The intro…
Hello and welcome to this week’s blog!
It’s a bit weird for me at the moment as I’m almost at the end of a slightly enforced X-Wing hiatus due to holidays and work. I’m going to casual night tomorrow at Firestorm in Newport and it’s going to have been around 3 1/2 weeks since I last played. Covid aside (until I got into online play) I think this is the longest I’ve been without playing and you know what? I miss it.
Anyway, let’s do the intro-y stuff before I get into what I’m really here to talk about!
First up – WE’RE HAVING A STORE TOURNAMENT IN NEWPORT!
Yep, as well as the previously mentioned free ticket to the Welsh Open for the winner (woop woop!), we’ll have some brand new custom alt arts, some Onyx Squadron foils packs and a sprinkling of tokens and other shiny things that we dig out of the prize case!
It’s all happening on the 20th if April at Firestorm Games in Newport. EDIT – of course at time of publishing (late!) that’s now just 2 days away but it isn’t too late to sign up if you fancy it!
If you’d like to be part of it then head over to the Facebook event page, comment on the sign up post and follow the instructions to send money over and you’ll be in! We would LOVE to see you there!
I suspect that’s it for now, let’s move on!
Patreon Update…
Yes, it’s still the last month of the quarter and yes, I’m STILL banging on about Patreon! Being a supporter helps me keep the lights on (on the website, not my actual house) and lets me turn cool ideas into actual shiny things to send out to people.
As well as the Lando alt art and 2 bank template that I’ve already covered, there’s also these rather special (if I say so myself!) lock tokens, made by the awesome Cog O Two!
How many you get will depend on your tier but if you’d like these or the alt arts or templates or, well, anything else I’ve mentioned (or have yet to….) then you can sign up to be a supporter here.
There’s tiers from £1 – £10 per month and any support I get is MASSIVELY appreciated. AS ever there’s no pressure to do it, I’ll keep on keeping on no matter what!
Alright, that’s enough of that. On to the main event!
The main bit…
So, in case you missed it, I went to Worlds!
It still feels a bit mental saying that!
I arrived in Chicago’s O’Hare airport a day later than most of the Welsh/South West lot due to trying to conserve time off work. Of course, the down side of this is travelling solo on a 9 hour flight, right?
Nope, I got to spend 9 hours sitting by Tom Veale and a bunch of the Steel City X-Wing guys!
I managed to binge watch the entire first season of Halo (only just, the last 10 minutes was interrupted constantly by announcements as we taxied to the gate!) which I really enjoyed.
I had a bit of a moment in the line for security as I couldn’t find a free wifi network, I was no longer with the people I knew and roaming wasn’t working on my phone. How was I going to let the guys know I was here?!?
There was no need! All that was missing was a red carpet!
I’m really REALLY grateful to the guys (especially Richard who had booked a bigger car to fit us all in!) for coming to meet me and for this welcome. I was blown away.
A great start then!
We went over to the hotel (where I was sharing a room with Mark Packer-Hughes) to drop bags and re-apply deodorant before heading out for dinner…
I mean, you can’t go to Chicago and NOT have deep dish pizza, right?!
I’m not a small eater (I have a new nickname, more on that in weeks to come…) but this was shared by myself, Ben Saunders AND Joaquin Mendez. AND it was delicious!
A load of other X-Wingers were also dining in Giordano’s and so we got to say hello to a good number of friendly faces before heading back to crash after a 23 1/2 hour day.
The jet lag kicked in and I was awake fairly early though and ready for Thursday’s event – The Worlds Prep event!
With a good number of people (113 I think?) taking part in the Last Chance Qualifier, this warm up was a chance to get the bad dice rolls and mistakes out of the way before the main Worlds event started on the Friday.
I’d decided to run my main event list, mainly for the purpose of getting back into the swing of playing it after some recent dalliances with other lists but also because I’d had some beautiful alt art cards made for it and I wanted to give some away!
L’ulo L’ampar (4)
Heroic (2)
Lone Wolf (3)
Advanced Optics (5)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (10/10) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 2
Jessika Pava (4)
R2-D2 (Resistance) (6)
Integrated S-Foils (0)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (6/6) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3
Temmin Wexley (4)
Heroic (2)
Ferrosphere Paint (3)
R6-D8 (4)
Integrated S-Foils (0)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (9/9) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3
Ello Asty (4)
Heroic (2)
Swarm Tactics (5)
Integrated S-Foils (0)
Jamming Beam (1)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (8/8) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3
Zorii Bliss (4)
R4 Astromech (2)
Wartime Loadout (2)
Plasma Torpedoes (5)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (9/9) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 4
Total: 20
So, I was there, I was ready, it was time to get started!
The batreps… (JARGON ALERT!!)
Game 1 – Liam Lee
Alrighty then, time to get down to business!
Liam was not only sporting a flight helmet (which, to his immense credit, he wore ALL DAY, EVERY DAY of Worlds. That is REAL commitment!) but had brought a Rebel list which had a smattering of the new things and sported a very good (and, I was later informed, Colorado colour themed) paint job.
Wedge Antilles (BoE) (5)
It’s A Trap! (BoE) (0)
Predator (0)
Adv. Proton Torpedoes (0)
R2-A3 (BoE) (0)
Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3
Luke Skywalker (BoY) (5)
Instinctive Aim (0)
Attack Speed (BoY) (0)
Proton Torpedoes (0)
R2-D2 (BoY) (0)
Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3
Gina Moonsong (4)
Fire-Control System (2)
Proton Cannons (4)
Plasma Torpedoes (5)
Stabilized S-Foils (0)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (11/11) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 4
Gemmer Sojan (BoE) (3)
It’s A Trap! (BoE) (0)
Precision-Tuned Cannons (BoE) (0)
Chaff Particles (BoE) (0)
Target-Assist Algorithm (BoE) (0)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 2
Keo Venzee (3)
Juke (7)
Vectored Cannons (RZ-1) (0)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (7/7) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 2
Total: 20
Time for me to learn how some of the new pieces work then I guess!
Let’s hit the pre-Flight checks:
Scenario – Assault at the Satellite Array
Target/Objective Priority – Two main things here I think, try not to get nailed by Wedge’s APT and kill some stuff. The three more expensive ships are all pretty killable, right?
Obstacles – Relatively clustered is ok, some lanes for my block to approach would be good.
Deployment – You’ll get tired of me writing this (I’m sure going to get tired of it!) but everyone except Lulo in a block, Lulo to flank.
Now, disclaimer number 1 is that since I’ve got multiple games to cover, these won’t be full batreps. Disclaimer 2 is that I might drop some of the pre-flight check details as there will be repeats.
Alright, onwards!
The opening was pretty cagey here as I brought my block up the middle. The flank from Wedge concerned me a bit but what I didn’t see coming was the Plasma Torp/Proton cannon double tap with Gina. It hurt. A lot.
I lost Zori in turn 3 for little in return and had fallen behind on objectives as well, leaving 1-9 down at the end of turn 3.
I finally took down Gina and got Luke down to 1 hull as we went into turn 5.
I went full kill-box mode, knowing I needed to get Luke but had to risk Lulo to do it…
With Liam’s Wedge now back in the fight after a slightly ill-advised disengage, Lulo had boosted into get arc on Luke but it meant dropping to 2 agility.
Wedge fired into Lulo and the A-Wing lived on 1 hull.
Lulo managed to take Luke out from long range but then Jess and Temmin failed to sink Wedge. Gemmer takes a range 2 focused shot into Lulo at range 2 and registers full paint. Lulo rolls…. and gets Natties (JARGON ALERT!!) and lives.
Final result: 15 – 12 win
Mini conclusion…
Ok, I 100% stole that game. To go in to the last turn down and then get only one of the two kills I needed AND have Lulo live was pretty tight stuff.
Looking back now I could have done things quite differently and while Gina definitely lasted longer than she should have given the shots I put in, I still think I was reasonably lucky in this game.
It’s worth mentioning that Liam then went on to go 7-3 with this list in the main Worlds event and finish 23rd. Which is pretty wild.
A win in my first game at the X-Wing World Championships. Not bad I suppose! On to the next then!
Game 2 – Morgan Robles
Morgan was sporting some very cool dice earrings and gifted me a matching keyring which was awesome!
What about the list though? Well, it was to be my first encounter of the new Jendon Defender.
Colonel Jendon (BoE) (7)
No Escape (BoE) (0)
Push The Limit (BoE) (0)
Proton Cannons (0)
Computer-Assisted Handling (BoE) (0)
Ship Cost: 7 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 3
Darth Vader (SSP) (6)
Hate (0)
Ion Missiles (0)
Afterburners (0)
Ship Cost: 6 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 3
“Vizier” (4)
Emperor Palpatine (12)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (12/12) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 4
Tomax Bren (TBE) (3)
True Grit (TBE) (0)
Plasma Torpedoes (0)
Ion Bombs (0)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 3
Total: 20
View in YASB: https://yasb.app/?f=Galactic%20Empire&d=v9ZhZ20Z665X508W510W470W511Y630X204W101W105Y185X29WWY647X497W234W317&sn=Worlds&obs=
Pre-Flight checks:
Scenario – Salvage Mission
Target/Objective Priority – Honestly, I didn’t know. I do now. Lesson learned.
I kept Lulo in a bit tighter this time as I didn’t want thim to get isolated and picked off.
I did split Zorii off once I realised I’d deployed FAR too close to a rock and the Y-Wing couldn’t keep up AND have actions. Unfortunately for me this allowed Jendon to flank in pretty fast and start chunking damage in.
I got what I thought was a pretty decent block with Lulo here but the plucky A-Wing still died while Jendon plinked off Zorii’s crate.
Zorii fell next as Morgan picked up another box and I finally got Tomax but it was too much effort those three puny points.
The writing was on the wall as I failed to pick up boxes OR push damage while Morgan managed both and at the end of turn 6 Ello died and triggered the end of the game.
Final result: 4 – 20 loss
Mini conclusion…
Well, that was DEFINITELY a learning curve game for me. I now know that targeting Vizier is pretty much teh right call but even though he’s placed first, catching him when he can aileron boost and go reasonably fast makes that tricky. Had I thought to AND been able to catch him and Jendon things could have been different but neither of those things were on my radar at that point and it’s what cost me.
Still, I had a good game with a great opponent and had learned some new things.
Tournament record: 1 – 1
Game 3 – Mark Packer-Hughes
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!??! I fly 4000 miles across the world and I get drawn against the person I’m sharing a hotel room with?!? Unbelievable!
I’ve only ever known Mark to fly Resistance so it’s no surprise that he’s brought that faction but what is somewhat of a surprise is the pieces he’s brought:
Ello Asty (4)
Heroic (2)
Predator (3)
Ferrosphere Paint (3)
Integrated S-Foils (0)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (8/8) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3
Temmin Wexley (4)
Heroic (2)
Ferrosphere Paint (3)
R6-D8 (4)
Integrated S-Foils (0)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (9/9) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3
Venisa Doza (4)
Marksmanship (1)
Barrage Rockets (6)
Integrated S-Foils (0)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (7/7) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3
BB-8 (2)
Chewbacca (Resistance) (4)
Ship Cost: 2 Loadout: (4/4) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 2
Shasa Zaro (3)
Dorsal Turret (2)
M9-G8 (5)
Wartime Loadout (2)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (9/9) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 4
Corus Kapellim (3)
Dorsal Turret (2)
Concussion Bombs (4)
Wartime Loadout (2)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (8/8) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 4
Total: 20
Temmin and Ello are very familiar, Venisa can fire backwards and the two Y-Wings I’ve seen Tom Fieldsend do well with at STO a few weeks back.
Pre-Flight checks:
Scenario – Chance Engagement
Target/Objective Priority – The T-70’s are worth more, the Y-Wings are (potentially) easier to bring down with lower agility. It’ll depend on how they approach.
Spread out, is the answer to that.
This game was ridiculously close throughout. I halved and then took out Corus but lost Ello in exchange.
The next turn I halved Mark’s Ello and Doza without dropping points back.
Then Mark manages to halve Jess while I miscalculate arcs and fail to finish off Mark’s Temmin after he K-turns (JARGON ALERT!!)
Mark boxes in my Temmin to get 4 shots of focused fire on him and gets half points while my ships are out of position and time is called.
Final result: 12 – 13 loss
Mini conclusion…
Oooof that was close! The game was very even all the way through and in the end it was just some dice variance and one poor choice (on my part!) that made the difference.
I’d have threatened to kick him out of the hotel room after the game but since I hadn’t paid my half yet I thought it unwise! IT was a good, well fought game in the end and whlie Mark did think about changing the list ready for Wrolds the following day, he did keep it (mostly because he was missing some cards though!) I’ll also add that Mark went on to make day 2 of the main event with this list, going 5-5. Pretty good!
Tournament record: 1 – 2
Game 4 – Charles ‘Buck’ Johnson
And so on to my last game of the day and this one was pretty special!
Bucky was, as far as I know, the youngest player in the room. Younger players at X-Wing tournaments isn’t a particularly new thing, Cai and I went to System Opens when he was 12/13 years old. This isn’t any old tournament though. Bucky had qualified on merit for the main event at Worlds (while his father was going through the LCQ!). What had he brought? Well, more Rebels it seems…
Luke Skywalker (BoY) (5)
Instinctive Aim (0)
Attack Speed (BoY) (0)
Proton Torpedoes (0)
R2-D2 (BoY) (0)
Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3
Corran Horn (X-Wing) (4)
Swarm Tactics (5)
R3 Astromech (3)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (8/9) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3
Thane Kyrell (4)
Marksmanship (1)
Cluster Missiles (4)
R3 Astromech (3)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (8/8) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3
Gina Moonsong (4)
Predator (3)
Fire-Control System (2)
Synced Laser Cannons (6)
Stabilized S-Foils (0)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (11/11) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 4
Keo Venzee (3)
Marksmanship (1)
Concussion Missiles (5)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (6/7) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 2
Total: 20
I was now a little wiser about the B-Wing double tap although this list also has Corran to spread locks around and Thane for flipping damage cards. Yikes.
For the last time today, let’s get the Pre-Flight checks:
Scenario – Scramble the Transmission
Target/Objective Priority – Flip switches if I can but there’s some nasty shots coming in so dropping some ships pretty quickly will be key.
Luke is deployed away from the rest of Bucky’s ships and I manage to range control perfectly to drop Luke in one round of fire and chip some damage into Gina while only taking some damage on Temmin in return.
Gina goes down the next round while the Rebels pick off Temmin making it 10 – 4 to me.
As the board state devolves into a scrum Bucky flips 2 objectives including stealing my one to start catching up.
It looks like it’s too little too late as I drop Keo to go 14 – 7 up but the next turn I trade Ello for Corran but I’m STILL 2 objectives down per turn.
Thankfully (for me!) time is called next round and nothing dies, giving me the hard fought win!
Final result: 18 – 15 win
Mini conclusion…
‘You beat up a kid’ I hear you cry. Well, let me tell you this – Bucky went 3-2 on day of Worlds, going on to finish 5-1-4 and 86th overall. EIGHTY-SIXTH! Spoilers for next week but that’s way better than I did!
It was a great game and despite being down the whole game Bucky never gave up and never let his head drop. What a superstar!
Game-wise, I feel I played this ok. Getting Luke off the board early was huge and as it turned out, Temmin giving out stress from Ferrosphere for the locks he took in turn 2 had a decent impact on following turns. Overall it was a good way to end the day and set me up for 5 more games.
Tournament Record: 2 – 2
Final position: 72 out of 148
https://rollbetter.gg/tournaments/1358
The conclusion…
Ok! Two wins, two losses. It’s about what I’d expect to get in any tournament but given the level of player in this room it’s a pretty good result I think, particularly given where many of my opponents finished in the main event.
The first game was very much a coin toss that I came out on top of, the next game was a bit of a massacre, the third was tighter than the first and the last was pretty close too. When you also consider that three of my opponents went on to make day 2 and finish around the top 100, I’m definitely satisfied with how I did.
Out of everything it did underline that Lulo’s effectiveness seems to have fallen off a cliff with the last points update. The logic behind it (how he plays now, not the points change itself) just doesn’t seem to line up with how it feels. In an ideal world I’d probably have changed Lulo out for something else (perhaps Venisa Doza) but it’s FAR too late for that at this point. Still, I was never here for the competitiveness, only for the experience.
All in all it was a GREAT day of X-Wing that I really enjoyed.
Elsewhere, the UK representation in the LCQ wasn’t going well as just 7 players out of 107 secured their place in the main Worlds event and (at least as far as I know?!) none of them were from our group. BOOOOOOOOO!
Thankfully there were still games to be played and fun times to be had by everyone.
Speaking of which, we went out to a sports bar that night just behind the hotel. The food was good (and the service excellent) and yet I still have no idea how it’s possible to concentrate on any one game of basketball when there’s about 6 happening simultaneously and I can hear ALL of them!
That’s it for this week, on to the main event next! Come back next week to find out how the main Worlds event went!
The outro…
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