Crucible QuestCon is a miniatures gaming tournament in the theme park heart of Orlando, Florida, where attendees can (and did!) take a break from minis gaming to, among other things, take a pilgrimage to Galaxy’s Edge. All hail the benevelont Mouse!
Anyway, the tournament had 43 players, with six rounds of Swiss over two days, followed by a top 8 cut on day three. We’ll take a look at the top eight finishing lists from the tournament with some brief commentary on each.
The lone Separatist representative in the top 8 was James bringing a good old-fashioned double Snail tank Experimental Droids list. This list centers around the two fully loaded Snails, which throw gobs (“only” 8 at range 4, but 11 at range 2-3 with an option of 10 with ion at range 2) of dice and are extremely durable due to the ready availability of dodge tokens (via Exemplar and Strategize) combined with their Defense Protocols. James’ list also has three repair droids that can patch things up where needed, taking wounds off the snails or bringing droid bodies back.
James has also doubled up on the new B2s and swapped out the “traditional” (and now extremely expensive) sniper BX droids for two BX units with Dioxis Sabs. Notably, however, he still has the shields instead of vibroswords on the BXs, so this is still primarily a ranged unit despite the presence of the Dioxis.
Our first (of many) Republic lists of the day is CanadianBear’s Yoda/Chewie list. This list takes the traditional Yoda/Chewie model that was a staple of legacy Legion and beefs it up with the extra points, adding some ARCs, clone infantry, and a beefy double sized Fives/DP-23 Shotgun squad, which I imagine is terrifying on Yoda’s There is No Try turn when it benefits from Relentless. Another neat trick this list can do is to give Delta Squad a standby with guidance, which cannot be shot off due to its infinite (-) courage value. AMG managed to stifle most of Yoda’s standby shenanigans over the years but not that one!
The first (again, of many) Anakin lists in this top 8 is of the 501st Anakin/Rex variety. Jonathan opted for just two clone corps while taking four of the Clone Commander ARCs (which has quickly become the most popular template for ARCs) and two Clone Commandos, one of which is Delta Squad. Due to how this list is constructed, every single unit can have either Scout, Infiltrate, or Prepared Positions, allowing Jonathan to get everything right on top of those POIs quickly.
Travis brings another Anakin/Rex 501st list. The primary difference between this one and Jonathan’s above is that Travis has taken a normal commando instead of Delta and trimmed some things elsewhere to fit Fives in a DP-23 shotgun squad. Travis is really loading up on the Range 2 death-dealing in this list between all the ARCs and the double clone infantry shotguns.
Another 501st list begins our look at the top 4. Tyler excludes Rex in favor of another Clone Infantry and Force Push on Anakin, as well as some medics. The “is Force Push still required?” debate is an interesting one, and Tyler seems to have chosen his side. Personally I think it’s hard to go wrong on Anakin generally with just about anything you take, but Force Push certainly gives you the edge in the Anakin mirror and generally just makes your engagements easier to manage, though you do have to basically cut an entire unit just to take it.
Wait is that… 21 units?!? Is this what Rebels have to do in order to field a competitive list? I certainly hope not, because I don’t own that many vets, but Mowgly is a mad scientist who, apparently, does own that many vets. Funnily enough, you too can get there with the surprisingly economical strategy of buying one Echo Base box and two Vet boxes…not bad honestly!
This list really leans into the fact that the new cover rules don’t care about building up individual dice pools anymore to clear a threshold, and it’s more just about how much raw stuff you can take across your entire army. Mowgly says…. “I bet you can’t kill 21 units and I’m just going to score the objectives and throw efficient four black dice pools at you repeatedly.” It’s worth mentioning that Mowgly played at a good pace and purposefully during the tournament to make sure his strategy was NOT to just eat up the clock while moving units around and winning on time before hitting 12 VP’s. Though a mad lad, he was an honorably mad lad.
It IS worth noting that one player, Kameron B, elected to go to Disney World instead of playing in the Top 8, which he did qualify for with his Han/Ahsoka/Mando Resistance list which went 5-1 in Swiss. The Mouse abides.
Don’t call it a Republic list, it’s not Clones, it’s Wookiees! I was wondering how long it would take for us to see Wookiees succeed in Legion 2.6, and it’s no surprise that Richard is the first to make it happen. Richard has been playing Wookiees for ages now, and now those furballs get to just join in on the mosh pit that is centrally contested POIs instead of having to worry about pesky things like chasing down boxes. Richard hung in there to defeat Tyler in a very well-executed comeback in the Top 4 match, you can watch the stream done by the one and only Endless of Yavin Base right here, he had streams for each of the 9 rounds played in this marathon tournament so there’s some really great material for those that are still getting their feet wet in Legion 2.6!
This list has 110 wounds by the way. If they stood in the open against three AT-ST’s who scored 9 hits with every shot in every round and failed every save they’d still have a unit left in the final round. There’s beef, and then there’s bœuf.
Another tournament victory for Austin to burnish his undoubtedly overloaded mantlepiece with another trophy. Austin brings another Anakin 501st list here, but he opted for four sniper strike teams instead of Clone Infantry (he only took the minimum one). The full-sized ARCs still have the hyper-efficient Clone Commander setup instead of the DC-15x, so this isn’t quite “oops all snipers” which is a thing that 501st can do. Four snipers are still a lot, though, especially since the conventional wisdom has been that they are too costly to be effective enough to bring into a list.
Snipers are still pretty good into Clone mirrors though (as one of the things that can still reliably kill Commandos). Austin also answered the question “can anything actually kill 21 units?!?” in the semifinals when he faced the 21 acti Rebel list above, where he took out 18 of the 21. Apparently, all it takes is having some of the most efficient attack dice in the game but it can be done!
Anyway, I won’t pontificate too much on Austin’s experience or his list, because he’s working on his own article that should be published shortly that will go into his Crucible experience in much more detail.
For the Republic!
Copyright © 2024 The Fifth Trooper. All Rights Reserved.
