glenside-pa-4-2

Title: glenside-pa-4-2
Author: Kimberly "Arwen Even*" Caton
Date: Apr 3, 2000

Ted P. held his usual monthly six-gamer at RPG Outpost in
Glenside. The attendance was 13, smaller than usual, but
still a good time. My dark deck was my patented
ISB/walkers/sandwhirls/UC probe droids on Tatooine... My
light deck was a conglomeration of MWYHL to test 1, UC
spies, holotable, and Kessel with a bunch of X-Wings and
laser cannons.

Game 1: my light vs. Livio D'Alessios (1771) EJP deck

I've played Livio's deck before, and I knew he had way too
much spy protection and retrieval potential to risk putting
spies down. I insert an Anger, Fear, Aggression into his
deck (I only play one, but I start with it to throw people
off their game). It pops on his first turn of activation,
so he loses a quick 2 (cuz unfortunately, he started
Resistance). I drop a Bothan Spy UC, but Bubo eats him in
about a turn. He hits me for a couple of early force
drains, but I pass test #1 fairly quickly and cut that way
down. Now, my light deck operates on the principle of
getting set up, shutting down my force loss, and then
starting up theirs. So I'm losing about 3 or 4 on his turns
for a little while. I draw up for a couple of turns,
getting R3PO, Artoo, A Gift, and Hiding in the Garbage. Oh
boy. Ephont Mon is sitting in the Audience Chamber, so R390
gets gifted and Artoo goes Undercover in the Cantina. There
are only about 5 sites down, and he has a couple of alien
bounty hunters at each one, now draining for a grand total
of 0. I also deploy HitG, call for an interrupt, and get It
Could Be Worse and We're Doomed (forgotten tech!) in my
hand. Good thing, because on his turn Bubo goes to the
Audience Chamber and Droid Detector goes down. Goodbye,
R3PO... (sniff.) My turn rolls around, and I set up drains
at the holotable for 2 and Kessel for 2 (with Resistance
out). I ICBW my loss of one from his objective. His turn,
I play We're Doomed to cut all of his force drains of one in
half (round down since Artoo is on the table, heehee). My
turn, I activate everything and HiTG for the two interrupts
again. Repeat last four sentences indefinitely. I'm
draining him for 4, he's drainig me for none. Search and
Destroy came down at one point, but I used HiTG to set up a
one and alter it. Game over.
FW by 13 -- 2(+13)

Game 2 -- my dark vs. Livio D'Alessio's (1771) MWYHL to flip

Livio begins this game but telling me, 'let's see how you
like it,' inserting an Anger, Fear, Aggression on his first
turn, then preparing the Jedi test set up. He starts
passing tests like crazy while I set up a drain of one or so
at my Tatooine sites (avoiding the Projections he had down). But, as luck would have it, I managed to pick up Dagobah:
Cave and Failure at the Cave in my first two turns, waiting
for the right time. I also threw down Secret Plans and
CHYBC. I have a sandwhirl blowing back and forth, along
with Search and Destroy down so I'm hitting him for a total
of 3 across both our turns. AFA pops at some point, and I
lose four cards. He has Daughter turned upside down for
test 5 when my wonderful, wonderful combo goes down about
five sites away. Suspension! In the five turns it took him
to get there and get rid of it, I'm draining him for 5 and
hitting him for one a turn with S&D. I drain him out just
as he gets Daughter back to the site with test five.
FW by 19 -- 4(+32)

Game 3 -- my light vs. Greg Hodur's (1770) Scum and Villainy

Did you ever have a game when everything that could have
gone wrong, did? His first turn he deploys Mara Jade and
Saber to the Jundland Wastes. I deploy Yoda's Hut, not
enough for Son of Skywalker, Yoda's not there. Second turn,
he drains me for three and deploys Jabba and Galid to the
AC. I search my deck for Yoda, Son of Skywalker, Training
Ground, and Test 1. The only thing there was test 1 (which
I can't take without the site) and Yoda, whom I deploy. I
draw and get Son. His turn, he drains me for five and drops
a couple of Bounty Hunters to JP. My turn, I drop Son and
search for a site. I find the test, but no training ground. Can't take it out. His turn, he drains me for 7. The drain is killing me, so I drop a spy and look in my deck.
Training ground, but no test. His turn, he Hutt Smooches my
spy and drains me for another 7. At Peace goes by on a
force drain. My turn, I finally get the test down and set
up some ships at Kessel. This gave me a nice little drain
of two, but I never got the test off because I was getting
drained for too much to set up a 5 (which was what I needed)
and I had lost too many cards to get more than one spy down.
FL by approx. 24 -- 4(+8)

Game 4 -- my dark vs. Pete Flamini's (1686) Yavin IV Mains

Nothing happened in this one for a while... he had Melas and
Tawss Khaa sitting on Yavin 4, I had undercover probe droids
there. I Monnok him for a pair of EPP Obis. I deploy the
Devastator and Ozzel to Coruscant and started draining for
one. Next turn, 5D6 goes to a Tatooine site inside Blizzard
1 (can't be snipered, ambushed, double agented, etc.) and I
flip. I get a couple more drains at Coruscant until he
comes down with Tantive and the fleet, with a bacta tank to
back them up. We battle it out there for a little while
until I eventually concede the planet and think about
deploying to Tatooine. Two walkers and a couple agents go
to the Tat:Desert in a sandwhirl. Everybody around here
plays Controls now, so I was expecting some kind of
beatdown, but he didn't have enough force to bring on a real
beatdown. Sure enough, he controls my 'whirl and drops down
EPP Han and Chewie with a Mechanical Failure. I elect not to draw battle destiny (since I'd rather have both of his characters trapped in the desert instead or recirculating on the Bacta Tank) and lose everybody to his destiny of about 10. My turn, I deploy another sandwhirl to make Han
and Chewie missing and another couple of walkers next door. I get a few turns of draining for 3, while he's draining me
for one and I'm retrieving one. Eventually, he controls the
sandwhirl and EPP Luke and Boussh then come down to fight
me. Here's where I made a mistake that could have cost me
the game -- he had Draw Their Fire down, I had Secet Plans. He had no force to pay to retrieve, and I let him retrieve
his control (doh!). I lose a walker, and move the other two
to the desert. I strart hitting him for two there, and he's
still just hitting me for one at Coruscant. He decides to
try and block the drain by moving over his characters, but
they go to the Tat: Desert and get trapped. I move away
again and hold down a drain of three for the rest of the
game.

FW by 7 -- 6(+15)

Game 5 -- my light vs. Jeff Podolak's (1686) Hunt Down

Opening hand, I get a Bothan Spy and an Undercover.
Beautiful! He flips on his turn with Vader at the Death
Star Docking Bay. I lose one on his turn and cancel Visage
on mine. I soak the drain at the Docking Bay for a turn and
what do I lose? SOS, my apprentice. I know better than to
lose from my deck before I have everything out... Mara Jade
and Saber come down with Vader, upping his drain to two. I
deploy Yoda to his hut and R3PO to the docking bay, forcing
Mara to move and reduce the drain by one (since the DB was
his only battleground site). I deploy Hiding in the Garbage
a turn later, and use it to fish out Artoo and an Undercover
to block his drain and a Bothan Spy and At Peace to start
training... I wait a turn for At Peace to kick in, set up a
five with HiTG, and Boom! My Bothan Spy is now a Great
Warrior, and my force loss is cut to zero. I spend the next
couple turns fishing out Kessel, a bunch of ships, the
holotable, and Projections. Deploy it all. He brings out
another Visage to the Holotheater, but I cancel it with the
Transmission Terminated I had been holding for many turns.
(When I verified his deck for a docking bay on turn two, I
saw the second one in there). I start hitting him for 5 a
turn. He eventually drains with Mara's saber on the
Executor and chucks his objective, both of us forgetting
that with my test passed, he can't. So I drop another spy a
turn later. Game over.
FW by 22 -- 8(+37)

Game 6 -- my dark vs. Greg Hodur's (1770) MWYHL to 2 w/M&T.

I play very defensively, so all I did for the first couple
of turns was draw. He sets up to start testing and
eventually deploys the Tantive with a couple of ships and
pilots to Coruscant. I retaliate with Bossk in Bus,
Devastator, Ozzel, and two Outer Rim Scouts. We start
battling a bunch, but I had used my Reactor terminal to set
up a ten-card clump of 4's, 5's, and 6's, so I'm drawing a
minimum of nine for destiny each time. He deploys more
ships and characters and battles, I deploy more ships and
characters and battle. He sets up Tawss Khaa in the
cantina. I deploy an undercover probe droid. He deploys
R3PO, and I can find my laser/sniper combo or restraining
bolt anywhere. I break his cover and move away, Ghhhk at
the ready. Luke takes out the probe droid. I manage to
find Blizzard 1 and 5D6, so I put them in the desert to
reduce the Tatooine drain to a total of one. On his turn,
EPP Obi goes to the CC Carbon Chamber he just deployed. I
counter him with an undercover droid at the CC and a
restraining bolt on R3PO (just in case) a couple turns
later. By this time I've beaten him out at space, so he
runs to the Kiffex he deployed. I then choose to put
Dagobah: Cave and Failure at the Cave down, along with a
slow buildup of 4 or 5 walkers at the Tat: Desert. I chase
him around in space, alternating drains of one and two (at
Coruscant and Kiffex) and two at the desert. He eventually
gets Daughter to the Cave, misses on his first try (I
retrieve two) but hits it the next. But, the five turns
worth of bonuses hurts, although I am actually losing force
from his Cantina drain because I run out of agents to
retrieve. Nothing like ekeing out the win with minutes to
go...
FW by 5 -- 10(+42)

Well, I end up coming in second at 5-1, behind the
undefeated with a timed win John Lolli (who I never had to
play thanks to the sides we played). All in all, I was
pretty happy with my performance, with an undefeated dark
deck and a light deck that lost due to bad luck and
atrocious management on my part -- my fault, not the deck's. Ted ran an excellent tournament, and I pulled a white-
bordered Yoda out of my Dagobah packs. Thanks for reading.

-- Kimberly Caton