Entry into Shatterpoint

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…. Well a couple of weekends ago at a semi-local game store I played my first tournament of Star Wars Shatterpoint. I had a good time, caught up with old friends, and learnt a lot, and figured that as my first foray into the wider tournament scene for Shatterpoint, it was deserving of a blog article.

I’d managed to get about four games in beforehand to learn the game. The other local player, Dave, was nice enough to run an intro game with me, and then we both started smashing out games to practice for this event. After every game I was pumped! I found myself eagerly awaiting the next game, and it was definitely scratching my gaming itch. I was finding it was a good combination of planning and preparation, but with the amount of randomization that the order deck introduced, made the reactive gameplay incredibly exciting. Combined with the amazingly varied and interesting attack and defence dice system, it was a game that kept me engaged from the start right up until the end.

I only had the core set painted, so I decided to go Mandalorian heavy for my first event. My strikeforce was;

Asajj Ventress with Bo-Katan Kryze, and Mandalorian Super Commandos

Lord Maul with Gar Saxon, and Clan Kryze Mandalorians

It mainly worked around the Mandalorians being able to constantly buff each other, whilst having plenty of mobility with jumps, whilst Asajj and Maul were the beatsticks, ready to wade in and bring the smackdown.

Game 1: Hunters and Spies

My first game was against Rod who had Cad Bane, with Jango Fett, and Bounty Hunters, and Darth Vader (Emperor’s Servant), with Boushh, and Lando and R2D2. I won the roll and chose Shifting Priorities, as I didn’t realise you were meant to include that in your list, so that’s what I defaulted too. The map was covered in low buildings, with a large open area in the centre.

At the start, I moved up some Super Commandos to hold one side, whilst Vader moved over to counter them. Unfortunately he never really got to grips with them, as Asajj consistently used Force Push to keep him away and stop him from properly bringing his power to bear. The other side saw Maul move up to engage the plethora of Bounty Hunters, whilst Gar Saxon and the Clan Kryze provided some fire support. After a few turns, Asajj had managed to wound Vader, whilst Maul was clearing house on the other side, and combined I won the first struggle. 

The next struggle saw much of the same, with both of us more focused on dealing damage, whilst we fought over the centre point. I managed to wound the Bounty Hunters a second time, but their final act was to steal a point off me, allowing Rod to take out the second struggle. 

With the third struggle going horizontal down the middle, it was an all in brawl, before Asajj could manage a sneaky steal, and then the Mandalorian gave me enough bodies to take out the game.

This game was incredibly swingy with some absolutely amazing dice for me early, and combined with some horrible dice from Rod, really gave me the advantage. Rod played really well to claw back the second struggle, but after wounding several of his characters early, it meant he was behind from the start. Rod made a couple of big plays (with both Bane and Jango) and the dice rewarded him with good rolls, but it wasn’t enough to out-do the ridiculous dice I had early.

Game 2: The Husband and Wife

My second game was against Sheldon who had the husband and wife combo of Anakin and Amidala and their respective boxes. Sheldon won the roll and we played Shifting Priorities again, and this map had lots of tall buildings, with some trees and crates scattered around.

Sheldon played really aggressively early, getting clones and handmaidens onto the centre objectives, with his primaries not far behind. I had more difficulty getting my support unit up, and ended up having both Maul and Asajj in the centre. This saw Anakin come in and with some big swings taking Maul low, Sheldon was able to take out the first struggle. 

I then went for some big plays, with Maul diving deep into Sheldon’s backline to steal a point, and with some other good rolls, I managed to just snag struggle two, with a stack of Mandalorians jumping and moving to capture a point.

Unfortunately I was very overextended at this point, and Sheldon got three momentum on his first turn of struggle three, and confidently took it out, and secured the game.

I was pretty happy with how I played in this game, although I needed to get to the middle quite a bit faster. I consistently had horrible rolls to wound the handmaidens, so every time I was attacked their coordinated fire was making it difficult for me to properly push any damage through. Some beautiful positioning in the late game from Sheldon really caused me headaches, but with him pulling off such a big swing early I was confident I wasn’t going to make it. Still a great game, I haven’t played against Sheldon in years, back when we were both playing Warmachine, so it was still good fun.

Game 3: The Witches and The Count

The final game of the day was against Shane who brought Count Dooku and Mother Talzin along with their respective boxes. I won the roll and we played Shifting Priorities again, and this map was the same table as my first round, so some low buildings with a central open area.

Both of us played very aggressively early, with the Super Commandos and the Night Sisters both being thrown forward to brawl it out in the centre, whilst Savage and Maul faced off on one flank. The first struggle was over fairly quickly, with Maul and Gar Saxon failing to hold one flank, whilst Bo Katan and the rest of the Mandalorians cleared off the Night Sisters to hold the other, but it wasn’t enough.

The second struggle was an absolute bloodbath. Both of us commited everything, with the Magna Guard trying to dislodge Maul’s hold on the objective, whilst Jango did an amazing play move aross the entire board and yanked Asajj off an objective. But it wasn’t without casualties, with Mother Talzin, Savage, Clan Kryze, Bo-Katan, and the Magna Guard all being betean up and wounded. This struggle was incredibly close with both of us getting to one or two momentum until I managed to claim it.

The third struggle was brutally fast, as Shane hit back with a vengeance. We were already into mission critical, and with a few strategic woundings, Shane claimed it very quickly. His coup-de-grace was an out of activation attack with Mother Talzin, to wound Maul and stop me scoring the priority objectives, then activating her to claim another one and take it out.

Absloutely amazing game with both of us battling it out in the centre. I definitely need to get better at timing my actions, as if I’d left a couple of characters on the one or two health, I might swung it back with some critical momentum. Shane was a gentleman of an opponent, so I wasn’t that unhappy with the end result.

Overall Thoughts

Despite being caught out a few times with the exact rules interactions, which is to be expected at your first event, I was pumped. All three games could easily have gone the other way, but I had an absolute blast. Shatterpoint is definitely scratching my itch for the intense gameplay, and I’m keen to play in the next event I can make it too.

Until Next Time,

Henry