The intro…
Hello and welcome to this week’s blog!
I have to tell you, life is BONKERS right now. Between work, family, DIY, XWA and so many other things I barely know if I’m coming or going.
There’s also been a public holiday in the UK (again!) which has thrown me off by a day with my weekend having been filled with, well, all that stuff I’ve already mentioned!
BUT! I am here and I’ve got some things to talk about so let’s get to it!
First up – events!
The Exile Squad Championship is coming up on the 24th of May at brand new venue The Arena in Newport! It’s a great new space with good size (and height!) tables, plenty of space and great parking. There’s also a Greggs around the corner AND a burger van 2 mins walk away!
Tickets are £12.50 and are available via the Facebook event page. If you don’t do Facebook just drop me a message!
We will have one of the XWA’s beautifully curated Squad Championship kits (yes, I’m biased!) which will include a bye for a system open level event!
Speaking of which, I’ll also drop in here about the upcoming Welsh Open 2025! Yes we are back for the third year of this event which will be hosted at the magnificent venue at Firestorm Games in Cardiff. We will be having 5 rounds of swiss on day 1 and then a top 16 cut on day 2 as well as a side event for those who didn’t make cut.
It’s on the 19th and 20th of July and tickets are just £37.50 which includes lunch on BOTH days (which would cost around £13!). We will have a TON of prizes including Welsh Open alt art cards, Lock N Roll merch, some Worlds 2025 dice and, of course, an XWA System Open kit!
So what are you waiting for? Get on the website and get your ticket NOW!!
Alright then, I think that’s it for now.
The bat…uh…rep….?
Ok so as I said, time is pretty tight for me at the moment. That said, I have played a few games of late and while I definitely don’t have time to go deep dive on all of them, I do want to talk around a few points and things I’ve noticed.
First up – in person
Now, the last few weeks I’ve talked about some games I played using some of the new SL pilots. Some went well, others went, umm, less well.
I had played 2 games with this list:
Han Solo (AaD) – Customized YT-1300 Light Freighter (6)
Chewbacca (AaD) (0)
L3-37 (AaD) (0)
Tobias Beckett (AaD) (0)
Lando’s Millennium Falcon (AaD) (0)
Ship Cost: 6 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 6
Fenn Rau (AaD) – Fang Fighter (6)
Fearless (0)
Adaptable Power Systems (AaD) (0)
Beskar Reinforced Plating (0)
Ship Cost: 6 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 2
Dengar (AaD) – JumpMaster 5000 (6)
R2-G8 (AaD) (0)
Synchronized Handling (AaD) (0)
Starboard Thrusters (AaD) (0)
Punishing One (0)
Ship Cost: 6 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 4
Mining Guild Surveyor – Modified TIE/ln Fighter (2)
Ship Cost: 2 Loadout: (0/0) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 1
Total: 20
And it went BADLY. Poor positioning, no strategy, unfamiliar enough with the Jumpmaster. It was bad, just bad.
I lost 2 games and then the following week tried a variation, dropping Dengar and the TIE and taking Mando and Cad
Han Solo (AaD) – Customized YT-1300 Light Freighter (6)
Chewbacca (AaD) (0)
L3-37 (AaD) (0)
Tobias Beckett (AaD) (0)
Lando’s Millennium Falcon (AaD) (0)
Ship Cost: 6 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 6
Fenn Rau (AaD) – Fang Fighter (6)
Fearless (0)
Adaptable Power Systems (AaD) (0)
Beskar Reinforced Plating (0)
Ship Cost: 6 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 2
The Mandalorian (AaD) – Naboo Royal N-1 Starfighter (4)
Outmaneuver (0)
The Child (AaD) (0)
Kineso-Switch (AaD) (0)
Calibrated Laser Targeting (0)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 2
Cad Bane (AaD) – Rogue-class Starfighter (4)
Flechette Cannons (AaD) (0)
Todo 360 (AaD) (0)
Xanadu Blood (AaD) (0)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3
Total: 20
This went better. Sort of. One win and one loss but I did feel better about the list in general and Mando in particular.
So, we roll around to this week and, happy with how things went I wanted to fly that second list again. What I’d forgotten was that the Rogue class I’d been flying was one I’d borrowed from Steve and while he was there, he’d since repacked his back and not brought it with him.
Oops.
So, back to list one then I guess! I wasn’t overly pleased about it, after all, there’s a Squad Champs coming up and I need reps with something I’m likely to use! Still, it was better than no game or trying to throw something else together out of the limited things I had in my bag.
Game 1
Steve had brought a First Order list which had an Upsilon in it! Fancy!
Having flown this Han a few times now I felt like I had a little more of an idea of what to do (though it still wasn’t perfect. Or even good…). We were playing Assault so the TIE’s job was to find an objective and not die while my other ships tried to kill things.
Dengar faced off against Malarus and Breach and due to his ability, caused Steve to decline shots on more than one occasion.
In the middle Han and Fenn honed in on Tavson and kept Vonreg in check.
I took minimal damage while chipping hits into Tavson and Breach with Fenn kiting past the Upsilon to follow up on the bomber.
The bomber, making full use of his system phase boost, managed to get away but a slightly disastrous bank in from Tavson meant that even with Collision Detector, he was a sitting duck for my i6’s and promptly exploded before getting to shoot that turn.
Breach lived on 1 hull (for about 4 turns in a row!!!) while Fenn easily survived Vonreg’s range 3 obstructed shot.
Result: 18 – 10 win
Mini conclusion…
Well, that was unexpected! Given how badly the last games I’d played with this list had gone I was very happy with that. Still room for improvement but it turns out that 3 i6 ships with a decent amount of health and/or agility isn’t too bad. Who knew eh?
Game 2
I stick with the same list but Steve changes things up, switching to an Imperial list with Soontir, a Bomber and a TIE Heavy. The scenario this time was Chance Engagement.
I feel like turn 0 went less well for this game but as long as I can get the TIE into range 2 of the middle I’ve got freedom to try and smash things up.
Things started off ok-ish as I got my lanes and range control correct for Dengar Or so I thought. I took out Tomax (4 points) for half of Danger (3) and then half of Ubbel (2) for the other half of Dengar (3). I then finished Ubbel to go 2 points up going in to the final turn.
Sadly at this point Han’s luck ran out and, despite getting a decent distance away, I lost all of Hand’s points while failing to finish off Juno. Boooooo.
Result: 15 – 17 loss
Mini(ish) conclusion…
That second game was VERY close. I think my positioning with Han in the mid game wasn’t great, meaning he wasn’t contributing enough damage. Also, I realised I made a pretty big mistake (hindsight eh?). In the penultimate turn I could ahve used my still unspent L3 charge to have Steve re-roll a pretty decent attack. I didn’t and there were TWO consequences.
One – he was able to spend his lock to reroll a blank and get a full string of hits (when his roll was perfectly average – hit, eyeball, blank). Sometimes preventing the use of the lock is as good as making them reroll a great attack.
Two – If I had used L3, Han’s 3 bank (which I had to do to get distance from Soontir) would have been blue and I could have then boosted (or even Slammed? Maybe. I can’t remember if I’d already used that) and dodged at least one, perhaps two of Steve’s arcs, saving 6 points that Steve scored from taking Han out. Worst case I just lose half and I win by 1 point.
Still, the list had worked a LOT better than the last time I’d used it. I still don’t know if I’m sold on Dengar/MG TIE over Mando/Cad. I really like Mando but without dropping one of the 6 pointers it isn’t possible to get him in.
When it comes to it, the choice is about play style and strategy. Whichever one I go with is going to work quite differently than the other and I need to properly look at how each one works best and how I should set up my turn 0 for it.
All of which is nice and easy to say but less straightforward to actually do!
What will I play this week? Well, given that my rogue classes are still boxed and at work, it’s quite likely I’ll stick to the same again. Probably.
Secondly – online!
So, a little bit of back story here. I’m part of a VERY interesting online team tournament. If you’re ready for a long video then check this out for info:
The TL;DR is basically:
- Teams of 5 players (12 teams total)
- Each team drafts pilots
- Once a team has its pilots, they use those pilots to make 5 lists (with no faction restrictions)
The tournament then runs like a normal team tournament with captains running pairings and then 5 games are played.
Simple, right?
First of all, actually picking pilots that we wanted to draft was tough. Then, once we had our list of pilots, deciding who gets what pilots was ALSO tough.
In my attempt to make things easier I volunteered to have everyone else pick their list first and I’d take whatever was left AND be ‘thrown under the bus’ at the pairing stage.
To be clear on what that means in terms of X-Wing team play – if it’s possible to pair me (an average player with an average-weak list) into a similar player/list then it’s 50/50 whether I’ll get a win for the team (well, probably more 70/30 that I’d lose but still…). Whereas if I am thrown under the bus by being paired into a good player/list then it makes it possible for one of our better players/lists to maybe get an easier game. The long and short of it is that the thinking is – it’s sometimes (but not always) better to have a guaranteed* win and guaranteed* loss than it is to have two 50/50 matches.
*I mean NOTHING is guaranteed but maybe it’s better (but much longer) to say, statistically more likely?
Anyway, all that to say that this is my list:
Han Solo (AaD) – Customized YT-1300 Light Freighter (6)
Chewbacca (AaD) (0)
L3-37 (AaD) (0)
Tobias Beckett (AaD) (0)
Lando’s Millennium Falcon (AaD) (0)
Ship Cost: 6 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 6
Bodhi Rook – UT-60D U-wing (4)
Fire-Control System (2)
Hera Syndulla (4)
Pivot Wing (0)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (6/6) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 4
Derek Klivian – RZ-1 A-wing (3)
Lone Wolf (3)
Proton Rockets (6)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (9/9) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 2
Dash Rendar (YLF) – YT-2400 Light Freighter (7)
Expert Handling (2)
Magva Yarro (5)
Overtuned Modulators (3)
Ablative Plating (2)
Outrider (0)
Ship Cost: 7 Loadout: (12/12) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 5
Total: 20
So, yes, that is the same Han I’ve been flying lately which is nice. And also, YES THAT IS DASH RENDAR!!! Although, not my preferred Dash, sadly.
Still, I went in to my first game with a very vague idea of what to do and, well, I got smashed up.
The first engagement went well as I tanked a good number of shots without taking damage but then Derek got one-shotted by a TIE Silencer as I blanked out with my green dice.
I then systematically took hit after hit and, to top it off, I went back to last week’s problem and landed Han on a rock where he took 2 damage and then blanked out on 3 green from 3 attacks and died.
Oh dear.
A resounding 7 – 22 loss as I lost everyone except Dash while my opponent (Andre from NZ, lovely guy!) managed to keep all his ships alive.
Many mistakes were made here and so I definitely need to try out some new things before my next game!
The conclusion…
I mean, there’s not a lot more to conclude here today, I’ve covered everything in the games I’ve talked about I think! Only to say that maybe I was a bit quick to dismiss the Scum list I played IRL after I sucked using it the first two times. It shouldn’t surprise me but it still did a bit!
All that’s left for me to say really is to get your tickets for the Newport event and the Welsh Open!
That’s it from me for today, thanks for reading!
The outro…
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