Happy Monday! This is a weird one, because it’s a combination of something I was obviously going to write about and something else that people who know me and have been following the blog lately probably expected to come sooner than later. Obviously I’m writing about the French Open a bit this week, it was awesome, but I’m also going to continue my series about iconic players in our game which I started with Jesper Hills a couple of weeks ago.

It will come as little surprise to most that the main protagonist of this post then is my X-Wing brother and legend of the game, George “Rasta Maice” Dellapina. I didn’t feel that a classic “interview format” was going to achieve what I hoped it would, so it’s a bit more biographical than a straight up Q&A.

For those of you who don’t know Rasta, he was the first ever European Champion, a finalist in the 2017 UK Nationals Championship, has won the UKTC two years in a row with his son Simeon, who also happens to be the world champion, and his life long wookiee wingman Kev Bellamy. He once won 8 store championships in a season…. it’s fair to say he’s pretty good at our game.

He’s also one of the best painters in the game, coming to X-Wing as so many have, from a Warhammer background. Rasta is an East London boy who ended up in the midlands through working for Games Workshop head office. The move to the midlands is something he describes as “probably the best thing he ever decided to do” because it has been a brilliant place to forge a home for his family. Which I guess is going to be a recurring theme through this post, the importance of family is at the core of his values and motivation.

For me the French open started after work on Thursday as I made the long trip into and across London to Walthamstow to stay the night at Rasta’s mum and dads house (along with Steve Theobald and Rasta himself, would have been weird if he hadn’t been there). Unbelievably good traditional home made Italian food awaited as we had dinner together and talked 2.0 until long into the night.

The following day began the long drive to Paris via Dover, with just George and I in the car, and we talked X-Wing for hours. And a few more hours, pretty much until we got to Paris and the topic swayed to “staying alive in Paris’s traffic.” The X-Wing talk was made up of all the elements you’d expect, what we love, what we hate, what we’re excited about but time and again came back to the people who we love in the game, the community and what it means to both of us.

Rasta came to X-Wing from a bad place personally and freely credits it as having made his and his families life better. In the community he has found a place he truly feels he belongs and his overwhelming desire is to make the community that to everyone who wants to be in it.

Friday night we met up with James “Two Steaks” Finlayson, Steve Theobald, along with my fellow 186th members Andrew Pattison and Cormac Higgins for burgers, and Saturday saw me putting Rasta’s Dash Poe list on the table. I’ve flown it before, it’s a lot of fun and I’m pretty good with it, but I also knew that I’d be writing about Rasta at some point so just like my attempt at flying the IGs last week I wanted the list that Rasta is probably most associated with firmly in the forefront of my mind for the purpose of writing this article.

There isn’t enough time to talk about the 12 games I played this weekend, I went 4-2 in the main event, only losing to Ghost Fenn and RAClo, two lists that I have only a very remote chance of beating with Dash Poe, so I couldn’t be unhappy with that. Sunday I went 3-3 in hyperspace, losing again to Ghost Fenn, Nymanda and the most ridiculously one sided dice game ever against Rey and Lowhhrick.

I was really happy with that, of my 5 loses 3 were unwinnable, one (Nymanda) is really hard, especially when expertly flown, and one, which is an tough one cause Rey eats Dash, I actually rolled no evades in at all… The saltiness that is left by running into lists that simply stop me playing the game (Ghost Fenn and RAClo) is kind of mitigated by the fact that in 85 days or so they’ll be gone from the game forever.

I didn’t have a bad opponent, France provided me with some of the most fantastic people I have ever played against, for all we love to moan about dice and lists (and you all know how much I love to complain about those things) not one of those games could I find any fault in any of the attitudes of any of my opponents. Sure some peoples list choices were a touch more sad making than others, but that’s another issue…

As ever the guys from Asmodee did a great job and deserve every credit for their continued hard work for our community. It was the first European Open that hasn’t had Alex Watkins over-seeing the event. In his stead Alec Thorne has now stepped up to spearhead these kinds of events. Alec has long been involve in the UK big events, overseeing our incredibly successful regional season and being heavily involved in UK Nationals for the past few years. It’s great to have another diligent and community minded TO heading up Europes premium X-Wing events.

Rasta was flying Kanan, Lowhhrick and Ezra, but has asked me to keep the exact details of the build out of the blog, it’s out there and people can go find it easy enough, but please if you know it don’t post it. Simeon came up with it (just like he did the Leebo Miranda build that Rasta won Euros 2017 with) and it is absolutely savage. Maybe if you get lucky enough to play Rasta before the end of 1.0 you’ll get to see it in action. He went 6-0 on day one.

Saturday night was the single best night of X-Wing I can every remember having. At lunch time Andrew, Cormac and I had stumbled across a restaurant that did the best steak I have ever eaten, and so we went back for dinner, and took some friends.

The meal surmised everything that is great about X-Wing. The company, the conversation, friendships forming and growing visibly as we ate and laughed together. I think that it is fair to say that evening was one of the best I have ever enjoyed, not just in my time in X-Wing but in my life. For me it will be the defining memory of my time in Paris. Walking back to the hotel Rasta and Steve expressed similar assessments.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, international X-Wing is incredible. The way it creates bonds between people through shared experience is impossible to put a value on. I know I have been lucky enough to now play X-Wing in 5 countries, soon to be 6, and that it is an experience that not everyone who reads this will be able to have, but if you can, you must.

Purely from a pride in the UK community perspective, from my count there were 13 of us there. 5 made the cut. That’s pretty exceptional at an event with around 280 people attending.

The not so exceptional thing about the cut was the shape of the meta. The first round of the cut had 22 players in it, which would whittle the total down to a top 16 with the players on byes. Out of those 11 games there were 21 TLTs on the table. I’m not saying these guys aren’t quality players, there really were some brilliant pilots in the field. However if you look at that statistic then it is a pretty damning indictment of the state of the game we are going to have to endure until the end of 1.0. It’s not healthy for any game when one thing is THAT much more dominant than everything else. Fortunately 2.0 is coming.

Rasta, one of the players without a TLT, made it to the top 4 and got the Boba templates that he wanted to win, that was his objective for the weekend.

Hyperspace was still going when Rasta crashed out. The best placed Brit, in only her second big event was Jess Rushworth, going 4-2 and finishing 22nd out of 170+ entrants was a brilliant achievement. To say we were all happy for her is more than a little bit of an understatement.

Rasta and I headed home about 8pm, a long on journey on the way back, filled with chat about how much we loved the weekend, the people, the event, and how much we’re excited for 2.0 to come and change everything.

It’s hard to write about a friend. It’s hard to convey their thoughts and their words, because your own emotions get in the way. Rasta and I have only known each other for about a year or so, we first met at Euros last year. Since then our shared outlook on so many things in life and the game have forged a friendship between us that I treasure and feel privileged to have. I know I haven’t answered the questions like “How did you get into X-Wing?” or “What’s your favourite list?” but that isn’t the thing that matters here.

Ask him what his favourite ship is then the answer is the “The Falcon, obviously.” The question of what are you looking forward to about 2.0 will come back with an answer about flying the ships he grew up watching as a kid and how excited he that it’s gonna be even “more Star Warsy.”

You ask Rasta what he’s most proud of out of all his achievements in X-Wing he’ll say “Sim winning Worlds” without a second thought, rapidly followed up by “seeing the Weekend Warlords become a family”.

And looking past the templates and trophies those are the correct things to be proud of. He’ll be reading this torn between getting all emotional and calling me a dickhead for putting the spot light on him like I have. Our community is lucky to have him, we should be grateful to Lucy and the kids for letting us have him as much as they do. What started as a game about Star Wars has become something more, something much bigger and more wholesome than I think anyone could have envisaged when it was first talked about in the design studio at FFG, the man says it all the time: One Love.

Next Time: I’M GONNA FLY IMPS!

If you’re looking to go play some X-Wing then head over to the 186th Tournament calendar to find things going on.

86 Days Until 2.0!