Written by: Matt Evans
There was a 25 person event at the Michigan GT in Lansing Ohio a few weekends ago (Not Indianapolis, I know). This event was a 2 day 5 round event and we are going to take a look at the top 8 players and their teams. But first here is a breakdown of factions that we present at the event:
Rebel - 5 Players
Empire - 10 Players
Separatist - 3 Players
Republic - 3 Players
Shadow Collective - 4 Players
There was a LARGE showing of empire but that shouldn't surprise a whole lot of people. A slightly lower showing for Clones and CIS with Rebels and Shadow Collective being just above them. Notably the only faction missing from the top 8 is GAR, this trend shouldn't surprise most people but let's also acknowledge that there were only 3 players out of 25 playing Clones. So let's take a look at the top 8:
Top 8
8th Place
Player - Mark Ellsworth
Army - Need For Speed: Full Luke
This is a bit of an unorthodox rebel list. To begin with, it's only 8 activations. It boast three units that all want order control and man is it fast. Luke has burst of speed to run leap and hop into the midst of its opponents army. T47's are still some of the fastest things on a legion table. Additionally the mark 2 with detachments can start outside its deployment zone to position for some early fire support shots.
The lack of Force Push is unusual but with disengage it becomes less of an issue for Luke Skywalker. Great job to Mark for getting this awesome list into the top 8.
7th Place
Player - Jeremy Tucker
Army - Return of the Spiders
Kalani Spiders is back after a small hiatus. The double spider droids have been hiding from the dodge spam for some time. This list takes the classic double ion spiders with Kalani and adds a little flavor in the color Maul. Jeremy was still able to make it up to 10 activations with some cheap activations like probe droids and of course B1 battle Droids.
This is a tough list with great melee, above average range 4 shooting and access to impact and ion. The bid is a little small but Maul plays zoning for objectives better than most being able to tap an enemy vaporator, dive into a fray (pun intended) on intercept, grab a middle box or hunt down a hostage carrier.
6th Place
Player - Matt Alward
Army - The Empire Strike Scarif
This is a classic Empire gunline with a Boba Fett as the cherry on top. Burst of speed on Vader means you have two options for speed 3 chasers. Lots of range and great ability to punch through cover with the critical guns and sharpshooter snipers.
I am curious about what command cards Matt brought as Shoretroopers are a bit order hungry and both Darth Vader and Boba Fett's cards are mostly single orders.
5th Place
Player - Robert Ferraiuolo
Army - Sith Bus Stop
The Maul Bus makes another appearance after being a popular choice at Gen Con. Maul doesn't have the option to infiltrate with this though which is surprising but not necessarily a bad thing. Black Sun jump out of the bus with 2 aims and targeting scopes means it can one-shot nearly any unit it wants too. Maul can burst of speed to make up for that lack of infiltrate to dive into enemy lines and with cunning from the darksaber he can really win a lot of duels.
4th Place
Player - Kyle Eggert
Army - The OG Special
The OG Special, everything in this list minus the A-A5 and a few upgrades can be found in Wave 1 Rebels releases. However don't let this don't let that deceive you, this is a mean hitting list with lots of tricks that made its way into the top 4. AT-RT's and bus provide great ways to block and give more cover for white saves.
Rotaries on the AT-RT's and the Z-6 provide some dice gambling to throw big dice pools to punch through dodge spam and b1 bodies. Fleets jumping out of the bus do some serious damage and that scatter gun ensures red saves still take wounds.
Han and Sabine are also a lot for most lists to deal with. Change of Plans and Explosions! are enough to mess up even the most veteran of players when played correctly.
3rd Place
Player - J. Muth
Army - A Quick Death
To no one's surprise, Blizzard force made it into the top 4. This team has A LOT of firepower with the AT-ST and four speeder bikes. If you have a white saving army this team will get you to put them back in their foam case very quickly. It also has an 11 point bid to manage for the lack of thumb objective holders. The amount of suppression this team can put out is disgustingly high. Overall a very scary mechanical menace team.
2nd Place
Player - Jake Parker
Army - The Tatooine Empire
At first glance I'm a little curious about Jake's order control on the dewback but apparently this wasn't an issue that stopped him from getting to second place. The Dewbacks with comms jammers are serious threats and he has a great amount of ranged firepower with the T-21 storms and snipers as well.
Boba Fett comes in as the center piece of this list bringing all three of his command cards (nice to see the flame thrower in the wild again). Overall this is a flexible list that boast a lot of traditional Empire gunline strategies.
1st Place
Player - Paul Radocy
Army - Flyboys
So this list is pretty interesting. He has not 1 but 3 potential units to put into the landspeeder and more options to go into the bus. This Luke Skywalker delivery service team makes a lot of gunline teams tremble. Not a lot of things can slow this list down. Get Luke into the A-A5 and delivers him as fast as possible. Fleets are also a nice addition to this team to grab boxes or take some standbys for Luke to toss people into an aimed fleet standby shot.
Meanwhile Han Solo comes up in the Landspeeder. This allows Han to get some range 2 shots easily with an aim and the speeder can shoot 4 black 4 white and use the Unstable R5 if needed to double tap into a unit. Threat saturation for Rebels are on full display here. Also let's not forget the pressure of secret mission on top of all this. Congratulations to Paul on his trek up to first place.
That's all of the breakdown from the Michigan GT. Thanks for reading, and may the Force be with you!
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