Yesterday, I had the opportunity to try out my current Mindlink nonsense list at another tournament. This tournament just so happened to be the Campaign against Cancer in South Bend, Indiana. Its one of the most well known casual tournaments that you will ever find. Of course there is a competitive aspect, but with most of the prize support being by raffle, winning isn't the primary goal for the day.
I got to fly what I still largely consider to be the "best" Mindlink list, and overall I'm very happy with how the day played out. I flew:
(31) Manaroo - Attanni Mindlink, Overclocked R4, Feedback Array, Guidance Chips
(20) Kaa'to Leachos - Attanni Mindlink, Cluster Missiles, Guidance Chips
(25) Palob Godalhi - Attanni Mindlink, Blaster Turret, Guidance Chips
(24) Black Sun Ace - Attanni Mindlink, Guidance Chips
Almost everyone has asked, and will ask: Why do all of your ships have guidance chips? The answer is quite simply that its free and it has no negative impact on my list. Its only necessary in 1 place, but I like the decreased signal to noise ratio it provides.
Game 1:
Rear Admiral Chiraneau - Gunner, Vader, Engine Upgrade (Something Else)
Whisper - Fire Control System, Advanced Cloaking Device, Veteran Instincts
I was actually really excited when I saw this list. My list is great at dealing with Decimators, and I have elements to give phantoms a hard time. I was less than enthused about the Vader Gunner combo, but I figured I could use the threat of all of my list's firepower to make using Vader not worth the pain.
Rocks where loosely scattered and didn't played much of a role in the game overall. I put Manaroo range 2 from the left edge at a diagonal facing that edge. I put the other 3 in a triangle around the center of the board.
Chiraneau started across from Manaroo, and Whisper took the other corner at an angle. I started everyone pretty aggressively, hoping to close up rock lanes before whisper would be there. Chiraneau saw Manaroo flying at him with insane haste, and with the threat of my little ships able to catch him as easily, he took a 2 hard and boosted away to play the range game.
At first shots, An actionless Whisper (Thanks Palob) tries a range 1 shot at my Khiraxz fighter, and rolls 2 blanks and 3 focuses. Whisper cloaks, grabs a target lock, and braces for impact, as she pushes through the onslaught of 3 very focused attacks into her. Despite some decent rolls on defense, Whisper doesn't survive, and I've only lost a shield or 2 courtesy of the Decimator's Range 3 shots.
Decimator realizes that somethig bad has happened and needs to run away. Only problem was that he ran the wrong way, to bump into Manaroo in a corner. With no actions on his end, and way too many actions on my end, Decimator goes from 14 health to 2, and then to 1, courtesy of feedback array and Cluster Missiles. One of my ships is down to 2 health, otherwise my ships are still fine. His red dice with Gunner aren't enough to get the last point of hull he would need to get a kill for the game with Vader's help. And so ended the game. 100-0
Game 2:
Green Squadron Pilot - Adaptability, Proton Rockets
Miranda Doni - Twin Laser Turret, C-3PO
Poe Dameron - Predator, R2D2, Autothrusters
In my mind, I had some rules for dealing with this list. The first and biggest was killing 1 ships dead at a time, and try to isolate ships by putting them on the run. This is basically exactly what happened, too.
My opponent had never dealt with a Mindlink list before, so I made to go extra slow with how mindlink functionsm especially with my 30 jillion start of combat triggers on the first turn, so we could get all of the rules questions out of the way.
I more or less did the same deployment pattern, but I had misjudged the distance to the first set of rock lanes, and that made things really messy, as well as some grievous activation order errors. Manaroo more or less sat in the back and barrel rolled around for a few turns while everyone else got into positions. The A-wing feigned a really aggressive opening, but turned off and boosted when he was getting closer to Palob's bubble. It was a really good bait and switch on his part, I just wasn't concerned about the A-wing while Palob was still up and kicking.
First real shots are brutal for my opponent. Poe without focus maybe plinks a shield off, and Miranda gets a shield and hull, and then Miranda goes from "Everything is fine" to "Oh God, I only I am almost dead." The turn after, the A-wing ran off away from Poe and Miranda, and now needs to find a way back into the fight, but he keeps ending his turns with rocks covering his turning lanes, and 4 health without regen isn't worth trying to push through I guess. Miranda floors it out of her old position back into everyone's firing arcs. My opponent debates whether or not to stay, regen a shield, and die, or Slam out. I honestly recommended slamming out so he can regen and get behind some rocks, outside of everyone's arcs. At this point everyone except Manaroo had Poe Target locked, so we gave Poe some Medium range hell for his shields, and Palob pulled a miracle roll and killed Miranda.
Following this we chase Poe around the board, who tagged out the A-wing to do some work. He didn't get very far. Manaroo tagged Poe with target locks for everyone while the A-wing tried to buy Poe some time. It was a good attempt, but didn't last long enough to be effective. Team "Mind-lawnmower" wouldn't stop for a lone defenseless A-wing. And so they continued to charge for Poe. He had to turn around eventually if he wanted to hit anything, but for most of the game, he was content to do a green and boost. We cut a corner where he couldn't and he melted fairly quickly across 2 turns, and there wasn't much that could have been done to save him.
Another 100-0. I reported this result as well, and the TO looked at me funny for 2 100-0 wins, since I reported them both. I don't blame him, but my 15 second explanations of the games seemed to be good enough for him. (He's seen me run some other nonsense cheese, and he's seen what I can do with it as well)
Game 3:
IG-88C - PtL Advanced Sensors, Autothrusters, IG-2000, Heavy Laser Cannon
IG-88B - PtL Advanced Sensors, Autothrusters, IG-2000, Mangler Cannon
I knew going into this game I was going to have an uphill battle, but this was basically walking up a wall. I've never felt so hard countered in my life. It was a list I couldn't shut down, and he knew how to fly it. Things more or less just died, and I couldn't do anything about it, but it was a bit of a learning experience for me nonetheless.
0-100
Lunch Break:
Doritos - Cool Ranch Refit
Pepsi - Cherry
Cheeseburger Bacon Pizza Slice x2
So after 3 rounds of grueling, though usually fun swiss, this was a much needed matchup. I had forgotten breakfast that morning, mostly due to nerves and other such things. I was able to meet up with my friends, see how their games had gone, and get a feel for if we were going to be stuck in the same bracket for the second half of the day. Turns out we were. Go figure
100-100
Game 4
Roark Garnet - Recon Specialist, Twin Laser Turret
Gold squadron Pilot - Twin Laser Turret, R3-A2, BTL-A4
Gold squadron Pilot - Twin Laser Turret
Blue Squadron Pilot
This was a surprising matchup. I didn't expect to meet any twin laser turrets for the day, or a list that was as close to what I took to CAC last year. I knew the match was going to get messy if I didn't concentrate fire, He won the init roll, (It was probably going to be his anyway) I threw all of the rocks I could against his edge so I had nice open fields to play with. He bricked up in a corner, I put Manaroo in the opposite corner, and the little one on my left third-line, palob in fron left, BSA on front right, and baa'to behind them. This list is basically birthday for Palob, and despite all the stress I would getting, I always would know where my focus tokens were going to be coming from.
I started out fast as per usual, and I found his fleet in an interesting position, where the optimal move was to split up his force, because engaging me put a rock between him and me. I love when ships get singled out. I spent all of my resources on killing the B-wing for the round, and got it down. Next round I traded Black Sun Ace for Stressbot, and traded Kaa'to for half of both his last Y-wing, and Roark.
This left things to Palob and Manaroo. Palob was down to 2, but Manaroo had some fight left in him. I ran Palob away from the fight, since he was pretty much TLT-able and didn't have PS advantage, and let him generate some focus tokens for Manaroo to overclock while she finished out Roark. After that Manaroo blasted off while Palob pushed his luck on closing out the Y-wing with a blaster turret, and something like 3 focus and a target lock. (Manaroo action, his action, steal, Manaroo Pass)
In the end I managed to pull it off with my closest win for the day, with just half of manaroo and Palob still on the table. 100-59
This was a game I felt that I should have lost, but my opponent made some critical errors, especially in the end game that cost him the game. Especially letting palob survive and continuing to focus in spite of him.
Game 5
Omicron Group Pilot - Emperor Palpatine
Carnor Jax - Autothrusters, Push the Limit
Omega Leader - Comms Relay, Juke
WAMPAAAAAA!!!
So this was another uphill battle for me, I know Carnor was going to be a problem, but I felt that I could push the issue and draw him into some really nasty focused fire. Who wouldn't want to put Carnor in the middle of 8 focus tokens (And about as many target locks). I dove into what ended up being a really bad lane, pulled some conservative banks, and drew Carnor into range 1 on my ships. Palpatine dove in, Manaroo went to be spooky with Wampa, and Omega Leader tried to cause some other problems where he didn't do much. As much as this was another "Field day for Palob" list, it was also a "Palob is doing all of the damage control right now" list.
Carnor, even with Palpatine's help (Goodness knows Carnor couldn't help himself after a boost), took 2 damage, and I oddly felt cheated about not getting a third. Carnor has unfortunately dumped the wrong crit at on me at perfectly the wrong time. He tossed in a Thrust control fire. So everyone got stressed with what the became an overcommit on Carnor, and I couldn't turn around to save it. Everyone was in terrible positions, all because of 1 crit. Play Stupid Games, win stupid prizes. Manaroo managed to feedback Carnor, and we managed half of the shuttle, but there wasn't much more we could have done for how I started out. Managed to get both OL and Wampa down to 1, and the shuttle down to 2, but close only counts on Big ships and bombs.
45-100
Game 6
Gand Findsman - Attanni Mindlink, Fire Control System, Gunner, Cloaking Device
Gand Findsman - Attanni Mindlink, Fire Control System, Gunner
Manaroo - Attanni Mindlink, Recon Specialist, Unhinged Astromech.
So apparently this list had been causing problems for everyone all day, as well as a ton of stores. I was excited to see likely the only other Mindlink list at the event, and I hoped it was going to be really hyped an exciting. In the end, it felt lackluster. I think I ended up winning the initiative roll, but I gave him initiative. Rocks made a wall against the left side. He put his Manaroo behind a rock on his right side, facing to his right, I put mine on my right, hoping to draw out a joust in the open. Apparently he had a full on deployment plan for his list, and they conga lined right ahead of Manaroo. I figured if he was a plan to joust, I may as well joust since the rock wall was going to be a problem for him moreso than my turrets. Once I had the commit, I decided to rush my ships as 3, he rushed at 4. His manaroo dove nto the rock field, And my Manaroo rocketed across the board to where the fight actually was. His defense wasn't enough to match my focus economy and aggerssive token set, and I traded a G!a for a shield and some hull, and Kaa'to's missile. After that I distrubted a K-turn for BSA, and a green for Z so he could turn around a turn later, Manaroo greened forward to block a K-turn that never came, and the opposing Manaroo ran out of the rock field, with walls to his front and right. The last G-1 took 2 turns to shut down, but it did end up costing me Palob and Black sun ace.
This left Kaa'to and Manaroo vs Manaroo. His Manaroo was down to half, and my ships were feeling great. His Manaroo takes a crit for Damaged Sensor array, and while it eventually clears, it takes far took long, and dies before it gets another focus token.
100-49.
At the end of the day, I landed at 10th or 11th for the day. I never got to see the final tally but apparently I tied with 10th for MOV, so it would have been down SOS. I'll maybe find out eventually, but I'm super happy with how my list performed for today.
Big take-aways from the day. My list is not exactly where it needs to be. Its pretty gosh dang close, but the 2 lists that I lost to have a huge counter: Stress. If I can push the issue on the stress front, I think I'll have a top tier list. I don't know where specifically the points would come from, or how I will do it yet, but getting some stress on opposing ships would be phenomenal. Top 10 out of 64 is the best I should have asked for, especially since all I wanted for today was top quarter.
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