The intro…
Hello there and welcome to this week’s blog!
Some events have definitely happened over the past few weeks but in all honesty, with so much going on it’s bypassed me a little bit!
I did manage to watch some of the Tartan Tusken System Open that happened in Scotland this past weekend. Thanks to Sith Taker Tim for streaming it and well done to Josh Kalmouni for going all the way and getting the win!
Here’s the Longshanks page in case you’re interested in the matches and lists: https://www.longshanks.org/event/25589/
Speaking of big events….
YES! I’M GOING TO KEEP PLUGGING IT!
The Welsh Open 2026 is happening on the 4th and 5th of July this year at The Arena in Newport! You can get your name down for a ticket by going to the Facebook event page and commenting on the pinned ticket post! If you don’t use Facebook just get in touch with me somehow (comment on the blog or wherever you’ve seen the blog posted) and I’ll get in touch and get your name down. It promises to be a great weekend of X-Wing and fun!
Alrighty, let’s get moving…
Patreon Update…
So Q1 for 2026 is all done! I’ll get the giveaway drawn this week and start packing for postage. For those who will be at STO I will put out a message in Patreon to find out who you are and get your things to you directly.
Thanks again to everyone who continues to support the blog, I really appreciate you!
The… batrep…? (JARGON ALERT!!)
So, this past week I played a game. Yay!
The bad news? I didn’t get any pictures.
Now normally, if I didn’t get pictures then I don’t blog about it becuase:
- 1 – I’m very likely to be inacurate
- 2 – long blocks of text is boring to look at
That said, I have a fairly good recollection of the game and I’ve had a go at recreating it in TTS, purely so that there’s some visual representation. Some things are likely to be a bit wrong but you’ll get the general gist of it.
My list is unchanged:
Fenn Rau – Fang Fighter (14)
Fearless (3)
Elusive (4)
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
My reward for managing to somehow get to 3-0 in the Tauntaun Fam Alpha event was a game against Tom Veale. Tom is part of Steel City X-Wing in Sheffield and one of the top CIS players in the country. Cool.
It’s also worth knowing that, in order to be done in time for STO, the Fam event is 5 rounds of swiss and a cut to top two. TWO!!
Anyway, Tom is (unsurprisingly) flying CIS:
General Grievous – Belbullab-22 Starfighter (13)
Outmaneuver (9)
Impervium Plating (2)
Soulless One (9)
Ship Cost: 13 Loadout: (20/20) Half Points: 6 Damage Threshold: 3
Sun Fac – Nantex-Class Starfighter (13)
Ensnare (10)
Predator (3)
Gravitic Deflection (3)
Targeting Computer (1)
Ship Cost: 13 Loadout: (17/17) Half Points: 6 Damage Threshold: 2
DFS-311 (SoC) – Vulture-class Droid Fighter (6)
Discord Missiles (0)
Contingency Protocol (SoC) (0)
Strut-Lock Override (SoC) (0)
Ship Cost: 6 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 1
MagnaGuard Executioner – Rogue-class Starfighter (9)
Synced Laser Cannons (8)
Ship Cost: 9 Loadout: (8/8) Half Points: 4 Damage Threshold: 3
MagnaGuard Executioner – Rogue-class Starfighter (9)
Synced Laser Cannons (8)
Ship Cost: 9 Loadout: (8/8) Half Points: 4 Damage Threshold: 3
Total: 50
Yuck. Sun Fac and Grievous are the obvious big hitters but those MagnaGuards will certainly make a nuisance of themselves if left unchecked.
So, again, a reminder that these TTS screenshots are a recreation. I’m not registering, not scoring and not rolling dice, just moving things roughly where I think they went. Also, I’ve totally forgotten where objectives went but we were playing Assault and the objective score was reasonably even throughout. As far as I remember at least!
My initial thoughts here are:
4-K with Boba and blow the rock (to make space for Dengar), go slow with Dengar (to not get hit by the seismic the following turn), stay neutral with Fenn.
Seems simple, right?
Tom’s ships advance quickly up my left hand flank and slowly on the right. I KNOW that Grievous is baiting me in to either commit or turn away (neither of which is good for me) but what can I do about that? At least the bomb threat will keep Sun Fac at bay for a turn.
I decide to turn Fenn and Boba at the Rogues while Dengar waits fo the opportunity to turn in.
Tom sends the rogues in fast with DFS there to provide an extra calculate while Sun Fac moves in to the middle. Grievous is STILL biding his time in the corner.
The big news here is that Fenn bumps the front Rogue and takes a red focus.
I manage to do some good damage to the non bumped Rogue here, bringing it down to 2 hull in exchange for nothing at all. Not a bad deal!
Back to that red focus for Fenn, his dial is now pretty locked down. I could take a pop at the droid but that leaves him open for abuse by Sun Fac.
Boba wants to finish off the yellow Rogue but Tom’s going to anticipate that and is likely to go fast. I dial a 3 bank with Boba to (hopefully) go past him and shoot him with the rear arc.
Dengar really wants to turn in. I can’t have a 15 point double tapping gun tied up by Grievous all game. That does leave him open to an outmanoeuvre shot if I get it wrong though.
Tom starts with DFS going 3 hard before the MangaGuards both sail in at Boba. Grievous angles at Dengar. Boba dodges the blocks fromt he Rogues and boosts to go fully past. Dengar bumps into GG (General Grievous) while Fenn takes a 2 straight and, despite the risk of Sun Fac zooming in to ruin my day, just takes a focus.
Tom exercised caution with Sun Fac and went slowly but still has Fenn in bullseye.
Dengar start but taking a shield off Grievous at range 0 before Fenn one-shots DFS-311. Sun Fac gets a hit onto Fenn (though I needed Elusive to help me out) but crucially here, the yellow Rogue does not die.
Balls.
Now, here is where I had to make some important decisions.
Dengar – engage GG or turn in to chase Sun Fac
Boba – 2 hard turn to threaten Sun Fac (and therefore protect Fenn a little) or Talon roll (JARGON ALERT!!) to keep an arc on the yellow Rogue and then chase down Sun Fac later.
Fenn – a small base ship being chased by Sun Fac is the worst case scenario here. I run but where? Will Sun Fac go straight or will he turn right? Do I head to the top right of the board or risk turning left? Gah.
I send Dengar after Sun Fac, Boba after Sun Fac and go 3 straight with Fenn and boost into a red focus.
Tom manages to get 2 ships to now focus on Dengar while Sun Fac wants to chase Fenn.
*Disclaimer* I had to adjust some ship positions here to make it look like I remember. I will say again, these images are just mock ups!
In news that should shock no-one, Dengar now starts taking some damage. Fenn is fine but Boba’s shot into Sun Fac is a waste of time as he just shrugs it off.
Eesh.
I’ve got no choice now but to get Fenn out of Sun Fac’s way while threatening with Boba. And what do I do with Dengar?
Looking at the images again, I think it was probably more like this:
Meaning Dengar can’t 4-k or sloop (JARGON ALERTS!!)
Here’s where I got a bit creative. Or rather, I tried to. I set Dengar a hard left turn which, I estimated, would fit fine. Well, it would have, had the cheeky Rogue not blocked me.
You might be able to tell now that my memory is a bit fuzzy about final positions here as ships are either moving to weird places or not moving much at all.
To try and save my sanity (or rather, what tatters remain of it) a few things happen. Dengar does manage to hard turn and then roll. Shots happen, Dengar is being chipped down and I can’t seem to do much damage in return.
Dengar then pulls out a 4-k, makes it white with the Synchonized Handlng ability but can’t take an action as he was already stressed from the roll the previous turn. Boba continues to plod into the middle but none of Tom’s ships will comply with my requests to blow up.
Then, in a rather frustrating turn of events, one the Rogues rolls all hits at Fenn range 3 and Fenn blanks and dies. Dengar shoots range 1 into the 1 health Rogue. It doesn’t die. Grievous (who Dengar bumped in to so is range 0) shoots at Dengar and does 1 damage. Dengar takes the revenge shot into Grievous and misses. The 1 health Rogue shoots at Dengar and kills him. I then kick myself (figuratively speaking) because Dengar could have fired the revenge shot (out of spite more than anything since I’m not winning this game now) but, of course, can’t.
Result: 28 – 48 loss
The conclusion…
So the run is over. But what did I learn?
Well, try not to get paired into CIS I guess!
Going into the game I knew I needed to keep Fenn away from Sun Fac but the Nantex’s speed makes that quite diffucult.
I succeeded in keeping the Fang away but the cost of that was only taking 2 shots with him all game. They were decent shots that did plenty of damage but it’s clearly not enough with a 3 ship list.
I also needed to be a bit braver with Boba. He’s a LOT of points to give up but his strength lies in being close to ships for rerolls and I think I got to use that ability maybe twice the whole game? That’s not enough.
And then there’s Dengar. Tom outplayed me here. His use of Grievous basically nullified Dengar’s strengths and once he got ships into range he just bumped him to oblivion.
Now that’s not to say that I think I played badly. With some slightly better dice rolls (not to blame the dice!) then one MagnaGuard would have died and I’d have maybe got half on Sun Fac. It wouldn’t have been enough to swing the result but at least it would have been a bit closer!
Tom did well in turn 0, placing rocks where it makes life difficult for Dengar (and to which I contributed!) and then Grievous’ position kept him in check. On reflection I wonder whether keeping all my ships reasonably close down my right hand flank would have sent both Sun Fac and GG running off and meant that the MangeGuards needed to navigate past rocks to get into meaningful range?
What do you think?
Either way, we’re a week close to the Sith Taker Open and I am HYPED FOR IT!
I’ll see you next week! Hopefully with pictures this time!
The outro…
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