Board in Brum – ‘What’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss?’
Who among you has seen ‘No Country For Old Men’? This neo-western crime thriller from 2007 is an absolute masterpiece. In one chilling scene, Javier Bardem’s character, Anton Chigurh, asks a terrified gas stop proprietor an important question which became very relevant for me this weekend… ‘What’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss?’
Hello Junkies. Before we jump head first into this weekends thrilling four game event at Board in Brum, I’d like to take a moment to talk to you about today’s sponsor, SquareSpace. I’m joking, I wish I had a sponsor. SquareSpace if you’re reading (spoiler: they’re not), hit me up. We’re only 108 words in and I’m already distracted. Right, so, in my last post I mentioned my next event would be an Extended event hosted by Board in Brum which was this 13th November 2021. In anticipation of the event I spent a lot of time at the table, real and virtual, trying out different lists to see what would tickle my pickle. Turns out, there’s quite a lot that tickles my pickle and choosing a list was proving to be troublesome. So, I enlisted some expert help to assist in the decision. Well, I say “expert”… Enter Mr Liam Baker, whom I recently befriended following the Worcester Wargames Store Champs event. We arranged to play at Board in Brum to try out some potential lists for event to come. I’d not been to their new venue so it was a two birds one stone situation.
First up in the list of lists to test, was an evolution of my triple Jedi list I’d had recent success with:
Anakin Skywalker — Eta-2 Actis
Predator
Ship Total: 53
Obi-Wan Kenobi — Eta-2 Actis
Sense, Predator
Ship Total: 56
Plo Koon — Delta-7 Aethersprite
Calibrated Laser Targeting
Ship Total: 49
“Odd Ball” — V-19 Torrent
Marksmanship, Proton Rockets
Ship Total: 35
I’ve introduced “Odd Ball” into the list and paired him with Plo Koon who will enable him to deliver his payload to maximum efficiency. Liam was flying Jango, General Grievous and Chertek. His list can be found here.
Our first game I lost, but felt I’d messed up my engage and also took a heavy loss when Obi-Wan died in one shot from Grievous who rolled some very nasty reds and Obi-Wan rolled some rather dismal greens. Onward and upwards, the next game I won and managed to deliver “Odd Ball’s” Procket payload; but not in a favourable position. The end game state was a halved Jango vs a full Anakin. I flew around for ten minutes and claimed a cowardly win. Our third game was more like our first, but with me on the winning end. “Odd Ball” managed to deliver his payload perfectly into an unaware Grievous and come the end of our three game stint I felt like I’d learned a lot.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy this list a lot but my main bugbear with it is how low scoring it can be. Also, I’ve found that usually at some stage in every game it devolves into running away or doing everything you can to not get shot and give up points… I think I’m ready for something different that focuses more on rolling dice and blowing shit up! Which is an excellent transition into my next list…
As I was seemingly taking a break from the Republic I focused my attention back to my Leia, Luke & Ahsoka list which is heaps of fun to fly, but I don’t think it’s equip to deal with the challenges and curve balls that the Extended meta could throw at it. (Also, there’s an upcoming event where I’ll be flying this list – More on that later.) Therefore, after some chopping and changing I tried to create something that potentially could:
Han Solo – Modified YT-1300 Light Freighter
Trick Shot, Kanan Jarrus, R2-D2
Ship Total: 103
Wedge Antilles – T-65 X-Wing
Servomotor S-Foils, Afterburners
Ship Total: 61
Jake Farrell – RZ-1 A-Wing
Predator
Ship Total: 36
Putting Han back on the table was like a breath a fresh air. Not having to worry about three hull ships dying in one shot is an enormous weight off my shoulders. Wedge is a nippy little X-Wing able to craftily get himself in flanking positions and Jake is a low cost support piece. I played the list numerous times on Tabletop Simulator and had a blast with it, winning five out of five games. My sixth game was against returning hero Liam Baker who took great delight in ruining my win streak securing victory on the final shot of the game finally killing Han with Kylo Ren. How thematic… R2-D2 was the MVP of this game hands down. The spirited droid put in the absolute work and recovered Han a total of nine shields! Unfortunately, I’d lost Wedge early due to a combination of miss-positioning and Liam’s forces chasing him down like a pack of hungry wolves.
Throughout the coming weeks there were two other lists that came to fruition that I’d flown once or twice and quite enjoyed. But, I had questions of one sort or another and ultimately opted not to fly them. However, if you’re interested those lists were:
- Boba Fett, Skull Squadron Pilot, Skull Squadron Pilot – List here.
- Poe Dameron, Rey, L’ulo – List here.
So, big time skip forward to two nights before the event. I had a good catch up with another good friend, Andy Cameron, who came to mine for some friendly practise games and some food. Those were my Mince Pies Andy… Our games confirmed to me that my heart just wasn’t fully committed to the Republic play style right now and it would probably do me some good to fly something different for a change. But yet, despite this knowledge, I was still completely torn right down the middle between the Rebel and Republic lists. This is probably because I’m familiar with the Jedi and they’ve been ol’ reliable for a fair few months. Maybe if I slept on it for a couple of nights, a decision would surface…
Event Day.
A list had not surfaced. Why is it so hard?! It shouldn’t be this hard to choose which tiny plastic space ships I want to fly for 4-6 hours. I nervously sent a text to Liam who was in a similar predicament and had done the same as me and packed both lists in a bag and hoped a decision would find it’s way to us before registration. I joked we should choose each others list, a bit like Strangers on a Train, only without the murder. My, my, we are full on movie references today, aren’t we? Talking of movie references, let’s come back to something I said earlier. ‘What’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss?’ When I arrived Liam suggested, in similar fashion to Javier Bardem, we toss a coin. Heads: I play Han. Tails: I play Jedi. I’d like to say I gave up a fight to this suggestion, but I really was so torn and exhausted with the decision I was willing to go with this tomfoolery. The result was tails. I unpacked the Jedi and round one was called.
Round 1 – Liam Baker
You are joking? Actually, going into this match-up I felt pretty good. Liam had made a decision to fly his earlier mentioned list of Jango, General Grievous and Chertek which I had previously beaten twice in practise. If anything, it could be poetic that the opening round be decided by a match-up we’d both played three times before on the back of a coin toss.
I set up Plo and “Odd Ball” slightly to the left and Anakin and Obi-Wan middle-ish with the intention of going brake-neck speed forward in an attempt to catch Grievous and Chertek off guard. If I can kill Chertek before Jango gets into the fight, I’ll have the upper hand. This didn’t happen. They were way too fast for me and despite getting some cheeky shots on Grievous from Plo and Obi-Wan at range 3, no damage was suffered and he escaped my grasp. I made a wrong call regarding where Jango would be on the following turn and was now facing him down, after bumping into him with Anakin. “Odd Ball” took a shot from the Simple Man and suffered two damage. The following turn was an embarrassment. Anakin system phase barrel rolled and that now meant I’d bumped Plo and Obi-Wan into Anakin. As a result, Plo nor Obi-Wan could barrel roll to stop Jango Fett performing a 4K-turn which promptly followed as predicted. It fit perfectly and Obi-Wan ate a two crit Autoblaster shot: Damaged Engine and Direct Hit… Poof. He was gone. The following turn, Anakin 2-talon rolled, Plo Koon 5K-turned perfectly lining up his bullseye on Grievous with “Odd Ball” also coming into range 1 to help throw some damage onto the asthmatic droid. All three attacks betrayed me with horrible results and Grievous shrugged it all off. C’mon! In retaliation, Grievous put three damage into “Odd Ball” and he was gone too. Really not good.
I’d like to say things got better, but Jango Fett took no damage the following turn despite landing on a rock and taking a range 1 shot from Anakin. Also, I lost Plo Koon to Chertek wizardry and more well placed shots. I’d like to say this had a happy ending for me, but Anakin was thrown around by Chetek like a dog playing with a chew toy.
So, to answer your question Javier – The most I’ve ever lost on a coin toss is 200-0.
Result: Loss – 200-0.
Round 2 – Alex Boulton.
Okay, so that last round was probably the worst defeat of my X-Wing career. The worst bit was there was twenty-seven minutes before round two was called which meant I had plenty of time to stew and fester! On the bright side, it really can’t get much worse than that! So time to pick myself up and move into round two strong.
Alex had brought with him a very beefy, four force, Decimator and Maarek Steele. List here. It looked as daunting as it sounds. This list had plenty of toys that could ruin my fragile ships at the snap of its fingers. Alex deployed the Decimator in one corner and Maarek Steele in the other. This felt like a golden opportunity to remove him from the board before Daddy Decimator came around to tell me off for bullying his son. And I don’t mean Steve Boulton. So I deployed opposite Maarek and went Lightning McQueen fast. Kerchow. Like my last game, this didn’t quite work quite how I’d hoped but it did strip Maarek’s shields and he left the fight like a wounded dog which was good because the Decimator was on it’s way in which I really didn’t want to deal with. However, despite my concerns “Odd Ball” let off a Procket in it’s face removing all of its shields, but took 3 damage in return for his efforts. I then pulled my ships out of the fight to regenerate force and re-think my second approach. The turns that followed, it felt best to split my forces. Anakin and Obi-Wan hunted down and destroyed Maarek who wasn’t quick enough for the iconic duo and Plo and “Odd Ball” chipped away at the turning Decimator. In what would turn out to be the last round of our game, I risked a 2-sloop with Plo, eating a two damage Proximity Mine, which was fortunate as I’d forgotten about Darth Vader (crew) which put an extra damage on Plo for his lack of a green token which brought him down to 1! However, while it was a good attempt, the Decimator was too crippled from the fight and the Jedi finished it off.
Result: Win – 200-43
Round 3 – Steve Jewell.
While setting up our forces, Steve informed me he was new to the game and his brother-in-law (Richard Greenaway no less) had tempted him into the hobby. He’d played a few games against the Greenaways but aside from that was jumping into the deep end with this event! Fair play Steve, welcome to the hobby. You don’t have to be crazy to play here, but it helps.
Steve was flying a beefy rebel list consisting of Luke Skywalker, Hera Syndulla (B-Wing), Ten Numb and AP-5. List here. They were all deployed together in the top left corner. I started my fleet in the middle opting to boost with the Eta-2’s and 5-forward attempting to get behind the Rebels, quickly. Plo Koon and “Odd Ball” took it slow and waited for the rebel fleet, like bait. Luke Skywalker didn’t fancy the obvious bait, and broke off from the pack hoping to remove himself from history by killing his fathers younger self. (Read: Luke went for Anakin…) This didn’t quite go how he expected and Luke failed to put any damage into the Hero of Coruscant. Luke lost all of his shields and was dealt a damage card by Obi-Wan and Anakin in return. Meanwhile, a little further down the board, Ten Numb lost all four shields and received a damage card from a potent procket, then two further damage from Plo Koon. Big oof! Steve’s dice betrayed him and he wasn’t able to put any damage into any of the Republic. The following turn Luke found himself narrowly on a rock, and Plo was in a position to end his misery. Ten Numb opted to end his own life by rolling a hit on his Console Fire critical and also left the battlefield. The following turns the Jedi dismantled the remaining Rebels and they were dealt a harsh defeat. Steve was remarkably chilled about the whole thing and was a great opponent. Keep it up Steve!
Result: Win: 200-0.
Round 4 – Steve Boulton.
Hooray, I’ve collected a pair. Two Boultons in one day. This will go very well next to my rare triple Greenaway set. Steve was flying a beefy Resistance list consisting of Poe Dameron (HoH), Jessika Pava, Blue Squadron Rookie and Zizi Tlo. List here. Steve set his forces in the top right corner and I set mine split apart, knowing I wanted to keep Anakin and Obi-Wan in a reserved position anticipating a cagey engagement. I sent Plo and “Odd Ball” forward while Anakin and Obi-Wan turned to come along my board edge while the Resistance turned into their own respective board edge.
The first meaningful engagement came a couple turns after when Plo and “Odd-Ball” set-up a kill box covering the middle lane to catch Poe, while Obi-Wan came just shy of catching him too; but he had shots on the other two X-Wings. While this happened, Anakin was dog fighting Zizi and 4K-turned over the top of her for some nice bullseye shots. Poe suffered his three shields, while Plo suffered his only shield. Obi-Wan failed to do much due to dice, despite lining up his bullseye and then had to spend all his remaining force and his evade token to stay alive from a single returning shot. The other T-70 shot was range 2 and while Steve only had a focus token, I had no tokens and I knew in my gut what was about to happen: 3 hits. I rolled all blanks and once again I would be losing Obi-Wan in a single shot. It was disheartening, I won’t lie. At least Anakin had managed to strip Zizi’s shields. “Odd Ball” was in a bad position going into the next round and his 1-forward saw him destroyed, not before doing some shields to a T-70 though and now it was Anakin and Plo against the whole Resistance fleet. Anakin was unlucky on his dice, again, but my 1 out of 3 paint roll, actually succeeded at killing Poe and Plo failed to put anything into Zizi.
The next 3-4 turns were a constant knife fight and very tense. Despite putting Anakin in positions where he was getting shots every turn, I failed to do any damage due to lack of dice results which again was starting to become a little frustrating. Eventually, with around ten minutes left I managed to destroy Jessika Pava and half the Rookie, which meant I was marginally up on points going into the the last round… Anakin failed a systems phase boost by the smallest of margins and his 5-forward now took him out of the fight, instead of directly behind Zizi at range 1. Plo should have done a 3-bank and a combination of barrel rolls and boosts to avoid getting shot, but hindsight is a beautiful thing. I instead opted for the “unpredictable” and “cute” 1-hard left into the corner of the board which didn’t actually fit and Plo fled the battlefield. Big sigh. Even if this had fit, Steve would have battered me with his well placed remaining forces so the move was irrelevant but it was embarrassing none the less. I should have taken a page out of Steve Jewell’s book and shrugged it off with a smile, but I was feeling frustrated and exhausted. Steve was fantastic as always and he made his way round the table for the post game hug which I desperately needed.
Result: Loss – 140-131.
Overall Results:
Okay, so overall I was 2-2. Not terrible, but not great. Just average. I’m sure most people would be happy with this result but I’m incredibly hard on myself and strive for greatness. I always aim to win more than I lose, so unfortunately I was disappointed. Despite that though, I’d have four great games and the event was fantastically well run. Don’t get me wrong, I did have fun. Lots of fun. But my aforementioned frustrations with the Jedi meant I didn’t enjoy the list I was flying and for that reason I won’t be using them for a tournament for a little while. I knew this before going into the event and I think the main takeaway for me is: trust your gut. So, how did the finals scores look?
Overall,I was 6th which surprised me. I think, even with the final round win I’d have only placed 5th due to MOV. So really, what was I beating myself up over? It’s easy to be hard on ourselves in many walks of life, especially in the areas we’re passionate about.
Big congratulations to Andy Cameron for taking the win on 4-0 and MOV. Well deserved big cat, keep it up.
I’ll be traveling down to Cardiff for Firestorm Games Store Champs on 27th November. The format for the event is Hyperspace and I’ll be making an excited return to my Leia, Luke & Ahsoka list from Worcester. I’m really looking forward to attending a venue I’ve not been to before and regardless of outcome, it’s going to be a great day.
I hope he wont mind me saying so, but amongst all the negativity we’ve been encountering surrounding the changes AMG are implementing I wanted to take a moment to appreciate a random act of kindness that brought a smile to my face. I was unable to purchase a ticket for the Cardiff event until the 24th, and the shop weren’t willing to reserve one for me. So, to prevent me from potentially missing out Dylan Jones sent me a message saying he’d purchased my ticket for me! Big shout out to Dylan Jones for his enormous generosity; you’re a legend. I’m sure you’re familiar with his blog, but if you’re not go and give it a read here:
Until next time, Junkies.
Peace. o/
Tales of a Space Junkie 