The intro…
Hello! Welcome to this week’s blog!
There’s been a fair amount happening in X-Wing over the last week or so but, rather annoyingly, I’ve been SUPER busy which means that I’ve had to make choices on where my attention has been.
EDIT – somehow a week has passed since writing this so some of the below info is a little out of date (but still relevant!). I’ll make changes where I can but if timings seem off then that’s why! Alright, let’s crack on!
As such, today’s blog is NOT going to talk about the game that I managed to play last week (even though I won it!) but about the recently launched XTC!
First though it’s worth mentioning that a number of events happened this weekend including a System Open event in Germany which had 48 players. Well done to Tobias Janicke who was flying this Republic list:
Anakin Skywalker – Eta-2 Actis (4)
Brilliant Evasion (2)
Predator (3)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (5/5) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 1
Plo Koon – Delta-7 Aethersprite (4)
Patience (2)
Compassion (1)
Calibrated Laser Targeting (0)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (3/3) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 2
Ric Olié – Naboo Royal N-1 Starfighter (4)
Passive Sensors (5)
Plasma Torpedoes (7)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (12/12) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 2
“Axe” (SoC) – V-19 Torrent Starfighter (3)
Deadeye Shot (0)
Barrage Rockets (0)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 3
“Hawk” – LAAT/i Gunship (5)
Squad Leader (4)
Tactical Officer (3)
Seventh Fleet Gunner (9)
Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (16/16) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 5
Total: 20
There was also a System Open level event going on in Poland at the same time which had 55 players! That was won by ‘Oscar Ice’ who was flying First Order
Agent Terex – Xi-class Light Shuttle (3)
Fanatical (2)
Tactical Officer (3)
Contraband Cybernetics (3)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (8/8) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 3
DT-798 – TIE/fo Fighter (3)
Fanatical (2)
Fire-Control System (2)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (4/4) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 2
Commander Malarus – TIE/fo Fighter (4)
Fire-Control System (2)
Mag-Pulse Warheads (7)
Shield Upgrade (10)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (19/19) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 2
Kylo Ren – TIE/wi Whisper Modified Interceptor (5)
Shattering Shot (3)
Instinctive Aim (2)
Concussion Missiles (7)
Enhanced Jamming Suite (0)
Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (12/12) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 2
“Holo” – TIE/ba Interceptor (5)
Proud Tradition (2)
Ion Missiles (3)
Shield Upgrade (10)
Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (15/15) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 2
Total: 20
If you’re interested in looking at lists or standings for either event then check out the Longshanks links here:
Germany – https://www.longshanks.org/event/26245
Poland – https://www.longshanks.org/event/27404/
Anyway, that’s the public service announcements done, let’s get to the main bit shall we?
The main bit…
Yes, XTC is back!
I’ll be honest, with everything else going on it rather crept up on me (and a certain other country’s captain, who shall remain nameless!) and getting the team together needed to be done rather last-minute and with a very short deadline.
To do this I leaned on players who have played for the team before since we are all already in a Discord server together and thankfully everything pulled together very quickly!
As a result we don’t have any fancy pictures like previous years (yet?) but here’s our line up:
Rebel – Elliott Clayton
Empire – Rebecca Westwood
Republic – Phill Blackmore
CIS – Steve Boulton
FO – James Humphery
Resistance – Chris Burnett
Scum – Mark Packer-Hughes
Subs – Dan Barringer & Dylan Jones
This year, due to time constraints and following a vote from the captains, the event is double elimination. Basically once you lose your second round, you’re out! (if you want a longer explanation check here).
There were 15 teams entered at the deadline and so, as last year’s winners, France were given a bye for the first round.
The draw was done live on Twitch and Wales came out pretty early, drawn against… Irleland!
As a team they’re pretty stacked and with very little time to do research or work out favourable/unfavourable pairings, Conor Holmes and I got online to do our draw.
Was it any good? Did I do well? I had no idea. But it’s what we had and so the players went and arranged their games!
We started off strong as Mark took his Scum list to a 20 – 4 win against Rebels (though with a lot of help from dice from what he told us!).
Two days later Elliott and Rebecca both registered wins as well with Elliott getting a 21 – 11 result while Rebecca’s was a VERY tight affair at 19 – 18.
Wow! 3-0 up!?!?! With 7 games going on we just needed 1 more win to seal the round!
Chris was up next again Rich’s Empire and unfortunately, this one didn’t go our way as Rich took it 21 – 13.
Steve was up next but also lost (15 – 21) to put the match at 3 – 2.
Phill was up next against Conor. Bearing in mind that Conor has just come off a top 4 finish at the European System Open last month and Phill hasn’t really played much of late, this was a (not entirely unexpected) 6 – 20 loss, tying the match up at 3-3!
CRAZY!
James was going to be playing the decider, First Order vs Scum. The game was streamed (here if you’re interested!) and was a VERY tense watch.
A slightly cagey opening led to not many turns and while the score might indicate otherwise, it was one of the games where it was very close, right up until it wasn’t.
Kevin was 8 – 4 up and then his ships started bleeding damage moving James up to 9 – 8 and then 12 – 8 up.
In the final turn Kevin wasn’t able to put damage into James’ FO ships and then lost Han to seal the result – a 16 – 9 win for us!
I have to say, that’s rather unexpected! I had anticipated moving in to the loser’s bracket to try and make our way there although on reflection, that would definitely have brought challenges too as 2023 champions Canada lost to the US Islands and that’s who Ireland now face!
The conclusion…
If you’d like to keep up with what’s happening then you can check out the Challonge bracket here. It’s slightly less confusing to look at now that some results are in!
You might also be interested in Levi’s blog where he’s been keeping track of all matches and making predictions for how things are going to turn out.
All in all it’s exciting that XTC is back and more X-Wing happening is ALWAYS a great thing!
I’ll be back next week (probably!) with another update and (probably!?) a game to talk about!
The outro…
Thank you so much for visiting my blog, I hope you’ve enjoyed it! If you’d like to support me in continuing my X-Wing blogging adventure there are a few ways you can do that.
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A MASSIVE thank you to my wonderful Patrons for their ongoing support for the blog and enabling me to give away shiny things!
Exile Rookies:
Ben Kennedy, Opi-Wan Kenobi
Exile Veterans:
Mark Beor, Daniel Barringer, Michael Bird, Jason Desmarais, Darin Schwarze, Alex Peters-Bean, Mark Packer-Hughes, Eric Gordon
Exile Commanders:
David Bryan, Richard Goulart
Exile Legends:
Rebecca Westwood, Admiral_Ackbar47, Phill Blackmore, Chris Fear, Jamie Howard, Sean Oakley , Steve Boulton, Kyle Chalpan, Slawomir Stojanowski
You are all amazing humans!