The intro…
Hello stranger!
No, you’re not dreaming, yes there is a blog pst!
It’s been quite a while, I know and I have started prepping an explanation for that but for now, I have something else to offer. Well, someone does.
The wonderful Steve Boulton messaged me, saying he’d like to talk about an event and could he do a guest blog. I said, yes of course! So with no further ado, here we go!
The Main bit…
“The greatest teacher, failure is” Yoda
Hello and welcome, Dylan has kindly let me lose in his blog this week and I’m taking the chance to look at what a lot of us overlook. Lessons from failure.
I’m off to the World Team Championships in Mechelen, Belgium in August which is very exciting. I’m not a top-level player so I’m going with ‘fly what you know’ rather than trying to fly a ‘meta’ list.
I saw my great friend Nic Harris do very well at Sith Takers this year with a Jedi list and as Ani is such fun decided to try it. I did remove the Eta and put in Ric as I’m not as good as Nic but essentially the list is the same.
I’ve played it a lot this year trying tweaks here and there and took it to the Welsh Open and managed to make cut, getting knocked out by Faan in the quarters ( if you want to watch any of the games check out Sith Taker Tim on Twitch).
So I’m into full on practice mode and repping with my local sparring partners Ben Saunders and Simeon Arnold who have been very helpful in upgrade suggestions, and overall, it’s been going really well.
So on Saturday I got up early for the two-hour drive to Milton Keynes to play in the Mando’s Summer Championship run by Alan Barlow. I’ve been to one of Alan’s other events and I can highly recommend going, they are excellent.
One of my WTC team mate’s, Dave Hammond was also in attendance practicing for WTC. He’s the good looking one on the right!
I went 2&2 in the end and came 10th out of 16.
Game 1 against Ewart Williams, I won 50 – 22
Game 2 against Josh Triffitt, I lost 50 – 35
Game 3 against Marcus Wilson, I won 57 – 33
Game 4 against Joaquin Gonzalez, I lost 52 – 29
So how did I lose game 2 & 4?
Dice!!
Well, that would be an easy answer and yes Ani did blank twice in game two and once on 4 dice in game 4 BUT he also rolled triple crits twice that day out of hand! And I’m sure if I was able to go over all my attack rolls and defence rolls over the four games they would average out.
I, like most players remember the spikes.
Ani getting halved with bad greens can happen, but why was I dependant on good greens to save me? Maybe my positioning or decisions in that turn and previous turns is the actual issue.
Better Players!!
Josh and Joaquin are great players that’s true, but so are Ewart and Marcus. I’d say we are probably all at a similar level.
So, putting player skill aside for a moment, is there anything similar in Josh and Joaquin’s lists?
Yes, low initiative, high ship count.
My local meta tends to be high initiative so my suspicion is that my engage was probably not great.
My list sucks/bad objective
Well since Welsh Open I’m 8 wins 4 losses so I don’t think my list suddenly sucks ( even though last night I was looking at alternatives to the arcs lol ) and I’ve won all the scenario’s; I certainly don’t think my list has a ‘bad’ objective.
My List
I tried running Sense on Ani on Saturday and it didn’t help me win games and certainly didn’t cost me games. My normal version is
Ani – R2-A6, Extreme Maneuvers, Brilliant Evasion & Synchronized Console
But this was my list on Saturday
Let’s deep dive Game 2 and 4
Game 2 was against Josh. It was our first time playing. He was an awesome opponent who is also practicing for WTC. I really enjoyed this game.
We are playing ‘Chance’, Josh sets up Grievous on my right flank and the rest of his list on my left flank.
I don’t want Grievous behind me so I set up opposite. Ani goes to the left to keep Josh wondering when Ani will engage while I hopefully kill a ship.
Josh finished 7th and has two Magna Guard Executioner’s with Synced Lasers. A bomber with Kraken to keep tokens on his ships and Wat Tambor who I found during the game triggers re-rolls on attack. Scary list
I know Grievous and Wat will be a pain to kill with Impervium Plating and the Magna’s can also be a pain unless I get multiple shots into them.
The bomber is the softest target and is helping with tokens so he must die.
Turn 1 & 2
The fight will be in the centre; I want to get past the rock in my right corner so I can hit the centre with my list together. Wolffe is in between Oddball and Ric so that he can co-ordinate to one of them.
Ani one banks so he can either turn in next turn or stay close to the edge and come in later. It’s always a 50/50 and I don’t fancy jousting Josh’s list so I two straight with Ani. I should have hard one’d as Josh turns his squad into the centre while Grievous also declines the joust.
I get a good engage on turn two with all my ships able to pick on Wat. But he’s a tanky little guy and Impervium is a pain.
I’m happy with the engage. Ani will be in the fight next turn but now I have to deal with Josh’s list moving before me. If he blocks Wolffe that’s my co-ordinate gone. Grievous is also going to join the party. We are tied at 2 points each.
Turn 3&4
Wat gets the block on Wolffe and stop the Co-ordinate. Oddball is ok, Ric with two greens didn’t want to get blocked and then attacked by all of Josh’s squad so he 3 banked to either attack Grievous or daredevil back in on the Magna’s. Ani joins the party as does Grievous.
I’m already aware that I’ve given myself a problem with Ric as he’s heading away from the centre and Wolffe may bump Oddball next turn.
I manage to halve a Magna, but Oddball gets halved, so Josh is on 9 to my 8 and I have positioning issues. I really needed to kill the Magna; would Ric’s dice have helped? Would Ric have been halved by Grievous shot into him?
Going into turn 4 I want to get Oddball out of there. He will have a rear shot into the Magna but probably at range 2-3 with two red dice or maybe a range 1 into bomber. Ani can also turn into the bomber. If I kill it, I remove Kraken and get 9 points
Ric hard twos and daredevils to get behind Grievous and Wolffe ends up in a kill box.
Wolffe dies giving Josh 12 points and I kill the bomber, so we end the round 23 – 19 to Josh but apart from Ric all my ships are going away from the fight.
Turn 5&6
Josh doesn’t really need to worry about oddball now. Ani can get back in but Ric is in trouble and Josh sets up a nice kill box. The Magna outside Ric’s arc is the halved one. Ani and Ric try to hurt the other Magna but only do limited damage and Ric goes down in flames. Josh ends turn 5 on 36 -21 ( Ric was 11 points ) and then halves Ani in turn 6 to be up 48 – 28 as Ani halves the other Magna.
The game is over in turn 7 with Josh the deserved winner at 50 -35 after Ani kills a Magna, too little to late
Game Two conclusion
Josh was nervous throughout this match, worried about my high initiative.
He’s a great player and did nothing wrong that I could see with his engage and set up some lovely kill boxes.
Could I have won? Yes
Looking back over the pictures it’s clear to see I was tripping over my own ships from Turn Three onwards.
Ani should have hard one’d, yes Josh could have come at him BUT he’s then flying away from the centre so it’s unlikely and Ani probably slips a few arcs. He then halves or kills the bomber a turn earlier and is then behind Josh’s list.
Ric should have gone around the rocks towards Josh’s board edge chasing Grievous in Turn Two. He then had the option to chase Grievous or turn in on Josh’s squad.
The arcs are trade pieces. I prefer Wolffe behind Oddball because Oddball gets defensive re-rolls while he’s calculating so he’s tanky and with a co-ordinate from Wolffe he’s double modded so hits hard. Wolffe still has a focus and his ability so it should be 7-8 dice double modded to hurt or kill a ship.
If Oddball had gone to the left of the central rock, he doesn’t cause such an issue for Wolffe.
So, was it dice? No
Better player? Maybe, I need a re-match Josh lol but I think although Josh flew well we are similar levels.
Bad scenario? No
All that’s left really is decisions and positioning. I need to think a turn or two ahead (medium bases do not fit if you’ve parked another medium base where it wants to go lol )
Game Four
I’m not going to go into as much detail with this one, just highlight similar issues.
I met Joaquin when we went to Worlds together and he’s become a great friend. We’ve played a few games since then and I think we are fairly even results wise, but I’d say he’s a better pilot than me. He finished in 4th place, congrats buddy.
His list is horrible with three i3 StarVipers with crack shot, deadman’s switch and targeting matrix. He’s also got Joy in a Fang and a Mining Guild Tie. We are playing Ancient Knowledge which is a great scenario for low initiative.
I’m not sure I’ll get many objective points, so I need to be in a position to hurt him if he takes the Knowledge.
Turn 1&2
Joaquin sets up his squad to my right, so I put Ani there to give him something to think about. Wolffe is once again between Ric and Oddball but I’m hoping to not trip over my own ships in this game.
I’ve not included the picture of turn 1 as nothing happens. But oh wow does it happen in Turn 2.
Ani attacks Joy and halves her. I also plink damage into two other ships for little return damage. Joaquin thinks I’ve got the game; it was such a spike in damage. But then it starts to go downhill.
Turn 3, 4 & 5
Now I’ve not played against StarVipers for years, but I remembered that they do curved barrel rolls.
I just didn’t realise the positions that allows them to get into.
Wolf went one forward and ended up in a kill box and went from basically full to dead. If I’d three banked towards Joaquin I’d have slipped a couple of StarVipers and lived and maybe killed a wounded StarViper.
I was halving Vipers but by Turn 3 it was 16 – 14 to me but I was down a ship.
Sadly, I don’t have a picture of Turn 4 but I halved another ship.
Turn 6 Joaquin kill boxed Oddball ( the big medium based space in amongst all his arcs in the last picture ) and because Ani ( who was 1 health from half ) didn’t want to kill a 1 health Viper, he boosted into range of another ship and got halved himself.
Joaquin scored 19 points from ships that round plus 4 from objectives and was on 39 with Ani on 1 hull and panicked.
He won 52 -29
Game Four Conclusion
Joaquin played this brilliantly, but I went from a strong (if unlikely) opening engage to getting murdered.
Although I wasn’t tripping over my own ships as badly as Game Two, I failed to position properly.
Wolffe dying could have been avoided for another round and maybe he takes a ship with him.
Ani normally wants to be range 1 hitting you with 4 red dice, a target lock and force! He does not want to be 1 above half and at range 1 of a Deadman’s switch ship.
Mistakes were made.
Could I have won Game Four? Again, yes I think I could. Ani did blank on a four dice attack BUT I was already chasing the game.
It would be easy to blame the dice but decision making and positioning lost me the game.
Overall Conclusion
I have noticed that people who write blogs or do podcasts get better at the game.
Dylan is a much better player now than a few years ago and I really believe it’s because he looks back over his games to write the blog and learns from his mistakes.
I would normally go to an event and drive home not really knowing why I’d gone 4&0 or 0&4 lol.
I’ve found this really useful to go back over the games and I hope you’ve enjoyed it.
I’m sure you will have opinions on set up, target priority and positioning etc. Please comment.
In closing I’d highly recommend taking pictures of each turn of your game and looking back over them.
I’d also recommend asking your opponent what you could have done better. You quite often learn something you hadn’t thought about before. “I went after that ship first because…..”
Pew Pew everyone
StevieB
The conclusion…
And that’s that!
I guess my more general conclusion here would be that, Steve mentioned, reviewing your games and analysing what you’ve done and why you took the decisions you did is a very good way of improving your game. I’ve blogged on it before (a long while ago!) and it may seem fairly obvious but being proactive about looking back at games can be a really big help.
Thanks for taking the time to read this today and make sure to tag Steve in any comments!
Until next time! (Which hopefully wo’nt be as long!)
The outro…
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