I mean really, who books a store champs on the same day that the English Football Team plays in the Quarter Finals of the World Cup? Oh that’s right, the Welsh! (To be fair how could they have known? No one knew!) This weekend I and many others are off to Firestorm Games in Cardiff, one of the most fantastic venues in the UK to play in their store champs. It’s an 46 man event, 6 rounds of Swiss and a top 8 cut.

As ever the guys have put on a great show at their massive venue. 46 X-Wing players, but still room for a bunch more people? Sure why not!

Like a lot of people the 1.0 fatigue is increasingly real, and some of the stuff I touched on last week has just added to the melting pot of broken that describes the meta as the game ends. That TIE Reaper? It’s REALLY good, like super effective and horrid to play against, but it’s new and shiny so who cares?

Last week I had a load of fun with the Rey Wings, and this week I’m running A-Wings again, but 3 of them, ‘coz they’re awesome. I’m going to get ruined by so many things but I DON’T CARE. There is still so much fun to be had with things in 1.0 that I haven’t tried out yet, so to hell with it. If I lose fine, if I win then whoop, I beat someone with A-Wings.

This list has it’s roots in the list I first flew competitively back in wave 7 when I was just starting out, before the dark days, before Sabine. I took it to an event at Warboar, with my mentors Pete Wood and Chris Millhouse. I beat Alex Birt running Dash Miranda, and he STILL curses his Anti-Pursuit Lasers for not being very good. Andrew Pattison who was TOing that day laughed out loud as he walked passed my table with a disbelieving “You bought 3 A-Wings?”. I went 2-4 that day, if I can match that I will be totally chuffed.

So let’s go through my three ships with increasing levels of incredulity. Firstly we have Gemmer. Gemmer doesn’t get a lot of love. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anyone except me running him ever. For those who don’t know Gemmer has an additional dice at when defending if there is an enemy ship at range one, which is pretty badass. With no natural Elite Pilot Talent Gemmer has to resort to A-Wing test Pilot to get the all important Push the Limit. Add in standard issue A-Wing Toys of Proton Rockets (which will be referred to as Prockets for the rest of this article, as they should always be referred to) and Autothusters and you have a zoomy PS5 one hit wonder who can potentially survive a while by turtling up with a focus and evade for the Reapers to come and steal.

Next up we have everyone’s favourite “go on and stress me” ship, Tycho. I don’t think I have ever used cruise missiles, but I’ve always wanted to try them out on Tycho. The ability to pull a 5-k and then roll 5 fully modified dice into your unsuspecting opponent sounds quite a lot of fun. If he can pull it off once at this event I’m going to be loving it. So yeah, that’s Push The Limit, Autothrusters, Cruise Missles and A-Wing Test Pilot right there. I was going to run him with Veteran Instincts, but the point of this list is to try a few bits that I have never run before, so I’m taking Rage. It also means that I get to use my Alt Art Tycho at least once since winning it.

Finally we have a ship that I have been itching to try out for a good couple of waves, but never quite summoned up the courage. Jake Farrell is changing in 2.0. Once upon a time only Soontir Fel could rival him as an arc dodger boosting and rolling around long after his standard wingman, the ubiquitous “Fat” Han, had long since been taken off the table.

Back then Jake was one build, and one build only. Veteran Instincts, Push the Limit, Prockets, Autothrusters, Test Pilot. And I was very tempted to take this build again BUT there is something more fun that I have to try out. Take away VI and Jake is a PS7 ship, which means he’s going to suffer against Rey, Miranda and all the other prominent PS8 ships. BUT give him Intensity and have some fun. For those who don’t what intensity on Jake does allow me to illustrate:

So yeah, that’s 5 Actions a turn, why would you not want try that out? Sure at PS7 it’s way worse than it would be if he was PS9, that’s why he shouldn’t be able to do it at PS9! I want to have some fun, and I hope this kind of shenanigans will give my opponent a smile before they nuke me of the table… Quite simply this will be impossible in 2.0 as action economy has been (rightly) hammered hard, but Jake can take 4 actions without getting stressed, 5 with… c’mon that is pretty cool.

The list weighs in at 99 points.

Gemmer Sojan Jake Farrell Tycho Celchu A-Wing Test Pilot A-Wing Test Pilot A-Wing Test Pilot Autothrusters Autothrusters Autothrusters Push the Limit Push the Limit Push the Limit Proton Rockets Proton Rockets Cruise Missiles Intensity Rage

This list is the very definition of an Alpha striking. Once my munitions are gone I’m not expecting to hurt anything. Alpha striking and jousting are not to be confused as a lot of people seem to think them to be. If this jousts pretty much anything it will get crushed horribly and die. It does need to co-ordinate it’s attacks, one cruise missile or procket alone is not going to be sufficient to push through the tons of damage that you need to do in a turn if you want to cripple an opponents ship. It’s vulnerable, hugely fragile, easy to get wrong but should be plenty of fun to fly. I’m 3 years into the game and there are new things to test out, how cool is that?

My game plan is simple, Tycho and Jake are going to have a race. See who can accrue the most Stress Tokens or Actions taken over the course of the day. Tycho will probably be chalking up 3 stress a turn, and Jake can do 5 actions, so the odds are in Jake’s favour to start with, but over the course of a tournament who knows what can happen! Winning any actual games with this is unlikely so I’ve found my own way to spice it up a bit.

Waking up at 4.30 is just rude, but if that’s what needs to be done then so be it! A road trip with some of Basingstoke’s Firestorm Squadron, Pete Lake, Dom Flannigan and Phil Pond. A long trip to a Macdonald’s on the other side of the bridge with some top guys. Today I even remembered to take photo’s every round!

Game one, against Alex Prior of Meeple Squadron running a Quickdraw, a Punisher and a TIE Aggressor. Quickdraw is fairly terrifying for ships that only roll two attack dice, revenge shots aplenty are on the cards. Redline with a trajsim bomblet and harpoons is quite intimidating, especially after initiative roll which would see the Punisher moving after both Jake and Gemmer. This was the first of many instances on the day where I discovered that A-Wings don’t mind harpoons too much. With careful flying and all the tokens they can dodge them consistently.

Tycho delivered a glorious 5 dice cruise into the punisher to finish it, Jake blatted the Aggressor with his prockets. Then, once Tycho died, the other A-Wings pulled Quickdraw first one way then another to keep her from being able to sustain fire on either one. Jake took a storming lead in the mini game, wracking up 45 actions, while Tycho with his early death only managed 13 stress. Probably more important I started the day with a win! 62-35.

Ryan Davies is a top player, and Dash Poe is somewhat terrifying for the A-Wings. Ryan was flying the same list that Rasta uses and I have borrowed many times. Intensity Poe is a nightmare for the A-Wings as getting a lock is all but impossible due to Black one and Dash’s HLC hurts a lot. With his list at 97 points Ryan put me in to move first, which meant Dash would be able to consistently dodge 2 of my ships, not just one. Without taking token stacks every turn The HLC was just too much for the A-Wings and Poe would swoop in and deliver the coup de gras. The game ended with Jake clipping a rock by the smallest margin, and Poe coming in for a four dice fully modded shot. Only 20 actions for Jake this game, and a lowly 10 stress for Tycho. 0-100 loss.

Game 3, Lyn Davies, flying another terrifying list. Thweek, Fenn, and Torani (so more harpoons). Lyn, carrying a broken collar bone and somewhat influenced by painkillers put up a hell of a game. Fenn Rau is terrifying for A-Wings, double re-position after movement, 5 dice primaries and all the defense dice when I’m firing my big hitting pockets. I shot cruise missiles and prockets into him and he took one point of damage. Gemmer died, but Tycho and Jake were able to shut down Torani and Fenn. Even with only 2 dice, shooting Fenn range 2 is still the best way of killing him. One Agility Ships like Torani really don’t like Raging Tycho, and whilst killing an 8 hull ships takes a while, it is possible. An end game of Jake and Tycho going for Thweek was what I had aimed for, but it it took some considerable time to chase down the Star Viper.

Jake wracked up a mighty 42 actions this game but Tycho pulled some serious stress and ended up with a stack of 29. 100-30 win for the A-Wings.

After three games I had achieved the goal of 2 wins, something totally unexpected, but not unwelcome. With three games to play I’d have been happy to call it there! But there were still three games to go…

Game 4, the heat of the day making the venue somewhat clammy, and tiredness catching up it, and my opponent Simeon Arnold admitting that his list isn’t particularly wholesome… Nym, Wedge and Cracken, munitions (which by now I was somewhat less worried about than I had been when round one started) and an Ion Cannon Turret. Lot of toys that are quite worrying for self stressing ships. But the A-Wing did it again. They can disengage better than anything else, and going toe to toe with Wedge isn’t exactly a good idea, so that’s just as well. Wedge and Cracken died leaving Nym against Gemmer and Tycho with time running out. There was too much health to take off the Scurrg with the time remaining so back to the dance of maintaining range and avoiding pain. Before his death Jake managed to wrack up 44 actions and Tycho 23 stress. I scraped the win 53-34, but a win is a win!

Fifth game of the day against Daniel Xuerub, with some things that A-Wings really don’t like. Advance Sensors Whisper with Krennic on board, Yorr with Hux, so hits I can’t cancel and Countdown, who my munitions are pointless against. The shuttle took a turn too long to die, it took two lots of Prockets and a couple of other shots to drop, Tycho went for a risky move which didn’t pay off, then Jake, with 2 vs 1 was in trouble. Some careful flying and some arc dodging saw Countdown drop, but a PS7 A-Wing even one with 5 actions a turn vs an advanced sensors Whisper should only ever end one way. With time counting down I went for the block on the hard one, more playing for MOV than actually killing the Phantom. The Phantom went for the k-turn, and then it finally happened, the inevitable blank out on the green dice… Jake exploded with less than a minute on the round. Tycho managed a mere 3 Stress this game, while Jake wracked up a staggering 64 actions! A loss, but a sensationally fun game. 54-100 to Daniel.

3-2 and I really wanted to finish with a 4-2, I felt my flying and the A-Wings deserved the positive result. My opponent in round 6, the brilliant Stephen Gage. Flying Nym, Torani and Jostero. Last time I played Steve was at the UK System Open with Dash Poe, and I knocked him out. But he’s flying the same list and I’ve flown loads of others, which means practice was on his side.

Jostero took a Procket but didn’t quite die, then triggered his cybernetics and K-Turned, only to be double stressed. Steve forgot that he had a damaged engine, which meant that there was a bit of a traffic jam with his ships, and the A-Wings took full advantage. Kill shots on Torani and Jostero leading to an end game of Tycho and Jake against Nym. But with no ordinance left and no turret the end was inevitable, and when his 4 health Nym turned into Jake, who still had prockets left, Steve resigned to his fate, went for the Hail Mary dice roll. It didn’t pay off, then Jake delivered the kill shot. 32 actions for Jake and 20 stress for Tycho. More importantly for the list a 100-30 win.

I had so much fun with this list, it totally out performed my expectations, 4-2 and 15th out of 46 when I was hoping for a 2-4 at best. It’s challenging to fly and insanely unforgiving, but so rewarding. The fact that it can soak up harpoon missile after harpoon missile with a bit of sensible engagement management, and then dish out lethal range one attacks that generally cripple their targets is bonus that I hadn’t really anticipated.

I think the only change I’m going to make on it is to drop the cruise missile for prockets on Tycho. The cruise are great but the way these things fly suits a much close quarters engagement and only once did I manage to get them firing the full 5 dice. With Rage being a default actions the target lock is rarely necessary so the change of munition makes sense.

This could well be the most fun list I have ever come up with. I know that I say that a lot, but even the triple PTL Star Vipers aren’t quite as gratifying as these things, sure your opponents head hurts more by the end of the game with the Scum, but at the end of the game the Star Vipers tend to be exploded. The A-Wing’s token stacks and those prockets are glorious, and there is no end of praise that I can heap upon this Jake build, he is somewhat extraordinary, finally a ship I will legitimately miss from 1.0.

Next Time: A-WINGS AGAIN, MAYBE?

If you’re looking for X-Wing events, and there are a lot at the moment, then head over to the 186th Tournament Calendar

If you play Shadespire, I’ve started to have a go at that, it’s rather good. I have a new blog about it called Tales Of the Spire