GenCon! The second best 4 days of gaming all year! (
Sorry, slogan bros, I had fun at Worlds). And as we vaguely remember from our previous article,
John ran his stupid mouth and made a bet that he shouldn't have! How'd that go? What'd John run? And what did he learn? Let's hit the jump and see what happened!
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Star of the Show |
As
I linked to earlier with the article, I started this experiment in May
almost right after Worlds after I made a dumb bet. And while I said in
that article that I needed to keep my super secret tech super secret to
be sure I won, the actual answer is a lot less good.
I couldn't find a Leia list that was actually worth using Leia for.
Let's
clarify that. The Rebel problem right now seems to be that the game is
moving away from MSU. Wave 7 gave us a lot of options for running big
ships and running them well, and it added in Early Warning System, which
while hurting fighters ALSO hurt MSU groups. And then there's
Strategic Adviser, the most polite 4 points I've ever hated.
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This may devolve into another article, later. |
Leia
IS an MSU commander. In that she shouldn't have anything over a
command 2 in her fleet as of this writing. There's arguments for an
Assault Frigate, sure, and I've seen people do..... fine.... with Star
Cruisers and lightly upgraded other larges. But at the end of the day,
my opinion remains: command 2 max. At 38 points for her cost, too, you
want to be maximizing the number of ships you can bring with her
ability. I've never been a major fan of the "one real ship" Ackbar
lists (Hashtag Worst Farm), as I didn't personally think I was
leveraging my Commander to his best potential. So I found myself
running all sorts of different versions of Rebel smalls, trying to find
something that wouldn't immediately die to some of the current Larges
out there. Looking at YOU, Vader Cymoon.
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#UnhappyFathersDay |
So
before I began building my list, I knew that I had to deal with the
fact that long ranged Red dice could theoretically cripple my list
before it even got going. Let's also bring out two points that I may
have in my original Leia article (badly in need of an update after this
experiment), but if i don't, they need to be included. Her points cost
and her restriction (no OTHER tokens can be used by that ship? Orf) are
quite difficult to build around. In a fit of honesty, I'll fully admit
that Leia is probably overcosted. She may not even be as good as
Rieekan, and that's the other thing.
Right NOW, every
Rebel MSU player needs to ask themself "Why am I not running Rieekan in
this list instead of my current Commander?" The argument may be as
simple as "I need the 10 points for Dodonna" or "I need Madine's ability
to turn more than Rieekan's to keep alive a ship for one more turn" or
"I have Sato plans that involve HH crits at long range" or "I'm better
with Mon Mothma and want to run multiple MC30s." You NEED a reason to
pick someone who isn't the Zombie Lord, as he's STILL probably too good
for his points cost. So, I needed something that made my Leia list
unique and not as good as being run under Rieekan. I'd like to thank
Eric for being the guy who was constantly yelling "Why not Rieekan"
every time I threw out a list that COULD work, kinda.
I experimented with a few things, but before I get into the LIST, I want to talk about the objective choices I was running.
Precision Strike/Most Wanted, Jamming Barrier, and Salvage Run.
Eric had good luck with Salvage Run at Worlds,
and I WILL humblebrag that I was the one who convinced him to include
it. So, very little reason to rehash what he had said there. As for
Jamming Barrier, it WRECKS long range damage, which is what I recognized
I needed from my list. And the red changed based on the list, but I
eventually went Precision Strike (you'll see why soon...). For me,
before this effort, the red objective has always been one of the easiest
to pick when fleet building, it's always the OTHERS that cause me
trouble. There was a slight diversion around Store Champs season where I
went back to a version of the
Adepticon list,
running 3 VCXs with Fire Lanes/Sensor Net. I was running a lot of MSU
variations (Salvation! Admonition! Hammerhead groups!) But nothing
(maybe Salvation) was really sticking as "great with Leia" as opposed to
"just great." Admonition ACMs sure is deadly, yeah. But what was
making it deadlier under Leia?
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That gun, specifically |
I took ANOTHER hard look at Leia and what she COULD do that was better than anyone else. And I eventually came around to THIS:
Y Leia? Y Not?
Points:
399/400
[ flagship ]
CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
-
Leia Organa (
38 points)
-
Jainas Light
(
2 points)
-
Lando Calrissian (
4 points)
-
Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (
7 points)
=
95 total ship cost
Hammerhead Scout Corvette (41 points)
-
Task Force Organa
(
1 points)
-
Ruthless Strategists (
4 points)
=
46 total ship cost
Hammerhead Scout Corvette (41 points)
-
Task Force Organa
(
1 points)
-
Ruthless Strategists (
4 points)
=
46 total ship cost
Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36 points)
-
Task Force Organa
(
1 points)
-
External Racks (
3 points)
=
40 total ship cost
GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
-
Boosted Comms (
4 points)
-
Bomber Command Center (
8 points)
=
30 total ship cost
GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
-
Bright Hope
(
2 points)
-
Toryn Farr (
7 points)
=
27 total ship cost
1
Jan Ors (
19 points)
2
YT-1300s (
26 points)
7
Y-Wing Squadrons (
70 points)
=
115 total squadron cost
So how's this all work? Well, theoretically
anything and everything is a carrier. Realistically, not Jaina's Light
unless we've hit a very bad spot (we'll get to that bad spot!), but I
want to make sure I win the squadron war (Hi, Ruthless Strategists!) and
then just start womping ships. The benefit of Ruthless Strategists
wasn't as easily seen until I started thinking about it. Right NOW,
stereotypically, Imperials run Sloane Aces and Rebels run Rieekan Aces a
lot. Right NOW, I don't often see anything overwhelming in generic
high health heavy amounts of squadrons. This seems like an adaptation
of what Josiah ran at Worlds a few years back (as he pointed out to me
at GenCon on Saturday, hashtag more humblebrag) and it DID start out
with X-wings over the YT-1300s. BUT, after losing those X-wings to some
Sloane Aces at a store championship the weekend before GenCon, that's
why I moved towards what he had run before. After I win the squadron
war, 7 Y-wings cleans up a lot of stuff.
As for the
Hammerheads, they've always been aggravating little jerks who take more
to kill than you want them to. With the initial titled Torp friend to
trigger the Task Force Title, they can tip the balance in.... alright,
enough alliteration. They can put out some helpful damage to take down
whatever I need to shoot dead. I assumed going into most games that
they would die before the end of it, and whatever extra damage they
COULD put in would contribute enough to ensure that I'd kill my
opponent's ships.
So, enough backstory, how'd GenCon go? With convenient Street Fighter analogues for everyone!
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For you, the day Leia entered your world was the most important one of your life. For me, it was Saturday. |
Round
1 I was faced against Mike Bohlmann, comatose on the forums,
represented in this write-up by Zangief. Why Zangief? Because Mike
brought his list of Garm, dual Peltas (Adar on one, Toryn on the other),
Yavaris, a GR75, and a metric ton of B-wings (Ten, Keyan, Dagger, 1
unnamed, Norra, a YT1300, and 2 HWKs). His slow approach of deadly
efficiency was like a Russian winter, unstoppable and frightening.
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Anyone who knows Mike can immediately tell you that no part of this choice (personality, look, leg hair) was correct |
He
selected my Jamming Barrier, and we played slow chess for 2 turns,
attempting to will the OTHER guy to jump the barrier first and watch his
squadrons get flakked to death. Red Rover, Red Rover, send your
squadrons on over However, with 3 activations after Mike finished, I
"jumped" TO the barrier round 3 and shot up one B-wing and kinda damaged
a HWK. Thanks to the way the dust clouds and barrier worked, I lost
one dice from my Y-wings shooting across either of them. Mike did as
well, but Jan was on my side there. He pushed a few squadrons onto my
side of things, and then Ruthless cut Ten and Norra down. Mike's
squadron dice were also VERY cold (a Y-wing survived 2 double taps from
Yavaris) and I eventually ended up tabling him when time was called.
Ruthless Strategists is MEAN, if you're willing to sacrifice your own
health for it (I was). Mike was and is a solid opponent and knows his
stuff, and his list is DEADLY if given time to operate. Game 1 was a 15
round boxing match against someone who knows their stuff.
So round 2, I ended up playing
Justin Rasmussen, rasproteus on the forums,
and here he can be seen as Blanka because sure why not. His Imperial
fleet of Vader on a Cymoon (with Entrapment Formation!), one Gozanti, 2
Slaved Turret Intel Officers, and a Demolisher with just the title and
APTs was going to give me a run for my money. He'd eventually make it
to top 4 for the Sunday matchup, but did I knock him down to size in
this round?
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SHOCKINGLY also not an accurate representation, but maybe he's different on Vassal |
No,
I did not. Justin made ME first player (boo, his objectives, boo!) and
then I had to attempt to kill a lot of stuff. At the end of the day, I
nabbed ONE Arquittens in round 6 that started right before Ian called
time on the round, and he grabbed 2 Hammerheads and not the Most Wanted
Jaina's Light that almost died but didn't a few times. I ALMOST nabbed
Demolisher on his side, but my one Y-wing was JUST out of reach to hit
it at the end, which resulted in a 5-6 loss to him. I've talked to
Justin leading up to this, but we had never actually faced each other at
World's when we both went. This was ANOTHER hard match that was really
fun against a good opponent, that (again) I was spending the whole time
making sure everything was in place and doing all I could to NOT die.
Lunch
break happened, and then I found out my 3rd round opponent. World
Champion Nathan Coda, Guile in today's analogy (because of the only
unironic U-S-A cheer I've ever been part of)
|
Does this make me Raul Julia? I think so. Also, Nathan, do your hair like that. |
Great.
Nathan was running an 8 activation Rieekan swarm powered by an IF!
Pelta. Two naked Torp Hammerheads, Quantum Slice, a Comms Net GR75, 2
naked CR90s (one had Jainas; neither had TRCs), and Admo powered for
death. He ALSO chose Jamming Barrier, and he outactivated me so badly.
I didn't want to fight swarm, as my list is geared towards either
outactivating your real ships or outsquadroning your others. When
Nathan can both outactivate my real ships and come running at me fast
enough with everything that I can't get a bead on him to squadron bomb
him, I run into a lot of trouble. He ran at the barrier with his swarm;
the 2 ships he had go AFTER me OF COURSE made it to the barrier before
my squadrons could hit his and damage him. He looped around and ended
up cutting so many things down. However, throwing every squadron I
could at him (this was that aforementioned bad spot!), including the
last turn before Admo scooted away at speed 4, I was able to bring it
down before Jaina's faced a hairpin terrifying near death experience.
In the end, I had Jaina's Light, the Bright Hope, my squadrons, and
another 5-6 loss that was the scariest thing I had seen all day. Nathan
knows his stuff, and I was happy to walk out of there with a 5-6.
Which
leads to round 4, facing Jason Dedrik of NOVA fame. I had remembered
his paint job from World's, and I still really liked it.
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I gotta get my MC75 to be looking this fancy, too. Plans, of course.... |
So
he was running Dodonna on Admo, with Garel's Honor and an MC75 backing
it up. 2 GRs (one Slicer, one Comms Net), and Shara, an A-wing, and 2
YT2400s were all there too. Fancy paint job means that we go with the
fanciest fighter in the tournament: Vega.
|
Jason came dressed just like this, too, mask and all. |
Jason
came at me with Admo, and I eventually whittled it down with fighters,
especially the YT-1300s as well. Garel's came sailing in later, and I
eventually whittled THAT down too, especially when Garel's couldnt get
the Structural Damage it wanted/needed on the GR75 that it was ramming
repeatedly. The MC75 almost crossed the barrier, but it ended up trying
to hem in Jaina's, which prompted me to have Leia take off as fast as
humanly possible. I ended up winning after cracking the Slicer
Flotilla, Shara/A-wing, Admo, and Garel's. As in all my games, my
opponent knew what he was doing, was super nice personally, and also a
nightmare to play against!
I ended up scoring 27
points, putting me in 7th place, which was enough for a fancy medal,
range rulers, and some chaff/Raid tokens.
I'd
ALSO like to point out that I had the strongest strength of schedule,
in a fit of NOT being humble. I had hoped to get to be in the
Seal Cub Clubbing Club, but instead I walked in to round 3 of Mike Tyson's Punch Out. Where the heck was Glass Joe?
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My Cracken list only has 2 larges in it, but it works! That baseball bat sure looks nice, mister! |
So
I'm proud of how I did. No humblebrag, no modesty, I'm happy. I
didn't WIN, but I put in some good games and several people commented to
me and Eric that I seem to have made Leia "work" as best as she can. I
put up the best results in a tournament with a list I crafted from
nebulousness. I ran the 2+3 before at
Michigan,
and I talked about how I came to it, but there I went back to what WAS
working. Here? No starting help, no plans. Leia was and still somewhat
IS unexplored, and I LIKE being The Leia Guy who people come to for
advice/thoughts. I LOVE hearing Leia ideas from people, seeing what
they see and how she can be developed.
I also, as in
all the big Armada events, got to hang out with all the Armada bros.
It's honestly fun for me seeing all these names I know from THE
INTERNET, seeing and talking to them. I met
shmitty,
but we never got that game in so I could prove to him that Leia is good
and get that article he owes me. Next year, next year....
So what the heck did I get out of this all?
Well,
I think I proved that Leia isn't BAD, having gone 2-2 against INSANE
competition. I can't claim she's the best Rebel commander. But for the
list I ran with her, she was the best choice I could make. I won games
BECAUSE of her and her ability, not IN SPITE OF. Why not Rieekan?
Because I needed to throw more squadrons all day erry day. Leia, as
much as people will give me crap about her, isn't ALL bad. As I said
above, her restriction and point cost need to be worked around, and I
think I DID work around them pretty well.
|
Damn straight. Now I need to go read Wishful Drinking.... |
As
I said, people were commenting that they actually really like this list
(and several people have borrowed it since and ran it to various
degrees of success, which, cool!). The general plan a LOT of
squadronless lists have is to just run Slicer Tools at the carrier and
then kill it the next turn. I have 5 carriers each pushing like 2-3
squadrons, you let me know when you can stop them all. The other fun of
this list is that Sloane is just kicked right in the head by it. Oh,
you threw 6 damage into the YT1300 with a perfect roll? Jan says that's 3
and i still have 4 health left, counter 1. Ruthless will bring your
scatter Ace down another health, especially after I throw some Y-wings
at it. I ran this at Atlanta this past weekend and several people
again
said they didn't like seeing 7 Y-wings across the table. Just, there's
no way to flak them to death efficiently, they can reach out and wail
on a lot of things, just keep punching. I made some mistakes in Atlanta
and DEFINITELY got outflown in a couple games, but I don't blame the
list for it more than my mistakes. Leia is NOT a forgiving commander
thanks to that restriction, and I can look back on the 2 games in
Atlanta I lost and see my mistakes.
Did I learn to not
run my mouth? Oh helllllllll naw. Anger/passion/motivation is what
pushed me to get this thing going, and it's pushed me to better marathon
finishes than if I don't have it. Yeah, yeah, anger leads to hate, but
I'm NOT actually mad at any of the mockery I got (specifically because I
know and have met most of the guys mocking me, except Truthiness, and I
know it's mostly in jest). If I could guarantee a ticket to Worlds, I'd
promise running Leia there, and I'd start calling out community members
right now just to prove a point, haha. But because I can't guarantee
that spot unless I win a Regionals.... well, I don't learn lessons.
In
fact, lemme run my mouth right now. I'll take on ANY SSD list with my
Leia list when it comes out. We'll see who wins, me and my Wishbone
friends, or you and your giant target.
|
(Flight of the Valkyries plays) |
I
also ended up REALLY liking this list. Or some variant of it. I can't
claim I'll be running this specific thing at the next Regionals or
World's, but some potential variant of it is intriguing, for sure. If I
change the YT1300s into X-wings, and add in Biggs, fit in an MC30,
and........ I finished all this prep for GenCon, having been playing
Leia since May, and the first thing I start thinking after it's all over
is how I can improve this list and get better with it!
How nobody commented on this is beyond me. Absolutely brilliant article. I'd love to see if you have worked on Leia more and made any changes. You're definitely onto something here never suffering anything worse than a 5-6 against insane competition
ReplyDeleteHa, thanks! I've been playing Leia for a while still. I have yet to settle on anything specific, but I've got ones built with an Assault Frigate and 3 other non-flotilla friends now (and one flotilla: 90, HH, Neb, and like 90 points in squads), and I'm trying to find a way to make one with zero flotillas. We'll see what I can get going!
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