The Road to Regionals: Östersund (Sweden)

 Star Destroyer over Jedha Östersund

The only Regional this year within a reasonable driving distance for me is in Östersund, Sweden. It's 3 1/2 - 4 hours away by car. A bit far, but if we car pool it's OK. Maybe we'll sleep over one night, engage in some social activities (read: dink beer the night before, be hungover at the tourney).

I still have a month to get ready - the tourney was supposed to be in February, but stuff... so it got moved to 24 March. That's quite OK with me - gives me more time to plot and playtest wave 7! 

Oh, and I'm NOT using my Store Champ bye. I'm not driving that far to sit around watching other people play! Got to say I find the whole concept of byes... totally stupid. Sure, I can get paired with a really strong player round 1, but I'd rather that happen than sit om my ass. Do as you please with your byes, but I've never used one, and I never will.

Anyway. 

What to play, what to play...

I have narrowed the field down a bit, but not that much... I haven't even settled on a faction!

EMPIRE

I could take my Nordics Sloane list of course. It's a strong list, even in wave 7, and I know it very well. I have some wave 7 ideas that could make it even stronger. On the other hand I'm bored with this list, and wave 7 has some stuff that can help counter it. Having Raddus suddenly dump a big ship in the face of my carefully placed ISD? Not fun. Or just some nasty dual ISD stomping me too fast to compensate? Also no fun. But mostly... I think I need to move on. I already won what I could with ISD+4, so no I feel the need to evolve.

Or maybe my Vassal World Cup Vader list can be used? It's certainly effective, but it's not fully wave 7, just quasi wave 6/7. I could probably tweak it some and make it even more effective. On the other hand it might water down the concept. Plus it's a very unforgiving list to play, so unless I want to balance on the edge all the time it's not ideal for this sort of IRL tourney. Vassal, sure, IRL not so much. I see some data from Regionals coming in where dual ISDs are apparently plenty and doing quite well for themselves. 

I have a couple of other Imperial ideas as well. If I have time I will playtest the more promising ones... unless I defect and go over to the other side...

REBEL

But the more I think about it, the more I lean towards Rebels. Haven't really done much Rebel since wave 2 or so. A little bit here, a little bit there, but all my main builds have been Imperial. I've been wanting to get back to the Light Side, and wave 7 seems as good a time as any.

With Rebels there are 3 commanders that are appealing to me: Sato, Raddus, and Ackbar.

Dodonna also isn't entirely off the table, but he's... just a bit bland is all. So probably just leave him out of the equation, rather than try to build aroudn something I don't really wanna play.

All of those admirals can be made to work with the MC75. That seems perfect - another shiny wave 7 toy!

I'm thinking Ackbar gets the Armored Cruiser, but Raddus and Sato would need to ride the Ordnance Cruiser.

A classic Acbkar conga line, but led by a Aspiration titled MC75 Armored Cruiser could be very potent. Maybe Caitken & Shollan on an Assault Frigate? Or on the MC75 itself. Need to test this out. I has potential, I think.

Raddus would be using a MC75, possibly bidding for 1st and packing Profundity, or going for 2nd player with Aspiration. Both choices have their set of strengths and weaknesses. Going 2nd has more room for other combat ships, but how fun isn't Profundity?

And Sato... can I finally get him to work? MC75 Armored Cruiser, rocking Wide-Area Barrage maybe. But what other ships and squadrons? Hammerheads? Very vague ATM.

You want a piece of me? Come and get it...

Ok, that's how far I've come. Anyone have any tips or suggestions: just hit the comment section!