A Final Full Of Bounties!

Returning for its fourth year, Star Wars Outer Rim continued to draw adventurous souls looking for fame and glory across the galaxy. Attendance at 34 entrants fell in between last year’s 43 and year 2’s 25 entrants. We had a nice uptick in new players in the third Heat on Monday night as well as about 10 people at the demo. As in prior years, the format involved removing four leaders found to be imbalanced (Dr. Aphra, Jyn Erso, Han Solo, Lando Calrissian) and having players randomly pick 2 leaders and choose 1, in turn order before play began.

The preliminary 3 Heats saw a familiar blend of luck, both good and bad with entertaining occurrences. WBC rookie Corey Stedwell overcame a last place finish in the first Heat and rebounded with a win in his next Heat, paving the way for his run into the Final. Bart Pisarik as IG88 earned 3 Fame in one turn as he beat Alfred Schnabels Boba Fett whose failed attempt to deliver a bounty on the same turn would have given him the win. However, Jacob Hebner prevailed on another Heat to punch his ticket to the Semifinal for the third year. Michael Cochran passed an unusually high number of skill checks for skills he did not have, rolling crits like I’ve never seen before, but alas he fell just short of winning his table. Perennial contender Sean McCulloch’s Hera Syndulla proved adept at weeding out treachery, as she delivered all four Traitor cargoes en route to his second-round win while many skilled characters missed skill checks they should have made.

In honor of Lisa Gutermuth’s numerous beat downs at the hands of other players last year, I started tracking number of times a player was Defeated (suffered enough damage to be knocked out, losing $3K and ending their turn ) . This year Mason Murray um….” earned” the Bacta Tank Award, getting knocked out 5 times in one game and 9 times overall. Alas his propensity for violence only earned him 5th place overall John MacCarthy and Mark Jensen were knocked out 4 times in other games.

At one Semifinal table, two-time preliminary Heat winner Tom Drueding along with your humble GM watched as Jacob Hebner’s Boba Fett, undeterred by being Defeated twice by bounty target Garindan sailed to an easy victory with 10 Fame vs only 5 for the other two players. The game was unusual in that no Patrols were ever attacked. At another table Sean McCulloch’s Maz Kanata, accompanied by crew members Jyn Erso and Enfys Nest, beat out two time finalist Tina Del Carpio and Orin Bichard, whose Black Krssantan could not take down a bounty on Hera Syndulla after trying no less than five times. Lisa Gutermuth earned her third Final appearance as Maz Kanata in a narrow win over Mason Murray’s Bossk who was in position to win had her turn not netted the final fame point. The last Final berth was WBC rookie Corey Stedwell whose Hera Syndulla edged out Michael Schoose’s Ketsu Onyo.

So, the final table of Hebner, Gutermuth and McCulloch (all with prior Final table appearances with the latter two being former champions) was joined by newcomer Stedwell, who may or may not have been from a small farm on Tatooine.

Character choices: Sean chose Ketsu Onyo; Lisa chose Bossk; Jacob chose IG-88 and Corey chose Chewbacca. With mostly bounty hunters, it came as no surprise that each player’s first Market purchases were all weapons. Chewbacca let out a howl of protest when Lisa bought the Bowcaster. Early game action was marked with mixed results; Sean found his initial bounty of the Black Sun agent the very first turn but was defeated; the following turn he disintegrated him for his impudence. Lisa took 2 damage from encountering Ponda Boba. Lisa got a bounty on Corey/Chewbacca, but the magic of the Bowcaster eluded her as she lost the combat.

Sean followed up his first bounty kill by eliminating Garindan for his second Fame point as he jumped out to an early lead. Meanwhile Corey vaporized two Hutt patrols while Lisa lost back-to-back bounty combats with Saw Guerrara, who in a Rhydonium induced rage inflicted 8 hits on her in one combat. Jacob had recruited some droids to flip IG-88s character card and started hunting bounties as well.

The game pace increased from here, as Jacob racked up 3 Fame in one turn, delivering a bounty on Jyn Erso for 2 Fame and flipping his Lancer ship for a third. The following turn he bought a Bo Rifle Staff, giving up another Fame upon winning his next ground combat. He also drew a Secret from an Encounter card. Meanwhile Lisa scored 4 Fame, turning in a bounty on Greedo and attending a Statue Dedication. Corey scored 2 Fame by completing the Heart of the Empire Job. 8 Fame was scored in total this turn as the game reached its climax.

On the following turn, Lisa used the Bowcaster against Chewbacca as she captured Dr. Aphra, who was serving as Crew aboard the ship and eliminated her for 2 Fame to increase her score to 9. Going third, Jacob revealed his Secret he had drawn the prior turn which allowed him to attack 2 time defending champion Sean and with the win in combat, score the final Fame point to seal his win. As Sean fell, winner of both SWR and Queens Gambit last year, a great disturbance in the Force was felt as if millions of sand plaques suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. Lisa came in second with 9 Fame, Sean third with 6 and Corey finishing fourth with 5.

Congratulations Jacob!!