wauwatosa-wi-7-26-00
Title: wauwatosa-wi-7-26-00
Author: Chuck "Sonn" Sonnenburg
Date: Jul 26, 2000
Game 1: Test 6 vs. Dark Deal (Damien)
He starts a cloud city site, Secret Plans, and Twi'leks a Bad Feeling Have I. I use Heading for the Medical Frigate to deploy Your Insight Serves You Well, The Way of Things, and Insurrection. He drops another cloud city site and Bespin: Cloud City, I go about my Jedi Testing (which I'll spare you the details of). Second turn he tries to Scanning Crew but learns that YISYW cancels that too, and curses the Effect. He deploys Obsidian 7 and Obsidian 8 to Cloud City. I deploy Capt. Han and the Millennium Falcon blasting away one TIE. Next turn he puts out Fett in Slave I and I wind up losing Han. I return with Elyhek Rue on the Falcon and DS2 Wedge on Red Squadron 1; he winds up losing the other TIE. He builds his forces slowly as I'm losing cards slowly to his Force drains, finally losing Elyhek Rue and the Falcon when Bossk in Hound's Tooth shows up. I move Wedge up to the newly deployed Bespin System and play Theron Nett on Red 10. I get my 7 and retrieve my 10, but I'm not sure how it's going to go from there. Vader's on Cloud City so I decide to try to go for Jedi Test 6: You Must Confront Vader. So, I prepare to leave Dagobah and go to Cloud City to confront him.
Yoda: Luke.....
Luke: Yes master?
Yoda: There...... is....... an-o-ther...................... bowl of stew on the table. Help yourself.
So Luke leaves Yoda and the stew behind and heads to Cloud City, wins the Test, becomes a Jedi, but it's all in vain. His Secret Plans is preventing me from retrieving enough to get the Force necessary to deploy anything, and Dengar in Punishing One helps clear my ships out of Bespin. In a beautiful show Luke single-handedly clears out a site of Imperials and Mara Jade, but the Cloud City Occupation and drains are too much.
Result: Full Loss -18
Secret Plans was the card I feared the most, and with good reason. I think against that I'm going to have to go with Squadron Assignments over Your Insight Serves You Well at the start to help me engage his forces faster and with more power.
Game 2: Ralltiir Ops vs. Test 6 (Brady)
I hate poetic justice.
He starts The Way of Things, Wise Advice, and something unimportant. I start You Cannot Hide Forever, Something Special Planned, and Mobilization Points. I deploy the Docking Bay and Carida first turn but I don't have enough force to deploy anyone there (not a single Biker Scout in my opening hand). He gets Daughter of Skywalker out to the Training Area. I deploy another site, the Emperor, Overseeing It Personally, and Janus Greejatus to the Spaceport Prefect's Office. He deploys Yoda and Jedi Test 1. I deploy Vader and his Saber to the Docking Bay. He attempts his Jedi Test and fails, deploying another site. I get two Biker scouts to a third site and flip my objective. He deploys Luke with Lightsaber, Chewie with Blaster Rifle, and some alien to that site, and it just happens to be the one time I don't have a High-Speed Tactics in Hand. He slices a scout and the site is cleared due to attrition (I failed to Sense his Rug Hug). I deploy Mara and her Saber and two more Biker Scouts on their bikes and attack; Mara is clashed. Chewie and the Biker Scouts die. He doesn't attack. Next turn I kill them both by sending in another Biker scout on a bike, who also dies (this is starting to get irritating). I decide I need to get my scouts back so I send the Chimera up to Carida and start getting them back. By the time he flips I've got about six Biker Scouts out, but he blows away the Chimera with Han on a friggin' Medium Bulk Transport.
It's at this point that this kid wanders up and asks "How come you're not playing Bring Him Before Me?"
Me: "'Cause I'm playing Ralltiir Ops. It's kind of hard to play two objectives at once."
As a discussion continues over the truth of this statement I retrieve six with my Abyssin Ornament, but his retrieval, even with the Something Special Planned, is going rather well. My Force Drains are pitiful and he's slowing wearing down my forces here and there. He deploys a new site to Ralltiir and succeeds in flipping my objective. I'm starting to knock out some of his characters, but the destiny 7s are killing my forces.
This is when the kid wanders back over. "How many Royal Guards are you playing?"
Me: "None"
Kid: "You really should play with them."
Me: "Your opinion is noted."
Things are getting pretty intense. He's not really damaging my life force much, but he is wearing down my defenses. By the same token, I'm killing his invaders, but he's got enough On the Edge's to keep his deck stocked. Finally, the game times out, me with ten, him with twenty-six.
Result: Timed Loss -26
Total: 0(-44)
It was a brutal and embarrassing loss. My SAC was just useless and my force drains were completely screwed up. And with no time to think it was off to the next match.
Game 3: Test 6 vs. Who the @$@#% knows
I start Battle Plan, The Way of Things, and Insurrection. He starts Nal Hutta. That's it. First turn he activates, Scanning Crews me and plays Fear (I lose 2 from hand). I deploy Training Area, Yoda, Yoda's Hope, Luke's Backpack, Landing Platform, and grab a Jedi Test. He activates and plays Fear (I lose 2 from hand). I deploy Jungle, Son of Skywalker, Luke's Lightsaber, and Jedi Test 1. He deploys the Stalker to Nal Hutta. I continue my Jedi Testing as he deploys a Tempest Scout with Zuckuss as Pilot on my Landing Platform. Later he deploys Bespin: Cloud City and puts Onyx 2 and DS-181-3 there. As we go along I try explaining what everything does but it's difficult: what Jedi Tests are, why you can't deploy to Dagobah, what a battleground is, the fact that Cloud City can't be deployed to Nal Hutta, etc. That last one took a while. I looked at poor Luke, sitting there upside on the Bog Clearing "Ah! I think I burst a bloodvessel in my brain!" You and me both Luke. Anyway, he slowly begins adding more ships and pilots around the area and I finish the Jedi Tests. I play Jedi Test 6, but with no Vader I decided to just sit on Dagobah and let it hurt him. Meanwhile I deployed Captain Han and DS2 Wedge to Nal Hutta along with Bren Quersey on his X-Wing, along with an I'll Take The Leader. I kill about half his stuff. He deploys more, I kill a lot more stuff. Meanwhile I have this rather large hand because he's not force draining me! I deploy Lt. Naytaan and his X-Wing to Nal Hutta when the kid comes along, trying to do some trading (this is about forty minutes into the round at this point). I politely tell him to go @#%#$ himself so we can finish before the game times out. My forces blow away the remaining fleet and I split my forces between Nal Hutta and Endor to get some serious force loss going. By this time I'm just playing the On The Edges to get them out of my hand and into my life force. Finally, mercifully, the game ends.
Result: Full Win +25
Total: 2(-19)
No real time before the next game.
Game 4: Ralltiir Ops vs. Dantooine Base Ops (Andrew)
This looks to be interesting. I deploy Mobilization Points, You Cannot Hide Forever, and Resistance. He has no starting interrupt either. I play the Spaceport Street and Spaceport Docking Bay, with a Biker Scout and Bike to the DB; I also play Carida. He gets out the Swamp and plays a Nudj. Over the next two turns he gets out three sites total with Nudjs at them (no characters, just Nudjs), I get out four sites with Biker Scouts at three. He has deployed a Traffic Control, Rebel Fleet, and Wise Advice. I deploy the Emperor and get out Overseeing it Personally, and deploy Lord Vader to the fourth site. He's deployed an X-Wing Squadron the old-fashioned way and the Tantive IV, but fortunately his force drains aren't doing anything. I get out Mara and her and Vader's Lightsaber, so I'm draining for nine a turn on Ralltiir. I decide to abandon space since I've got a potent ground force and a strong drain now that I've altered his Rebel Fleet. An interesting turn was when I Sensed his Rebel Barrier and he tried to Visored Vision me, which I Sensed also. Realizing the situation, he deployed three characters on Dantooine, flipping his objective and sent them up to the Tantive. He also flew over Luke, Danz Borrin, and some angry-looking guy and lands right in the middle of Spaceport Street.
Stop the game. The kid is arguing with Tre right next to me, thinking that if he deploys a ship to the same Docking Bay as Corporal Marmor just once, he'll keep retrieving every turn. It takes both of us to finally convince him otherwise. He also kept complaining about some bike in the store.
Anyway, I kill everyone but Danz Borrin and move over Mara Jade. Danz Borrin flies away and I retrieve seven with Abyssin Ornament. He's spread out in space with his squadrons and is now draining a little bit, but not enough.
Results: Full Win +25
Total: 4(+6)
Not a very exhillirating day, but it was a chance to shake out some of the cobwebs. Winner of the tournament was Eric, I came somewhere in the upper middle. No prize support unfortunately, which I listened to the kid rant about for several minutes. Still, it was a good chance to practice before the big event; so I'll see some of you at GenCon.