Cherokee Open Top Eight

Today we’re going to take a quick look at the top 8 lists of the Cherokee Open held over the last weekend.

Fifth-Eighth, (No Particular Order)

David Jones brought a CIS to the Cherokee Open list that utilized some great tools. Bringing the generic Super Tactical Droid gives access to Direct, Strategize and Override. The Direct can be used on the tank to give it an order and then pass it along the entire B1 chain. The only thing that is probably ‘missing’ from this list is reliable ways to get everything an order on any command card. This shortfall will be smoothed over with tons of firepower. Six corp units with heavy weapons plus three big turrets. Personally I’d really like to see a comms relay on the Super Tac and also probably an HQ Uplink on a B1.

Austin Miller

Another CIS list at Cherokee that just crams a bunch of good things into a list. Austin Miller manages to have three really important activations. Dooku, Magnaguards and an AAT. These three activations are helped along by six B1s that will always have their tokens out of the bag thanks to HQ Uplink and Coordinate. These B1s also bring a PK-Series Worker Droid and a Medical Droid to keep the list topped up on health, or to strip off an Ion token.

The one command card that may prove troublesome for the list is Roger Roger. There is no way to get Dooku and the AAT an order, so you don’t quite have perfect order control. Three dodges probably isn’t worth giving up order control, but it may be worth it in very specific circumstances.

This list also features a Dooku with Burst of Speed which will get the old man into your lines shockingly quickly. Combined with Reflexes, Vigilance, Guardian and a Medical Droid Dooku will also be hard to take down.

Matt Slate

Another Dooku List! Dooku had a good time in Cherokee apparently.

Matt Slate brought this particular list. This list has a much leaner Dooku only bring Push and Reflexes. Also bringing two lean Magnaguards only equipped with a rocket launcher, and one with Protector. Dooku will be a touch less threatening this lean, but should be pretty well shielded with the combined Guardian of two Magnaguards. This list also brings three DSDs. These ones are equipped with Engagement Protocols and the Laser Cannon. This version of the DSD is probably the most ‘simple’. The DSDs are probably rarely getting orders but don’t care so much as they’ll just move attack or attack and then something else.

This list certainly isn’t my style, but it still throws quite a bit at you and forces you to answer to it.

Brian Schmoyer

Huzzah! Finally a different faction at Cherokee. This rebel list run by Brian Schmoyer is a bit of a grab bag, throwing a fair bit of different good units into the list. I’m glad Lando is seeing some competitive play.

Lando or Han probably catch a ride on the Speeder for some sweet drive-by action. Between Han and Lando you can pick up up to six models a turn regardless of their save. Picking up three very reliably.

This list also has Wookiees in it to provide some beef and melee threat. Personally I’d like to see tenacity on the Wooks, but to each their own, duelist is good.

This list also has two Rebel Vet units which are probably mostly brought to get access to the MkIIs and their Fire Support keyword. Brian did do something interesting in that he put an extra trooper into the vet squads which makes them a bit beefier. It also makes their dice pool five black, surge/hit. This is decent and can add some added fire against the enemy. The Recon Intels on the vets also help to get the MkIIs in a better position.

Third and Fourth, (No Particular Order)

Brian Squidgy Sloan brought a Yoda to Cherokee. A Yoda and a bunch of Wookiees.

Yoda plus Chewie is a really good combo. Chewie is both a good unit himself but he also makes running Yoda a little less risky as if Yoda gets caught out Chewbacca can save him a bunch of hurt. Chewie’s 2-pip is also incredible and I consider it a ‘break glass’ option if/when Yoda gets in trouble. Turns out nine wounds surge/defense is really good. The 2-pip also allows some really janky plays.

The list also has a backbone of three beefy wookiee units, two melee and one shooty. The shooty wook also has Overwatch to utilize shared or guidance’d standbys.

Micheal Henry brought the last non-CIS list we will look at from Cherokee. This Imperial list is lead by a naked imperial officer with Op Vader.

This list is definitely in the ‘melee skew’ camp. Four melee units and also a force user should insure a favourable matchup against many lists, especially if the terrain suits melee lists. The IRG also have the added benefit of being able to Guardian anything else, helping to spread the damage around. This list also makes plenty of use of Surge tokens both through Darkness Descends and Into the Fray to make all the units even more beefy. This list is just a lot of stuff charging at you.

Second Place

Preston Bitzer, known as Zodiack on The Legion Discord. Preston brought Cad Bane to Cherokee. Cad Bane is a character that hasn’t been seeing much competitive play. Cad has the problem of being a decent unit in a faction full of good units. Zodiack is fully on the Cad train and rode it all the way to second place at the Cherokee Open.

The rest of the list is a fairly typical CIS list. Plenty of ways to hand orders around and plenty of ways to damage the enemy. Take a look at the four E-5S heavy weapons. That means that this list has seven units that can fire at range four. You do not want to try to fight this enemy at range four, or really range three as well. The magnas and Cad also make range one and two not fun. Basically it’s a tough list to play against.

Winner

Richard Lavery took home first place from the Cherokee Open, Congratulations!

Richard managed to best all the others with a combo of units that are in vogue right now, and at least one that has waned in popularity, STAPs.

STAPs are certainly a good unit, very mobile, fairly resilient thanks to Agile 1. The STAPs are also hard to degrade. Even one STAP model still has Critical 1 so is still reliably forcing saves.

The backbone of this list is the other seven activations. Kraken doing Kraken things and being incredibly powerful. Four B1 units to do objectives and throw a lot of dice. Two of the B1s have rocket launchers which provide decent anti armor tech. The last two units are magnas armed with whips. The whips are by far the lesser taken of the two heavy weapon options. The whips though are incredibly powerful in melee and can lock units down with immobilize tokens.

This list overall feels like a ‘hammer and anvil’ list. The main body of the army acts as the anvil holding the enemy in place, while the STAPs come in hard to strike where they want at what they want. This tactic is as old as warfare and is highly effective. The key is to make sure the enemy is pinned and that the enemy can’t counter your hammer.

Conclusion

The Cherokee Open top tables were dominated by CIS, 5/8 top lists were CIS. Hopefully in the tournaments to come other factions make a comeback and this skewed of a result is an anomaly. CIS though is very powerful and any player wanting to compete at top tables right now needs to make sure they have a plan for CIS.