My X-winging has been very sporadic of late – I haven’t played any events since the Worcester doubles tournament at the start of September and my casual games have been very casual. My other current gaming love, the Transformers TCG, has been occupying the majority of my time and thinking. Mostly off the back of taking the European Championship about a month ago which earned me a paid-for trip to Philadelphia and PAX Unplugged to compete over there in December (trying not to brag, honest!). As a result, X-wing has kind of been relegated to a secondary role until then.

However, this past weekend was Worcester Wargames’ Hyperspace Trial, and I wasn’t going to miss out on playing a trial at what is basically my most frequented store for events. What I was going to miss out on was a good night’s sleep beforehand. “I’ll just stay up while Oli is still in…” was the dumbest idea I had whilst watching the cut games at Worlds. Major kudos to Mr. Pocknell for bringing the title back to the UK again, but good grief did I pay for staying up to watch the whole thing. It must have been 5am by the time I was tucked up in bed; my alarm was set for 7…FML.

Powered by Monster I made it to Worcester okay. Besides, as the other Vagabonds will tell you, I’m a better player when suffering from sleep deprivation. Apparently. I’d been playing my semi-regular weekly games with Anakin, Plo and Broadside just because new shiny things, but I reverted back to the Torrent as the third ship in the list for this ‘more serious’ event because I wanted the bid still. I did change my droid on Anakin though and went with C1-10P as it’s something I’d been meaning to try for a while.

I bumble my way through game 1 against Gary Bindoff who was playing 3 Arcs and Ric Olie. I basically ignored Ric and tried to chew through the beefy Arcs (who all had Shield Upgrades) but it was taking forever. And then Anakin got halved on the last shot of the game and I lost 70-49. Not the best of starts.

Next up was Ben Moore’s Scyk swarm. The Jedi manoeuvrability was huge here, allowing Anakin to properly nope outta there when Ben tried to set up a wall of Ion cannons. The Torrent also survived a turn longer than it should have and then the Jedi did their thing, making it almost impossible for Ben to get firing angles on them. It didn’t help his green dice were atrocious. Two of his ships had Elusive, and Serissu was in there too. Ben didn’t re-roll into a single evade the whole game. Until the very last shot. When it didn’t even matter if he got one more evade or not. Awful luck on his part, but Ben is always a fun opponent.

Game 3 is with Huw flying a TIE Swarm. Huw is convinced now that I am his nemesis, and the last time we met I demolished his triple Fangs. This is not quite as good a matchup for me, especially when his Howlrunner doesn’t want to die. I got a good early engage and was trickling through a damage here and there, whilst the Torrent evaporated. Still, that’s what it’s there for. Eventually, Howlrunner dies but there’s not much time left and I have to run. Anakin is able to make it to safety as time is called but Plo has work to do and can only afford to lose a single shield if he’s to stay above half. I try cutting inside the TIEs to dodge as many arcs as I can, and almost manage to evade all but one, but Valen Rudor is just in arc still. Thankfully he fluffed his shot but one of the other TIEs still has a go, but comes up 1 damage short and I eek out a 40-25 win. I am still Huw’s nemesis.

Onto game 4, and another opponent looking for revenge. Andy Cameron has been thoroughly ruined by my Plo the last two times we’ve played and really wants him dead. To the point he was willing to basically sabotage his tournament just to kill him. General Grievous and Chertek tried to hunt Plo down whilst Sun Fac took a slightly different attack vector which resulted in him one-shotting the Torrent. Unfortunately for Andy, on the same turn, Anakin had snuck around the back and promptly executed Sun Fac with the following shot in retaliation. Chertek soon followed as Plo hit the brakes and doubled back, leaving just Grievous against the Jedi. Very thematic, but there was no escape for the General this time. Cracking game though, thanks Andy for being a good sport especially given how ridiculously tired we both were.

Game 5 comes around and I can’t believe I’m still awake, let alone on a positive record. Rob Warren is my next opponent, with 3 Arcs and Obi-Wan. Argh, more Arcs to chew through and it didn’t go well the first time! This time however I have a bit more luck and despite me getting Anakin caught in a big logjam for two rounds, he somehow emerges on the other side with just his shields missing, thanks in part to Chopper, but also being able to hide behind a gas cloud from some of the shots. As the Arcs begin to fall it gets a little easier to keep the Jedi safe, and then I catch out Obi-Wan and it basically seals the game. I didn’t quite finish off the last Arc, but it was victory nonetheless.

Last up is Matthew Fisher’s Resistance – Chewie, Finn, and two A-wings. The early momentum was in my favour, getting in solid damage on the Falcon. But then I suffered two rounds of poor dice with Anakin’s attacks, and Plo went from still having a shield to dead in a single shot from Chewie. Misjudged where a sloop was going to put him and although his own shot did 3 damage, it wasn’t worth it as it turned out. Bugger. The Falcon went down eventually, but at that point, all I had left was a wounded Anakin and Matthew’s A-wings didn’t seem to want to take much damage. I made a few mistakes in this one, my brain being utterly fried at this point. On another day I might have been able to put up more of a fight but it was not that day.

Amazingly I still almost made the top 8 cut! I actually finished in 9th, just 8 MOV behind 8th place. Though in the state I was in I was actually glad to not have to play again; I wouldn’t have dropped, my competitive nature wouldn’t have let me. But I really needed sleep. And thus ended what was a great day of X-wing, props to Lian and Law for running the show in what was a very smooth event indeed. And congratulations to Ryan Sharpe for winning overall!

Anyway, I’m off to bed. ZZZzzzzzzz…..