Monthly Archives: September 2017

Gaming Articles

The Good, the Bad, and the UG-ly

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Prologue

The Imperial Assault Canadian Nationals was the largest turnout for an Imperial Assault event in Canada ever. Thanks in part to the “Michigan Meta Busters” from the Oxford and Lake Orion area. I will mention later about their contribution to one of the best Imperial Assault tournaments I’ve been privileged to play in. We also had players from Manitoba, South Dakota, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas, as well as many from Ontario, Canada.

Ok, before I put out my battle reports. Here is my summary of the tournament.

The Ug-ly

Many brought Ugnaught lists or variations on IG-88 Mercenary lists.
This is not surprising as these lists have been successful recently at
many major tournaments. Being that a lot of players come from all over North America (and the world I’m sure) for tournaments like these, I understand why you would want to come with what gives you the best chance to place the highest and take home the cool swag. However, I do feel the Ugnaught swarm is broken and needs an errata. There are many suggestions on the forum and I’m not going to discuss them in this article as it’s really meant to be more of a battle report. I also feel that players can field whatever they want as long as it is legal. 

The Bad

When I say bad, I mean “bad” as in badass! The “Michigan Meta Busters” brought non-meta lists and performed very well. Here’s the difference I notice with meta busters and meta players. I have way better discussions with meta busters than meta breakers. This makes sense as meta busters tend to have more love for the all-around game, trying cool shit, inventing new lists, and not wanting to be like everyone else. They feel more fulfilled. Case in point, the final was won by an Ug list player who narrowly defeated a “Michigan Meta Buster”. I think people were more excited for the guy who lost with a cool list than the guy who won by bringing essentially a can of spam. He ate his can of spam and had to pretend to enjoy it on the outside, but my guess is it tasted like shit.

The Good

The tournament was well run by the very seasoned Imperial Assault enthusiast Chris Engler. Not only did he keep things running smoothly and on time, he was patient with tile set-ups and most notably decided to distribute the top eight prizes to all attendees! So instead of getting five HK assassin cards of which you’ll never use more than two, he gave one to everyone in attendance and bonus ones to the top eight players. Chris is all about making the game more enjoyable and about building the community and it always shows. I’ve met other tournament organizers like this including Allen in Warren, Michigan. Not surprisingly it was at one of the home stores of the “Michigan Meta Busters”.  Continue reading The Good, the Bad, and the UG-ly →

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Selling my Soul between US and Canadian Nationals

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Before I recap my day and explain how and why I ran Ugnaughts, I want to thank 401 Games for running some great tournaments and taking care of the players all weekend. We did not have a lunch break for X-Wing so they coordinated ordering pizza and the Imperial Assault lead was actually bringing water to the players in the later matches. I also want to thank all my new Canadian friends for being so welcoming to those who traveled from far away. The last thing I will do before I get started is apologize for the names I forgot or if I spell them wrong, I am not a tournament note taker and hardly even check my phone the day of a tournament.

I do not consider myself a meta player, I usually try to figure out a list to beat whatever is currently considered the top meta list and run the counter. However, I have been lucky enough in life that I get to travel to some of the big tournaments and if I am going to spend time away from loved ones and spend money to get somewhere the competitor in me demands I run something with at least a decent chance of winning. I also travel for work and it just happens I split my time between two areas with lots of great players so I am constantly practicing against the top players in the world and they deserve great credit for any of my success. Continue reading Selling my Soul between US and Canadian Nationals →

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I won a thing

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Bohan Li is an expert X-Wing player and our current National Champion. Please check out his X-Wing blog over here Space Owls where this article was first published. It is filled with very insightful articles about the game.

Wow. I’m the 2017 Canadian National Champion.

A day later, and it’s still hard to believe. I’ve gone 4-2 and missed the cut in all of my previous big tournaments. On top of that, all of my playoff games except the finals match came down to the last dice roll. More on that later.

I ran Kanan Biggs with Recon Specialist and Engine Upgrade on Kanan, R4-D6 on Biggs, and a 1-point bid. I’ve been running this on and off after getting destroyed by Jeff Bizzak at Wixom last year (I was the round 3 opponent). I’m a huge fan of Engine Upgrade on Kanan because it lets me avoid some awkward situations. I used to run it with R3-A2 (stressbot) like Jeff, but I swapped to R4-D6 and a bid to counter the alpha strikes and to give initiative against Lowhhrick-Biggs lists.

The meta seemed right for Kanan Biggs. The four TLT shots are strong against Nym and Miranda and bypasses Selflessness and Draw Their Fire in Biggs lists. Contracted Scouts are a tough matchup, but fewer of them run Boba Fett. Continue reading I won a thing →

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Aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper?

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I’ve been a Star Wars fan my whole life and when FFG released X-Wing in 2012, I jumped right in. While playing X-Wing, I made some new friends and discovered an entire community of Star Wars fans more crazy about that universe than me!

In those heady early years, FFG was knocking things out of the park when it came to Star Wars. As fans of the franchise, we never had it so good. X-Wing gave us ships that were display quality models. Imperial Assault gave us the best looking minis ever produced till then. Armada ships, although not to scale, were affordable and beautiful. Everything looked great and on top of that, all these games had solid rules too.

Then there was the Roleplaying game, and though it has it’s faults, it was well produced and had great art. We also got Rebellion, or “Star Wars in a box” with quality miniatures in a tiny scale. Every time FFG did something with Star Wars, it was exciting. The only problem was we never had enough time or money for each game!

Then at Gencon 50 they announced Star Wars Legion and everything changed for me.

This was the first time I felt dirty for my love of FFG. Now granted, they always did little dick moves by not including enough dice in a game, or making you buy multiple Core Sets to actually play, or buy blisters of factions you wouldn’t play just for the cards. Sure, they did their greedy little tricks but because their games were so good, and looked so great, I think most of us just accepted it and gave them a pass. Yet with Legion, I think the dark side is too strong with FFG and the disrespect too great to their loyal customers – but I’ll get to that in a second. First, lets look at what this game has to offer. Continue reading Aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper? →

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