Part 2 of my overseas X-Wing trip for the year (probably only one trip), and the second biggest event I’d attended (behind the previous weekend’s System Open).

And getting to represent New Zealand for the second year running, this time captaining the team

Squads

For reference, this was a Hyperspace format tournament (unanimously voted on by representatives from all regions many months ago)

I ended up as the Empire player for our team, and flew a TIE Swarm, which *surprise, surprise* flies differently to last weekends Sinker swarm.

Almost as though simply having 6 ships doesn’t make it the same exact squad. Huh.

Academy Pilot TIE/ln Fighter (23)

Total: 23

Del Meeko TIE/ln Fighter (30)

Crack Shot (1) – Total: 31

Gideon Hask TIE/ln Fighter (30)

Crack Shot (1) – Total: 31

Iden Versio TIE/ln Fighter (40)

Crack Shot (1) – Total: 41

“Howlrunner” TIE/ln Fighter (40)

Crack Shot (1) – Total: 41

“Scourge” Skutu TIE/ln Fighter (32)

Crack Shot (1) – Total: 33

Total: 200

Some more thoughts about this squad can be found in my HST write up from a few weeks ago.

I do quite like the squad, the TIEs are plain nasty. In testing, some things they one-shot, that probably shouldn’t be one-shot, include: a V-19 Torrent that rolled 2 evades by Scourge, Finn in his silly Pod also by Scourge, and Arvel Crynyd by Howlrunner. And probably many more that I don’t remember.

The other squads for Team NZ were Ryan with a 4 ship Rebel build, Dave with a Separatist swarm, other Dave with Obi+3 ARCs, John with 5 SFs and Rick with a 4 ship Resistance.

Full squad lists for all 10 teams can be found here.

Note/Rant on lists: “Teams MUST attempt to limit similar archetypes appearing multiple times – a classic 1st edition example of this was 4 Rebel or Scum Y-Wings with Twin Laser Turret.” ‘Jousting’ is not a single archetype, the same way ‘Aces’ is not a single archetype, more of a term for a playstyle or a broad term covering a large number of different archetypes. Same for ‘Swarm’; Inferno TIE swarm* and Sear+TA-175 Vulture swarm are very, very different squads (and less than 6 ships is not even a swarm).

*I did see a comment on one of the result update threads over the weekend that refered to my TIE swarm as a “mini swarm” xD

Our squad planning was mostly: “what do you want to fly“, no grand scheme to find the best 6 squads for the format or game the system at all. We even changed our squads quite last minute when I realized Kylo+3SF was the same as Obi+3ARC.

If all our lists were the same, where were the super red matchups?? I thought ‘aces’ were supposed to counter ‘jousters’?? We did have quite a few neutral matchups, but just play well and win games, rather than win games by having a bigger bid for the I6 repositioning ace. If Australia wasn’t so addicted to aces, maybe someone else would have taken a TIE swarm, cause it’s really really good.

Respect to Team Victoria for having an even smaller combined team bid than us, and also embracing the jousting lifestyle.

And there are those people who think more than 3 ships is a travesty. Salt for salt’s sake. Keep up with the game.

If anyone still thinks we broke these rules, then every single other team did too, with their multiple ace lists, or multiple large base turret lists or whatever.

The lads

And the format is a round robin (play every team once), followed by a final between the top 2 teams.

Matchup process

Similar to XTC, but with 6 players instead of 5. Copied from the players pack:

1. Team A puts up one of its 6 squads, Team B does the same.

2. Team A puts up two squads against the one put up by Team B, Team B does the same.

3. Team A chooses one of the two squads put up by Team B to be played against the squad first put up by Team A and determines one pair, Team B does the same.

4. The Squads that did not get chosen return to the teams squad pool.

5. Team A puts up one of its remaining squads, Team B does the same.

6. Team A puts up two squads against the one put up by Team B, Team B does the same.

7. Team A chooses one of the two squads put up by Team B to be played against the squad first put up by Team A and determines one pair, Team B does the same.

8. The Squad of Team A that did not get chosen by Team B plays against the last squad remaining in the pool of Team B. The squad of Team B that did not get chosen by Team B plays against the last squad remaining in the pool of Team A.

I probably should have read this more carefully, because when we turned up on the day I was under the impression it was the same as last year’s, with the last 2 matchups being randomized. Good thing we didn’t dedicate that much time to practicing this process. We prepped a little, had everyone rank their matchup against every list, and then decide who we would put up first against every team, but we didn’t go through the whole process much.

Day 1

TTT link for the round robin

Round 1 – North Australia: Damian

I got matched with Damian’s Rebel list, which was a green matchup for me.

Braylen Stramm A/SF-01 B-Wing (51)

Crack Shot (1), Jamming Beam (0) – Total: 52

Jake Farrell RZ-1 A-Wing (36)

Crack Shot (1), Predator (2) – Total: 39

Cassian Andor UT-60D U-Wing (51)

Selfless (3), Tactical Officer (6), Pivot Wing (0) – Total: 60

Partisan Renegade UT-60D U-Wing (43)

Leia Organa (6), Pivot Wing (0) – Total: 49

Total: 200

I should win this game, even more so when he sets up opposite to joust me. He tried to get his Partisan in to block me and mess up the formation, but I got my ranges/distances right, not get blocked and initiative killing Cassian and getting half the Partisan on the first round of shooting. Just clean up from there really, killed Braylen on the following turn. Sealed the victory with only losing half on the AP, and either Del or Gideon (31 points each).

Win: 200-43 (1-0)

Team result: 4-2.

Shout out to Dave L coming back against Guri Fenn, after losing Obi and an ARC for no damage on either Guri or Fenn, to win 200-113.

Round 2 – Singapore: Xian Yong (XY)

My matchup this round was against recent System Open champion XY, also a green matchup for me. But I was a little more scared of the list after seeing how it performed the previous weekend. We did also speak a little about the potential matchup in the week leading up, and to quote XY

“on second thought, I hope I don’t get to play you during OTC

HAHA”

Still in my favour, but not taking anything for granted.

List

Count Dooku Sith Infiltrator (63)

Sense (5), Tractor Beam (2), General Grievous (3), K2-B4 (5) – Total: 78

Trade Federation Drone Vulture-class Droid Fighter (19)

Grappling Struts (1) – Total: 20

Trade Federation Drone Vulture-class Droid Fighter (19)

Grappling Struts (1) – Total: 20

Trade Federation Drone Vulture-class Droid Fighter (19)

Grappling Struts (1) – Total: 20

Trade Federation Drone Vulture-class Droid Fighter (19)

Grappling Struts (1) – Total: 20

Trade Federation Drone Vulture-class Droid Fighter (19)

Grappling Struts (1) – Total: 20

Trade Federation Drone Vulture-class Droid Fighter (19)

Grappling Struts (1) – Total: 20

Total: 198

I was happy with the obstacle set up and the initial turns, getting a good engage far away from any obstacles to mess up my formation, or Grappling Struts to use or get tractored onto. It all went fairly smoothly to be honest, his squad wasn’t tooled to deal with my swarm and I cut through him.

Never seen so much strain before in my life, must have been 4-5 strain tokens on the board at one point. I wasn’t prioritizing clearing them, as he couldn’t capitalise on them effectively because splitting fire is bad. There was also a couple of times I he used the tractor beam that surprised me and I thought he would have been better off trying to do damage with Dooku. Reducing the agility of a TIE for a couple Vulture shots didn’t feel worthwhile to me. I didn’t play perfect, there were at least a couple needless overlaps, but overall I was ahead by more than enough.

Pleasure to talk to and play against. Would love to play him again sometime with a more even matchup.

Win: 200-90 (2-0)

Team result: 4-2

I think we might have been lucky facing Singapore early. We got good matchups and they might have been still figuring out the process/tactics, as they were on fire for the rest of the event.

Team NZ facing off against Team Singapore

Round 3 – Victoria: Tom

The matchups for this round ended up with me taking one for the team for the round. None of us thought we had a positive matchup into the 5 A-Wings, all either neutral or bad. Neutral for me (TIE swarms don’t have a lot of bad matchups), but A-Wings live off running away and shooting out the back, so would be tough.

List

L’ulo L’ampar RZ-2 A-Wing (43)

Heroic (1), Crack Shot (1) – Total: 45

Tallissan Lintra RZ-2 A-Wing (36)

Heroic (1), Advanced Optics (4) – Total: 41

Blue Squadron Recruit RZ-2 A-Wing (33)

Heroic (1), Advanced Optics (4) – Total: 38

Blue Squadron Recruit RZ-2 A-Wing (33)

Heroic (1), Advanced Optics (4) – Total: 38

Blue Squadron Recruit RZ-2 A-Wing (33)

Heroic (1), Advanced Optics (4) – Total: 38

Total: 200

(Obstacles and everything else approximate) I started off with the usual, flying up one board edge, not seeing an opportunity to turn in, so just k-turned. I then did a feint with my AP, hard turning and keeping the stress, to try influence how he repositioned his 3 I1s, with the rest of the swarm going straight and clearing stress. He didn’t really fall for the feint, and the AP was picked off a turn or 2 later for no damage in return. Next turn however, I caught L’ulo in a death trap (combination of 1 and 3 turns to keep the formation wide), and L’ulo 5 straighted right in front of everything, and promptly died. From there I was ahead and he was forced to be the aggressor, which wasn’t what his squad wanted to do. I kept my formation strong and stayed away from the obstacles, trading shots and getting steadily further ahead.

Win: 140-80 (3-0)

Team result: 4-2

Throwing a TIE swarm under the bus is hard. Doesn’t have bad matchups, almost all either good or neutral. Play well, win games.

Round 4 – New South Wales: Grant

We were still undefeated at this point (winning 4-2 every round), but last year’s champions and this year’s favourites New South Wales were sure to be a tough test. With the matchups we ended up with 4 green and 2 yellow (neutral), and I drew Grant’s First Order. Pretty happy with that result.

Kylo Ren TIE/vn Silencer (76)

Hate (3) – Total: 79

“Quickdraw” TIE/SF Fighter (45)

Special Forces Gunner (10), Fanatical (2) – Total: 57

Lieutenant Tavson Upsilon-Class Command Shuttle (64)

Total: 64

Total: 200

I had played a few games against this matchup, and while it wasn’t an easy win, I was happy with the experience, had a plan and knew it was definitely doable.

The opening round of shooting went fairly poorly for me, shooting 5 TIEs into QD and only doing a single shield. I didn’t take anything substantial in return, with Tavson’s only meaningful shot of the game bouncing off the Iden charge. The next turn went alright, I lost 1 TIE, but had good positioning, putting damage into Tavson/QD, and everyone behind Tavson’s big scary firing arc. Side note: Is Quickdraw just bad? QD did nothing much this game, and that seems to be the case everytime I play against it. I cleaned up Tavson and QD, then had 4 (or 5?) reasonably healthy TIEs against Kylo.

But that still wasn’t a sure thing. It got to the point where I’d only done 1 shield to Kylo, and he only needed another half a TIE to get ahead. I was keeping the pressure on with my many firing arcs, taking lots of attacks. Then Soontir Fel, Academy Pilot of Legend won the game with a R3 shot into a tokenless, Force-less Kylo, getting the shield and a Direct Hit in. Promote that pilot. Game was over there, Kylo had to be even more aggressive and I got him a turn or 2 later. Good, close, fun game.

Win: 200-115 (4-0)

Team result: 4-2

Shout out to Dave R pulling a win out of nowhere against Jaren’s Imperial aces. He was playing next to me, and everytime I looked over it was bad, and then “Oh, Soontir’s dead”. Team win, we keep rolling along.

Round 5 – Western Australia: Vlad

Round 5, and I was definitely starting to feel tired/fatigued at this point. Vlad’s Republic were the squad/player I was most worried about, having heard the name before, and having 3 Jedi who could reposition well, and hit as hard as anything with CLT. #bullseyesnotthathard

Neutral matchup for me, because TIE swarms are good.

List

Mace Windu Delta-7 Aethersprite (45)

Sense (5), Calibrated Laser Targeting (3) – Total: 53

Luminara Unduli Delta-7 Aethersprite (43)

Calibrated Laser Targeting (3) – Total: 46

Saesee Tiin Delta-7 Aethersprite (43)

Calibrated Laser Targeting (3) – Total: 46

“Wolffe” ARC-170 Starfighter (50)

Crack Shot (1), Clone Commander Cody (3) – Total: 54

Total: 199

Game started off alright, I got a decent first engage with my swarm facing off againt Wolffe at R1 and the Jedi picking at the edges. He gave me initiative, so I murdered Wolffe very quickly, but also importantly gave him a Blinded Pilot crit to neuter the intended trade (4 dice attack, focus, Wolffe reroll, Crack Shot).

Chase and catch the Jedi, keeping ahead. I wasn’t playing perfectly and this game looked closer than it really was. I think I was comfortably ahead the whole time, but to an observer it looked even or I was behind. (Team members after the game said they were worried I was going down). I lost my 2nd-to-last TIE on the final turn of the game, where I was protecting the other TIE I needed to keep alive to win. 1 full health TIE and a half health Jedi left at the end.

Tired, not pretty, don’t remember too many details. (And no photos)

Win: 176-169 (5-0)

Team result: 4-2

Quite happy going 4-2 every round, and hence winning each round. We were leading at the end of the day on 20 points, just ahead of Queensland and New South Wales on 19 points each. Good, solid day.

Day 2

Day 2 wasn’t great for kiwis at the System Open the week before, our 25% of the cut falling away quite quickly. Obviously hoping to not repeat that, and keep the momentum rolling. 4 more solid rounds needed, with hopefully a blowout 5-1 or 6-0 at some point to get us into the final.

Round 6 – Queensland: James

Queensland had a pretty strong team, and were well experienced getting 2nd last year. I got matched with James’ interesting Sinker Republic squad. Having thought about Sinker squads a fair bit, and played a successful Sinker swarm at the System Open, I just couldn’t see what this squad was doing. But he was 5-0 at this stage so thought I might have been missing something, and didn’t take it lightly.

Ric Olie Naboo Royal N-1 Starfighter (42)

Daredevil (3), R4 Astromech (2) – Total: 47

Jedi Knight Delta-7 Aethersprite (38)

Calibrated Laser Targeting (2) – Total: 40

“Sinker” ARC-170 Starfighter (54)

Clone Commander Cody (3), Angled Deflectors (6) – Total: 63

Gold Squadron Trooper V-19 Torrent (25)

Total: 25

Gold Squadron Trooper V-19 Torrent (25)

Total: 25

Total: 200

James also makes alt art cards, and had a bunch to give away to everyone. Very, very shiny ones for this event. Always fun trading cards.

Short version, premise that I joust better confirmed. Good first engage, I think I caught him off guard a little with coming in fast, meant Ric had to take a poor route through the obstacles to not get left out of the fight. I opted to shoot all my guns into the Jedi Knight, with it being not as effective as I would have liked. I didn’t take much/anything in return, with the only offensive modifier on his side being Sinker for some ships. I got the Jedi, then the Torrents, then Sinker, only taking small amounts of fairly inconsequential damage.

Bunch of TIEs left against Ric. Took a while to track down, but got him eventually.

Win: 200-47 (6-0)

Team result: 3-3 (oh bother, we failed to win a round)

Shout out to Dave L pulling a win out on the last turn of the game in against Nobbie’s Resistance. We were all watching as time expired and was way too close to call. Points destroyed on both sides on the final round of shooting.

Round 7 – Bad Motivators (Mercenaries): Dave

Bad Motivators, one of the Mercernary teams ensuring there was an even number of teams. Got matched with Dave and his Resistance, which on the surface I wasn’t too confident going into, only rating it a neutral matchup. Rey can hit really hard and pop TIEs for fun (after Iden) and there was enough movement shenanigans with Leia that could easily give me a headache.

Side note, so many Dave’s at this event!!

List

Rey Scavenged YT-1300 (73)

Finn (10), Shield Upgrade (4) – Total: 87

Tallisan Lintra RZ-2 A-Wing (36)

Heroic (1), Crack Shot (1), Proton Rockets (7) – Total: 45

Cova Nell Resistance Transport (38)

Heroic (1), Leia Organa (19), M9-G8 (7) – Total: 65

Total: 197

I broke one of my usual rules this game by flying into the obstacles pretty quickly. I saw an opportunity to pounce on Rey, she’d either turn in and get obliterated, or run away, and I’d get a few free shots in. Rey took the latter option, and I got in 5 damage over the next couple turns for nothing lost in return. Then (turn following the picture), I turned everyone in on Cova and Talli, and nuked Cova. Then got Talli and still had 6 ships left to track down and finish off Rey. I lost Scourge after continuing to send him after Rey with only 1HP left. I lined up a R2 bullseye focus shot to get the half points on Rey before he died. Other TIEs slowly came round and finished it off.

Win: 200-33 (7-0)

Team result: 5-1

Back on track, and the bigger win that I wanted.

Round 8 – Australian Capital Territory: Ben

ACT, and Ben with his giant 22 point bid. Maybe I should start an AP down to make it a fair fight. Jokes aside, it was a scary squad to deal with, both aces move after my swarm, and Guri especially can go wherever the hell she likes, making it quite difficult to shoot her. Once I lose any points, could be a very uphill battle. Neutral matchup.

List

Guri StarViper-class Attack Platform (64)

Outmaneuver (6), Advanced Sensors (10), Afterburners (6), Virago (10), Shield Upgrade (8) – Total: 104

Fenn Rau Fang Fighter (68)

Outmaneuver (6) – Total: 74

Total: 178

Lots of cagey play to open this game. I have one giant firing arc of death he needs to avoid, and I’ve got to try catch one of his aces in it. I was flying around one channel of the board with hard turns, k-turns, trying to be unpredictable while still keeping my formation and staying away from the rocks.

I took a TIE out of formation to limit Guri’s positioning by blocking an AS barrel roll, and ended up forcing her through a rock and a damage. A turn or 2 later I caught Fenn in some of my arcs and got a Loose Stabilizer crit through. That crit was brutal, as he either had to go straight, or give up half points. I think it might have been worth just taking the damage and to try get away, as he ended up very trapped and very dead after the straight maneuver.

Game was easier after that, with only one ace to worry about, and Guri needing to kill at least a couple TIEs to catch up. Too many arcs to dodge and Guri went down, only losing Iden.

Win: 200-41 (8-0)

Team result: 5-1

With that second big win we were pretty much in the final. There would need to be some disaster like an 0-6 loss to keep us out.

And shout out to Ryan this round, he was having a rough tournament to this stage, a number of close losses and his squad not quite gelling. We somewhat threw him under the bus this round against 4 Crack T-70s, wasn’t awful, but wasn’t great, and he got up! Peaking at the right time.

Round 9 – Free Folk (Mercenaries): Adam

I got Adam and his 5 SFs this round, and this was one the few matchups I’d put down as a 5/5, guaranteed win every time….

List

Omega Squadron Expert TIE/SF Fighter (34)

Fanatical (2), Advanced Optics (4) – Total: 40

Omega Squadron Expert TIE/SF Fighter (34)

Fanatical (2), Advanced Optics (4) – Total: 40

Omega Squadron Expert TIE/SF Fighter (34)

Fanatical (2), Advanced Optics (4) – Total: 40

Omega Squadron Expert TIE/SF Fighter (34)

Fanatical (2), Advanced Optics (4) – Total: 40

Omega Squadron Expert TIE/SF Fighter (34)

Fanatical (2), Advanced Optics (4) – Total: 40

Total: 200

I was a little… on tilt at the start of this match (nothing to do with Adam), but I don’t think that really effected how I played. I started well, initiative killing one of his Omegas, but it went downhill from there. Adam played it well, getting an SF in amongst my swarm and ruining the formation. But that left Howlrunner outside the Iden safety bubble, and a little dice-swing against me had Howlrunner killed in one-shot. REKT

I fell behind in the damage race, and couldn’t catch up. He started evading with the injured ones and I didn’t have enough guns left to do real damage. It looked closer than it was, but I was behind for most of the game, with no way to catch up. Only 2 SFs left on half each, but a convincing loss.

Loss: 160-200 (8-1)

F

Get the loss out of the way before the final. I might have been a little complacent thinking the matchup was in my favour, though don’t know how I would have flown differently. Maybe karma.

Team result: 4-2 Individual result doesn’t matter, all about the team. And we got the W. And Ryan won his game on stream too. NZ on Top after round robin with 37 points, 1 point clear of NSW and 3 points clear of Singapore in 3rd.

This was NZ’s first round on stream. Nature of the number of rounds/teams meant a couple teams would only have one round on stream. Guess we’d just have to make the final for another round on stream.

Final – New South Wales, again: Akhter

Well, they were most people’s favourites going into the event, a fairly stacked side with some well known names, and we were a bunch of non-X-Wing famous guys that most people had never heard of, just quietly crushing everyone to the top of the round robin.

It’s not as though we had 3 of our team make the cut at the System Open (Dave R and I went 6-0, Ryan went 5-1), pretty sure no OTC team had more than 3 players in the System Open cut.

I was fairly happy with how the matchups ended up. None of them were red, all green or neutral. Same old story; need to play well, win games, profit.

List

Wedge Antilles T-65 X-Wing (55)

Crack Shot (1), Proton Torpedoes (13), Servomotor S-Foils (0) – Total: 69

Lando Calrissian Modified YT-1300 Light Freighter (80)

Leia Organa (6), Nien Numb (5) – Total: 91

Jake Farrell RZ-1 A-Wing (36)

Crack Shot (1), Predator (2) – Total: 39

Total: 199

I got matched with Akhter, the other finalist from the previous weekend’s System Open and current NZ national champion. No pressure. I had the matchup as neutral, with whoever making a mistake first likely losing the game.

This was quite a tense game. The hall was noticeably quieter and lots of spectators. And we gave them an exciting game to watch. I flew all the way up a board edge, hard turn, hard turned again and came back. Then k-turned when I got back to my deployment zone. Riveting. Adam from last round was kind enough to give me a beer. It wasn’t that boring. I was managing my speeds to keep as many options as possible open, to turn in at any time on different angles to punish any positioning mistake. Akhter was flying similarly, keeping well away from the giant firing arc of death, while keeping options open and getting a couple meaningless pot-shots with Jake.

At about 55 minutes I opted to turn into the obstacles to apply more pressure and maybe force an error. With only 20 minutes to play, there wasn’t enough time for him to drag me around the obstacles and ruin the formation. We actually exchanged a few shots, for no damage, but he crucially forced me to spend the Iden charge, meaning any shot from then on could potentially win him the game.

I was worried I’d almost blown it, or at least given him more of an opening than I should have. Final round of the game, Wedge got a 2 die R3 with Crack into an evading Del Meeko, with a 14% of 2 damage and the win. Fortunately he only rolled 1 picture because I rolled zero evades.

FINAL SALVO wouldn’t be team champs without a final salvo, right? I was heavily favoured (85%) with 12 v 8 dice, and then I rolled 12 pictures with 7 hits/crits.

gg wp

Win: 0-0 (9-1)

With MOV being the tiebreaker should we split the final 3-3, it wasn’t the greatest win, but a win was a win, and I don’t think there’s much more I could have done without risking too much.

Team result: 3-3, lose by MOV (quite a bit of MOV)

I personally don’t feel robbed by the tiebreaker, we didn’t quite get across the line. Dave L put on a clinic with his ARCs on stream and Ryan did some great kill boxing of Imperial aces (glancing over to see Soontir in 3 arcs was nice) , but we fell 1 win short.

(And for the 2nd weekend running, I was foiled by quad StarVipers, with NSW’s James getting a win in the final with them.)

I’m not a fan of MOV as the tiebreaker, its a somewhat nonsense metric (it was clearly communicated though). But any other tiebreakers aren’t great either (eg total wins in round robin, or winner of round robin match up) as one team would already be well ahead when the final starts. (Fun fact, we would have won on count back to round robin metrics). A combined Final Salvo from both sides would be hilarious, but also a nonsense shit show.

A better method (IMO) would be to have an odd number of players per team, so there is always a clear winner in the final. It would remove the ability to split games 3-3 in the round robin, but I think having a clear winner in the final is more important.

TTT for the final

Conclusion

So so so close.

The team did great. Dave R was top Separatist player, Rick was top Resistance player and I was top Empire player. Also Dave L crushed it going 9-1, but missed out on top in Republic to Morgan’s 10-0.

Thanks to Dave R for helping me doing most of the matchup-ing. Thanks to Rick and John for filling in as honorary NZers. And everyone being willing and eager to take their hard matchups for the good of the team. Would play alongside all you guys again.

Fun Fact for those salty at the couple NSW boys on our team. If you subtract the massive 11 wins they contributed in the round robin, and NZ would still rank 4th out 10 teams with 2 players down.

And I’m claiming FINAL SALVO champion 2 year’s running. It’s tradition now.

Reposting this meme after my swarm crushed it. Of the 10 teams, there were 8 Soontir Fels, 8 Darth Vader pilots (and 1 Darth Vader crew). And then my swarm. Don’t need no I6 crutches.

Shout outs

Shout out the man of the hour Tom for organizing the whole event (and everyone who gave him a hand). Great events don’t happen without someone putting in the hard yards organizing it. And I love the team format, and those events are pretty few and far between.

All my opponents (Damian, XY, Tom, Grant, Vlad, James, Dave, Ben, Adam and Akhter), great games and chat by all, and you’ve all signed my damage deck which has become a really cool momento from this week in Aus.

And all the other NZers, getting behind us and cheering us on. Was great to know the support was there, and knew everyone was watching the stream when we finally got on there at the business end of the event.

Obligatory Swag Picture from the week in Australia

Thanks everyone for all the cool stuff!

System Open prizes from FFG, OTC tokens from Logic Dump Gaming, community made swag from Perth Jawas, Rogue Squadron, Porg Republic (Adelaide), Singapore team, James on the Queensland OTC team, Capital Cartel, DSDC, and the Bad Motivators Merc team. Hope I didn’t miss anyone!

System Open Mat not pictured. Cheers to Darcy for bringing it back to NZ for me.

-Nathan

Blog a little slower coming out this time, started a new job the day after I got home from Australia, which is cutting into my X-Wing time significantly, playing time especially much more limited (already missing a couple events I would have otherwise gone to). But that’s fine, I welcome the change, needed something else to do with my time.