Warboar Games has been consistently delivered some of the most competitive large events going for the last few years. And 2019 is not different. With 59 players, 6 rounds and a cut there is no getting away from it, this is a chunky event. And it has bought some big players… before the event Paul Full-On was 20-1 at Warboar’s Regionals, so that’s a record he’ll be keen to defend, he’s won the last two of the three that Warboar has hosted. Then you have the UKs only current Hysperspace Trial champ Simran Pone off the back of his win in Preston last weekend. Throw in a plethora of other top players and this event is as tough as it gets.

At the heart of his big events Jason Grimwood, Warboar’s director, has always had a huge emphasis on raising money for local charity the Chartwell Cancer Trust which raises money for a local children’s Cancer ward. Everyone in attendance will have done a little bit to help this worthy cause by the end of the event, it’s one of the things that makes it so special.

I was still torn about what to fly during the week, the Firesprays had a bit of a duff weekend last week in Preston but that wasn’t their fault, but I also really want to get the T70s on the table because they’re a lot of fun. My dilemma comes from looking at what I expect to see. The Sprays have a really good game against Quad Y-Wings, they are mean to swarms and the bombs offer a huge amount of board control. They are better at taking a block on than a T70 and in Slave 1 you have the opportunity to simply not get blocked.

But the T70s are a joy to fly, they have a great positional game, good action economy, big guns and the ability to wreck things. My choice was made for me by doing something I hardly ever get to do: practice. I headed over to Firestorm Cards on Wednesday night intent on working out what to fly. My first opponent was Dan Flewitt, Dan has picked up my twin spray list so I chose to put the T70s on the table so as not to play a mirror match. The T70s won.

I then went on to play Dan Minty flying Wedge and Han, Phil Pond with Quad Y and Dom Flannigan with Vennie. I was able to win all 4, which made my decision for me. It had to be the T70s.

A singular change to the list from last time out.

Poe Dameron Ello Asty Nien Numb Heroic Heroic Heroic S-Foils s-Foils S-Foils

R4 Pattern Analyser Black One

Dropping Elusive on Nien back to heroic. The two points extra bid is less important than remembering the trigger! Only one trigger to remember on dice is easier than remembering two…

There’s been so much table time put in with the T70s now that I feel confident in most match ups with them, there are something out there I don’t want to see at all (Swarms and Ion Cannons) but inevitably one or the other is going to come up at some time.

I’ve said it many times before but there are three things you need to do well in a tournament, especially one this size:

Good Match Ups

Good Dice

To Fly Well

You need a perfect storm.

My first opponent, Steve Giles from Warboar’s own TNX squadron was a tough start to the day. Han, Wedge and Thane, all with trickshot carry a huge amount of threat. I was able to pull Steve’s ships across the board into the more open spaces I’d made with rock deployment, giving me a turn here and there that meant he wasn’t getting the re-rolls off Han. Thane died first, then Wedge then Han in a bruising encounter where I lost all of Nien and half of Poe and Ello.

Game two against fellow blogger Paul Braggins, flying a fully kitted up Wedge and Luke. It was a win for me, but Paul and I had a really interesting chat about why I’d been able to get it. Paul was flying Lone Wolf on Wedge, which is all well and good, but he let it shape his tactics to much, in order to preserve that trigger he split his ships up, which meant that my three T70s were able to pick on one ship at a time. A panicked pilot on Luke spelled his doom as the three more advanced X-Wings were able to latch onto him. Meaning that when Wedge came back to the fight he was facing overwhelming odds. It’s a really useful lesson in building a list vs flying a list. Flying in a certain way to try and make use of one particular upgrade can be a risky choice, which in this case it turned out to be.

Onto game three against James Ledda of Zombie Squadron flying some First Order. Blackout, Midnight and Quickdraw. James made an almost fatal error with Blackout, dialling in a 4k on a stressed ship, but 9 modded dice into the Silencer only managed to take 2 of the 4 heath. However that combined with a panicked pilot on midnight meant that James was forced out of position and into some awkward choices going into the second engagement, which the T70s were able to capitalise on. Quickdraw is always a threat but with multiple ships against her she struggles, and as a full health Poe turned in on a shieldless TIE SF the writing was on the wall.





3-0 going into game 4 was where I hoped to be, not necessarily where I was anticipating being! Tom Tattersal with Fenn, Teroch, Seevor and an Outer-Rim pioneer. Tom was a bit surprised that I was the only person in his first 4 games to go for Seevor first, especially with the threat of Fenn and Teroch on the board, but that ship is an absolute pain in the neck and is the easiest to kill in his list, so I went for it. It got rid of a potential blocker and gave me one less gun to come my way. After that the biggest difference was that T70s have shields and Fangs do not. Tom got Poe down to one health but by that time the game state was Old T vs 3 and as he turned in for an honourable Skull Squadron end game the Resistance didn’t take the offer, dodged to the side and finished the veteran Mandalorian off.

The pool of 4-0 pilots consisted of George Barker of Eagle Squadron with the Resistance 5s. Robert Mortensen with Quad-Y, Harrison Sharp with Quint-Y and me, so there was a 66% chance of pairing into Y-Wings. George and I were really hoping to play each other…. That’s generally not how life works. We both got Y-Wings, we both got beat. I played my good friend Robert, who is always referred to in 186th chat as Norwegian Robert. I’m sure that there are other Roberts in Norway, but this lovely man and current Greek national champion is the one we know! Robert was flying the Dirty-Ys. Ion Cannon Turrets, Veteran Turret Gunners, Shield Upgrades, and Proton Bombs. It’s a virtually impossible list to approach, compounded a combination of me making some bad mistakes, Robert not making any, and then some horrific/brilliant dice saw Ello go Pop for nothing. I think I can beat this list. Think I can. But I have to play perfectly, get a slice of luck and then still hope my opponent makes a mistake. I took a Y-Wing and a half to give me 75 MoV and put me second in the 4-1 pool behind George with one round to play.

And into game 6. With the player count there would be one 6-0, six 5-1s and one 4-2 in the cut, so to guarantee the cut would require a win. While Harrison and Robert had the 4 vs 5 Ion Cannon off to go 6-0 I was paired into Paul Owen, reigning Warboar Regional Champion, flying Boba Fenn and the Exploding Escape Pod of doom. So I was guaranteed at least 12 MoV! We both got the positional opening we wanted, but I got the damaged engine crit onto Fenn which would prove decisive. My table time with Boba helped, and I was able to range control the Firespray fairly well. With Fenn’s crit constricting Paul’s options I was able to pull off the four forward, 4k and lock off pattern analyser with Nien to jump behind Skull Leader. The following turn Boba had three T70s to deal with, a big ask even for a pilot of Paul’s ability.

As the dust settled on swiss I was top of the 5-1s and second overall, Harrisons 5 Y-Wings had beaten Roberts 4 Y-Wings. My third cut at a major event (French Nationals and Nerfherder being the other two) my first set of official FFG templates and my second set of dice. I couldn’t have been more pleased.

Onto the top 8… now I don’t have any photo’s of these. By the time the cut started it was 8.30, we’d been at the shop for 12 hours and I was exhausted enough as it is.

My first game in the cut was against Pete Mason, with three U-Wings and Norra. Big guns, unpredictable movement and an Ion Cannon. This was one of those games with extreme dice spikes. A crit cascade left Norra on 1 hull after the opening engagement. Then perfect green dice kept the one hull Leia carrier alive on one hull from 8 fully modded red dice, it’s how things go. I was always able to stay ahead in the trades though, and when it finally came down to one on one it was a 2 health Poe vs a double stressed 2 health U-Wing. The game didn’t quite go to time. With 10 seconds left to play Poe got in for the kill shot, and I was into the top 4…

…against Italian National Champion, the funniest man in X-Wing and one of my dearest friends, Dale Cromwell. If you don’t know Dale we just talk about him as being “really good at X-Wing” quite a lot. His list was five initiative 5 imperials led by Marek. There were some ridiculous dice in this game, it’s all a bit of a blur of exhaustion, but the TIE Fighters basically all went pop when a T70 looked at them funny. It was quick and savage but Dale is among the best sports you’ll ever play, and as the last TIE got wrecked by Poe we were still laughing over some of the outrageous dice in the game. Marek with four crits… Nein with a double blank, heroically into a double evade which mean shields not Dale’s pick of damage cards.

And so to the Final, king of swiss Harrison Sharp had again won the Y-Wing off against Robert (so 5 is better than 4?) and was the only player to not lose a game all day. As we came to start the game at 11.00 at night Harrison conceded. Which meant that I had won the Warboar regional, and got the thing that I have been hankering after since it was announced that Worlds is now invitation only.

Now I just need to find the money to cover a trip to America this October. I am so excited to have this. After getting home at 2am, having my body wake me up at 7.30 cause that’s what happens after 20+ years of my alarm clock going off at 7.30am, spending a couple of hours finishing this off, I still can’t believe it.

There’s so many people to thank, so many people who have encouraged and supported me on this incredible X-Wing journey… this game might be a one on one duel but no one gets better at it in isolation, no one has the “pick me up” chats with friends after a bad game if they don’t have that company, people to bounce ideas off, practice against, celebrate success with, commiserate failure with. No one does it alone. But I have to thank Harrison, his concession was incredibly generous.

With seven months to worlds I want to be as good as I can be. With new ships coming, a points change in a few months and any number of other things to happen between now and then the game will look radically different to how it looks now. I’m looking forward to the challenge!

Next Time: Hyperspace 3 – Aldershot

If you’re looking for X-Wing Tournaments to go to head over to the 186th Tournament Calendar.