The intro…
Hello! Welcome to this week’s blog!
It’s going to be a bit of a weird one this week, mostly because I’m actually on holiday and I’m short on time!
Just quickly first though, a little reminder about the Welsh Open 2026! Head on over to the Facebook event group and get your ticket!!!!
Patreon Update…
So Q1 is over, the deadline has passed. I put out a message to my supporters but I’ll echo it here as well, just in case. If you are going to be at the Sith Takers Open this coming weekend PLEASE LET ME KNOW! I would love to hand you your stuff in person and also it’ll help me save a bit on postage!
I have also put in an order with Cog O Two for some things for next quarter which they might be bringing with them so I might be able to give you a cheeky little preview of Q2!
The main bit…
Life in general is very busy at the moment so where am I with, well, everything? Well, ok, not everything, I’m not going to go in depth about the struggles of repainting my bathroom ceiling or getting my garden wall repaired. I do have a lot of X-Wing stuff going on right now though.
First up:
XWA stuff…
Oh boy have things been busy here.
As you most likely know, the XWA X-Wing World Championship is happening at Adepticon NEXT MONTH.
The whole Organised Play season that’s happened from May 2025 has been leading up to this event with Squad Championships giving byes for System Opens and then System Opens offering byes for Worlds.
Planning prizes for Worlds has been an interesting challenge and this past week we’re released an announcement teasing some of the things that people can get their hands on when attending!
https://www.xwing.life/news/announcements#h.pec3zilx1foj
Click the link to read the details, I’ll just show a couple of the pictures….
I am VERY proud of the kit and more proud of the hard work that all the team has done to get the above prizes (and far more!) organised for this event. I don’t like namechecking normally just in case I miss anyone out but in this case I feel I have to! So HUGE thanks to Martin Loo, Kester Smith, Louie Leong and Nick Sperry. You are all legends and the X-Wing community owes you their gratitude!
So in case you are still on the fence about attending Worlds, check out the full article int eh link above and then click here to get your ticket!
Actual Games…
Now, this has been a bit of an interesting one.
Only a few short weeks ago I talked about how I was on a real hot streak with the list I’ve been flying of late.
Fenn Rau – Fang Fighter (14)
Elusive (4)
Fearless (3)
Ship Cost: 14 Loadout: (7/7) Half Points: 7 Damage Threshold: 2
Boba Fett – Firespray-class Patrol Craft (21)
Fearless (3)
The Child (9)
Seismic Charges (3)
Marauder (0)
Veteran Tail Gunner (5)
Ship Cost: 21 Loadout: (20/20) Half Points: 10 Damage Threshold: 5
Dengar (AaD) – JumpMaster 5000 (15)
R2-G8 (AaD) (0)
Synchronized Handling (AaD) (0)
Starboard Thrusters (AaD) (0)
Punishing One (0)
Ship Cost: 15 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 7 Damage Threshold: 4
Total: 50
I’d won a few in person games and also three games in a row against very good players in the Tauntaun Fam Alpha event.
Pride, it seems, does come before a fall.
My next opponent in Fam was Tom Veale. He’s a really very good player. Tom was flying a CIS list which, on paper, felt like it was beatable for me. However, that’s not how it played out. Evidence of this (kind of) is in the last blog I wrote.
Then I played an in person game against Josh Hall and that also went badly. Very badly. I think I got in my own head
Things felt relatively ok at opening but after looking like he was going to chase Boba, Josh turned and went all-in on Fenn.
This put two of my ships out of action for a few turns and while Fenn didn’t’ die immediately, every turn I failed to take out any of Josh’s ships I lost ground, not only on damage but as I needed my actions to push damage, with objective play too.
This ended up being quite the beating, losing 16 – 51 and only scoring 4 objective points, half of Mando and half of Fenn.
Ugh.
Then in the final swiss round of the Tauntaun event I was drawn against Dom Flannigan. Sure, just one of the best players there is. Cool.
He was flying CIS, a droid swarm. I do not have a good record against droid swarms with any kind of list, let alone a 3 ship one…
My fears were borne out as I firstly gave Dom’s ships a nice line of rocks to perch on and then I made a 50/50 call which ended up with Boba being killed in 1 round.
Boba in exchange for one Hyena bomber is not a great trade.
The result was settled here but I fought on anyway. Dengar fell next and while I was slowly managing to pop droids, Dom’s excellent play meant that he was getting lots of damage into my list.
In the end Fenn lived but Dom nicked a cheeky half on him right at the death to make it a 34 – 57 loss for me.
Sith Takers Open…
So, all of a sudden, the STO is upon us!
I feel that I need a good amount of prep to take a list to a tournament so despite the recent downturn in results I will definitely be keeping this list for the event.
Why? Well, there’s two reasons really.
Firstly, I need a good number of reps with a list to fully internalise all of the triggers and things that you should/shouldn’t do. This has been especially true of Boba in the Firespray because i’s a ship that I’ve not really flown much of. I’ve done plenty with the Fang and Jumpmaster, having used a list with both in previously but the Firespray has been an interesting one.
I think the biggest thing that’s struck me on it are what I now perceive as the weaknesses in the dial. If you’d asked me before what I think of the ship, purely as someone who has mostly flown against it, I’d have said what most people believe – it’s one of (if not THE) best chassis in the game.
Actually flying it, I’ve found two things that surprised me a little. The first is the lack of a 3 hard turn. The number of times I gone to dial that in only to find it doesn’t exist has been rather annoying. The second is the lack of blue turns. If I’m stressed but do’nt want to go straight, my only option is to bank.
Now I guess both of these can be combatted by making use of the boost action, especially when the ship has passive mods to power up attacks. It sometimes doesn’t help with objective play though, especially in terms of picking up a box in Salvage Mission when it not only takes your action but also robs you of the ability to boost.
Either way, I really like the ship and there’s no way I’m changing now!
The second reason? Well that’s easy. I got in touch with Andrew Lippens (aka Pym from the newly started NCS Podcast among other things) who is very kindly (and for money, of course) painting me up some ships!
My beautiful Fang Fighter was painted by Ryan Coyle (Iksentrik) a couple of years ago but having just one painted ship in the list felt a bit odd. So at criminally short notice Pym (who is actually attending the Sith Takers Open aaaaaalll the wasy fromt he U S of A!) has painted me up a Jumpmaster and a Firespray for me to use!
They are gorgeous and I can’t wait to see them in person and use them!
Speaking of Iksentrik, Mr Coyle has only gone and done it again with the Sith Takers Open trophy this year….
This looks absolutely incrediable and the level of detail is absolutely insane!
All in all I am REALLY looking forward to this coming weekend! It’s going to be awesome!
The conclusion…
Not much to say here that hasn’t already been said. The next blog is likely to be a bit gushy with some batreps thrown in but I do want to say here that large scale X-Wing events are always amazing, not just because it’s a super concentrated dose of nerd-ism across multiple days but because of the people.
It’s going to be epic and I CAN’T WAIT!!
See you next time!
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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