In which new blogger Will Pintar shares a very busy first few days of 2.0… and how casual list building wins tournaments!

This last weekend was months in the planning. I took three guaranteed days off work, two for practice and learning and one for the first 2.0 tournament at Sith Taker home base, Element Games. I’ve always felt a year behind the curve with First Ed. And good ol’ FFG are letting me catch up.

Day 1: Cardboard Day

The excitement and anticipation was at its peak at 0900hrs and we were at the pub over the road from Element for an all you can eat breakfast, eagerly waiting for the Asmodee van turning up with the order. 0915hrs the confirmation message came “All has arrived, pick up at 10”. So, after half a day of unwrapping and popping out endless amounts of cardboard and putting a lot of cards away, I finally got to play 2.0. I have never seen so many grown men full of joy at opening toys. It truly was an X-Wing Christmas.

I had planned to try lots of lists that I’d written or seen on other areas of the internet. I only managed 4 in total. I had 3 games of the same list day one Emon/Nym with lots of bombs. I then gave one of David Sutcliffe’s lists (Han/Palob/Slaver) a go for a game before calling it a night.

The learning in day 1 was intense: I realised that bombs were strong but Nym wasn’t, melting fairly quickly in all my games. And I love them, but two ship builds probably don’t cut the mustard. Palob was good value and his ability plus the L3-37 crew made him a good survivable ship. Scum Falcon seemed squishy when set upon, but I may have not flown it great. Finally, I liked the Party Bus, but seemed this list could do more with a switch of 0-0-0 crew from Han.

Day 2: Proper Testing



I tried David’s Han list again for a game with the crew swap, but still Han died quickly. The Slaver and Palob held their own, but just not well enough for me to like it. So, I went to try another list. At this point I had ideas for a Kimogila/Fang and the powerhouse that is Boba Fett! Well, what can I say? I’d been holding off on Boba as I knew I wouldn’t look back… I was right! He was brilliant, the other ships were okay but after trying 3 different set ups on the build, it was time to look at other ships. I went for a fresh air break with my X-Wing Dad (we’ll just call him Bob for now) prior to my last try at the Kimo build and had a good chat. I talked about Palob and Boba being my favourite ships so far and somehow during my next game he had written a list with those in. I watched Bob fly it against Lando/Luke and it seemed like it had some game as well as being fun (clearly not the new Ghost/Fenn then). One more fresh air break and a bit of tactics analysis and then it was time to try it!!

I did like Bob’s build, although he attributed it to me before he tried it… I think this is because if it was as much use as stormtrooper in a fire fight, it would look like it was my poor list building skills. However, I just felt I could get something else in that could slightly improve the list. So, I played around with points and came up with the list “Rubber Dinghy Rapids”. I jumped onto a table with Simon Fullalove (his actual name) from Harlequins and instantly fell in love. This list had everything I wanted. An element of control early and midgame, a knife fighter and something that can kite, cause problems, but still get stuck in.

Boba Fett — Firespray-31 Fearless, Perceptive Copilot,

Seismic Charges, Marauder, Han Solo Ship Total: 103

Palob Godalhi — HWK-290 Elusive, L3-37, Moldy Crow Ship Total: 57

Jakku Gunrunner — Quadjumper Ship Total: 28

Autopilot Drone — Escape Craft Ship Total: 12

So, I came home set on flying a fun list I could put on the table with some surprising tricks. You might look at the Autopilot Drone and think it’s nuts, but it works. It controls the first 3 turns and it make a big difference. Palob is brilliant, controlling smart players’ actions and pinching less smart players’ tokens. The ability is a real defence against barrage rockets too. L3-37 crew infuriates people when you tell them to reroll the god roll they just achieved and the HWK just stays alive forever (good flying maybe needed). The tug just sets up Boba attacks or just causes general havoc by barrel rolling medium base ships onto rocks and their own bombs. (Sorry not sorry about that David Fairweather.) And at 28 points he’s expendable enough to throw him into the mix and not be too scared to lose him. Finally, the star of the show, Boba Fett. He’s tanky, he can move, he can control with bombs, he can boost and double focus just before combat and has rerolls galore when in the right place.

Day 3: Tournament Day

By Saturday, Team Sith Taker had 600+ hours of combined 2.0 experience – it was time to put that learning to the test in a 22 man tourney. There was some talent in the room, with guys like IQ’s Lee Duncan and the quiet storm, Dan Slob, to get past.

Game 1: vs Andy Sykes’ Corran, a U-Wing and a T65. This Rebel mob didn’t cause the list any problems at all. I controlled early on with the Drone, slow rolled with Palob and the Gunrunner and then came around with Boba and wiped the UWing and T65 off. Corran limped away to regen and didn’t cause any bother after that.

Went to time 200-12 win. I’ve not worked out how to table my oppo by the end of turn 2!

Game 2 vs The man himself, Bob Dee, with the mirror. He’d swapped the gunrunner for a Proximity Mine and a basic Z-95 and with so much in common it was time to work out which of us was right.The Boba’s engaged fast and traded blow for blow. We knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses and almost flew identically. The only thing that swung the game was one crit on his Palob for half points. My Boba tanked a shot which meant His Palob had to finish him off while I was free to shoot at his. Probably the closest game of X-Wing I’ve ever had. 170-163 win. Hooray for half-points!

Game 3 vs Uber blogger David Sutcliffe flying Han, Nym and Palob. I went on stream for this. I’ve never won before when on stream before and I was definitely a little apprehensive. What I did have on my side is that I had already flown the Han list and thanks to David’s blogs, I knew where the weaknesses were. David wasn’t really bothered about the drone and happily took one damage on Nym, which messed up my plan to block him and stop his trajectory sim. Sadly, it didn’t. Ultimately though, Han died quickly as I’d already learned he could but Nym held on for longer than I wanted. Ultimately, Boba was relatively untouched, and it was a Palob off which he won, but Boba came around to finish him off from his rear arc. 200-97 win. You can read Dave’s side of the story here.

Game 4 vs David Fairweather flying 4 K Wings. On stream again and facing a beast of a list, bombs galore and barrage rockets. I ultimately didn’t expect to win this, but I did! Same tactic as game one. Control with the drone, come around with Boba and slow roll with the other two. Drone didn’t do anything apart from force his list one direction, which was the best thing I could have hoped for. Boba tanked one turn of Barrage rockets, then I barrel rolled a K Wing and blocked them all to land on their own bombs, leaving Boba to kill 2 of them at range one (Best move I did all day!). With one limping more than Anakin on Mustafar but the other on full hull but no shields, I ran a little and then came back in to finish the injured one off. I was relieved. It was a tough game against a tough opponent running a tough list. I won but I haven’t got a clue what the score was!

Game 5 vs ‘Commissioner’ Colm Browne flying 6 Awing and Thane. SWARM!!!! I knew the game plan but executed it poorly. Colm completely out flew me. He kept bumping my Boba in the corner and swept up my list in the middle of the board. Palob managed to do the most damage and half point a lot of the ships, while Boba plinked of when he could. Boba tanked all game and came out with just 3 shields missing at the end of the game. In some way, Colm out flying me led me to the win … as the points were all in Boba. Finished 115-97. I manged to kill a couple but half pointed nearly everything on the board, thank God for 2.0 rules. It really changes your strategy for tourney games.

Finished the tournament 5-0. This is my first tournament win, so I was extremely happy. I know its not a big win, but hey, it means a lot to me especially as it was a self-written list. Now I doubt this is the optimum build, but I know I won’t be dismissing it anytime soon.*

* Will brought another self-penned list to our Tues evening tourney 3 days later. He went 0-3. Balance returns to the Force. I’m definitely not claiming any credit for that one – Bob

