Battle report - 29-08-16 - Warboar - Bromley - Defend Alderaan format

29-08-16 – Warboar – Bromley – Defend Alderaan

If nothing else, this tournament has solidified my love for this store. It’s so good! The staff are friendly, the shop is always well stocked, the events are well run (and run to time!!!) and the addition of different formats is always fun!

Speaking of which...

The Format

Initially, all we were told is that there would be some list limitations, these were as follows:

ALL FACTIONS:

- Up to 100pts cap per squad

- No more than 50pts to be spent on a single ship

- No more than 1 'Twin Laser Turrets' allowed in a list

- No more than 2 'Crackshot' Elite Pilot Talents in a list

IMPERIALS:

- No 'Palpatine' crew card allowed

SCUM:

- No more than 1 Jumpmaster 5000 in a list

REBELS:

- No 'R2-D2' astromech card allowed

So what does that mean? No Palp Aces, no triple Jumps, no Dengaroo, no Fat Han, no Rebel regen, no 4 TLT Ys and no crack swarms (TIE or A-Wing). In short, it means variety!

It turns out that the format was actually a bit more in depth than that, which we found out on the day! More about that later…

The List

Here’s the thing… I can’t wait for Fenn Rau to get here, I’m looking out to sea every morning just in case I catch a glimpse of that boat. One day... one day soon! Essentially, the effect of this is that I have been playing lots of games with my Fenn list on Vassal and have completely forgotten how to construct lists without him!

In the week leading up to this tourney I had been playing around with some hastily put together Scum stuff. Palob, Manaroo, Kavil slowly morphed into N’dru, Manaroo, Kavil which somehow, the night before the tourney, morphed into a double Ghost list! (not sure how that happened!)

Anyway, so this was the list:

Lothal Rebel A (50)

FCS / Autoblaster turret / Extra munitions / Plasma Torps / Ezra / Hera / Anti-Pursuit lasers

Lothal Rebel B (50)

FCS / Autoblaster turret / Extra munitions / Conner Net / Han / Sabine / Tactical Jammer

And the thinking behind it? Well, the basics are obvious aren’t they? 36 hit points, 8 attack dice and a 5 K-turn for good measure. 

Getting more in depth, we have Lothal Rebel A who shall henceforth be known as the Stressboat. She gets stressed then can modify an eye into a crit and has her whole dial open… it’s brilliant, especially when you have a target lock on someone from FCS. Just awesome! The addition of plasmas is because of that blind spot out of the back of the Ghost, the Plasmas cover that in this list at range 2-3 (if you have a lock on that ship, anyway) and Autoblaster covers range 1. That’s the idea anyway! Also, she is sporting Anti-pursuit lasers, which proc’d once or twice during the day.

Lothal Rebel B has Han, Sabine, Conner Net and Tactical Jammer on board. Han and FCS is also great, roll four dice and if you get more blanks, use the TL to reroll, if you get more eyes, use the TL with Hans ability to change them all to hits. Then get a new TL from FCS, rinse and repeat! Conner Net; I’ve never used bombs before, but I hear these things are quite good, especially with Sabine; 2 damage and 2 ions and no actions. I managed to get them off a few times too! Tactical Jammer? I had a point free soo….. yea, it never proc’d!

I should also say that the inspiration for the list came from a casual match I'd had with a Dark Sphere player, Lloyd Boman, a few weeks back. He played a slightly different variation of the double Ghost list, but it got me thinking. By pure coincidence, he turned up to this tournament as well!

So then, that’s the list. Onto the day!

As we set up for our first round, Jason, the TO for the day, talked us through the extra bits of the Defend Alderaan format. Essentially, the battles were taking place near the Death Star (which was in the process of powering up to destroy Alderaan) and so occasionally, the Death Star would fire at one of our tables and potentially one-shot one of our ships! Jason would chose a table at random then use a d6 to determine which ship was being shot at, then the owner of that ship would be given a number of green dice, (ranging from 5 in the first round to 1 in the last round) they would roll these dice and as long as they got at least one evade, the ship would remain in play, if not… BOOM!

Game 1

Vs Will Hasslewood

Countess Ryad – PTL / TIE/x7 / Twin Ion Engine Mk. II

Colonel Vessary – Juke / TIE/x7

Sigma Phantom – Intel Agent / Enhanced Scopes / Stygium Particle Accelerator

The first engagement of the day

So, as Will arrived at the table, I noticed two things; 1) he was wearing a 186^th Squadron T-shirt and 2) he was running two Defenders. Both of these things filled me with ambivalence (two conflicting emotions about the same thing!) I have had some seriously good experiences with members of the 186; in my experience, they are always really friendly, good natured and full of helpful advice HOWEVER I have never beaten any of them. Defenders with /x7, they are great ships and quite fun to fly against HOWEVER that /x7 title is hard to break through.

So, (spoiler!) I lost this one but it was super close and there was one roll which could have made a huge difference. We’ll get onto that in a short while.

As we converged, I decided to concentrate all my firepower on the Defenders and leave the PS3 Phantom until then end, after all, it’s only PS3, what can a PS3 ship do. Oh... my mistake! A PS3 Phantom can do a hell of a lot, when it’s not blocking me (which it did a lot, by the way) it’s throwing four or five dice at me. Ouch!

Anyway, I ended up killing of Vessary without too much trouble, Autoblaster was my friend. Then  Ryad got herself into a lovely position to drop my Conner Net on top of but Will was one step ahead and super blocked me for a few turns so I couldn’t drop it, bad times. It was around this time where the fateful roll happened, Lothal Rebel A was stressed and had the uncloaked, un-tokened Phantom at range 2, I rolled 3 crits and an eye, with Ezra, I turned the eye to a crit. Four crits! Literally, a perfect result! Anything other than two evades would have been lovely but Will rolled well and there were those two evades. Shields down! Soon after this Rebel A died. I did manage to take down Ryad before that pesky Phantom brought down my second Ghost.

This was a really good game and required some serious thinking on both sides. Will also did not tarnish the 186^th rep, a great player and a very friendly chap. I’ll go after the Phantom first next time!

Loss 71-100

Game 2

Vs Andy Harris

Chewbacca – Predator / C-3PO / Evade title

Green Squadron Pilot – PTL / Prockets / Chips

Green Squadron Pilot – PTL / Prockets / Chips

All hail the Mini Ghost that Lloyd Boman lent me to help with my size issues!

Andy is a new player!! He had played a few games before coming and had even brought his 10 year old son along (I think I overheard him saying he had been playing for about a year)

I’ve played Chewie a fair bit before and as much as I love that ship, it’s strength lies in being defensive, rather than offensive (although Predator does help that a bit) so I decided to leave him alone for a bit whilst I dealt with what I believed to be the bigger threat, Procket A-wings! If those things got into range one, they would seriously hurt! I managed to set up a joust and took both A-wings out before they got their Prockets off. Thank goodness for that.

I have to say that I pulled some great moves in this game, I was trying to have a nice casual game but I just kept ending up exactly where I needed to be. Often by accident.

For example, I managed to Conner Net Chewie, this then resulted in him landing on a rock the next turn, I then moved my other Rebel in and blocked him so he ended up staying on the rock! If only I could play like this on purpose!

Anyway, Chewie did manage to take on Rebel B but then died a turn later.

Win 100-50

Game 3

Vs Henry Westcott

Wes – VI / R3-A2 / Integrated Astromech

Poe – BB8 / PTL / Autothrusters

Sabine – PTL / Autoblaster / Kanan

This is actually all the ships in this game in one photo,
most of Henry's list, however, is obscured by my massive Ghosts!

Henry was the third opponent in a row who was friendly and welcoming. I am having a very good day :)

Henry’s list needed serious brainpower to fly due to all the repositioning, order of movement and intricacies of the list. For example, you have to perform Sabine’s pilot ability before you revel the dial, whereas Poe with BB8 works after you reveal your dial, even though both repositioning actions happen before you perform the maneuver. It makes sense because you have to reveal a green maneuver to proc BB8 but it’s the sort of thing that after a few games, is easy to forget!

So, we ended up Jousting and in the first round of shooting, I got all of Poe’s shields down. Good start! Next turn, Wes ended up at range 1 of Rebel B and range 2 of Rebel A. Wes lost his shields that time. I then 2 turned Rebel B to drop a Conner Net on Wes (poor Wes) who ended up at range 1 of Rebel A and got Autoblastered to hell. Soon after, I got a lucky 5 dice Target Locked shot on Poe who died. Then it was Sabine vs two Rebels, she quickly dealt the last few damage to Rebel B. Sabine and Rebel A had a bit of a tussle BUT THEN THE DEATH STAR TARGETED OUR TABLE!

Jason rolled a dice to see whether it was Sabine or the Rebel being targeted, it was Sabine… Henry rolled an evade! I’m glad. It would have been a hollow victory if Sabine had died like that. However, she did land herself on debris the next turn and roll a crit to take her last hull off.

Win 100-50

Game 4

Vs James Dowdall

Miranda – TLT

Lothal Rebel – Autoblaster / FCS / Chopper

Biggs – R4-D6 / Integrated Astromech

*** Interulde one ***

Jason – The Death Star is totally unopposed and WILL destroy Alderaan at the end of this game. Only one thing can stop it! There are two Rebel players in the top 8. James and Tom, if EITHER of you are willing to sacrifice one of your ships you will be able to do a trench run at the end of this game and have a 50% chance of one-shotting the Death Star. Are either of you willing to do this?

Tom - …

James - … Biggs will do it!

*** End of Interlude one ***

So, this looked quite good for me, my 100 point list against James’ 74 point list (pretty good initiative bid though). As I was thinking that, Jason brought a ship over to our table… Biggs was being replaced… by Shara Bey in her Arc-170!

I remembered reading on facebook that someone had brought back an Arc from Gen Con and had donated it to Jason but seeing it in the “flesh” for the first time, it was pretty special. So now James’ list looked like this.

Miranda – TLT

Lothal Rebel – Autoblaster / FCS / Chopper

Shara – Alliance Overhaul

Screw Epic play, three Ghosts in close quarters, that's just awesome!

James' list was now actually 102 points (which was definitely why he beat me. Spoilers!) So we set up and came towards each other, my plan was to go all guns on the Lothal Rebel and as much as possible, avoid the others until it was dead. I realise now that I set up wrong, with Rebel A on the outside and B on the inside, when I banked into the middle of the board, I ended up stressing Rebel B and keeping Rebel A unstressed. No actions on B and no Ezra modification on A. Badness. I did actually manage to Conner Net Shara before A died though (although I had no shots on her post ion maneuver so it was slightly pointless but still).

Then something happened.

*** Interlude two ***

Jason - The Death Star is targeting table 7 (Myself and James were on table 5)

After a roll on the d6, it is decided that the Mist Hunter is being targeted. The Owner of the Mist Hunter fails to roll any evades.

Everyone in the room – Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh nooooooooooooo!!!

The Mist Hunter is taken off the board, Jason then presents the owner of the Mist Hunter with the ‘booby prise’, a brand new, sealed Tantive IV

Everyone in the room - *claps*

James – Right. Where were we?

Me – Erm… not sure...

*** End of Interlude two ***

Really now, come on! How often have you seen £60 worth of prize support at any of these type of events? I’m talking even for the winners. Especially with the entry fee only being £5! Warboar, you have out done yourselves!

Anyhoo, back to the game! (for a few minutes, anyway)

Shortly after this, Rebel B died, then James’ Ghost died, the Shara bit the dust.

*** Interlude three ***

Jason – It’s time for Biggs to do his trench run! He is currently unopposed and all James has to do to destroy the Death Star is roll a hit or crit on a single red dice HOWEVER if any Imperial players want to sacrifice a ship from their game to intercept Biggs, now is your chance.

Someone from table 3 raises their hand, removes Countess Ryad from the board and shakes his opponent’s hand. He has just thrown the game… what a guy!

Biggs and Ryad set up to destroy/defend the Death Star, James and the owner of Ryad must each roll one die; if Ryad rolls a hit, she destroys Biggs but if Biggs rolls a hit, he destroys the Death Star. If both ships get the same result, the will continue to roll until one comes out on top.

Ryad rolls, it’s an eye.

Biggs rolls, it’s a hit.

The Death Star is vanquished and Jason starts playing the music from the end of Episode VI.

James – Right. Where were we?

Me – Erm… not sure…

*** End of Interlude three ***

One Damaged Rebel vs a full health TLT Miranda… I got a few shields off her but realistically, I was never going to win that one. Still, it was actually a really good game!

True to 186^th form, James was, once again, a really friendly and fantastic opponent and (for avid readers of the blog) I think I had a better showing this time than the last time we played. (please see the Warboar regionals post here where James did bad things to my Chewie!)

What I have realised is that I need a plan for dealing with Miranda, I’m not sure I’ve ever actually won a game against her. That’s one for the think tank.

So I ended up placing 11^th of 29 players. Again, mid table but I’d say top of the mid table (clawing my way up the ranks!)

What did I learn? Well, I like the list, I’m not sure how it would do against the more "meta" lists but I enjoyed playing it anyway. I think the torps on Rebel A were a mistake though. I actually put them on there because I knew I wouldn’t have any actions with which to drop bombs. (otherwise I would have put Prox Mines on there) I had dismissed reveal bombs because of my PS but I think they would still have been more useful that the torps (seeing as I didn’t actually get any of them off the whole day!)

A few special mentions go out to Lloyd Boman for allowing me the use of the Mini Ghost for when mine were too close to each other (have a look at the picture from my second game to see what I mean) and Jason Grimwood from Warboar for organising and TO-ing such a great event. I believe Ben Lee from the 186^th had a fair bit to do with the organisation of the day as well. Thanks to everyone!

Redd XIII signing off for another day. Laters!

Battle Report - Regionals! Warboar, Bromley 21-05-16

Regionals!

I’ve been playing X-Wing seriously since around the beginning of this year. I bought the core set over a year ago but it sat on the shelf for months, then found a bit of (very) casual play over last summer. Between summer and New Years, I started buying up expansions but at that point I didn’t really have anyone to play with. Then, during a fairly quiet new year’s eve I gave Joel a game, he loved it and we were off! With a few months of Tuesday night X-Wing (at Dark Sphere in Waterloo) and six or seven tournaments under our belt, we booked our tickets to play at regionals. This was big! it would be our equivalent to Worlds. The biggest event in our X-Wing calendar and we were excited!

Warboar! With some Imperial intruders

I’ve been getting quite a bit of practice in on Vassal and I was pretty set on my list. It’s the same as the last tourney I wrote a report on. Here it is again:

Chewie – Lone Wolf / C-3PO / Luke Skywalker / title – 55 points

Chopper – Autoblaster turret / Fire Control System / Zeb / Han Solo

For a more detailed explanation of why I chose this list, read my last post, here.

So the day rolled round and I arrived at Warboar in Bromley just before 8am (bleary eyed because, of course, I had been up late on Vassal… practicing!) Joel had got there a while before and had been the first to register!

The turnout, I believe, was 96 players and after a bit of pre-battle banter with the lovely Mark Radford (from Marquee Models in Harlow), the first round pairings were put up and we all headed off to our tables:

Round 1 vs Sam Page

Carnor – PTL / title / Stealth Device / Autothrusters

Omega Leader – Juke / Comm Relay / Twin Ion Engine Mk. 2

Kagi – Palp / Sensor Jammer

Die Omega Leader! Die!

This was a great start to the day, Sam was a very friendly opponent and the pre-game chat was forthcoming. It turns out, Sam runs a gaming club called Mid Sussex War Gamers in Grinstead, unfortunately, due to being Hertford based, I can’t really get to Grinstead but if it’s near, why don’t you pop down and give it a look? If they are all as friendly as Sam, you’ll have a good laugh!

Anyway, the match; I set up with both my ships buddying up in the left bottom corner. It was either this, or Chopper in the left corner and Chewie towards the middle of the board (so as to proc Lone Wolf from the start). I really didn’t know whether this was a good choice (this would be a recurring theme) but I did it, so I had to live with it.

The start of the match wasn’t so good really. Chopper went down pretty early and the only damage to Sam’s list was 2 shields autoblasted off his Omega Leader… bad times. However, the tide was soon to turn. Chewie took down Omega Leader next turn, I was back in it. I’m really proud of this next bit... I proceeded to block Carnor every turn whilst taking pot shots at Kagi (who was currently in the long process of turning to face me)... Kagi died. Then followed the standard Chewie vs <insert ship name> endgame; many evade actions and 3PO guesses. This was a bit more difficult as I had to stay out of range 1 of Carnor to make use of my evade, I managed this most turns. In the end it was just a case of hoping Sam whiffed his green rolls before Carnor got too many shots into Chewie. Sam did whiff a green roll in the end and with Carnor on 2 health and 3 greens, it was only a matter of time.

Win 100-72

Game 2 vs James Dowdall

2 x Scout – Deadeye / Plasma torps / Extra Munitions / Overclocked R4 / Guidance Chips

N’dru Suhlak – Cluster Missiles / Crackshot / Glitterstim / Guidance Chips

Binary Pirate

A good place to put a Chewie? Not so much!

Round 2 and here I am playing James Dowdall from the 186^th Squadron podcast! Maybe this is it? Maybe I’ve reached the big X-Wing leagues? Maybe if I impress James, I would get invited into the coveted 186^th squadron? Maybe I could even get a 186^th Squadron t-shirt??? (not star struck, honest)

Well Red, keep dreaming because what followed was not a smooth sophisticated demonstration of my prowess on the mat but an absolute schooling on how not to position my ships.

I decided that my setup for the last match was one of the reasons it was so close so I decided to go with my other option, Chopper on one side of the mat (this time, on the right) and Chewie in the middle.

No combat in round 1. Round 2 rolls around and after movement, I had realised that my Chewie was not long for this world. He was within range 2 of N’Dru and range 3 of both scouts. This is what went down…

N’dru, Cluster Missles at Chewie. N’dru was far from his allies so that was 2 four dice attacks against Chewie. Oh, yea and also, James had Glitterstimmed N’dru. Long story short, 8 damage on Chewie… because crackshot and bad greens.

Chewie and Chopper vs Binarye; dead binarye (well, I thought I’d take out something… yes, I know it was bait!)

Scout one; plasmas on Chewie, another 3 hits (yay green!). Scout two; plasmas on Chewie… dead Chewie… * sad face *

Man! Chewie dead in one round. That is not impressive flying!

Well, not to be too downhearted, I ploughed on with Chopper. And what a trooper he was, before going down, he killed a jumpmaster and took all the shields off the other one. In the end, it wasn’t quite the trouncing I thought it was going to be. Still pretty shoddy though.

Loss 44-100

*** bonus ***

I now get to tick off James’ name from my People-I’ve-Played-From-The-186^th-Squadron-Podcast scorecard. So far, I’ve got Mike Dennis and James Dowdall… I’ll get you Alex Birt, one day!

Game 3 vs Nathan Phillips

Manaroo – Punishing One / Unhinged Astromech / Engine Upgrade / Push The Limit / K4 Security Droid

Latts Razzi – Feedback Array / Engine Upgrade / K4 Security Droid / 4-LOM / Dengar / Mangler Cannon

The Ghost is off it's base again... silly Chopper!

I’d met Nathan earlier in the day. Whilst waiting for my game with Sam Page to begin, Nathan and I had been talking about my list, he said he’d read about the Lone Wolf / 3PO synergy on a blog somewhere… turned out it was this blog (I have a reader!!!) We also chatted about his list that he was running today.

When we faced each other we knew what we were up against. My list relies on Chewie using his evade token and rolling his one dice (because you need to roll a green to use 3PO or Lone Wolf) so Nathan’s Latts build seems like the perfect counter to my Chewie, effectively negating 6 points of my list straight away!

We both knew what had to happen. From my perspective, Latts had to die. From Nathan’s perspective, Chewie had to die. We set up opposite each other and got to business!

I was so desperate to take out Latts that I was actually taking target locks with Chewie! (I never do that). Our ships met in the middle of the map in a place called Bump City! I managed to get Chewie behind Latts and take her out… Relief! No more decreasing agility or stopping me spending tokens and in addition to that, I’d negated Manaroo’s ability as well. She can’t hand tokens off to anyone if there’s no one else left alive!

Then it came down to, the old 3PO evade malarky again until Manaroo was dead. During this point, I got into a position where I had shot Manaroo and Nathan would have either taken one hit OR could have used his focus token to evade it (triggering Luke). I warned him about this (because of what happened at my last tournament) and he said he had remembered about Luke but was trying to avoid as much damage as possible. He also said he’d remembered reading about that on the blog as well.

Win 100-44

Game 4 vs Stephen Donn

IG88B – Crack Shot / Advanced Sensors / Tractor Beam / Mangler Cannon / Glitterstim / title / Autothrusters

IG88C - Crack Shot / Advanced Sensors / Tractor Beam / Mangler Cannon / Glitterstim / title / Autothrusters

This is Chewie about to get hurt!

Well, I’ve never played against Bro Bots in a competitive setting until today so I didn’t really know what to expect, I knew they were maneuverable and that in theory, I should go for IG88B first to shut down the gunner ability.

Well, as is the usual occurrence in these games, Chopper faired pretty badly early on. I had only taken out 2 of IGCs shields and was poised to do some more damage when… Blinded Pilot!!! So annoying. Then Chopper died. * more sad face *

Proud moment of the day number two: I managed to block IGB with Chewie every turn until I finally killed IGC. This meant I was only taking shots from one and most turns I was taking a damage but when your opponent has a gunner ability, that’s the best you can hope for.

So a pretty much full health IGB against a half health Chewie. Cue, autothrusters, 3PO, evade, Lone Wolf shinanigans. It could have gone either way but a few turns later, IGB got a Loose Stabilizer crit and when, on the last turn of combat IGB misjudged a sloop and Chewie (on one hull) was just out of arc, I rolled well and killed IGB.

Damn, that was one hell of a nail-biter!!!

Win 100-72

*** Interlude 1 ***

Tom: You know what? I’m 3-1. If I win my next two games, I’m in the cut. If I win one of my next two games I could be in the cut.

Joel: Wow!

Both: burst out laughing

*** End of interlude 1 ***

Game 5 vs Dan Rodwell

4 x Black Squadron Pilot – Crack Shot

Zeta Leader – Crack Shot

Howlrunner – Crack Shot

A pretty daunting sight.

A TIE swarm! I’ve never played against one of these either! (Although I did use one in a Vassal game against Joel a few days before this… the exact same list actually)

Fun fact: This is the same list Dallas Parker is flying at the moment according to Mynock Squadron Podcast.

I got initiative and gummed up the middle of the board with asteroids. Mission one completed!

I then set Chopper up in the bottom right hand corner. After a bit of deliberation, Sam set up his swarm opposite Chopper (jousting time!) Here follows my first mistake. I set Chewie up next to Chopper.

I really should have known better than that. Chewie doesn’t joust! Especially not with multiple ships!!!

Anyhoo, we went forward. Ramming speed, unfortunately, my ramming speed was not quite enough and everyone landed within range one of each other but no one bumped into Chopper. Dan Knew he had to kill Chewie and I knew I had to kill Howlrunner.

I killed Howl in that first round. Yessssssss!!!! Then Dan killed Chewie. Noooooooo!!!!

You know how sometimes, something happens in a game and it completely changes the atmosphere? This was that point in this game. Previous to this point, Dan had been very much, head down, concentrating, no small talk. (not at all unpleasant though) As soon as Chewie went down, he seemed to relax massively. To sum up the rest of this game, I took out a Black Squadron and then he took out Chopper.

Loss 34 -100

*** Interlude 2 ***

It was getting late, I was getting all hazy and, to quote myself on the day, getting all “leg-hurty”. For my next opponent, I would love something I knew how to beat. Another win would be fantastic.

The final swiss pairings are up. I trace down looking for my name, I find it “Tom Tattersall”. I trace right to see who my opponent is, would I recognise his name? Then I saw it:

All hail our national champion and UK X-Wing darling: Jesper Hills!

Bollocks

*** End of Interlude 2 ***

Game 6 vs Jesper Hills

IG-88B – PTL / Advanced Sensors / Mangler Cannon / Autothrusters / title

IG-88C – PTL / Advanced Sensors / Heavy Laser Cannon / Tractor Beam / Autothrusters / title

Pre carnage

The other thing I really hoped about my last round was that my opponent would be nice, friendly, chatty, etc. As I sat down, Jesper offered me a sweet… we were going to be OK.

So, Advanced Sensor, Push The Limit Brobots… man, they are good!

Honestly, there isn’t much narrative to this one, it was a slugfest really, Chopper barreled in, took a few shields off and then promptly died.

Then another 3PO evade blah blah session. It did take him a while but Jesper took my Chewie down before I did any more than half points on one of his IGs.

The problem was, both IGs had shots on Chewie almost every round. I was taking real evasive maneuvers to get out of arc of at least one of them but with the IGs moving after Cheiwe and the added effectiveness of boosting knowing where Chewie was ending up, plus Jesper’s experience and instincts, it proved impossible this time.

The score at the end of the game was 26-100

I nearly got half points on his other IG which would have meant the score would have been 50-100.

Jesper squeeked into the top 16 cut by 3 MoV (I think it was 3, a very small amount, anyway) and then went on to win the entire regional. I could have prevented Jesper from winning the regional if I had flow even just slightly better in that last game, potentially, the difference between me taking a focus instead of an evade in one of those last few rounds of shooting could have made all the difference.

You know what? I’m really glad the game played out the way it did! Well done on the win Jesper!

Loss 26-100

So, with a 3-3 result, I didn’t make the cut, (I didn’t come here thinking I would, but it would have been nice) I came 58^th of 96 players. Still not changing the blog name! I do think I’ve improved quite a bit over the time I’ve been flying this list. OK, I lost against three players but man, what players!

James Dowdall finished 8^th in swiss with a 5-1 record.

Dan Rodwell finished 6^th in swiss with another 5-1 record.

Jesper Hills, despite finishing 16^th in swiss with a 4-2 record, went on to win the day.

(It's also worth mentioning that Stephen Donn ended 13th in swiss too so I actually won against someone who made the cut!!!)

I would be super proud of myself if I managed to beat any of those guys and if we are going purely on Strength of Schedule, I had 115 and there were only 7 people in the whole tournament (including myself) who had 115 or above. So yes, today is a good day :)

On a different note, it's worth mentioning that this regionals event was also raising money for the Chartwell Cancer Trust - Tiger Children's Ward and managed to reach a staggering £2,000 in donations, raffle many, etc. What an amazing community to be a part of!

What did I learn? Engagement, engagement, engagements!

I talked to James after he trounced me about what I should have done differently in my game, he said setting Chewie up in the middle of the board without his buddy, Chopper, was a bad plan. It allowed James’ list the ranges it needed, not only to engage me with his jumps, but also to keep N’dru far enough away from his buddies to proc his ability and throw a total of 8 red dice at my Falcon. If I’d set up together, Chop might have been a more inviting target AND I would have been able to fight back with both of my ships instead of, effectively, just Chewie.

After being kicked to the curb by Dan, he said again that my setup was my biggest mistake. I set up my Chopper first and then Dan chose to joust me. What I should have done was to set up Chewie in the middle, joust with Chopper, take pot shots with Chewie, then fly away and drag his swarm through the rocks in the middle.

I’m learning all the time with this list so I’m not going to change it, the only thing I think I may do is try out dropping Chopper out for this.

Lothal Rebel – Autoblaster turret / FCS / Ezra / Hera (43 points)

This gives me either 2 points to play with OR a 2 point initiative bid… which I don’t really need. Maybe I’ll put Anti-pursuit lasers on to add to the blocking potential of a PS3 large base ship capable of doing hard one turns until the end of days OR Flechette torps so I can shoot out of that rear arc at all ranges (Autoblaster takes care of range 1) that everyone forgets about!

Unfortunately, that’s about it for my competitive X-Wing flying for a while (the cons of working Saturdays over the Summer unfortunately) I’ll still be on Vassal as much as I can be so message me on there if you want a game (Red XIII) and you can usually find me and Joel pew pewing at Dark Sphere on Tuesday evenings (we’re often down a player so always ask, if you want a game)

Thanks to everyone who has read any of my blog posts and thanks to all of my opponents, I think this feels like the end of chapter one of my X-Wing career… bring on chapter two!

Red XIII standing by.