Joe’s Imperial Assault Regionals Report: Fargo, ND 2016

Our local game store Paradox in Fargo, ND was awesome enough to secure an Imperial Assault Regional tournament this year. Fourteen people showed up to it, almost all of them were from Minneapolis, FFG’s home turf, ready to mop the floor with us Fargo locals and steal our stuff. Just kidding they were all really nice guys and fun to play with. 

As I was preparing in the weeks leading up to the tournament, trying to figure out what squad I wanted to run (Boba seemed like a good idea due to all the token grabbing and difficult terrain), the Bespin Gambit hit stores, really throwing a wrench in my planning.

I decided I liked all of the new spy command cards, and Davith seemed particularly appealing to me so I crafted and refined a list focusing on spies.

My list: 

Leia
Davith
Gideon + On a Diplomatic Mission
Elite Rebel Saboteur
Elite Rebel Saboteur
Rebel Saboteur
Balance of the Force
Rebel High Command

I had experimented with R2-D2 (no not like that) instead of Rebel High Command, but even though R2 could potentially do more for me, he could also potentially do less. I decided it was worth losing an activation to get more certainty on my command card draws, as those cards would end up making or breaking this list.

My deck: 

Hide in Plain Sight
Slippery Target (Davith loves this card)
Comm Disruption (this card is amazing)
Intelligence Leak
Data Theft
Stall for Time
Planning
Urgency
Tough Luck
Squad Swarm
Take Initiative
Heart of Freedom
Strategic Shift
Vanish
Focus

So I admittedly made a team that would either live or die by its card draws and its white dice rolls. But luck is often on my side when it comes to those things so I thought it would be worth the risk. That and I’ve never really been keen on going all meta with my lists, either in this game or X-Wing.

Refreshingly, there was a lot of list diversity among the players.

My first match was against another Rebel team. If I recall correctly he had:

• Diala
• Gideon
• Alliance Smuggler
• C-3PO
• Elite Rebel Troopers
• Elite Rebel Troopers

The scenario was Deception Game on the Stormtrooper map. I made the mistake of placing my red token (the one that would award my opponent 10 points if they my guys died) onto one of my groups of elite saboteurs rather than Davith or Leia.

While I managed to take out a whole group of his troopers, after my bonus-point-sabs died, I had to make some aggressive moves in order to have any hope of winning.

I managed to kill Leia with my very last activation of the game. A lone saboteur pulled off a quick shot on her and finished her off.

Leia had a token on her and if it turned out to be the Red one I had a chance.

It was blue.

I ended up losing round one 18-25. Had I been more careful with my 10-point bonus token, I could have easily won that game 18-15. I should have put the token on Davith. He can be hard to kill.

Davith performed excellently. I am already a huge fan of Davith in skirmish.

My next match was against Fizz, of FFG forum renown.

He brought something which I had no idea how to approach:

• Bantha Rider
• Elite Nexu
• Elite Nexu
• Nexu
• Nexu
• Nexu
• Nexu
• Last Resort
• Beast Tamer
• Devious Scheme

Also they were rainbow colored which was awesome.

We were on the Battlefield Engineering mission on the cantina map, though I quickly decided to ignore the objective and hope against all odds I could just survive with more points than the Skittles–Kitties. 

It wasn’t long before a whole group of saboteurs and Leia were nothing but shredded and ground meat from a Nexu and a Bantha tag team.

I decided to keep the rest of my forces in the deployment zone, doing my best to keep them in a checker-board formation in order to minimize cleave attacks from the kitties.

It wasn’t looking good. I was down to Davith, and a group of elite sabs. I managed to pull off a Hide in Plain sight with the sabs, giving them a little more hope of surviving, and Davith was safe where he was.

In the last round I was down by four points; 20 to 24.

I managed to kill a Nexu in the last round, which happened to have Last Resort attached, putting me up to 25. Getting me the win by ONE point.

Though I must point out it wasn’t nearly as heroic as all that.

Fizz, in the excitement of the final minutes, missed a trigger to play the card Of No Importance, which would have given him the win by by one point.

Obviously this was a conundrum since I desperately needed the win (basically my whole motivation for the event was those fancy green and white dice that went to the top-eight players), but on the other hand I didn’t want to be a jerk, since Fizz was a great guy and lots of fun to play with. And also I don’t like being a jerk.

We discussed it and eventually flipped a coin over the issue, which landed in my favor so I took the win by one point, which, in the end didn’t end up making a difference for either of us in the end as he still ended up higher than me in the rankings when all was said and done.

I’d like to again thank Fizz for being such a good sport about the issue and being a fun guy to play with. #TasteTheRainbow

So now I’m 1-1 going into the third round. The idea of getting some of those swanky dice for my very own is getting more tenuous. My stress levels are going up, which is very odd. I’m usually very laid back and enjoy my games regardless of my performance; I went 2-5 at worlds and had a blast.

I think I just had my heart too set on those dice. I collect dice, and as of yet don’t have any special dice from either X-Wing or IA, so I was really hoping I could power through to the top-8.

My third match was facing off against yet another list that I had no idea how to approach:

• Bantha Rider
• Beast Tamer
• Hired Gun + Last Resort
• Hired Gun + Last Resort
• Hired Gun + Last Resort
• Hired Gun + Last Resort
• Tusken Raider
• Tusken Raider

Yikes.

The scenario this time was Drinks and Dealings on the cantina map.

Once again I had to keep my forces spread out to mitigate damage potential from suicidal hired guns, and getting stepped on by the Bantha.

Grabbing points from the objectives wasn’t going to be easy, as the bar was full of hired guns who were ready and able to give their lives for the cause, my troops however were not so expendable.

At one point, a hired gun cozied up next to Davith, daring him to take a swing with his lightsaber and send them both to hell in a fiery explosion.

Facing units with Last Resort with a melee character isn’t an easy task.

Luckily my hand had Davith’s special card in it; Vanish.

This allowed Davith to swing away at the explosive Hired Gun with impunity, which he did.

The only problem was that Davith was willing to sacrifice Gideon to do so.

Gideon ended up taking four damage from the resulting chaos of a dying Hired Gun, leaving him with one hitpoint left.

Eventually the scum and villany of Tatooine whittled me down and slowly accrued victory points from the bar’s patrons while I struggled for survival.

In the end I was left with Davith and one regular Saboteur, and he had a wounded Bantha, one hired gun, and one tusken raider.

As far as fights go, it wasn’t that uneven, but when it boiled down to points I wasn’t nearly close enough.

1-2. Hopes of those precious dice slipping.

Last round before a cut to top-8.

The scenario: Fallout on the Leia map.

My opponent had:

• Gideon
• C-3PO
• Elite Rebel Troopers
• Elite Rebel Troopers
• Elite Rebel Saboteurs
• Elite Rebel Saboteurs
• Alliance Smugger
• Balance of the Force

I totally spaced out and thought we were playing the other scenario, Constant Motion, for the first few activations of the game. Luckily that didn’t come back to bite me.

I managed to retrieve all three tokens in the first or second round, carried by Davith, and two Saboteurs from the same group.

I then rushed the saboteurs down the far terminal, and Davith sliced his way to the central terminal.

There’s not much to say other than my opponent had some rather unfortunately cold attack dice, while my defense dice liked to come up with dodges rather frequently, and I ended up scoring all 3 tokens that game. That’s 27 points, plus the points I got for killing his units which I think put me at around 32 points when time ran out. 

Now I’m 2-2. My chance of making top 8 is in the hands of strength of schedule now, which isn’t on my side.

Now to wait for the standings to be calculated.

dicedicedicedicedicedicedicedicedicedice

The standings pop up on the screen.

9th place.

There were a number of players who were 2-2 and I got eeked out by Fizz, my second round opponent.

In retrospect I’m not even sure if there was anything I could have done better gameplay wise. I don’t recall any moments where “it all went wrong” or anything like that. Possibly changing my deception token placement in the first game but that’s about it.

I think my list, while fun, just wasn’t up to snuff when it came to the high level of competition that arrived at our doorstep that day.

Also in retrospect I’m disappointed in how much I let the idea of getting those dice get into my head and effect my enjoyment of the game. I don’t usually take tournaments that seriously, but I guess since my odds were good I could make top 8 out of 14, and get cool dice for my favorite game, it got into my head more than I realized.

This will likely be my last tournament for a while, since I’m moving to Arizona in August. It will take time to get a feel for the community there and decide if tournaments and organized play is still something I’m interested in doing (if I haven’t melted or combusted by then).

I’m not participating in the X-Wing regional this year either, though I will be helping do commentary on the live-stream, which sounded more relaxing and fun to me. So if you like my voice (or watching X-Wing) be sure to tune in to that on Saturday June 11th over on Paradox’s Twitch Stream.

The winner of the tournament went 7-0 with this list:

• Elite Wing Guard
• Elite Wing Guard
• HK Assassin Droids
• Bossk
• Temp. Alliance
• C-3PO
• Gideon

Thanks for reading this, and thanks to everyone who came to Fargo to play and make our event successful.