UK Nationals will for many of us be the end of X-Wing 1.0, a lot of people will be flying things that we won’t be able to fly in a couple of weeks time. Sure the ships will still be there, but with upgrades changing or pilot abilities getting tweaked things won’t be the same.

I was all set on one list, then I changed my mind to be all set on another, then despite having a few really good games with that I changed my mind back. There were only ever 3 lists really in contention, well, 4, but the other one was an idea for about an hour, so three.

The first list was Boba Guri. This has arguably been my favourite list in X-Wing. Flying Guri is so much fun and the fairly tooled up Boba is incredibly effective as both a damage dealer and controlling agent.

The second, Boba Kath. After last weeks success I really wanted to fly this again. It’s what I started blogging about in the first place and probably has the strongest emotional claim on me to fly it as a last goodbye. It lacks any sort of control except pure damage output, but it excels at that.

The third option is Boba Fenn. It hits unbelievably hard, Fenn is incredibly fragile but this list can, and will if done right, put more red dice into something than any two ships should probably be able to.

I had originally been set on Fenn, it’s the only list I haven’t said goodbye to in recent weeks. Then I changed my mind and went to Kath because it had done so well last weekend, and an evening spent at Firestorm Cards mid-week had done nothing if not encourage that. Guri was never really an option because the rise of the Reaper and their infernal Jam means that she is living on borrowed time. But waking up stupidly early on Thursday morning I realised it had to be Fenn.

Only to fly Fenn in a side event pod on Friday and have torrid time even to the point where I thought about dropping on Saturday. So a big thank you to Martyn Chivers and Lloyd Boman, who cheered me up, chatted to me about Guri, and got me flying the ship I love most for my last ever 1.0 tournament.

A choice solidified by Julian Hood presenting me with the most fantastic alt art cards ever made, and one of the greatest compliments I have ever had:

UK Nationals this year was unfortunately not without its issues. I am NOT going to go into that, there are plenty of other conversations about it going on, but for me the event has finished and the matter is closed. I’m going to talk about playing with plastic spaces ships and having fun with my friends cause that it why I went to the event. If you feel the need to start throwing stones, shit or otherwise being critical of anything then you are welcome to do so but that’s not a conversation I am willing to partake in.

First of all Ashley Turner with his triple YT-1300, a man who sat down and said “I’m flying this because it just looks fun.” Boom. Hero right there. The YTs took a battering but dude, your attitude towards your list and game was exemplary.

Onto my next game against which was against Ben Hibbert, who gets the dubious honour of being the last ever person I have to play Nymanda against. He wrecked me, cause that list just does that to everything I enjoy flying. I NEARLY killed Miranda, let’s just not talk about the timing of blinded pilot cards! Again, a truly lovely guy and I hope that next time we meet on the tables the game will be more interesting than me getting flattened!

Which brings my third game, against Ken Davies flying Dash Nym. I could and should have made more of this game, but it wasn’t to be and in what felt like 10 minutes Ken had torn me to pieces, but the smile on his face would have been there regardless of win or loss, what a nice man. HLC turrets landing -1 agility crits on Guri makes her life very, erm, short. I got half of Dash. It’s going to be very interesting to see what happens with Dash in the future, he’s obviously SUPER GOOD in 2.0 but will the changes and his deservedly high points cost make him viable?

At 1-2 with my tournament “over” my next pairing was against Louis Leong, running Marek in a TIE Advanced, Vynder and Vessery all at PS7. Boba went and bullied while Guri came in to Advance Proton Torp kill shots on ever ship. Louis was great fun to play against, and after the game asked me what he could have done differently, and now, over 36 hours after the game I think I have the answer! Dude, you should have killed Guri first, the massed fire power from those three ships should have dropped her in a turn, then you’d have been able to go after Boba without her having the opportunity to get the shots on you she did!

And so we come to a game that will be a fond memory for a very long time to come. Tim Marsden, of the Weekend Warlords, went top 8 at Euros. So we know he’s a bit good. He was also running a double reaper Soontir list, which is the last thing in the world Guri wanted to see and proceeded to beat me 100-0.

It was a sensational game of X-Wing, I would have happily paid my £25 for the ticket to play this one game and lose it, and have that as the whole event. Neither of us could make the cut, neither of us could win the thing but we could both have fun and test ourselves as pilots.

We knew of each other before the game, enough to say “Hi, how are you?” but by the end of the game I considered Tim a friend, and I hope he does me. That is what these events can do, that is what this game can do. We laughed, rolled some dice and had such a fun game. Sure the pairing was heavily in his favour. I knew the risk of Jam on Guri when I took the list but this match simply surpassed all my expectations for enjoyment. Whilst the Imperials flew of bleeding from their many wounds, we were talking about 2.0 and what we’re hyped to be flying, it was for me the highlight of a weekend that had many highlights. Thank you Tim.

All of which leads me to the last game of X-Wing 1.0 I will ever play, and my opponent again epitomised every positive there is about the community in the time we spent rolling dice together. Ash Clayton with Soontir and two defenders at PS6, again something Guri doesn’t want to see. The key here was putting Boba in a somewhat precarious position in order to block Soontir and put him in an even worse position. 2 Crits got through, and that was the turning point of the game. Boba died but Guri had enough in the tank to finish Ash’s defenders off. Thank you Ash for making my last game of 1.0 a really enjoyable match up.

As I packed up my ships for the day I got a bit emotional. Of the 101 tournaments I have played since I started keeping a record of them Boba has featured in 38 of those. 193 Tournament games alone with him in the last 18 months. Guri has been in 17 of those 101 events (82 Tournament games) and has become my favourite ship in the game. Putting Intensity Guri back in the case for the last time had tears in my eyes, I know Bob Dee was feeling the same about Rey going back in the case too. I have developed an attachment to those ships. I am sure many people are in a similar boat of having to say goodbye to things that they have had fun with over the last few years. And that’s ok, sentimentality isn’t a bad thing.

Sunday saw someone be very generous and get me one of the 2.0 sets that were on offer at the event, and play three games of 2. Using some proxy stuff Boba Guri took on 2 TIE Swarms and some Rebel Aces. I’m not going to go into 2.0 too much for this one except to say that as sad as I am to see 1.0 Boba Guri leave, I am equally excited to see the 2.0 version arrive. We’ve got time to look at that in the future.

So that’s it for playing X-Wing, it’s done, gone, bye-bye. Next time I play in a tournament it will be 2.0. There are still posts coming, but I actually have 2 weeks off playing X-Wing events now, which I think is the longest break I think I’ve had since I started this whole shebang! There’ll still be a couple more blogs coming, plenty to write about after all, I might try and get some of Shadespire mini’s painted in the mean time!

Thank you to everyone who made the weekend special, from Mike Budd and his organising team, down to the waiter at Pizza express who greeted 10 of us with a smile on his face as we rocked up at 10pm on Friday night when he probably just wanted to pack up and go home. The tournament had its flaws but the event was fantastic. Spending time with my fellow 186th and the many fantastic people I have gotten to know over the last couple of years playing this game felt like a truly fitting goodbye to 1.0.

For what is a man, what has he got

If not himself, then he has naught

To fly the ships, he loves the most

To play his best, and then write posts

The record shows I took the (many, many, many) blows

And did it my way

Next Time: I don’t actually know!

If you’re looking for tournaments to go and play in then head over to the 186th tournament calendar to see what’s going on.