The Intro – Part 1 – Mea Culpa
Weeeeeeeeell hello there! Welcome to this week’s blog!
Now, I’m not going to pretend it hasn’t been a while since I last posted. A lot has happened in terms of taking up my time and it’s the blog that’s suffered. There’s a certain element of ‘sorry not sorry’ in that which means that I’m tangled up in all kinds of confusing feelings.
First of all, I am sorry. Mostly to my amazing Patreon supporters but really to anyone who reads. I do enjoy writing these blogs and they have definitely helped me over the years, not just to improve my game but in making new friends and having new experiences.
Secondly, I am not sorry. I was quite adamant from the beginning of the blog – which is SEVEN YEARS OLD next month! SEVEN!! – that playing the game would come before blogging about it. After all, if I don’t play then what is there to blog about? Well, ok, there IS stuff I can talk about without playing (and I have done, often) but the basic premise is that without games there’s generally no blog.
More recently I’ve been holding myself to that. My evenings are precious to me and writing these things takes time, quite a lot of it .ESPECIALLY compared to how long they take to read (in particular you speed readers out there, I see you Conor Holmes!) and while I’ve played games that I’ve wanted to blog about and made notes and taken pictures, it’s become harder and harder to get them written. One week becomes two and then all of a sudden it’s now a month since my last post and I’m really not very sure how that’s happened?!
So yes, I am sorry. But also I feel like I’m finding a better balance in my life and while writing the blog is still part of that balance, it’s maybe less of a priority than it previously has been.
Alright then, let’s get into some stuff, shall we?
The Intro – Part 2
Ok, so what’s been happening? Well, a lot it turns out! But before I get to that, I need to talk about some events!
Frist up we have the Exile Squadron Squad Championship in Newport on Saturday the 6th of June! It’s 4 rounds of swiss with an XWA prize and perhaps a few little exrtra bits and bobs thrown in!
Tickets are £15 and there are just THREE spaces left! If you’d like to get yours secured, head on over to the Facebook event page and get your name down or you can message me direct!
Then it’s the big one! The Welsh Open 2026!
We’re currently at 33 players which puts us over the threshold for being an XWA System Open event! There are less system opens happening this year (more on that in a minute) so to be able to keep that event level is a big honour for us. Tickets for this 2 day premium level event are £30 and we will have a TON of prizes (as we always do!) – if you want to get your name down there are JUST SEVEN TICKETS LEFT!!! Head over to the Facebook event page and get on it!
Alright, on to the next!
Patreon Update…
Ah yes, Patreon. Now, confession time. The deadline has passed and I’ve not posted anything yet nor have I made the giveaway draw!
Ugh, yeah, I know.
Rest assured that I am on it. Honestly. Soon.
I’ll send details out via Patreon for what’s coming, when it’s posted and whether (maybe) I can hand over some things in person at events. The giveaway draw will be made in the next day or so but if you aren’t currently a member and you’d consider supporting the blog then head on over to my Patreon page and pick a tier to sign up to. The cut-off for last quarter should have been the 1st of May but since I’ve let the side down I’ll extend that to the end of this week (so that’s midnight UK time on Sunday 24th of May) in case anyone else fancies signing up.
This month’s gifts include cards, templates and tokens! Just as a side note, new members in the enxt week *won’t* get included int he giveaway, it’s a bit unfair! Stick around for next quarter though, it’s going to be an AWESOME one!
XWA Update…
Ok, wow where to begin?!
I guess we should start with the recent OP announcements since my events will be using those prize kits!
Last Friday the XWA put out this announcement:
As I mentioned earlier, the Welsh Open is a System Open level event so you can check out some of the prizes that will be included there for that. I’m no longer Prize Lead with XWA but I am still part of the team and I’m excited for these kits to be released and the new cards be available to people.
Sticking with XWA, there’s a new council!
After almost 2 years in post, Louie Leong, Filippo Bosi and Stephen Kim’s terms are over and a new council has been elected! Congratulations to Nick Sperry, David Hammond and Ken Cho who now take on the task of leading the XWA!
Lastly (kind of), there’s been a new release AND a points update! And quite a big one at that!
It’s all a bit old news now I know but still worth mentioning.
I’ve not had the opportunity to go through all the new stuff but there’s some very cool things in there, the Design team have done an excellent job!
Oh, and there’s a new website too!
Go check it out!
The main bit…
Ok, that was a LOT!
In terms of games played, I’ve had a lot going on over consecutive weekends (and some weekdays too) but I have managed to get some games in with the new points.
I always struggle a bit when new points come out. I’m not particularly imaginative in terms of list building. I find it a bit of a chore most of the time and I can never seem to ‘see the matrix’ in the way that some people can, linking new combos of pilots and upgrades to produce some nasty concoction to unleash on people.
My default is to look at what list I’ve already been flying and see if it fits or what I could swap in/out depending on the points changes. That said, I also find it a good time to completely change what I’ve been flying and change things up a bit. That’s where the real struggle is. With little to no event info I can’t ‘be inspired’ (net list!) and so I feel like I’m stumbling though a newly developing meta, ready to get walloped any time I’m trying something out.
I started, though, where I really like to start.
With Dash.
Dash has, in my view, not been very good for a quite a long time now. Some people have had some level of success with him at some point in the meta but for me he’s not been anywhere near as powerful as he could be back in the day.
I think that the new Dash is decidedly worse than the old one and while that’s reflected in the points and loadout, he’s definitely not what he was and balancing him is not an easy task.
That said, I still put a list together and gave it a go!
Dash Rendar (YLF) – YT-2400 Light Freighter (18)
Trick Shot (5)
Ahsoka Tano (LaR) (10)
Ezra Bridger (9)
Outrider (0)
Ship Cost: 18 Loadout: (24/24) Half Points: 9 Damage Threshold: 5
Fenn Rau – Fang Fighter (13)
Clan Training (1)
Beskar Reinforced Plating (6)
Mandalorian Optics (3)
Ship Cost: 13 Loadout: (10/10) Half Points: 6 Damage Threshold: 2
Keo Venzee – RZ-1 A-wing (10)
Heightened Perception (5)
Proton Rockets (7)
Munitions Failsafe (1)
Ship Cost: 10 Loadout: (13/15) Half Points: 5 Damage Threshold: 2
Jake Farrell – RZ-1 A-wing (9)
Retrofitted Autothrusters (6)
Ship Cost: 9 Loadout: (6/6) Half Points: 4 Damage Threshold: 2
Total: 50
The idea of the list is to use Jake to power up Keo/Fenn while Dash tries to stay out of trouble. Is that possible? Well, it depends.
I played 2 games of this against Josh Hall who, in all fairness, hasn’t played with or against Dash much, if at all, recently at least.
If you ignore that I forgot to bring a turret indicator or the correct base for Dash then overall both games went very well. Slightly bizarrely I won both games by the exact same score: 54 – 25.
Not bad!
Last week I took the same list against Steve Boulton who has not only played against a lot of Dash but used him as well. This went… worse.
Steve knows (as many people do) that you just focus down Dash. It’s not a huge secret and it makes sense when you think about it. Dash wants to be range 3 of things (and obstructed. You just fly straight at him and focus him down. He’s worth a huge amount of points and it removes his beefy damage output from the table.
I lost the first game 46 – 51 but the second one was a blow out: 23 – 57.
Maybe it’s just me and how I fly him. I thought that having Fenn in there as a second threat would be enough but even though I could look at Fenn deciding to whiff (JARGON ALERT!!) 90% of his shots, even better dice results wouldn’t have made a difference here.
Even if Dash is somehow viable and it’s just how I’m using him, he’s certainly not the Dash of old and that makes me a little bit sad.
So, what now?
Well, I’ve got something (not my own creation, you’ll be glad to hear!) and I’m planning to talk about it next week.
The conclusion…
What is there to conclude? I’m working on being ‘more blog-ish’ and working through what this new points meta looks like I guess!
Events are very much on the horizon now with our Squad Champs in just over 2 weeks time and The Welsh Open in less than 2 months. Am I playing in them? Well, definitely in the Squad Champ event, yes. I’m not sure about the Welsh Open yet, it depends of a few factors.
I am also playing in a Tauntaun event which starts this week (which is the main reason I needed a decent list!) and I’ve got a ncie easy round 1 match…
I’m sure I’ll at least have some fun while I’m losing!
That’s all for today, thanks for reading and thanks for sticking with me. I appreciate you!
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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