Hey all! A few weeks ago I had my first tournament experience with Shattered Sword. My FLGS was running a tournament for Child's Play and donating proceeds to CHOC. We all had a good time and this was a great learning experience for my Shattered Sword. It was a two-list game, but I ended up just playing the single list.

Sebastian Cross
Isabeau Durand
Swordsworn x5
Dark Space Fiametta
2x Esper Condensors
2x Dampening Field

Anyway, I thought I'd share my experience because I ended up taking second place (to my surprise), and was told I could have taken first had my first opponent not been allowed to sit there half the time doing nothing. He was new to the game, so I was lenient. Maybe a little too much.

My VIP for all my matches was Sebastian. He saved a number of units from the firing squad, and laid down the hurt on important targets. Though his attacks were expensive, I ended up using the esper I'd been saving up. With 20-something health boxes and armor out the wazoo, I wasn't too worried if I took a few attacks while holding less esper. 90% of the time, I had him in my queue.

One thing I really loved doing was hiding Fiametta somewhere she couldn't be found easily. She spent most of the game out of sight. Then half way through the game, I'd slot her in so get a sneak attack against a target. My opponent was always confused, firstly forgetting she was even in my cadre, secondly thinking they were safe without LOS. I imagine her as a mortar, putting her wand in the air every few minutes to rain down fire on some unfortunate bugger. Sometimes the opponent redirected or blocked. Good for me. That means they had to get rid of esper and their next activation would likely be less than useful.

Isabeau and Swordsworn were a nasty combination. Using her AoE ability and dropping an armor booster where I already had a dampening field saved a number of usually fragile Swordsworn. When I wasn't focusing on Sebastian, I was using these guys as a work horse. Though they ended up being distraction most time. The opponent would usually put too much firepower into them hidden behind armor buffs, damaging few that would just be healed by Isabeau. While they were focusing on trying to take them out, Sebastian was laying down the hurt elsewhere, backed up by Fiametta's fire.

All-in-all, this was a really fun list to play and difficult to dislodge once entrenched.

Also, Sebastian is a freaking BEAST!

I like the list very similar to what used to run.

Good write ups.

I feel fiametta changed SSP a lot. her no LOS attack really helps force the engagement, or swing the gun fight to our favor. She is a strong unique for sure.

So my past few tournament experiences have been less than stellar. I've changed some things around.

Cross
Full Swordsworn
Isabeau
Dark space Fiametta
2x esper condensers

A lot went wrong. Fiametta became really easy to target. Even with Rook I had issues keeping up on objectives. I'll keep a list like this as 2nd and will likely bring it out when going against Doctrine or Noh. For now my main list will look more like:

Jeanne Romee
Nevarre
Isabeau
Full Swordsworn
Paragon or Purifiers and esper condensers

My reasoning is that this allows much more objective grabbing and protection. With Jeanne's care ability, Isabeau healing, and compelling shenanigans, objectives will be hard to tear down. Nevarre can still throw down and can take the extra esper from Jeanne and be inserted into play more often because of her abilities. With the compel, he moves like he were part of Cerci. The Paragon would be there as a sacrificial lamb, securing an enemy objective early and then biting it for the faction objective or remaining in cover to be pulled out only when he is needed to zip around or injure an already wounded target. This list relies more on positioning, objective running, and denial than the previous list I posted. It's tested fine so far. It can't keep up with Cerci in terms of objectives, but that would be a hard thing to do.

I imagine it would be difficult to put out a number of attacks when it's needed, like for Cerci to cycle through the deck for objective denial or get an opponent to waste resources, but it may not be the issue I think it may be. I'll post again after another tournament.