The intro…
Welcome to this week’s blog!
It’s been a couple of weeks since my last post and it has been WILD.
First up, we went on holiday. It was slightly last minute and ended up being slightly chaotic but really good. We took a ferry over to France and spent a few days camping near Annecy which, if you’ve never been, is WELL worth a visit. Crystal clear lake against the backdrop of mountains. Stunning.
We’ve camped a lot over the years but our trusty Vango Airbeam tent finally gave up the ghost after 9 years of solid service. One slightly leaky inflatablepole? Manageable. Three? That’s more tricky to recover from. On a positive note, we’ve now discussed getting a camper van when the kids are both of university age.
We then went to a place called Troyes to spend time in a lake near there (Lac d’Orient) but it turned out that it’s a reservoir that regulates water levels in the Seine and it was being drained for maintenance. Balls.
This meant we had time to look around the (very lovely) town and then start heading back towards Calais slightly eariler which allowed us a stop at Paris. Side note, did you know there’s a ‘mini’ statue of Liberty in Paris?
Long story short (or, long story medium but shorter than it could be), even with some challenges we had a great time.
In amongst what has been a busy week back I have (for those who are interested) made some progress on the longest DIY project ever – decking in the back garden. Not finished but looking MUCH more like the end product after a solid day of work on Saturday. My biggest challenge now is the weather…
Anyway, you’re not here for a DIY or travel blog, you’re here for X-Wing!
You may think that all this stuff happening has meant no X-Wing, well, you’d be wrong! Yay! I got to play 2 games this week but that wasn’t the only X-Wing related stuff where there’s something to talk about.
XWA Update…
After some delays in getting components in stock we are FINALLY once again shipping out Squad Championship kits!
The delays have been SUPER frustrating to manage and I apologise to everyone who has been waiting for their orders. Demand for kits WAY outstripped expectation (which is a good thing!) and we are still a very young organisation with no working capital, not ordering in enough numbers for bulk discount and not making any profit to build up capital for future kits. We’re also 100% volunteer so any and all design, ordering, packing and shipping is done around day jobs while navigating some time zone differences.
What I’m trying to say here is we’re doing our best and even though it feels (to me) like that’s not quite enough, every challenge is an opportunity to learn and I am already thinking about how to make the next OP season run smoother.
So, if you have ordered and paid for a kit then your stuff will be sent out over the next few weeks.
If you submitted a for but haven’t send funds ot responded to the email then you could be in for a long wait. We currently have around 40 orders in this state and we can’t afford to order in components that aren’t being paid for. So if you filled out the form and still want your kit – reply to the email please!
XTC Update…
WHAT?!? ALREADY!?!?!??!?!
This week I got slightly caught out. XTC seemed to go from ‘that’s months away’ to ‘isn’t that kind of soon?’ to ‘CAPTAINS – SUBMIT YOUR LISTS!’ in no time at all.
I was alerted to an imminent deadline when someone else got tagged in a Discord post and all of a sudden, the team submission deadline is the 9th of September. Oops!
In case you don’t know, XTC is the X-Wing Team Championship (think FIFA World Cup, but for tiny plastic spaceships) and I am the current captain for Wales.
In each round teams are paired together and the captains work to pair their players together like this:
The games play out and whichever team gets the most wins takes the round. Historically there’s been a 5/6 team group stage where the qualifying teams then reach the 10 team final stage. After 9 rounds of round robin there is a champion.
This year will be slightly different. Due to a truncated timeline (and how long things have taken in the past) this tournament is going to be double elimination. Basically it’s a round to sort the teams into a winner bracket and a loser bracket and then it’s knockout from there on in. Each bracket will end up with 1 team who will then play each other for the title.
With VERY little notice I started reaching out to previous players and within 24 hours I had a team of 7 faction players plus 2 subs! More details next week when I have more time (maybe that’s optimistic…) but while it was in doubt for a breif moment, Team Wales is in the XTC!
The batreps… (JARGON ALERT!!)
Not only has all this been going on but I got to play X-Wing! TWICE!!
Since time (for writing) is short I’m going to talk about both games but they wo’nt be full on bat-reps.
I’m still flying the Rebel slugger list (does it have a name? I feel like it needs a name):
Luke Skywalker – T-65 X-wing (5)
Plasma Torpedoes (7)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)
Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (7/7) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3
Wedge Antilles – RZ-1 A-wing (3)
Predator (3)
Hopeful (1)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (4/4) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 2
Evaan Verlaine – BTL-A4 Y-wing (3)
Dorsal Turret (3)
Concussion Bombs (5)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (8/8) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 4
Wullffwarro – Auzituck Gunship (4)
Trick Shot (4)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (4/4) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 4
Saw Gerrera – UT-60D U-wing (5)
Tactical Officer (3)
The Child (7)
Contraband Cybernetics (3)
Pivot Wing (0)
Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (13/13) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 4
Total: 20
So far I’m around 5 or 6 games in with the list and no losses. Not bad for me!
I rocked up at The Arena and unpacked, ready to play.
Game 1 – Josh Hall
Josh is still rocking his Scum list which has some VERY nasty pieces in it:
Mining Guild Surveyor – Modified TIE/ln Fighter (2)
Ship Cost: 2 Loadout: (0/0) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 1
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
Talonbane Cobra – Kihraxz Fighter (4)
Fearless (3)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (3/4) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3
Fenn Rau – Fang Fighter (5)
Fearless (3)
Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (3/3) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 2
Old Teroch – Fang Fighter (5)
Daredevil (4)
Fearless (3)
Mandalorian Optics (3)
Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (10/11) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 2
Total: 20
We got set up and, in all honesty here, I made some poor choices and one massive mistake.
Look, let’s address the elephant in the room here. We joked during setup about not even bothering to place Evaan’s bomb or spending the charge and just putting damage cards onto Saw and Wulf because I was always going to drop it and reload.
Except I didn’t. Saw and Wulf went 3 and 4 forwards respectively because I wanted to take up position in the middle.
Stupid.
Elsewhere things started well as Mando went 5 straight 5 SLAM for the shot on Wedge only to be hit by Luke’s Plasma torp and finished off by Wedge who had only lost 1 shield in the process. A decent start.
Things went ok the following turn as I halved Fenn and got a crit onto Old T in exchange for half of Luke but the one after that is where it went seriously downhill.
At this point Fenn is on 2 hull and Old T has a Fuel Leak.
Wedge (obviously) died before getting to shoot but I had 4 other shots into Fenn, 3 of them at range 1.
I did one damage. ONE.
In return Josh, having already killed off Wedge, finished off 3 health Wulfwarro and halved full health Evaan.
Big ouch.
The following few turns followed a somewhat similar pattern as I tried (and failed) to get any more damage onto Fangs. I was keeping pace with objective scoring (just about) but failing to score any more ship points meant that I was unable to catch up.
Final result: 13 – 20 loss
Mini conclusion…
Well, my first loss with this list. Obviously I made some mistakes here and the dice were non-cooperative at times but I think the result swung on two things. My choice to put Wedge right in front of Talonbane/Fenn and my switching targets between the two Fangs. Clearly not having an extra die or rerolls because of the missed bomb in turn 1 didn’t help but Josh did well cycling his ships in/out of danger and, having won this match up before, I think I was a little blasé. More concentration needed in future here.
Game 2 – Steve Boulton
Having flown a lot of FO recently, Steve had opted for a CIS list today:
DIS-T81 (SoC) – Droid Tri-fighter (4)
Outmaneuver (0)
Afterburners (0)
Contingency Protocol (SoC) (0)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 1
General Grievous – Belbullab-22 Starfighter (5)
Outmaneuver (9)
Impervium Plating (2)
Soulless One (9)
Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (20/20) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3
Cad Bane – Rogue-class Starfighter (4)
Ion Cannon (6)
Heavy Laser Cannon (5)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (11/11) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3
Sun Fac – Nantex-Class Starfighter (5)
Gravitic Deflection (3)
Predator (3)
Ensnare (10)
Targeting Computer (1)
Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (17/17) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 2
DFS-311 – Vulture-class Droid Fighter (2)
Independent Calculations (2)
Grappling Struts (0)
Ship Cost: 2 Loadout: (2/2) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 1
Total: 20
I initially didn’t like my deployment, thinking that I’d put too much to the right when most of Steve’s forces were to the left, basically his Tri-Fighter would be keeping the bulk of my list busy.
I decided to be bold on the left and now allow Grievous to flank me and also took steps to start moving my right hand group towards the middle. After making sure I bombed myself first of course!
The early exchange there went in my favour as I halved Grievous for no damage in return. Nice.
Things got a little messy after that as Wedge and Luke disengaged to chase down Cad, Cad moved in to target Wedge, Sun Fac k-turned (JARGON ALERT!!) Grievous disengaged and my right hand group decided to basically ignore DIST and turn to the middle.
That choice cost me half of Saw and this time it was my turn to not do any damage. Still, things were fairly balanced as I then put a hammer of a shot from the rather damaged Wulfwarro into Sun Fac and reduced him to 1 hull. Not bad!
With the Wookiee on borrowed time and Luke AND Saw now in potential position I managed to dodge a block from the vulture droid while Cad threw himself over a rock to make sure he could get a shot at the Auzituck.
The timer went off as we started moving ships and while I did lose Wulf, I also managed to take down Sun Fac and keep my advantage despite Steve picking up all 3 objectives and outscoring me 2-1 on those.
Final result: 16 – 14 win
The conclusion…
Look, the list is good. I’ve no doubt about that. I had planned to play this list as the Rebel player in XTC until Elliott Clayton stepped forward to play again. He’s also been running this list, is a much better player than I am and recently went 7-2 with it at WTC in Belgium.
With team management and pairings to sort out for XTC, not needing to play is actually pretty beneficial. I’m glad it’s this list being used!
Time is a little shorter than usual this week as tomorrow (at time of writing, yesterday at time of publishing. How confusing!) is my birthday! Yay! I’ll be out for dinner when I’d normally be writing so I’m going to wrap this up for now.
Thanks so much for reading, I’ll see you back here next week!
The outro…
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Exile Rookies:
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