October Shatterpoint Tournament Prep - Part II

 

 October Shatterpoint Tournament Prep - Part II

Yeah, I'm maybe still in Pooh Bear territory with regards to my prep...

Continuing my tourney prep, I got in a match on Friday night with my buddy, Andy. It was a bit cramped where we were playing in my game room, plus I had to take some time out from our match to put my kiddo to bed. As such, the match felt like it maybe dragged out a bit, and Andy pointed out that we should start timing these games to see how long they're running, since tournament rounds are timed. I think the match was moving at a fairly good clip, but the interruptions made it feel longer. Plus, we were also slowed down a bit just tracking down cards and such because we were a bit cramped, so the layout of our auxiliary stuff was not ideal. But yeah, moving forward, he's right: I need to start timing matches.

This article won't be a blow by blow batrep just because I didn't take notes or pictures. Part of that was honestly just how cramped the game was, and how it would have pulled my focus from the game more than I would like. So this post is more about what I learned from the match, as well as how it went overall. Andy generously offered to field any characters against whom I wanted to practice. But honestly, I don't have a handle on the current meta, and I'm more concerned with really knowing my own squads than I am preparing for any particular match-ups. The only combo I hadn't tried running yet that I was not sure about was Ahsoka/Sabine/Clan Kryze, and Leia/Luke/Han & Chewie. So that was what I put on the table. Andy fielded Luminara/Shaak Ti/Padawans and Dooku/Jango/Magnaguards. I've always loved Dooku, even though I never got very good with him, and I keep wanting to like Luminara, but I just don't think she's my speed. There are better Jedi to use overall, and if I'm going to take the road less traveled, I'm more likely to go with Kit than Lumi. We played Never Tell Me the Odds just because it was on top of the mission deck. Additionally, I've got so much to learn about this game that I really won't feel locked in on all eventualities by Saturday. So instead of going scattershot and trying to hit everything at least once, I'm going to focus on on some of the things I *need* to know. Like the units I'm using, and the mission suite I plan on bringing.

My kid rolls dice better than I do, so I had him roll for me for awhile before he went to bed. I went first, so I deployed Leia on the right side of the board. He deployed Lumi across from Leia, so I set Ahsoka up on the left side of the board. The way I deployed, Leia's group could claim the right objective from the word go, but Ahsoka's needed to move to get to the left home objective if it lit up. My thinking was that 5 of the 7 cards in my Order deck would allow me to claim it, and since Ahsoka is my powerhouse, I wanted her just a hair closer to the center of the board. It worked out for me, but I don't think that's generally how I should approach my deployment. Anyway! Ultimately, I took the first struggle (Desperate Measures), Andy took the second struggle (It Could Be Worse - top deployment, orientation towards me), and I took the final struggle (One in a Million - top deployment, orientation towards me). 

What Did I Learn?

• Sometimes, units should behave like their tags dictate. What the heckfire do I mean by that? Well, I hadn't really used Luke yet. I wanted to like him, but was not exactly sure where I'd fit him in. As it turned out, posting him up on the right side of the board on a vantage point near the objective worked out really well for me. He is not exactly a power hitter, and so he can sometimes avoid attention, so long as I don't draw any to him. I also don't want him moving to the midline or an objective by himself. After all, if you can hit Han & Chewie or Leia instead, and nullify units that pack some punch, who will you target? I mean, he's a bit soft (only 7 health), so maybe you hit him up for what should seem like an easy kill, but otherwise, he's not really someone who poses much of a threat. He hung out for a bit, and then during the third struggle, he galloped over to Andy's back line to steal his home objective.
  Now, I've pulled this move before. Not with Luke, but in my last match (with Rob - see part I of my tourney prep posts!), Zeb zipped into Rob's back line, punched a trooper of some sort, knocked him down, and stole the point. Because Rob had locked it up and I hadn't been particularly aggressive, he didn't have other units readily available to retreat and reclaim it. Luke feels well-suited for it because of his first two abilities. Grappling Hook allows him to climb up to a decent vantage point, and snag himself a Hunker. Sure, it doesn't make him bulletproof. But it helps him hang out for a bit until it's time for him to act. I'm Here To Rescue You allows him to Reposition. So even if he's engaged in a scrum while he's waiting to be sneaky, he can start his turn by Repositioning out of there, and then he can sprint toward a seemingly safe objective, and yoink it out from underneath an opponent. Now, it's possible that your opponent has their home objectives locked down. In which case, I don't think Luke is like Zeb and good for bullying someone off of a point (he doesn't get a Shove until he's 3 down his tree). But much like any spy (his tag! See? I brought it back around to where I started!), he is good for taking opportunities as they come. So I can't force Luke (heh, Force...) to snipe my opponent's home objective. But if he behaves like the Spy his tag says he is, then if I position him thoughtfully and don't get greedy with him, he can take an attack of opportunity and steal away an Objective point my opponent previously thought was safe, and so left vulnerable.
  
• Leia is a beast. Not the beast I thought she was, exactly, but a beast nonetheless. She can do some serious work if she's leveraged well. Don't get me wrong - I know I could have used her better in this match. Honestly, I just never read her closely enough, despite the fact that I had always liked her and wanted to use her. I always focused a lot on her revenge attacks, as well as the fact that Into The Garbage Shoot, Flyboy moves someone else, and not her. That said, I kind of started stumbling into her movement antics, and they really are delightful. She's one of the few units in the game that need not make herself entirely too vulnerable in order to pull off an attack. The past one or two times I used her, she was a bit too exposed and took damage. After all, she's a Primary with only 9 health, so she's a decently desirable target.
  
  
  I'm choosing to believe the above is true, because we all know Carrie Fisher was an absolute badass.
  
  So in the past, when she's used It's A Wonder You're Still Alive, she has almost always healed herself, and then made someone else Dash. In this game, though, I had a lot of available Force courtesy of Ahsoka granting me 4, and then not using as much as I expected her to. So I used Wonder to heal Han and Chewie, then Dashed her. Then she Dashed again, courtesy of Crack Shot. Then I Advanced. Now sure, it's a wasted Focus action. But she Advanced once and Dashed twice to get to an objective, all in the same activation. And sometimes, as we know, playing the objective game is more important than making an attack. So while I love her for her Sharpshooter [2] and her threat of revenge attacks, I've honestly come around to loving her for all of the mobility I didn't realize she had. Which, as it turns out, I think pairs her quite well with Ahsoka!
• I think I'm missing something with Sabine. Because I don't know anyone who uses her, but I really dig her! I've found her to be an excellent Swiss army knife. She can bully people off of points (2 Shoves in the first 3 spots in her combat tree) or she can chuck up to 9 dice at people (Focus, Sharpshooter 2) and possibly max out at 8 damage. It's not a huge ceiling, but she only needs 5 hits to get through in order to do it. She's got decent mobility between I'm Gonna Go Add Some Fireworks to the Celebration and Daughter of Mandalore. She's got that easy Focus (and also provides a unit that Clan Kryze can trigger Focus off of), too, which helps facilitate Sharpshooter. And while Fireworks is volatile and not something I use liberally, it can really do some work.
  In the case of this match, she was integral in helping me secure the center Objective while we were playing One In A Million for our last Struggle. Ahsoka had moved to the center to take the point, and Andy had Shaak Ti answer by Shoving Ahsoka, then using Force Repulse. By this time, I had already gone through my Leia, Ahsoka and Shatterpoint Order cards, and I still had several cards left in my Order deck. In other words, Ahsoka would not be contesting anything for at least several more of my turns. Thankfully, Sabine had yet to go. She activated, and moved Ahsoka forward with My Friends Make the Impossible Possible, thus contesting the center Objective again. Of course, the objective now belonged to Andy, so tying wouldn't be enough to take it back. However, Sabine then either Dashed or Advanced (I remember she was within 2 of an enemy character, but I can't recall if she was Engaged, or if the enemy was Wounded, and Sabine could thus Advance instead of Dash) so she was within 4 of the center Objective, and she used Fireworks. It would hit Ahsoka as well as Shaak Ti, but I wasn't worried about knocking Ahsoka down because she didn't have much damage on her. Fireworks landed 2 damage, and then allowed Sabine to jump next to the center Objective, thus putting two bodies on it, and stealing it away from Shaak Ti. And I'm pretty sure this led to my winning the Struggle and the game.
  So far, I've found that as long as I don't expect too much of Sabine, she can do really excellent work. Since she's working with Ahsoka, I think she is great as a utility character. So while my original inclination was, of course, to keep all of Ghost's crew together, I don't know that I'd have Sabine serve as Secondary to Hera. I really like Hera, but I don't view her as a slugger the way I view Ahsoka. And players really seem to like Ezra as a Secondary. So I wonder if that's part of what has pushed Sabine aside. But I'm a fan, and I'm enjoying using her.