and the Shuttle. That was effectively game.

Having warmed up on a fairly easy match, we hit game 2 which was much trickier. 2x Blue Squadrons and Chewbacca in the Falcon with Jan and some other stuff. The way initial deployment went was that I was able to keep the Falcon at R3/out of range for the initial two turns of shooting, which let me drop a B-Wing, but it cost me almost all of the shuttle's HP. Next turn I drop the last B's shields but lose the Shuttle. Vessery baits the Falcon and the B into following him, but I pull a hard 3 instead of K-turning, which was me being too smart for my own good - I was trying to be unpredictable and there really wasn't a need for it. He loses his shields, but I drop the last B, leaving a shieldless Vessery and Echo vs an untouched Falcon. Next turn, Vessery dies when I pass at R1 with the Falcon, and I drop 4 shields from the Falcon with their combined fire. I'm behind on points now so need to try to kill Chewie with Echo alone. I rock up into R1, dish out some damage... and then roll 4 blanks against the return fire. Sadface. Serves me right for cocking up the movement for a couple of turns with the Defender, but it wasn't ever going to be easy to drop a double-evading, focused crit immune Falcon anyway.

Game 3 was against a 3-ship list with Jan riding Shotgun for Farlander with a HLC, Wes and Biggs. Essentially the shuttle blocks Biggs and Wes, splitting the group and allowing me to take down Biggs, then Wes, and finally Farlander with focused fire, with the Shuttle and Defender on 2hp and Echo untouched.

2 wins losing no ships at all, and 1 loss with 44pts gained set me up well enough to take second place after a Chiraneau/Whisper snorefest list, which I think I could potentially have beaten, but never got to play against it.

Great event (even if the tables were only 30 inches across and I had to lobby hard to get the organisers to put them together so we could have a 36" play area) and a nice entry to X-Wing events! Got a friendly tournament next Wednesday and then another Store Championship next weekend, hopefully will do well on both of them, but we'll see! Might keep the list, I really liked playing it.

Played in another tourney last night, 10 players. Used same list as before.

Game 1 against the person I carpooled with (always the way, huh?). He was running Rebel Aces - Wes, Wedge and Corran all with VI. I was pretty damn sure I was screwed! But thankfully I was able to pull off some pretty good blocking with the Lambda, which denied actions enough so that I could pick off Wedge and Wes while dodging 3 unmodified red dice well enough to survive with all my ships. In fairness his rolls were pretty sub-par and I had a couple of good rounds, getting 5 hits with no target lock from Echo, and then 3 hits with Vessery to drop Wedge. Vader didn't do a huge amount, but it was the movement prediction that gave me this one. Unfortunately Corran with R2-D2 survived, leaving with with only 60pts of victory, which would be important later on...

Match 2 was against an Imperial list - Echo with ACD, Jax with Swarm Tactics and Vader. It was interesting to see the ST route taken instead of the usual VI on Echo, and it worked fairy well in the first few turns, but then he had real problems keeping Jax within R1 of Echo. I decided that Vader was going to be the most annoying (he had initiative, so was moving before me with everything else) so I sideslipped Echo across the table at the start of the game to gang up on Vader with Vessery and the Shuttle. Again, the Shuttle ate up firepower from his Echo, and crucially, Jax landed on a rock in the initial joust, so skipped a turn of shooting. I was able to drop Vader in one turn, then went after the now-PS6 Echo with a vengeance, as the shuttle was hovering on 1-2HP. My opponent made some unpredictable moves with Jax, which kept him out of arc and at R1 of my guys, so I spent a couple of turns unable to focus, but I had Target Locks, so in the end it didn't make too much difference.

Game 3 was against Brath with a miniswarm (including Dark Curse, Gundark and Howlrunner) flying in formation, which was somewhat worrying. I decided to take a pretty big risk on turn 2, and 3-banked with the shuttle right into the path of the formation. That made a huge mess, since he had also chosen to bank in with Brath at the same time. Vessery and Echo blazed in on the flank and surgically removed Howlrunner before she got to shoot or pass on rerolls to anything. The shuttle got hit by a couple of R1 TIEs, but wasn't too bothered. Because of the bank angle, however, it wasn't able to return fire or Vader anything. This game should have been over a lot faster, but I made at least 4 movement and action mistakes over the next two/three turns that I noticed - I was getting tired, and it cost me the shuttle, Vessery lost all his shields and was left on 2hp, and Echo lost shields as well due to me not barrel rolling out of R1 arc of a TIE when he easily could have done so. Ultimately though, it was just Dark Curse left alive by the time the round ended. 1 more turn and he would have been smoked too.

I was one of two people to win all three of their games, but I'd given up 56pts in Corran and Dark Curse, which was more than the other guy, who'd only given up 30-something. So I grabbed Second place again, and got myself a Y-Wing! Again, had great fun, really enjoying the events so far. Players seem a lot more relaxed than 40k tournament-goers, which is lovely to be part of.