It’s been a big old week for X-Wing, so much to talk about without even looking at the Tournament at Warboar on Sunday. Here in the UK we’ve been lucky enough to have an early release on Wave 2 ships, and FFG were kind enough to release the points PDFs so that people can have a look. Included on that PDF was the Hyperspace Legality of everything in the game so far, which is going to have a huge impact on organised play going forward.

I’ve long been dubious about split game modes in X-Wing, and Hyperspace baffled me until this PDF went live. The collector in me wants the freedom to use anything and everything I own, but in reality I know that I only really use a handful of my collection at best. For all those saying it’s too restrictive as a game mode I disagree, there are several reasons that I am excited for this:

New Players – As great as this communities reputation is for being welcoming it is hard for Stores to recruit new gamers to their tournaments. A big reason why is that the 1.0 Veterans are running things they simply don’t have access to. Punishers were selling for £90 on Amazon not so long ago. It’s expensive enough getting into the game without having to buy a back catalogue of ships. Hyperspace gives them a way into the competitive scene without getting flattened by Deathrain and Redline. It’s a much more level playing field.

– As great as this communities reputation is for being welcoming it is hard for Stores to recruit new gamers to their tournaments. A big reason why is that the 1.0 Veterans are running things they simply don’t have access to. Punishers were selling for £90 on Amazon not so long ago. It’s expensive enough getting into the game without having to buy a back catalogue of ships. Hyperspace gives them a way into the competitive scene without getting flattened by Deathrain and Redline. It’s a much more level playing field. Changing the Meta – Hyperspace will have 2 seasons a year, the first is from the 2nd of March until the 30th of June, the second is from the 7th of September until the 29th of December. 4 month windows with lots of competitive play, worlds tickets up for grabs and a limited pool of ships to chose from. If you don’t like the pool of ships you only have 4 months to endure it, if you do like them then you have four months to enjoy it and make the most of it.

– Hyperspace will have 2 seasons a year, the first is from the 2nd of March until the 30th of June, the second is from the 7th of September until the 29th of December. 4 month windows with lots of competitive play, worlds tickets up for grabs and a limited pool of ships to chose from. If you don’t like the pool of ships you only have 4 months to endure it, if you do like them then you have four months to enjoy it and make the most of it. List Building Puzzles – you can make some really cool stuff, just look at the ships that are available. If building mathematically optimised squads is your thing then content creators like David Sutcliffe will no doubt be looking at things from that angle, in his build up to 2.0 articles he called a lot of things right, I’ll be interested to see what he comes up with here. Meanwhile Charles Berkhold and I will no doubt pick something we think looks cool and tweak it as we go along and work out what is and isn’t good through trial and error. Sure within the pools of those ships there are going to be a few squads that are simply better than others but you got to remember the player makes makes a huge difference to how a game plays out.

– you can make some really cool stuff, just look at the ships that are available. If building mathematically optimised squads is your thing then content creators like David Sutcliffe will no doubt be looking at things from that angle, in his build up to 2.0 articles he called a lot of things right, I’ll be interested to see what he comes up with here. Meanwhile Charles Berkhold and I will no doubt pick something we think looks cool and tweak it as we go along and work out what is and isn’t good through trial and error. Sure within the pools of those ships there are going to be a few squads that are simply better than others but you got to remember the player makes makes a huge difference to how a game plays out. Ready for the other Two Factions – They’ve been announced, we’ve seen some of the ships, we don’t know much more than that…. but the two new factions will fit into Hyperspace perfectly when they arrive.

Scum Rebels Resistance First Order Imperials Fang X-Wing T70 Upsilon Shuttle TIE Advanced Mining Guild Y-Wing Bomber TIE FO TIE Fighter Firespray U-Wing A-wing (2) TIE SF TIE Reaper YT-1300 YT-1300 YT-1300 TIE Silencer TIE Striker Escape Craft

For those that nay-say the mode and say it’s too restrictive I would simply ask the questions: “How is it different to Extended?” Sure no one is telling you you can’t run an M3-A in extended but how often are you actually using them? Boba, Punishers, Whisper, Guri, Palob, 4-Lom, Kavil, Quadjumpers… most people are running these things anyway (certainly people doing well at events are) no one made them fly these things, but most people have worked out that to do well you need these ships in your life. With a restrictive game mode like Hyperspace the limited pool of ships available will just be official.

If you look at the ships available you have so many options. Swarms are there in two factions, and will very much be back due to the lack of ships that can throw bombs at them (just the Resistance Bomber). Aces will definitely be a thing. I’m pretty sure that the arrival of Poe heralds the death of the I5 game we have been playing for the last few months. But you have a wealth of options here, look at some of the pilots we’ll be using: Fenn Rau, Boba Fett, Han Solo (Han Solo, Han Solo) Wedge, Luke, Poe, Rey, Kylo Ren, Midnight (Omega Leader), Quickdraw, Darth Vader, Howlrunner…. there are a lot of options there to build quality and fun lists.

The inforgraphic now makes a lot more sense. The two ways to worlds means that with two streams of tournaments stores players will have greater options to enjoy the quest for an invite. With two “metas” to play in the competitive scene should feel a lot more diverse and less stagnant that it has in the past.

Extended is still going to be a big thing, we’re not officially diving into Hyperspace until March anyway. System Opens are coming, with tickets for the UK and Italian Opens going on sale on Friday the 7th of December these are going to be great events. I’m hoping to go to a few in 2019. There are generally more worlds tickets at System Opens than there are Hyperspace events.

If you’re comfortable with Extended then remember the first points adjustment is apparently due in January which will no doubt change how the game mode feels dramatically. There are a lot of things that are prevalent right now that we can expect points increases on, and remember they can’t just change points with the app system, they can change slots too. If my current incarnation of Boba and Guri is still valid after the point change I will be surprised and delighted. I think most people who get X-Wing probably expect Marauder, 0-0-0 and Han Crew all going up in points.

That’s enough about the future of Organised Play, a quick look at ships. Poe. As said above I think he is going to change the game dramatically. He looks really solid, and I would envisage him being one of the dominant ships in the game for the next few months. His impact will reduce the effectiveness of the abundance of Initiative 5s that we’ve been seeing and I suspect will encourage some of the other initiative 6 ships (Fenn and Vader in particular) to be seen more often on the table.

Kylo is an interesting one, at I5 and a lot of points I can’t really see him being all that, he’s good, but will require some high level flying to get the best out of. Sure he can re-position for days with Supernatural Reflexes, but I’m convinced he won’t be anywhere near as good as Poe. If he was I6 then 100+ points for him would be an absolute no brainer, but when an arc dodger is going to be arc dodged relentlessly he feels a touch expensive.

But anyway, I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities to write more about the Resistance and the First Order in the coming months. This weekend is a tournament at Warboar, a venue I have a long history of enjoying, and with the news of new ships being available to play the attendance has taken a definite bump up!

I bought two lists to the event with me, Boba Guri and Skull Squadron. I can see myself gravitating towards Skull Squadron (or Poe) in Hyperspace so having it in the case as an option makes sense. But it’s Boba Guri I’ll be flying. As I said I expect them to change in points in January so I only have a few more weeks with them as they are. Plus I want to see how Guri measures up to Kylo and Poe. My initial thought is she can handle Kylo, but Poe could be an issue.

30 Players means that it’s going to be five rounds, probably half the room running First Order and Resistance, but many of the lists you’d expect to see are present.

Game one against Sean McCherry running Sabine, Jake, Norra in the Arc, and Ten in a B-Wing. Boba took on the joust while Guri came in on the flank, the usual fare. I traded the B-Wing for Boba and then the Star Viper went to work, chipping away before getting the kill shots on the three other ships eventually winning 200-139. A good start to the day.

And onto game two against Mr Lee, not the Mr Ben Lee, his esteemed father, over from Singapore to visit. He hasn’t played X-Wing for a year, hadn’t played 2.0 before Saturday night, and was running Boba, Palob and the two Jakkus. It’s a list we’ve all become familiar with over the last few months. The endgame came down to a half point Guri vs a limping quadjumper and Palob. Down on points and needing a hail mary as time was called Guri engineered the range one shot on the Quad, but it would come at the cost of a fully modded range one primary from the HWK. Guri was able to drop the quad, and with four health left I felt pretty confident that Palob wasn’t going to finish her off, that didn’t mean I didn’t breath a heavy sigh of relief when the four red dice came up with only 3 paint. Still, it was the closest came you can imagine, 146-139 win. Which put me on 2-0.

Game three was my first 186th vs 186th of the day. Will Haselwood running Vynder, Deathrain and Whisper. This match up I fancied from the off. Get rid of Whisper then range control the other two ships. Will wasn’t able to get a proton torp off all game, as Guri and Boba took it in turns to engage then dodge out. Once Deathrain was gone the Alpha Class wasn’t long for this world, and range one locked focused shots from both my ships bought the game to a close. 200-45 win and 3-0

Game 4, and another 186th, this time Lloyd Boman. Paul Full-On gave Lloyd some sage like advice at the start of the game, he said “Phil doesn’t just four forward and boost anymore”. My opening move was a four forward and boost towards Lloyds Echo. The following turn Boba did another four forward towards Echo. Echo got badly hurt. Lloyd disengaged the one Phantom so I turned my guns on Rhymer who obligingly exploded. From there on it Lloyd was largely playing with the objective of getting half points on Boba, an objective he missed by one hull. 200-0 and 4 games won in a row, a record I was very happy with.

Roll on game 5 against the other Mr Lee, this time the one the one you’d expect (no Photo, the game was far to tense for that). Ben was running the list that took him 5-0 in the side event last weekend in France. Whisper, Redline and Deathrain. I got the opening spot on, pushing 7 damage into Deathrain for nothing in return. Then it all went wrong. I knew the K-Turn were coming, Ben knew I knew the K-Turns were coming but we both knew there was not a lot I could do about it as he already had the locks he needed on my ships. My only option was distance from the Punishers to stop the inevitable barrage of Proton Trops. The problem is that if you run from a couple of Punishers they will just casually follow you, and a player with Ben’s patience will just work to engineer those optimal shots.

He went for Guri first, I had been hoping he would chase Boba but you don’t get to be European Champion by falling for that sort of trick. Guri went from 8 health to minus 3 in a turn. Then a wounded pilot on Boba meant that he was basically stranded as the ships turned their guns on him. A loss, 32-200 for me and a drop to 5th on MoV with an outrageous Strength of Schedule having had to play 3 of the top four on the day.

Still chuffed with the result. Going 4-1 in a field that had the European Champion, Italian National Champion, three Regional Champions from this year, a former System Open Champion and an abundance of other good players in was satisfying. But you have to take your hat off to the Lee family, they pulled in a father and son first and second. If Ben’s dad can do that without having played for a year then I’m quite glad he doesn’t practice!

A solid 80% on the day sees the tournament tracker step up a percentage closer to that 67% consistency. Leaving me on a 64% win ration in swiss in 2.0 with 76 games played. It looks like I have 4 more tournaments to go to in 2018, if I can keep up this level on consistency then hopefully I can hit the 67% by the end of the year!

I was disappointed to not get to play against either the Resistance of the First Order. The highest place finish for the new factions was 8th, with the top 7 all being full of Wave One ships. The general consensus was that come Hyperspace Poe and Co will be a force to be reckoned with, but until then their limited option make them feel noticeably weaker than the pre-existing factions. Next weekend should see a double header at Ibuywargames and Firestorm Cards, and I need to work out whether I stick with what I know or try something new out.

Next Time: TO POE OR NOT TO POE? THAT IS THE QUESTION.

If you’re looking for X-Wing tournaments to play at head to the 186th Tournament Calendar.