It’s my third consecutive weekend with a serious road trip. We had the UK Open a couple of weeks back, then last week was the Sheffield Regional, this week is a journey I have been looking forward to for months. Wingman and battle brother Conor McNama and I were meant to come here back in December but snow happened and we couldn’t make it. Which sucked. There are a few store in the country that I regard as almost sacred sites, and right up there on that list is the Weekend Warlords in Loughborough.

Every month they put on a Saturday and a Sunday event back to back, and it’s events like this and their sense of community that are producing some incredible pilots. Their most famous scion is arguably the best X-Wing player in the UK, but Rasta is just one of a family of extraordinarily good pilots. His son Simeon, Paul Smith, Kev Bellamy and many others… these guys are seriously good at our game and I am so excited to be attending their weekender.

My generous hosts for the weekend is current the European Champion, George “Rasta Maice” Dellapina and his family. Rasta offered me a place to sleep as soon as I mentioned that I wanted to come and visit, how could I say no? If you don’t know George head to any major event and he’ll be the guy hugging everyone as if they were family, cause to him they are. We all know he plays X-wing and paints space ships as well as, or better than anyone else out there, he also cooks.

I traveled all this way to hang out with friends, play some X-Wing and learn. I get to play with some of the best pilots in the UK regularly, but I constantly want to play with other players who look at the game differently and see what they can teach me. To be better at this game you have to accept that you’re going to get beaten by lists, dice and most importantly players, and you have to be resolved to learn from those loses. This place is a testing ground for me, and I expected every game ahead to be tough!

Still flying Dash Poe, this particular variant comes from here, it’s the list Rasta talked me into using back at the London Regional a few weeks back. I’ve had a fair bit of practice with it since then, but as it stands the record is currently 18-12 with it in tournaments. (That’s 60% for those following the percentage), and the 67% target needs to become 81%… cause I still really want those Boba templates from the Italian Open in a couple of weeks time.

Poe Dameron Dash Rendar Black One Outrider Intensity Lone Wolf Autothrusters Engine Upgrade BB-8 Rey Primed Thrusters Heavy Laser Cannon

The weekend takes the format of 2 tournaments, Saturday is a more low key affair of 18, and Sunday is a chunkier 36 people. I’m here to learn, winning is just a bonus.

Having had a somewhat frustrating weekend at Sheffield in terms of games and then a less that enthusing day of practice games on Monday (something that happens once in a while) I had a few days not thinking about X-Wing and getting on with other stuff. Work finished and the best part of 4 hour drive to the midlands could begin.

Friday night was some friendly games with Rasta and Simeon in what it arguably the most well equipped man cave you could ever wish to visit. Beautifully repainted X-Wing ships in cabinets mounted on the walls, and some damn cool Star Wars memorabilia filling up all the remaining wall space. The off shot of the evening was we talked a lot of X-Wing, and Rasta ended up playing my triple vipers list at the Saturday event, seemed fair cause I was running his Dash Poe. His first two games he HATED the list, running into a hard counter in game one, not quite feeling it round two, but by the end of his 4th game he had worked out the wiggly rolls and boosts enough to have a big smile on his face.

I started well, winning my first game, then finally getting to play Kev Bellamy with his Wookiees, narrowly scraping a victory. What a joy that man is to play against, even with multiple tacticians and reinforce! Game 3 was against Simeon Dellapina running Jesper Hills Control Bots list, you can watch this game here. Sim and I both flew the game pretty well, but there was a fair few times where even an average roll would really have turned it in my favour. I gave Poe up to cheaply but looking at Poe’s red dice rolls here it was just one of those games. What a great game it was though! The mistake I made was looking for a re-engagement right at the end that wasn’t there to make and a player with Sim’s experience is going to take full advantage of that.

My last game was against fellow traveller from the south, Alex Bruce, who has become synonymous with doing well at regionals this season while flying a certain list that has a less than favourable reputation. At this event he was flying Dash Poe as well. We had a LOT of fun in this game that he went on to win. I don’t think either of us flew badly, we just went for each other and had a laugh, and enjoyed a great game.

Saturday evening, after a Nando’s with a few of the other Warlords. Sim and I played a few more games in the evening, before Rasta and I sat and talked until the small hours about all things Star Wars, and why we love what we love. Inevitably the conversation turned to the Falcon and Firesprays and why each of us loves them so much fueled by tales of our childhood’s being spent loving those ships. That’s one of the things I love about this community of ours, that friends are there waiting to become better friends cause you already have so much in common.

During that conversation I talked myself into flying the Firesprays on Sunday. Looking at how tough Saturday had been with a proven list like Dash Poe taking two Firesprays to a more competitive event seemed like heading for a beating. But I had been so enthused by talking about what we love about Star Wars that I just wanted to put them on the table. So I asked my host if I could borrow some toys…

Sunday at the weekender was 36 players and 5 rounds, and there were a lot of good players flying some top tier lists. The Warlords LOVE their big turrets, Dash, Rey, RAC all present in quantities and Boba & Kath were looking around the room uncomfortably.

Boba Fett Kath Scarlett Fearlessness Expertise Glitterstim Black Market Slicer Tools 4-Lom Heavy Laser Cannon Cluster Missiles Dengar Long Range Scanners

I’m not going to go into all the details of every game, but I had such a fun day playing my most beloved ship. I had a game on stream again which I lost (cause the 186th love losing streamed games…. plus a PS10 Nym with a TLT against a single spray is stupidly hard work! Well played Ian) I should have done the K-turn at the end… but you live you learn!

However, I won 4. not on the stream sadly, a documented victory would be nice! I want to give special shout outs to Dave Amos for some of the best Soontir Fel flying I have ever come up against, he had to make a mistake for me to win that game, and fortunately he did, but it has to be the toughest game I’ve ever won. I finally beat RAC with Kylo and Palpatine crew with twin sprays, something I have never done with them before. Hours of thinking how I can do it has obviously paid off, but it still required a heavy dose of luck.

My final game of the day was against Steve Theobald with Nym and Sol Sixxa, no trajectory simulator, just a bucket load of bombs and then hiding behind them with Debris Gambit for the evade. It was so much fun flying against something I had never come across before, Scurrgs should not evade things!

I was so pleased to go 4-1 with the sprays and come in 5th. My MOV was TERRIBLE the worst in the top 10, but with the new format of the Open and possible Euros and Nationals where it is only wins that count… maybe, just maybe the Firespray’s have more game in them than I thought.

All of this leaves the win ratio calculator looking like this:

Tournament Games Played 59 Win Ratio 64% +/- 0%

After a long weekend of not sleeping enough and playing games I wasn’t up for driving home late in the evening, so it was back to Rasta’s for one more night, and we played the game that we both wanted to play. Dash and Poe vs Kath and Boba, and what a game it was.

On Monday morning we awoke to this… and both of us got very excited. I think by the time I hit the road heading south again we had watched it a combined total of 23 times.

Before heading home though there was another trip to the Warlords store to record a Rasta and Ash Talk X-Wing video, with someone coming along to talk about Firesprays… they even made a trailer!

I cannot express how great the weekend was, how grateful I am to Rasta and his family for hosting me for the weekend or how much I loved hanging out at the Warlords. Their emphasis on community, and the obvious friendships in the group are such a great example of what the X-Wing world should be about. They run these weekender events every month. Get onto their Facebook group and if you can go to one of their events DO IT. I promise you, even if you get absolutely beaten into the ground you will come away with a smile on our face.

Next Time: LESS DRIVING! WOO!

If you’re looking for tournaments head over to the 186th tournament calendar.