The intro…
Hello and welcome to this week’s blog!
Another one that’s a bit late (sorry!). The summer schedule (or lack thereof) has wrecked havoc on my writing and playing time and while it’s frustrating from an X-Wing point of view it’s been nice from the family side.
In X-Wing news WTC (World Team Championship) happened this past weekend in Mechelen in Belgium. It’s effectively an in person version of the XTC (more on that later) but it’s not restricted to solely countries meaning that there were 3 teams from England as well as multiple teams from other countries too.
There was a single player event on the Friday ahead of the team tournament which was won by the legendary Tom Reed.
Then on Saturday and Sunday 15 teams fought it out playing 10 rounds across the 2 days with the Southern Pirates (Chris & Nicki Burnett, Dom Flannigan, Adam Freeman, Ernestas Ramanauskas and Oli Pocknell) going 8/1/1 to finish top! If you are interested then you can check lists, parings and so on here:
https://www.longshanks.org/event/17241
Before I close off this section it’s worth mentioning that just today there’s been a new info drop by the XWA (one benefit of being late I suppose!).
Looks like Epic is back on the menu!
I think I read of hear somewhere that in the 2 months since forming, the XWA has already made more ‘press releases’ that AMG did in their entire tenure of X-Wing development. I’ve not fact-checked that but if true, well, make of that what you will!
Incidentally, if you’re worried about missing any announcements, you can join the X-Wing 2.5 Discord server here. All XWA announcements are posted in the XWA News Channel.
Alright, that’s all on that front, lets move on…
XTC Update…
Yes, the XTC is fast approaching!
In case you don’t know, XTC is a country based team tournament. Kind of like the FIFA World Cup, but for X-Wing. You can find more info on the website if you’re interested.
I am the captain of Team Wales and we are entered to join again this year!
The groups have been drawn and Wales has been drawn in the 6 team group (meaning we will play 5 rounds) along with France, Germany, Poland Greece and the US Islands.
Crikey.
The group stage kicks of on the first weekend in September and I’ll give some more updates closer to the time!
The batrep…
So, I played a game! Woo!
Now, as usually happens, I’d not had time/opportunity to repack my bag and so I ended up taking both the 312 points and Legacy lists again.
Steve Boulton was also in attendance and currently has a vested interest in running a Republic list (read into that what you will…) and so while I didn’t have an AMG points list, my 312 list was close enough that it was worth playing out. Also, since the Republic list is strong anyway, surely it wouldn’t hurt to put them up against something a little stronger than what’s generally out there, right?
My list was the same as the last time:
Captain Hark (6)
Clan Training (2)
Swivel Wing (0)
Ship Cost: 6 Loadout: (2/14) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 5
Lieutenant Sai (5)
Gar Saxon (6)
Shield Upgrade (8)
ST-321 (0)
Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (14/14) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 5
Patrol Leader (6)
Veteran Turret Gunner (3)
Shield Upgrade (8)
Dauntless (0)
Ship Cost: 6 Loadout: (11/12) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 8
Major Rhymer (3)
Feedback Ping (1)
Cluster Missiles (4)
Munitions Failsafe (1)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (6/7) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 3
Total: 20
And as previously mentioned, Steve was flying a twist on Illy’s Worlds winning list:
“Odd Ball” (SoC) – ARC-170 Starfighter (4)
Selfless (0)
Veteran Tail Gunner (0)
R4-P Astromech (0)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 5
“Wolffe” (SoC) – ARC-170 Starfighter (4)
Wolfpack (SoC) (0)
Veteran Tail Gunner (0)
Q7 Astromech (0)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 4
“Broadside” – BTL-B Y-wing (3)
Ion Cannon Turret (5)
Ion Bombs (4)
Delayed Fuses (1)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (10/10) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 4
“Matchstick” – BTL-B Y-wing (3)
Ion Cannon Turret (5)
Ion Bombs (4)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (9/9) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 4
“Axe” (SoC) – V-19 Torrent Starfighter (3)
Deadeye Shot (0)
Barrage Rockets (0)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 3
“Kickback” (SoC) – V-19 Torrent Starfighter (3)
Diamond-Boron Missiles (0)
Munitions Failsafe (0)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 3
Total: 20
Let’s get those Pre-Flight checks:
Scenario – Scramble The Transmission
Target/Objective Priority – Ugh, I mean, taking an ARC off the board is pretty important but it’s the Y-Wings that get you with the ions.
Obstacles – Small obstacles spread apart on my side and possible clustered on Steve’s. An unachievable ideal but still, something to aim for.
Deployment – I want Sai close enough to coordinate other ships but also keeping my big ships spread out so as not to cause too much self bumping.
We place objectives, obstacles and ships and we’re ready start.
Now, admittedly, I did miss a pic of turn 0 but you can pretty much see what was happening here:
My aim here was to swing in with the Deci to leverage the Vet Turret Gunner for double taps and take down a Y-Wing and maybe the central ARC. I was aiming to keep Sai back a bit to hopefully keep him alive longer than the others and leverage the action economy he offers.
Now, my range control wasn’t too bad on my left side but on the right….
A little bit less good.
The best I could do with ANY shot was strip Wolffe’s shields but in return I lost Hark’s and took a Console Fire, Tomax took a hit and the Deci lost all 5 shields and one hull.
Ouch.
Lots of damage down and Steve had bagged two objectives to my one. Still, my first proper engage was still to come. Yes, I was down but maybe I could claw something back.
The Deci hard turned to start getting in the way while my other ships angled for shots into the Y-Wings and Hark dropped his first Commandos.
Focused fire meant that I dropped Broadside (yay!) but lost Tomax in response (boo!).
On the plus side though, I’d only taken 1 more damage into the Deci while I’d taken 2 shields from Odd Ball, put a hit into Kickback AND stripped Matchstick’s shields.
I’ll take the moral victory there I think.
The board was about to become VERY congested though….
And I done went and ballsed it up.
Patrol Leader went 2 straight but actually a 3 would have fit without hitting Hark. Failing to go far enough forward meant that Sai bumped the Deci and all my action economy vapourised.
With reduced agility from rotating, Hark took a pounding and while he lived long enough to shoot, my lack of mods this turn proved my undoing.
Hark died a violent death and while I put 5 damage past Steve’s green dice, it was across 3 different targets and nothing burned down.
In what was to be the last turn, my positional situation got the better of me as I failed to get to where I could focus fire.
Steve put all shots into the Lambda and while it survived to fire, it didn’t last the turn.
With 3 of my ships dead and Steve out scoring me on objectives 2-1 for 3 turns in a row he hit 20 points for a rather dominant win.
Final result: 8 -21 loss
The conclusion…
Well that was interesting. Clearly there’s not too much to read into it since my list is using both extended ships and 312 points but given how strong it’s been over the past few games, it’s fascinating to see how it fared against the current top meta ships, (which is, to be clear, not that well). In the end, while my list is beefy, it got out-beefed.
Regardless, it’s always fun to play and especially against Steve, even when he wins!
As I normally do during the summer holidays, I’ll be taking the next 2 weeks off from blogging. I should get a game in next week but between being away and prepping for XTC I’ll be pressed for time and so taking a short break feels like a sensible thing to do.
I’ll be back next month and by then it’s looking like we’ll have some XWA points (wooo!) and of course the XTC. Exciting times are ahead, I’ll catch you soon!
The outro…
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