John’s 2024 Michigan GT Thoughts

John’s 2024 Michigan GT Breakdown

Every year I look forward to attending the Michigan GT. Every year Matthew Gergley puts on a great event. There is always great turnout, games run smoothly, and most importantly there is always solid prize support. I also cant say enough about all of the good people in the Michigan, Indy, Ohio, and anywhere else I may be forgetting for showing up every year and being fun people to compete with.

                This post is to put some of my thoughts to paper regarding what I saw, learned, and experienced at this year’s Michigan GT in each game, especially in light of all the changes to the rules that were made shortly before the tournament. My list for the tournament is below.

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999/1000

10 Activations

Anakin Skywalker 155 + 24 = 179

--Burst of Speed (10), Saber Throw (5), Into the Fray (4), Seize the Initiative (5)

Clone Captain Rex 95 + 13 = 108

--Up Close and Personal (8), Recon Intel (5)

Clone Trooper Infantry 56 + 62 = 118

--Fives (40), DP-23 Clone Trooper (22)

2x Clone Trooper Infantry 56 + 17 = 73 x 2 = 146

--Clone Medic (17)

2x Arc Troopers 58 + 22 = 80 x 2 = 160

--Clone Commander (22)

2x AT-RT 60 + 25 = 85 x 2 = 170

--AT-RT Flamethrower (15), HQ Uplink (10)

LAAT/LE Patrol Transport 100 + 18 = 118

--Armor-Piercing Shells (10), High-Energy Shells (8)

Ambush•, This Is Where the Fun Begins•, Lead from the Front••, You Underestimate My Power••, We're Not Programmed•••, General Skywalker•••, Standing Orders••••

Breakthrough, Shifting Priorities, Recover the Research

Marked Targets, Surface Scan, Bring Them to Heel

Cunning Deployment, Fortified Position, Advanced Intel

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Overall Plan for My List

1)      Get the three As (Anakin, Arcs, Atrts) into melee as quickly as possible and cause as much distraction and damage as possible. Facilitate this by utilizing scout and scouting party on Anakin.

2)      Use my Medic squads, and the Laat to provide support at range and capture objectives while the enemy is distracted.

3)      Rex should be situational and should either be used for killing or objective play depending on situation.

4)      Win by breaking the enemy as much as possible and distracting them from the objectives

Game 1

Win on Victory Points

Breakthrough and Marked Targets

My opponent this game was a droid player, they brought Dooku, Grevious, Magnaguards and a whole lot of B2 with heal bots. The big winners in this game were my AT-RTS, Anakin and my Arc Troopers. With the rule changes to all three they are more powerful than ever and were killing battle droids left and right. The only issue were the medbots that were incredibly annoying to deal with. For the AT-RT the flamethrower was very effective and I was able to use the kick to finish off Grevious. The Arc troopers were great and were able to handle Dooku. Anakin was able to handle the marked targets giving me the win. The Laat and the medics really just shot the whole game and provided suppression. After this game I was feeling pretty happy with my strategy to dive and destroy with the three As while I used the medics and the Laat to capture objectives. Lastly Rex did not do much at all and this was a theme for the rest of the tournament.

Game 2

Loss on Victory Points

                This game was similar to the first one but instead of Dooku he had Poggle and More B2s and Heals. The 7 squads of B2s was just too much for my list. I could not kill enough of them to make my strategy work and my ATRTs were shredded like paper. Even Anakin was beaten to death by super battle droids.

Game 3

Loss on Kill Points

                In this game my opponent had a Rebel Hero Hammer with Cassian, Lando, Mando, Boba Fett, and K2SO with some laser dishes and some rebel z-6s. This list was great and made me want to try it out in the future. The Flame throwers on Mando and Boba Fett were absolutely brutal and they were both obnoxious to kill. The Dishes were severely impeded by the terrain blocking off a large portion of their sight lines, but they were able to essentially block off a major alley for mt ATRTs to advance. Overall he just put more damage on me.

Game 4

Win on Kill Points

                In this game my opponent had somewhat of a mirror list. But instead of ATRTs they had Clone commandos. And instead of Rex there were more Arcs. Not really too much to say here, other than my opponent’s Umbara themed troopers won the painting competition, and deservedly so they were absolutely amazing. Other than that both of us employed similar strategies and it brought us to a stalemate, Killing his snipers were easier points for me and my early focus on torching his republic commandos proved to be the game changer.

Game 5

Loss on Victory Points

                I went up against Palpatine, the inqisitors, Range troopers and Royal Guard. The range troopers completely shredded me and Palpatine is crazy good with the new rules. The inquisitors weren’t as scary as I thought they might be. The new back up/entourage system is crazy good with Palpatine and the Royal guards. Its almost impossible to touch him until he can get to you.

Major Take Aways:

1)      Range 2 is really good now. My best performing units were my ATRTs and my Arc troopers. Having close range screener units are crutial in any list now.

2)      Super Battledroids are really good, especially with heal bots. Their wrist rockets, and range 2 guns were killers for anything that got close.

3)      Vehicles are out and troopers are in. I never had a moment in any of the games I played where I felt like I wanted a saber tank or ATST. Troopers in cover provide a great amount of heft and with the changes to armor its much more susceptible to infantry.

4)      Anakin, and Bad Batch, and Clone Commandos are really good.