Adepticon 2024 marks the first year of Star Wars Shatterpoint, and with a new game come new tournaments and events. Throughout the four days, there were events like Gonk racing, an extended learn-to-play area, a frenemies tournament, Best Buds, Themed league play, and two premier showdowns: a team premier showdown and a singles premier showdown tournament.
The team premier showdown was expected to be a little more casual as many players used it to tune up and practice for the singles tournament the next day. One of our Goonhammer leads, Raf Cordero, and I participated in the Shatterpoint Team Premier Showdown. We had both been playing casually since the game’s launch and wanted to dip our toes into the community.
This was the first AMG Shatterpoint event, and we did not know what to anticipate, but we wanted to bring the fun. We prepped months in advance, coming up with our team name, building the squad around it, and discussing the game plan. We practiced far less than we had planned and prepped. Our goal was to bring positive vibes and energy.
Two Months Prior
We started our preparation by discussing what list we were going to run. There was a bit of back-and-forth on whether we wanted to be competitive or ‘play vibes.’ I am not competitive, so I chose vibes, and Raf agreed. We began discussing amusing plays and decided to run ‘all clones.’
Early in the release of Shatterpoint, our gaming group cohort Matt Miner built a list and named it ‘Oops All Droids.’ This began to absolutely wreck our local meta, with Grievous/Dooku running all droids and taking out all the other available builds at the time. We played off that name and went with ‘Oops all clones.’ I began working on a shirt design, and we later added headdresses.
Raf and I had painted a good amount of Shatterpoint due to our ‘How to Paint’ articles (1,2,3) but had yet to paint a few units, including Plo and Mace, that had just come out within the months prior to the tournament. We had our work cut out for us. We were able to complete them within the week of Adepticon.
Morning of Tournament
Shirts on, headdresses attached, painted miniatures in bags—we were ready for the tournament! We arrived on time and waited as everything was getting sorted. Since this was the first tournament, a bit of housekeeping was involved with using Longshanks and getting every user set up and in the system properly. All team captains stood in line and were accounted for, and we got our table placements.
We were named ‘Team Goonhammer’ for obvious reasons, but I also did not want to tip our hands on our list build, whether competitive or not. With a bottle of Malort and shot glasses in hand, we walked to our first table.
The rules of the tournament allow you to bring four strike squads, two assigned to each team member. You cannot use a combo more than once, so there will be times when the team synergy may not be the best. We brought Plo/Mace/Ani/Obi for our ‘Oops all Clones’ list. We included young Ashoka on the Plo list and the rest of the clones—the most we could run now in the game.
Round One
Of all the teams in the galaxy, Team Goonhammer gets to meet Team Hello There. Jesse Eakin and Aman Khusro from the Hello There podcast came to play, dressed as their representative force alliance. We took a shot to kick the tournament off (remember it’s nearly 9 a.m.) and began our first battle.
We ran Obi/Ani vs. Vader/Dooku; as you would imagine, we got demolished. Hello There took the first two struggles almost uncontested with the Sabotage Showdown missions and wounded three of our miniatures. In the second struggle, the center point became active, and they posted Jango on the top of the middle tower. We could not get him down, and we knew it was over. It was a learning lesson, and they were generous with tips and tricks moving forward with the game.
Despite the loss, it was a wonderful first-round experience. Jesse and Aman are amazing people and a pleasure to play with. We hoped this was going to be the theme for the day. Win or lose, we just wanted to have fun and make sure everyone we were playing against was also.
Round Two
Kicking off round two with a shot of Malort, we meet our opponents, The Dark Side of Endor. Patrick and his long-time friend Mike hailed from Colorado and Wisconsin. Mike had played in a 40k tournament the day prior and dropped from the top 16 to play with his buddy in the Shatterpoint teams tournament.
We ran Plo/Obi vs. their Endor Leia/Vader 2. This was the first time we experienced either of these two strike team builds and got to see what they were made of. Vader made for a pesky opponent, getting fully across the board to our southwest active objective point. He continued his movement since he got shuffled back into the activation deck as long as he didn’t wound or knock an enemy down. This may have been their misstep. We concentrated on the opposite side of the map, pushing the Ewoks and Leia back to nearly the edge of their starting zone.
While they were able to wound three of our characters, the first struggle lasted a long time. After what seemed like a few hours, we finally took it. We were able to get into position during the first struggle and take the second struggle rather quickly, wounding two of their minis. Since the day was a marathon, we got tired after about four hours of gaming/standing. Luckily for all of us, it was time for lunch.
We set our teams to become judged for the painting contest/displays and broke for lunch. Raf and I took part in the hotel lobby lunch, snarfing down some fried rice and a ton of water and staring off into the horizon, trying to get some energy back. We still had more time on our way back and decided to drop by the show floor. We each picked up a pair of custom dice from Baron of Dice. Raf picked up some Ashoka dice, while I wanted to get us some good luck moving forward with some purple Mace Windu dice. The crit icons on my set match my tattoo, and I absolutely love them.
Round Three
Coming back from lunch fresh and renewed, we met Wes Paulsen and Chris Mcleroy on Team Bots and Bros. Both coming from Washington, we regaled them in Chicago’s finest Malort and started our match. They ran Plo/Dooku vs. our team of Mace/Plo. This was our first time running Mace and Plo, let alone together, so we were a bit worried, but after the first few moves and a bit of planning, we saw the potential.
The team premiere tournament format required each player to bring two squads and each game they could not repeat their strike team pairing. This would create a unique combo for all four matches throughout the day. This lead to some odd combinations. Due to some confusion while writing out team lists our opponents wrote their lists incorrectly and were stuck with minimal synergy with their Dooku and Plo team. We suffered through the same first tournament growing pains but luckily our teams still shared keywords. A lesson learned for next year.
We took the game with two hard-fought struggles, but Mace carried the team with extra movement and his Shatterpoint ability, wounding two of their minis while they wounded one of ours. We finished a bit quicker than the rest of the matches and had some time to rest and recoup before our final game. At this point, we are doing better than I suspected us to do and were jazzed with our placing (two wins/one loss) so far.
Round Four
We entered our last match against Matt Cerino (Daimyo Matt) and Matthew Bucher. They had brought their whole tournament team on a giant 3D-printed sand skiff (see final photos with medals). As the giant piece plunged to the table, we knew we were going to have a good time. They both were dressed in Hawaiian shirts with a travel theme.
This was our longest game all day. We brought Mace/Ani to their Maul/Talzin strike teams. They took the first struggle, we took the second, and they were in a better position with Mother Talzin to take that fourth struggle. They wounded four of our minis to their three wounded. The tipping point is Mother Talzin’s extra movement when someone becomes wounded.
Final Results
While we finished on time, there was a bit of contention on the table next to us regarding Hello There vs. Dark Side Divas. They were both laying it all on the table for first place. It ends with a tiebreaker, which is then finished in a tie. First and second place received fewer points than the 3rd place team in the final round. Pushing team Wheaties into first place with 4 wins (12 wounds) and setting Dark Side Divas in second with 3 wins, a tie, and 18 wounds, putting Hello There in third with 3 wins, a tie, and 13 wounds.
While the awards were being handed out, the judges announced their pride in the first-ever team tournament turnout and spirit. Many teams had a theme and dressed up, and overall, everyone we met was an absolute delight. Then, the awards were presented.
Raf and I were generously chosen to be the team with the Best Spirit. While we had not placed in the top half of the tournament, our outfits and overall sportsmanship set a tone for our matches and, hopefully, the tone for years to come. We are already planning our team for next year and how we will take at least a team spirit award again! We want to thank all the judges who helped make this event run smoothly. Everyone we interacted with during the tournament had stellar sportsmanship, and all came to have fun. I would encourage everyone to join in their community and get playing!
*winner photos courtesy of Chris Mehrstedt
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