The intro…
Hello and welcome to this week’s blog!
There’s not all that much to mention here at the moment given the topic of today’s post so I will just give another plug to the Welsh Open 2024!
Yes the event is slowly creeping up on us and this past week I’ve been working with Mark Hall on finalising some details and getting orders in for prizes!
The event is on the 6th & 7th of July at Firestorm Games in Cardiff and tickets are £30 (which includes lunch on the Saturday!).
You can pick up your tickets here – https://www.thebattlefields.co.uk/events-at-the-battlefields/star-wars-x-wing-welsh-open-2024-cardiff
If you’d like a sneak peek at the top trophy, well, I think I can indulge us all a little, courtesy of Ryan Coyle of Iksentrik…
How exciting!!!
We will have some more reveals to come in future weeks but that’ll have to do for now!
Right, I think that’s it, let’s move on to…
The main bit…
So last week was the final post about Worlds 2024. An epic week of X-Wing and and exploring and meeting new people.
But Worlds was a long time ago now. I always knew it would take a good few weeks to get through everything but I didn’t quite figure it would be as long as this! That raises a follow up question – what’s happened since then?
Well, quite a lot actually! Let’s go back in time…
Needless to say, the week that I got home from Chicago neither I nor anyone else who had been went along to casual night at Firestorm Games in Newport. We were all a little X-Winged out but also jet lagged and worn out from a whole week of play and travel.
The following week I was away with my family and the week after THAT I was away with work.
Crikey
It wasn’t until the 17th of April that I would get a game of X-Wing and despite having ALL that time, I hadn’t repacked my bag….
So I took along my Sunday Swiss list from Worlds (which I’d played 3, won 1 with) and used that.
Wedge Antilles (BoE) (5)
It’s A Trap! (BoE) (0)
Predator (0)
Adv. Proton Torpedoes (0)
R2-A3 (BoE) (0)
Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3
Fenn Rau (Rebel Fang) (5)
Predator (3)
Beskar Reinforced Plating (3)
Mandalorian Optics (3)
Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (9/9) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 2
Gemmer Sojan (BoE) (3)
It’s A Trap! (BoE) (0)
Precision-Tuned Cannons (BoE) (0)
Chaff Particles (BoE) (0)
Target-Assist Algorithm (BoE) (0)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 2
Dash Rendar (YLF) (7)
Trick Shot (4)
Ursa Wren (6)
False Transponder Codes (5)
Ablative Plating (4)
Outrider (0)
Ship Cost: 7 Loadout: (19/20) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 5
Total: 20
Flying against Rebecca Westwood’s Rebel list with Lando and some other ships went about as well as it had done in Chicago. So, not that well.
With a store tournament at Newport coming up just 3 days later I had some choices to make.
On the one hand, I’m not interested in winning the event. I was running it (alongside Mark Hall) and the top prize was a ticket for the Welsh Open which I definitely knew I wasn’t playing in (because I’m running it!).
On the other hand, winning feels nicer than losing and while there’s a certain satisfaction with doing alright with a list that is a bit different than the norm, knowing there’s no long term life in it makes it difficult to find the motivation to continue with it.
I managed to get some time to re-pack my bag and went with something I was recommended through Discord…
Wedge Antilles (BoE) (5)
It’s A Trap! (BoE) (0)
Predator (0)
Adv. Proton Torpedoes (0)
R2-A3 (BoE) (0)
Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3
Braylen Stramm (BoE) (4)
It’s A Trap! (BoE) (0)
Homing Missiles (0)
Proton Bombs (0)
Delayed Fuses (0)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 4
Gina Moonsong (BoE) (5)
It’s A Trap! (BoE) (0)
Juke (0)
Proton Torpedoes (0)
Ion Bombs (0)
Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 4
Hol Okand (BoY) (3)
Dorsal Turret (0)
Adv. Proton Torpedoes (0)
Precise Astromech (BoY) (0)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 4
Gemmer Sojan (BoE) (3)
It’s A Trap! (BoE) (0)
Precision-Tuned Cannons (BoE) (0)
Chaff Particles (BoE) (0)
Target-Assist Algorithm (BoE) (0)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 2
Total: 20
The beauty of this list? It’s 5 cards. Just 5. All standard loadout.
I’d be using the two B-Wings that I’d started getting my head around in the doubles tournament at Worlds and adding in ships that were already familiar. What could go wrong?
Well round 1 was against Mark Beor who had picked up Illy’s Worlds winning Republic list and the game was a comedy of errors as we both fumbled our way through unfamiliar triggers.
It was close but give it was Chance Engagement I snuck some damage into ships int eh final turn to take it 12 – 9. A winning start!
Round 2 was against seemingly my new nemesis, Ben Saunders, fresh from cancelling me at Worlds!
He was flying the same list and while I’d taken it really close in Chicago, my lack of reps with this list (this being my second game with it at all!) showed and Ben took the win 14 – 20.
Round 3 was against Alex ‘JB’ Boilton who was flying CIS, specifically 3 HMP Gunships and 3 Tri-Fighters.
My list was a little bit too ‘try-hard’ for this match up and while he pulled it back a bit towards the end, it felt like a quite comfortable 20 – 15 win for me.
The last round was against Josh Hall who had just moved off a Republic list he’d been flying for about a year and onto a Scum concoction with multiple Fangs and Cad Bane.
There was a clutch turn where Wedge managed to dodge a block and boost out of being shot by 3 ships while my Y-Wing and B-Wings murdered Kad Solus in the middle.
Ships kept dying on Josh’s side and when the score got to 14 – 1 to me he decided to call it there. Sorry Josh!
So, 3 – 1 and 4th place with a brand new list I’d never flown before. Not too bad I suppose! At the very least this made me feel a bit better about my X-Wing skills having been trounced repeatedly at Worlds!
If you’re interested in taking a look, here’s the final standings:
https://www.longshanks.org/event/14932
It was a great day (and not just because I did alright!) and was great to see people. Well done to Cieran for going 4 – 0 and taking top spot to win a ticket to the Welsh Open!
Since then I have managed to get down to casual night most weeks and have continued with the same list. It’s been a little more mixed results-wise compared to the tournament to be honest.
One week I had the time to stay for 2 games and lost both. I was finding that I was somewhat overthinking the turn 0 setup while simultaneously not thinking about it well enough. I was chasing some sort of perfect uber-awesome deployment while not remembering that while one of my B-Wings can take and action and then fail a barrel roll for a stress, the other cannot. The led to some VERY poor placement and trying to correct things on the fly.
I think I might be getting there now though. To what end? Well, I’ve no tournaments coming up that I’m playing in so none, I guess. It’s good to know I’ve got this option available if something does pop up though.
What will I fly next? I’ve actually no idea. There’s a few things which look like they might be fun but a lot of it’s going to be down to how much time I’ve got to re-pack my bag. So, probably just the same for the moment.
The conclusion…
Well, that’s been a rather unusual blog!
I have to admit it’s all been rather strange after Worlds. Continuing to blog about it for so long has been odd and it’s almost felt like I’ve been living in it’s shadow in X-Wing terms. Weird.
There’s also been rather a lot on my plate between work stuff and family things and everything has felt a little bit like life is just one thing after the next at the moment. For example, I’m away camping with my family this weekend and so I guess you can consider this advanced warning that next week’s blog is likely to be late!
I know a couple of people who are suffering from being a bit ‘X-Wing-ed out’ after Worlds and while I do appreciate where they’re coming from (I mean, it was a LOT of X-Wing in a short period of time with a massive build up), thankfully I haven’t felt the same so far.
The next big build up is to get things in order for the Welsh Open. If you’re coming along then I’m looking forward to seeing you there! Remember, tickets are on sale here:
And that’s it for today! Thanks for reading and I’ll catch you next week!
The outro…
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