Alpha's Rally Point Qualifier Win--May 11, Lenexa, KS, Pt. 1

(This post was originally created for the Legion Forums.)

Yesterday (May 11th) I had the great opportunity to play in my first Rally Point Qualifier tournament, and my second Legion tournament, at Collector's Cache in Lenexa, KS.  It was a bit of a drive from Manhattan, KS, (about two hours) but was the first one of the year within a reasonable range.  Ultimately, I ended up going 3/0, and taking first place in the tournament.

Part I, Pre-Game

I will admit to being a bit of a contrarian, and often try to go my own way in list building.  I can't really stand the current sniper meta, and while I wish they were better, I love E-Webs.  But, at the same time, I also know that sometimes, the meta is there for a reason.  As such, my list was a compromise between the existing meta and my playstyle:

800 Pts

Imperial Officer 50
Improvised Orders,
Boba Fett 140
Hunter, Recon Intel, Emergency Stims,
Stormtroopers 44
DLT-19 Stormtrooper, Imperial Officer Upgrade,
Stormtroopers 44
DLT-19 Stormtrooper, Stormtrooper,
Stormtroopers 44
DLT-19 Stormtrooper, Stormtrooper,
Stormtroopers 44
DLT-19 Stormtrooper, Stormtrooper,
Stormtroopers 44
DLT-19 Stormtrooper, Stormtrooper,
Scout Troopers (Strike Team) 16
DLT-19x Sniper, Hunter,
E-Web Heavy Blaster Team 55
Barrage Generator,
E-Web Heavy Blaster Team 55
Barrage Generator,

Commands:
Ambush, Covert Observation, Push, ZX Flame Projector, Coordinated Fire, Z-6 Jetpack Rocket, Standing Orders

Up until I was at the store, I was also debating running a different list with Deathtroopers instead of Boba and the Snipers, but after seeing the initial tables, realized snipers were going to be brutal.  Upon arrival, the store had several tables out, but all of them were on felt rather than mats, and were very, very sparse on terrain.  They realized the problem with this, and were working on improving things before we had arrived.  Since I brought a great deal of my terrain, I helped another player from Manhattan set up a couple of tables, and in the end, things were much improved. (though a few tables were still very, very light on cover/terrain in my opinion.  

People who follow my terrain threads on the FFG forums will likely recognize that the desert town mat above was completely made up of my terrain, and I contributed some terrain to the second to the last mat above on my brand new Fifth Trooper Podcast "Mud planet" mat.  I'd say the forest and lava maps were by far the biggest offenders on the absence of terrain.  I never ended up playing on the lava mat, but several people who came over from Manhattan who did said it was pretty ridiculous when you faced certain units.  (the Occupier being the biggest offender) because they had range for days, and there was nowhere near enough terrain to try and outflank.  I did play on the forest map, and while as bad, properly situated snipers could pretty much hit anywhere on the map, unless a tree just happened to be at the right angle. The desert junkyard was almost as bad about this, but fortunately, the AT-AT wreck and the shield generator provided a little bit of cover/LOS blocker for a fair number of units.

Tournament wise, we had a pretty fair turnout with 13 players.  Not X-Wing size, of course, but bigger than other Legion or Armada tournaments I've been to.  The tournament was divided into three rounds of swiss, with the top two being matched for a final game. (this didn't happen, but I will explain later)

To be continued in part two