“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail” – Irritiating management slogan.

Irritating cause it’s so very true.

This isn’t the biggest event I’ve been to, in fact at around 280 people its only the 4th biggest but it is the one I feel most equipped for. Whether that translates to doing well or not is an entirely different matter. The Firesprays I took to Euros did well, 48th out of 350 was a pleasant surprise. That’s the top 14% or so. To make the cut at Nationals I’m going to need to get into the top 11.5%.

That’s only a 2.5% increase… in the last four months have I got 2.5% better? Well, I’ve flown a lot more stuff that’s for sure! The meta has changed. When I got the Firesprays ready for Euros they were geared to taking on Mindlink and Defenders, both of which are still a thing but no where near what they were. There are new monsters in the darkness waiting to take advantage of a couple of bounty hunters. New lists to take on, new challenges to prepare for.

I won’t take a list just because it is strong in the current Meta, that is not the way I play the game. Tweaking things to get more out of a list though, that is entirely acceptable.

I have to say a big thank you to Oli Pocknell, in the build up to Nationals he and I have had 2 titanic sessions of Vassal looking at just how our lists are going to handle various challenges we know will be coming over the weekend. So much running and re-running scenarios late into the night to see what we can do to make up for the weaknesses in our lists. I’d also like to thank Ian Courtney for his input into the list, he’s come up with numerous suggestions (including the changes I have made) over the last few months, and I really appreciate his contribution.

As a result of this practice changes were made to my Euro lists for the first time since I finalised it months ago. Firstly and seemingly simply I have changed Guidance Chips on Boba for Long Range Scanners, secondly I have dropped the Concussion Missiles for Cluster Missiles. When I needed a range three threat against Defenders and Fenn Rau the Concussions and Chips were the right call, pushing damage onto them at range was imperative before they closed in.

However with the introduction of things like Nym and the rise of FSR close range damage is more likely to be an issue, so I have opted instead for cluster missiles and long range scanners.

Kath has long enjoyed the advantage of taking and evade every turn, and changing Boba’s build means that he is essentially able to do the same.

UK Nationals:

Boba Fett Kath Scarlet Fearlessness Expertise 4-Lom Heavy Laser Cannon Cluster Missiles Dengar Long Range Scanners Black Market Slicer Tools Slave 1 Glitterstim

I’ve beaten pretty much everything with these two on any given day, all I need to do is beat everything on one day. I’ve met plenty of the guys at this event before, I’ve played many of them, and I know how high the standard is going to be. I desperately want to get the Firesprays to day two and the top 32 cut, but I am well aware of how challenging this will be. Still, you gotta try right?

Pods and Things

I arrived early on Friday with fellow flyer Conor McNama, we went straigth into some of the 4 man pods. Played a lot of games, earned enough tickets to claim some regional dice, they look great, but they’re rolling over the weekend would not measure up to their blingyness. I also got a phenomenal limited edition templates set from the guys at Cog’O’Two, utterly beautiful piece of kit.

The Main Event

It started with a beast of a game, Twiggy and I have played once before, at Euros, when we were both on 4-0. So this was a game neither of us hoped to see in round one, he’s a great opponent and a top bloke but I really didn’t want to have to play him this early in the tournament with Nymgar.

I made a mistake, a characteristically over aggressive move. I turned into the initial engagement with a pair of hard 3s, Twiggy played it right and was able to arc dodge Boba and torps him. Had I done what I originally planned and banked in 1 and 3 to keep my firing arcs wide then Dengar would have been in real trouble in the early game. But like all good opponents do Twiggy capitalised on my mistake and got an early lead in the damage race. All the while being really nice about it!

This positional error put me in a place where I had to trust in dice the following turn. Boba had two rerolls and glitterstim on his green and just needed to see a bit of paint on any one of four dice to be able to cluster Dengar in the flank. Of course they failed to do so. However this wasn’t the dice ruining my day, it was a direct result of my error the previous turn that put me in that situation, I shouldn’t have let myself be hoping on dice to stay in the match up.

He went on to win with Nym limping away on 3 health. Lesson learned be less aggressive.



Game two was against a fine Scotsman named Chris who was flying Corran, Snap and Sabine in a Tie. I flew a full health Kath of the table, but I’m doing so BMST’d Corran to death and put Snap on one health. I was losing the game anyway, with Boba limping and Chris having two regenning ships on the table I simply couldn’t afford to have both of them in the end game.

Chris should have won this game, he should have run away with Snap and taken the win, but credit to him for being utterly sporting he played for the kill rather than just boosting around and regenning. Boba took a risk, ran stressed and engineered a range one joust. Chris could have boosted away but instead took it on. This time my dice rewarded my ballsy flying and between 5 hits and 4-Lom my opponent was left needing perfect dice. He didn’t get them.

If Corran had been around in the end game I would never have won it so Kaths earlier sacrifice (which admittedly massively trusted to luck) was worth it.

Lesson learned – If a sacrifice get you a win it’s heroic. If it doesn’t, it’s just bad flying.

Game three was against another Scot (apologies I’ve forgotten your name, there were so many new ones over the weekend!) using the one list I didn’t want to see, and don’t ever want to see really, Kylo on RAC. It’s just miserable to play against with two big ships. But having had time to reflect I know I could have won this game. I got 10 damage onto RAC in a turn, then for some unknown reason blocked him. With dauntless this is stupid! It takes one of my guns out of the game and gives Kylo an obvious target for I’ll show you the Darkside. Had I flown away and kept 2 firing arcs on him I might have dropped him and gone on to win the game. He was only on 3 health but my utter distaste for Kylo crew and frustration at how he functions made me see red and I made mistakes. If he had to chose who to blind I could have gone onto win the game cause one ship would still have hurt him.

Lesson learned – blocking a ship that can take actions when it bumps is dumb. Don’t do it in future please….

Game three was against at Austen, who’s been out of the game a while. For reasons unbeknownst to both of us he elected to joust 2 firesprays with two T65 rookies. It ended how you might expect, as they went on to corner Dash and rip him to pieces. It was over in 15 minutes.

Austen looked at the table and simply said “why on earth did I do that”. It was brutal and uncompromising, but we’ve all been there and he was incredibly gracious in defeat.

Lesson learned – T65s can’t joust firesprays (That’s one for you Mr Cooper)

And onto game 5 against Andy, and another RAC with Kylo. Andy knows my distaste for Kylo, we’ve had the conversation before and was immediately apologetic for the match up. He’s a lovely guy to play against but bloody Kylo…

I put 15 damage on RAC in 3 shots… why do my Firesprays always pull a double damage and my opponents never seem to? Boba took a battering, RAC ran away. Vader killed Kath. The most ridiculous moment of the game was a range one shot from Vader, Palp nominated a crit. Vader rolls crit crit blank, which flips to a crit, then adds his ATC crit…. so…. that went well.

I got my initial engagement wrong, again put on tilt by my least favourite thing in the game, had I started on the back line I would have been able avoid getting clustered, had that happened Rac would have got a bit more hammered without reply as I pulled a solid block on RAC the following turn.

Kath had 3 green dice, RAC at range three with weapons s failure has 2. Kath was never beating Vader anyway, but surely Kylo was at last going to die… oh wait, no, she blanks out on one health and dies.

Lesson learned: The best players in this game aren’t put off by things, if I have a mental block against something I need to think my way round it, not just default to baseless frustration.

My final game of the day though washed all the salt away. Getting to play against the UKs first ever national champion and legend of the game Craig Reed was just an utter pleasure.

Telgar vs The Sprays in an utterly bruising encounter. For me this game represented exactly what big ship x-wing is about. We utterly sledgehammered each other. The damage output from both lists was horrific. All four ships died in the game. Unfortunately Tel came back to life and finished Kath off, but what a game it was and such a privilege to play someone of Craig’s standing. As I said goodbye to him on the Sunday we agreed that next time we’ll try some more flying based ships! I look forward to that very much.

I finished up 186th with a 2-4 record. A couple of bad match ups that could have been avoided with some better flying in the first game… the butterfly effect in action. But I’ll take all that frustration with a smile cause of that game with Craig. Class.

Another reminder that what makes an great x-winger great is ability AND attitude. That game alone was worth the entrance fee of the event.

Hangar bay. Let the Jank begin!

Or not… it seems that hangar bay is rather serious nowadays, so Major Stridan and Kath got used a little less than I had hoped. I had a rough round, but did get to play reigning Yavin Champion Mishary Al Faris, much like Craig it was an absolute joy to play against him, an utter gent and I hope to get to play him again sometime.

His comment at the end of the game was “Why do you do this to yourself?” gesturing at the Firesprays, and he has a point. As much as I love what the Firespray should be: they aren’t what they should be (in my mind) it really is struggling in where the meta is right now and I can’t quite see how if fits in, they were great against the Fenn/Mindlink meta of a few months ago, but since the release of Nym and changes that have happened in the game in response to him the are markedly less useful.

So it is with heavy heart that I’m retiring them to the case for the time being and seeing what I can do next. They will come back at some point, it’s pretty inevitable, but I’m going off to see if I can make some other left field things work.

A huge shout out to the guys from Esdevium Games who made the weekend happen, Mike Budd, Alex Thorne and the others behind the scenes for putting an incredible event together. And of course a massive thank you to Vince and his team of judges for their essential part in the event, you guys shape the character of these events and the spirit of the community so much more than you realise.

Finally a HUGE congratulations to Faan Langelaan for becoming UK National Champion, but an equally huge cheer for George Dellapina for his insane year of consistent flying, are there any major finals you’re not planning on being a part of?

Where do we go? Where do we go now?

I get so frustrated by endlessly seeming to be put against Kylo/RAC that it’s removing my enjoyment of the game, so I have to try something different because I don’t want to be that salty gamer moaning all the time. My philosophy of not wanting my opponent to be miserable while we game means that I have to take responsibility for my own enjoyment, if I’m having fun and keeping my toys in my pram then it’s likely that they will be enjoying the game more too. (so apologies for to those who suffered “gah” moments over the weekend as yet another Blinded Pilot card was dealt to me, I’m seeing a therapist and working on my issues…)

There are plenty of fun toys coming in the next few weeks/months, and thanks to Eclectic Games being awesome I was able to win a set of Guns for Hire that they bought over from Gencon, so that’ll be a fun place to start, so you can probably expect lots “interesting” ideas to appear as I try things out, and hopefully learn different to play in different way.

The next big event is the UKTC in October, which will see me teaming up with Graham and David from Zombie Squadron again, I think I’m meant to be playing rebels, it depends on whether a certain official document drops and has some of the rumoured changes in it that the interweb claims it has. We shall see what we shall see.

The future’s not set.

There’s no fate but what we make for ourselves.