The intro…
Well hello! Once again I am subbing out the work and Steve has written up another blog!
Before we get started I want to just say that I’m aware some of the pictures aren’t quite working right. I’m publishing from my phone on the way to camping for a few days so I’m not able to fix it right now but I’ll sort it at some point.
Ok, on we go!
The main bit…
Many Belgium Beers died to bring us this information!
Hello and welcome to this week’s blog. Today we are off to Mechelen in Belgium for the X-Wing World Team Competition ( WTC ). In the picture above is myself and my game nine opponent Darth Zero who did nasty things to me with IG’s with the same huge smile and then got me a beer, truly a lovely man.
There won’t be any battle reports in this blog, this is hopefully a blog to inspire you to go next year for what is possibly the greatest X-Wing event in the world.
Twenty Two teams came together to play X-Wing in Mechelen at the Battle of Malinas. Each team has five players and sometimes a non-playing captain.
If you’d like to watch any of the games, please go to Sith Taker Tim on Twitch (he is also uploading them onto YouTube ) and you can see some great matches. We are very lucky to have Tim supporting the game with his coverage so please support him.
My story however starts the year before when I had the great honour to be invited to play for one of the Yorkshire teams by Dan Athey. Even as a southerner I was welcomed into the team and a few months of practice went well and I was confident after some good results with my FO squad. The plane and hotel were booked, my bags were packed and I was ready for an exciting weekend when……….
| My wonderful wife Sally and I went out for a cycle ride just before the event. She had a really really bad crash when she tried to avoid a pothole and hit gravel and skidded. She’s fully recovered now but I decided I couldn’t leave her and sadly told my team that I couldn’t attend. In a strange twist of fate, a local, Kobe stood in for me and would end up being my team mate this year. I followed events over the weekend while taking care of Sally and my team and Kobe did well which left me feeling happy and sad at the same time. But there’s always next year……. |
This year rolls around and …………
Yorkshire are only sending 2 teams and I’m team-less. No, it’s not going to happen, I’ve missed my chance to play. I ask around for a few months, but no one seems interested and time’s running out.
Then the wonderful Phil Pond says he’s looking for a team, now there’s two but after weeks of asking around things are looking grim and it may not happen.
Then Dave Hammond and ( yes you guessed it ) Kobe answer the call and we have four. Then two weeks before the event one of Kobe’s locals says he can play. And with Patrick we have a team. Team Yub Yub
Planes are booked, accommodation organised and three Englishmen and two Belgium’s set out to conquer the galaxy. But first we have to get to Belgium.
Easy right?
Well, No. Heathrow airport and Brussel’s airport conspired to change our plan ( me and Pond, Dave’s coming out later ) of breakfast at Heathrow, hour flight, land and go one stop on the train to be in Mechelen for 4 pm to…
Only eating two HobNob biscuits all day ( thanks British Airways ) and arriving in Mechelen in the evening tired and hungry.
Now comes one of the reasons you need to come to WTC next year. I don’t drink but after the trip from Hell I thought I deserved a beer. The lovely waitress recommended the local Gouden Carolus Classic which I later found out is 8.5% BUT is amazing and two glasses and a pizza later I was very happy and chatting to friends who you can see in the picture on the right.
The beer is so good I was having a couple a night, it’s amazing.
One of the great things about X-Wing is the friendships you make with people from all over the world and the fun you have both on and off the table.
Another reason for going to WTC is Mechelen. It’s a beautiful town in Belgium close to Brussels and full of amazing squares and buildings with a vibrant café/restaurant culture.
I found out that it was only 10 minutes’ walk from the main square to the venue which was fantastic as you played your games and then walked into town and spent the evenings drinking and eating with amazing players from different countries. Everyone is super friendly and chilled so don’t worry about feeling left out, you can pitch up anywhere and within a few minutes you’ll be discussing X-Wing with a Polish, French or German ( to name just a few countries ) player and having a wonderful time.
On to the event. The venue is a huge hangar and was hosting 40K and Kill-team events as well as X-Wing. There’s a bar ( with nice beer ) and a number of vendors selling game related items as well as an area that was selling WTC merchandise related to the various game systems.
There were also a number of food vans just outside the entrance so you could get lunch.
The actual play tables were huge so there was plenty of room to put all your X-Wing components down. There was also another table at the end of each row that was designated to each team so that you could leave your bags on it instead of carting them from table to table.
It was very well organised.
The actual judging team were fantastic. They really don’t get the praise they deserve. They set up all the tables and mats etc ready for the event and even though you could see they were broken by the end of the event they always had a smile on their face and were happy to help with judge calls. Heroes all.
Tim was doing his usual amazing job of streaming and promoting the game. I’ve only watched a few of the games but as usual the quality is top notch.
The team event is over two days ( five games day one and four games day two ). What’s really nice is that day one is swiss but really identifies your team’s level of skill. On day two your then moved into a new group, Gold Silver and Bronze and you’ll be playing teams of a similar skill level. Each team then have winning their group to aim for.
They also make sure that you don’t replay a team from day one.
Now some of the top teams had been discussing and practicing for six months. Team Yub Yub came together two weeks before the event. So we went with ‘fly what you know’.
There was a discussion before the event of where teams would end up and we were expected to not win a round.
Now as the room had three world champions, multiple Sith Taker winners and system, regional and store champions and we’d had no preparation that’s probably a fair assumption but ….
We WON two of our rounds and didn’t finish last. Next year we obviously want to do better and win our group but the main objective was to have fun and make friends. Talking to my teammates after we all agreed it had been huge fun whilst also being some of the hardest games we’d played. One ace we had up our sleeve was Captain Pond who did an amazing job getting us the best match ups each round. He put in a huge amount of work, and we were all very grateful.
I’d like to thank all my wonderful opponents. Nine amazing games played with fun and sportsmanship and also some amazing swag that they gave me.
I had hoped to get some match reports out but work and an upcoming holiday are taking a lot of my time.
But I had to write about what a special weekend this was. I’ve been fortunate enough to go to three worlds and in my opinion this was better. So, if I’ve inspired you to go, start talking to your player group now and start planning, you won’t be disappointed.
Huge congrats to the wonderful German team who won the event. I’m very lucky to call them friends. It was a very well deserved win.
What happens at the end of an amazing event? Beer and writing a new list with the points that dropped on the Sunday of course.
Thanks to everyone who made this the event of the year.
Pew Pew everyone, I hope to see you across the table next year
StevieB
The Conclusion…
Well that certainly looked like a lot of fun! Well done to the winners and to everyone who went for making it such a great event.
WTC is something I’ve often thought would be great to go to but not been able to line things up to make it happen.
Thanks Steve for another entertaining blog and thanks to you for sticking around to read. Catch you next time!
The outro…
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