Time to play a bit of catch-up! I’ve been to two events since I last wrote, with very different degrees of success.

First up, going back a bit now my local store, Atlantic Games, put on their first event since the changes in store (new management team, refurb etc). Massive props to the guys for the effort they’ve been putting into the shop since coming on-board. Not only that, but for running an X-wing event for the first time, everything went really smoothly, and the timings were only out for the entire day by a couple of minutes come the close of play. Well done to all involved.

As for my own performance I had a very mixed day. I went back and forth a few times on what list to fly; okay maybe not what list, but which pocket ace I’d be flying alongside Anakin and the Torrents. Eventually I settled on CLT Plo again over Ric.

All four games were tight, defeating Tim Greenaway’s TIE swarm on the last shot of the game, needing just one more point of damage on Soontir against Ian, and again coming up a damage or two short against Ross’s triple Fangs. And finished off with a win against Ed’s CIS swarm, a game that was still hanging in the balance until the last couple of turns.

So a 2-2 finish, ending up in 10th place out of 20ish. not a great way to defend the home store (and I forgot to take any pictures. And the report is late and brief because sometimes life gets in the way. Shame on me). Guy took the day with his Kylo/Quickdraw list, so at least a fellow Atlantic-goer brought it home.

That left a bit of time in between events, and my focus had shifted a little to the Transformers TCG in preparation for the big Energon Open coming later in September at Dark Sphere. I even won the Energon Open Trial at Firestorm in Cardiff, giving me two byes for the London event. Not bad, not bad.

The following day though it was back to X-wing, and a doubles competition up at Worcester Wargames. I teamed up with fellow Vagabond Jordan for the day – the rules were that you had to both fly the same faction, and when combined the two lists had to make one legal 400 point list. So both players couldn’t use the same unique pilots or upgrades. Fortunately for us, Jordan and I have both been playing the Republic for some time now, and conveniently with different Jedi. He was running Obi-Wan, Mace, and Luminara whereas I’ve been flying Anakin and Plo (or Ric). Perfect.

After the Atlantic event though, I’d been struggling with the feeling that having only a single 3-dice attack ship in the list was not really cutting it. I’d either have to go back to Ric and fly fast all the time, or make a more drastic change. After much back and forth, I went with the latter – I cut a Torrent from the list. I’ve advocated against this for some time now, but maybe it was time to evolve with a changing game environment. So I ended up on the following list:

Anakin Skywalker (Delta-7B, R2 Astromech, Spare Parts Cannister)

Plo Koon (Delta-7B, R2 Astromech)

Gold Squadron Trooper

Which comes in at a total of 186 points. So I’ve been able to keep my existing bid game going (it’s still all Dom Flannigan’s fault), while bringing back a second regen 7B into the fold. I also brought in a Spare Parts for Anakin for the first time – I’ve been seeing Jendon a bit both locally and on stream, so breaking a bunch of target locks might come in handy. Failing that, an extra regen is always nice! Managed to get one practice game in with it and it felt okay, if a little different in how it needed to be flown. Best way to really learn is jump in at the deep end though!

First up we matched up with Gary and Shane’s Resistance, with me taking on Gary’s 4 Black Squadron T70s. It’s a tricky game for the first half as you have to be super cautious until you get a gun or two off the table. Lost the Torrent early on, but the Jedi were able to hit and run to give me the win. Jordan’s game was closer, with just Obi-Wan and Finn eliminated when time was up. It was enough to give us the overall win though.

Next up, some Republic-on-Republic action as I took on Elliot’s Sinker Swarm and Jordan against Lee’s 2 Jedi + 2 Torrent. This one went especially well for us, Jordan racking up a perfect 200-0 win, and myself gradually grinding down the swarm despite losing everything aside from Anakin. But he’s the best starpilot in the galaxy, so it’s fine.

In round 3 we came unstuck versus Huw and Dave. I managed to win my game against Huw’s Maarek, Vynder, Colzet and Jendon entourage, but Jordan went down by a slightly higher margin to Dave’s double Phantom and Defender list. I think they edged us by 24 points across the two games – less than the price of a Torrent. On the plus side, I got multiple uses out of Plo’s ability in this one!

Last up we had an all-Vagabond affair with Andy and Toby. I had an immensely close game with Andy’s RAC, Soontir, Grand Inquistor list, managing to keep both Jedi alive (albeit both halved) with just a half-pointed Inquisitor surviving on the opposite side of the board. It was just enough to scrape the win across the matchup as a whole. Whew!

So with a loss, we figured we’d be third, maybe second depending on everyone else’s MOV. But it turns out Huw and Dave lost their final round (leaving no team undefeated) to Lee and Elliot by enough of a margin that we squeezed ahead and stole overall victory by just 69 MOV across the entire day! Wasn’t expecting that!

Props to Lian and Law for running the event, and dropping from playing themselves to avoid an odd number of teams and thus a bye every round. And big up to my teammate for ploughing on through what was a a tough day physically and doing enough to keep games close even when not individually winning. Win as a team, lose as a team.

I don’t think I actually have any more events on the calendar as yet, other than a few Hyperspace Trials coming up in a month or so. So we’ll see what happens.

Until next time!