Time: 18th October
Place: Second Byte, Portsmouth, England
I went with practically the same DS deck I had used in the last two tournaments, basically mains, bounty hunters and draining potential. Started with Ice Plains in all three games and a starting effect based on what they are playing. LS went through yet another change after the disappointing performance at Gen Con, Multi Con and Hatfield. This time I brought along an untested OMDH deck partially based on Queen Jawa's, but trimmed and modified in my own way. Usually started with the Throne Room but no SE (there wasn't a Signal in the deck). Plenty of old and new faces down in Portsmouth this time as well: Pete di Biasio, Mike Riboulet, Gary Carmen, Derek Hawksworth, Rod Latham, Dave Bailey... the usual suspects!
Game 1 LS versus Ian Ericson (Tat Ground, Ice Plains SL with Bad Feeling Have I as SE)
Ian told me that despite playing quite a bit, this was his first tournament.
Judging by his deck's contents and strategy, you might not think so.
Nevertheless he did have to read a few of my cards and discovered one or two
"rules" he was unaware of. Then again I did the same when he produced the
first of (eventually) three "A Disturbance in the Force" cards (this card is
an insert version of Frozen Assets from Premiere those who need to look it
up!).
Never did get to cancel his starting effect. Did slow me down. This game was
the last to finish. Starting with the Throne Room and then having locations
come out slowly didn't help. First up were Obi's Hut and Cantina. Net result
was Djas Puhr having a drink. Momaw Nadon goes undercover there. Mos Eisley
appears and Monks, Obi, Luke and some others come out for a challenge. The
OMDH run gets set up eventually and has a go... all my lost pile back there.
Obi squares up to Vader twice (he had two copies, mine was recycled via
Bacta Tank), and the old fossil deals him both times with OMDH as destiny!
Who needs Smoke Screen?! OMDH gets run twice more during the game and it is
the only card in my lost pile when the game ends. Win by 39.
Points 2 (+39)
Game 2 DS versus Rod Latham (Tat Ground, Throne Room SL with no SE)
[N.B. Rod is Unknown Trandoshan on the BBS]. Okay, after the defeat by Rod
at Gen Con, here was a shot at a return but with opposite decks. Actually
after my huge win, I thought I was in trouble. Apparently all the big guns
played LS in the first round and all won. So as only one DS player won and
Rod had a bye, as the second highest LS victor, I got to play him instead. I
start Bad Feeling Have I to try and do some early slowing. Touche as they
say, as game one's locations are reversed.
He gets a couple of locations down, someone decent (Luke?) and proceeds to
Alter the BFHI before I get a Control in hand. Out come the rest of the
boys. I, meanwhile, was having trouble finding enough force AND characters
to put down. Vader with lightsaber plus Cabbel go to challenge Luke and Kal
in the Cantina. Vader hits Luke, ray! Luke hits Vader... oh my god they
killed Anny! Unsurprisingly Cabbel gets kicked in royally next turn. After
that it went slowly downhill as his Savrip soaked up muchos damage I
inflicted. General Veers in Blizzard 1 with Bubo come to attack another Luke
and Wedge. Bubo eats Wedge, ray! Start a battle and he draws a 4, boo! Bye
bye Veers. Kiffex and Kessel came out, the Avenger/Needa combo worked at
Kessel, but Kiffex was unopposed. Rod cocked up a bit and left a Monk and
Luke at Obi's Hut, just begging for another Vader/Tarkin to swoop down and
kick butt. That reduced the differential a bit. But Kiffex did me in the
end. Lose by 10.
Points 2 (+29)
Game 3 LS versus Rod Latham (Tat Ground, Ice Plains SL with Bad Feeling Have
I as SE)
Okay so explain this one. He has 4 points and I have 2. Guess it's the way
it goes. Needed to salvage some kudos here! However I did know roughly what
his deck was from playing a similar version at Gen Con. So I double guess he
isn't playing JP, don't start with Throne Room and instead go with Obi's
Hut. Needed the initial force and didn't need to start first...
BFHI gets cancelled early on thankfully. Hmm what else do I remember about
this match up? Cantina and Mos Eisley come out fairly quickly, along with
many force attuned characters. The shuffle happens a few times. Meanwhile
Rod sets up some +1 draining sites and a Blizzard 2 makes an appearance over
there. Tamtel appears undercover and spends the rest of the game playing
"follow my AT-AT". Expand the Empire was put on his Jundland Wastes, which
was between my Mos Eisley and Obi's Hut. Boost the drains huh? Except next
turn MY copy of said same location comes out to thwart his plans! Darth made
an appearance and then ran away to the Throne Room (deployed because at the
time I needed the force) for a 3 drain until the end of the game. Ditto a
couple of bounty hunters to the Defensive Perimeter. Bacta Tank is cancelled
with Luke in it (glug, glug!) but OMDH works to get force back. Capt
Han/Luke/Falcon go kick a piloted Star Destroyer out of Tatooine before the
first run. OMDH is run another time during the course of the game. In the
end, the shuffle was too much to handle combined with retrieval. Rod picked
up before I could run OMDH a final time. Win by 18.
Points 4 (+47)
Game 4 DS versus Scott Latham (Space/Odds, Yavin 4 SL with Haven as SE)
Yes, this is Rod's brother. Hadn't met him before. He looks at my command
card and sees how I've done against his brother. I look at his. Think.
Decide to go with There is No Try as my SI. Almost cost me the game that.
Then again I went on to play a deck I hadn't encountered before.
What I mean, is that in the beginning it looked just like the space deck I
took to Gen Con. I get a decent start, couple of 2/0 locations and the
Defensive Perimeter with Cabbel in Blizzard 2 there for an early drain.
Meanwhile he puts a couple of Corvettes and Commander Wedge (guess he
doesn't have the NH version) at Yavin. Then the insert comes in. I had
planned to start with Resistance, but changed my mind. R2-D2 goes undercover
at the Defensive Perimeter to block my drain AND get his destiny up to 8. I
look at my hand. My saviors are Labria and Mosep! That brings my destiny up
to 8 as well. Couple of +1 Tat drain locations come out and for the next 2
or 3 turns, I just kept activating all to get the damn insert up. Eventually
it appeared and neither of us lost anything. I put a couple of bounter
hunters down at the Tat sites and invoke Resistance (now deployed). Only one
insert was played after that. Vader and Tarkin go to Moisture Farm with a
PotF there for a drain of 4. Cantina comes out with Djas Puhr present. Mosep
is Elis Helroted to the Moisture Farm to complete the large "drain from
Reserve" set up (total being 8). He had gradually deployed more ships and
systems to drain over time. Kessel was blocked by Needa/Avenger/Boba for
some damage, he put a Landing Claw on the surviving GL in G1 and then forgot
to attach. Boff! It Could be Worse slowed some problems, but was too little
too late. Win by 13.
Points 6 (+60)
Game 5 LS versus Gary Carmen (JP/Mains, Tat:JP as SL with Bad Feeling Have I
as SE)
Nasty game, then again this guy practices with Mike Riboulet so you expect
him to be good! Like I expected to win against him. I start Throne Room
because of the fact above and that he uses similar decks to Michael....
Well it seemed so good to begin with. First turn Monk to JP to stop him
pulling a location out, with Obi and saber in hand. Sadly no other location.
He though had three in hand to put down straight away. Kind of makes putting
the monk down irrelevant huh? Monk gets boshed net turn by Jabba and Ree
Yees, but I draw enough to remove the latter. Then I made two errors
regarding You are Beaten. I play with this card too so I should have known
what might happen! Obi gets clashed by Vader, and KFC is left to face the
music. Then, forgetting Obi is still excluded, Leia and Owen Lars are
deployed. No way back from there. Obi's Hut becomes a big draining point,
and then Obi gets captured via Hidden Weapons. Gary's deck relies on a lot
of destiny 3 cards also in there such as A Dangerous Time, Scanning Crew,
Defensive Fire etc. We might see less of that after SE comes out, but for
now HW is just too powerful for a uncommon me thinks! To cap it all, I lose
both copies of Alderaan, so I can't even retrieve any force whatsoever. Game
over in about 25 minutes. Lose by 26.
Points 6 (+34)
Game 6 DS versus Paul Whitehouse (Asteroid Sanctuary, Yavin 4 as SL with no
SE)
So my best hope now was to get another victory, and maybe a decent
differential in order to have a shot at a high place. Well I achieved the
former! As for the differential, read on. This turned out to be,
unsurprisingly, the least interactive game of the six. I chose Imperial
Decree as my SI, the first of three moves that won me the game. This, of
course, prevented any draining at Big Ones throughout the game. I was
puzzled by the lack of a SI on his side, thought he might have gone Haven or
Yarna or something. I was to discover why.
But the asteroids soon appeared, along with that effect and an X-wing. He
used Hiding in the Garbage to cycle his (growing) force pile and pull out
the sectors that way, preventing a good Monnok (hence no Yarna). However one
attempt did remove two asteroid sectors, the second move that won me the
game. For he never quite kitted out third full sets of asteroids. The now
(slightly) reduced loss from AS saved me. Meanwhile Vader, saber and Tarkin
had gone on a holiday to the Defensive Perimeter with Bane Malar at the Ice
Plains to invoke a little Decree action. Artoo comes down to block. Vader
cuts the tin can in half with a Sniper next turn. My locations are a little
slow in arriving and only get two of the +1 Tat drains, with a bounty hunter
at each. He slows some damage with It Could Be Worse, much to my annoyance.
Even though I blow some of his X-wings up, AS still does its damage. Hmm
that's a thought to a counter. A DS effect that means you only lose to AS
(and similar location based cards) if the LS still controls that location.
Enough of the aside... then comes the third move to win the game. Armed with
PotF, Needa/Avenger/Dr Evazan head off into the unknown and battle an X-wing
at a Big One. This was really done to cancel one of the (now) three AS in
play, but he hadn't come with a Houjix! Half his pile goes... suddenly I
think I can win this. It is then a drain race... his seven versus my ten
slowed down with ICBW. Then it comes to the crunch... he counts out the
remainder.... argh he is left with one! No, it can't be! I curse my luck. I
then proceed to count out my Reserve.... and I too am left with one! We both
stare at each other and smile. Game over there, by the narrowest of margins.
Where was the Executor when I needed it? Still stuck in the pile! Win by 1.
Points 8 (+35)
So with that record I ended up 5th out of 17 players. Nothing exciting in the prize support boosters. Pete won the tourny undefeated, something which doesn't happen very often. He even beat Gary and Mike along the way. Maybe he'll get to the World Champs next year!
Mayhem