So, it’s Monday morning and I booked the day off. This weekend was among the most intense X-Wing weekends I can remember, a combination of two 40+ player events, a potential 15 rounds to play, almost 400 miles worth of driving and the inevitable: NOT ENOUGH SLEEP all weighed into something properly memorable.

I was back flying Guri Fenn, as much as I wanted to dabble with the A-Wings I had to focus on them. And with at least 12 games to play it was too good an opportunity not to get some table time and some practice against a wide array of lists and players.

Let’s start on Saturday though, it makes sense cause it comes before Sunday. The event was the first ever UK Squadron Championship, hosted by TNX at Warboar in Bromley. The idea of the event is that unlike the UKTC each squadron can only enter one team. That team can be formed by the squadron, either picking them, playing a tournament, seeing who can go or simply doing what the 186th did and pulling the names out of a hat.

I made the team, along with squad mates: Andrew Pattison, Joel North and Alex Birt. The format of the event meant that we could never play each other as each of us was in a different pool. Theory of the event being that you essentially play 6 games within your pool, you play 3 games with Hyperspace legal lists and 3 with Extended, obviously you can do all 6 with hyperspace, which is what we all elected to do as consistency matters!

Andrew flew First Order with Passive Sensor Missile totting TIE S/Fs

Joel took Republic, Anakin and friends

Alex took Resistance with RZ-A2s

I took Guri Fenn

Each player would be in a pool with one member of each other squadron so essentially there were 4 tournaments running concurrently. Players each had a bounty card, that they could submit before the round started, if you won that game it would count as an extra bonus win for the team. However only one bounty could be used per round so the team would have to pick what they thought they would win. There was also a one off “swap match ups” option, that we never used and felt a little unnecessary within the format. The whole record of the event can be found on Table Top TO if you want to see pools and rounds. The event was also streamed by Firestorm Squadron and the games they streamed can be found on their YouTube Channel.

Guest commentators Paul “Coach” Owen and Lloyd Boman entertain the Firestorm stream audience with their witty banter, expert analysis and general grumpiness…

There is too much to write about here to go into every game, but it’s fair to say that we put on a good show as a team, coming second by the narrowest of margins to 1066 Squadron, we were equal on tournament points but as they had won 2 pools and we won 1 they got the trophy on the tie breaker.

It was just a really fun day and reasserted just how great team X-Wing is. The community spirit in at the event was strong and it was great to see so many teams making the trip to South London. I personally hope this event grows and becomes a regular thing. The bounty idea is great, the separate pools idea is great, hoping in 2020 that the 186th can go one step further and top the pile!

One of the games from Saturday, playing against Firestorm Squadron’s Ed Gold.

With the success of the XTC this year (in my head it is the “X-Wing World Cup”), the ongoing strength of the UKTC and now the Squadron Championship I really hope that Fantasy Flight Games take this to heart: If community driven team events are proving this strong then an official format would be a welcome addition.

So onto Sunday and my first Season Two Hyperspace Trial. This one at Galleon Games, the home of the newly crowned UK Squadron Champions, the 1066! I believe we were 44 players which meant 6 rounds and then a top 8 cut. The guys from Galleon did a great job running a super smooth event, there was even lunch provided in the cost of the ticket! The 186th were out in force at this one, there are a lot of players in the squadron for this event is fairly local so 8 of were there to play some games, Dale Cromwell was kind enough to provide Lloyd Boman, Paul Owen and myself with a place to sleep for the night before hand!

Game one was against Pete Mason, who was also my opponent game one at the Squadron Championships, I won that game and our lists were the same so I felt pretty good going into it. Pete’s list is mean though! Four basic T70s with Pattern analyser is a lot of health, a lot of mobility and a lot of guns. Guri got in first to soften them up a bit before Fenn bought the big guns in. As time was called Pete had two ships left on two health and had halved Fenn. In the final dice rolls of the game Fenn killed the one he had a lock and focus on in a range one joust and Guri with outmanoeuvre triggering put three into the other, giving me a 200-37 win… and a really tough start to the day!

Next up Nick Smith, running Kylo with Optics and three TIE SFs with optics and crackshot. Guri halved kylo in the first shot, Fenn killed one and a half SFs before the inevitable plink plink killed him. Guri killed Kylo. The end game was all about Guri playing the hit and run game, against one SF she is virtually untouchable but with Nick able to cover so much ground with his four firing arcs she had to play carefully. She got there in the end. Nick committed hard but Guri was able to dive in and drop one SF leaving a one on one which she should win every time. 200-74 win.

My round three opponent was my first 186th off of the day, Ben Lee, flying Vader, Soontir and a supernatural inquisitor with concussions. This game was savage, I’m not quite sure how I managed it but as the dust settled I had beaten Ben 200-0, when Fenn turns it on he really does the business. So I was halfway there to booking a space in the cut, but 3 games to play…

Fenn Rau delivers a fly by “get off my board” shot into Sun Fac

Round four was my first encounter in a tournament with the new bad boy of X-Wing… Sun Fac. A lot has been said, a lot has been written by various people. Mark Boreman was running Sun Fac, Chertek and Grevious. I’ve really been looking forward to seeing how my two ships can handle the Nantex so this was a game I really wanted to play. I got the opening engagement about as perfect as I could and the next turn Sun Fac was dead. Grevous didn’t last much longer then Mark flew Chertek like a monster for a few turns, forcing me to dodge in and out and try to get that kill shot on him, I got it eventually but not before he halved Fenn Rau. A 200-37 win, and the cut was looking likely.

Onto round 5 against Breccan Kendal running Boba Fenn. My affection for the Firespray is still significant even if it hasn’t featured as much in recent months, so seeing this list was a joy for me. The Fenn’s went for each other. Range one trade of face to face between Fearless Fenn and Outman Fenn, my fenn suffered a hit, Breccan’s took 3. The game finished in the style it began… with a cascade of damage. Breccan’s Fenn did not kill my Fenn…. my fenn rolls three hits and two crits into his 4 health boba and then Guri killed his fenn… it was an incredibly cinematic moment!

I have to give Breccan credit for being an unbelievable sport. Half way through the game with tiredness killing me and our dials looking very similar I picked up Boba’s dial my mistake, he was incredibly gracious and understanding, made a joke about it and moved on. A truly humbling bit of sportsmanship from my opponent.

Kill a ship without losing anything in the opening engagement and surely it can’t go wrong?

So 5-0 and the cut secure taking me into my last game against Jay Elvin. Jay is a lovely man, we’ve played a few times in Chichester and he’s just getting better at the game every time. His list was two naked Inquisitors, a naked Grand Inquisitor and Vader with Passive Sensors and Afterburners. I got a great opening, flattening a TAP, and then it somehow went down hill very fast. I didn’t land a single point of damage on anything for the rest of the game while Fenn and Guri just got killed, but Jay is just such a nice bloke while you play him it didn’t really matter, 35-200 loss. We were both in the cut and as we finished one and two we couldn’t play again until the final.

It did end my 11 game unbeaten streak over the weekend though, which was sad. I’ve never had a run like that before, but with worlds getting so close it was a real confidence booster to get that together.

Onto the cut and straight into the top 8 against Dale Cromwell, with Vader, Soontir and Duchess. Talk about a swingy game. It started off with Dale shredding Guri at range three with basically unmodified dice, putting a structural damage on her. Guri and Fenn then killed Duchess, Fenn taking a structural damage (I hate that card) from Vader in the process… leaving Fenn playing Vader and Soontir on his own. Fortunately both Dale’s ships were halved at this point and event with minus one agility Fenn rolls three at range one with Concordia triggering otherwise it would have been a real short flight. I was convinced I was going to lose this one, then Fenn did Fenn things, decided it was time to roll lots of paint and killed first Soontir and then Vader. Not quite sure how I managed it but 200-141 win, and top 4.

So having played and beaten the 2018 European Champ in swiss (Ben), I had just had to beat the 2018 Italian National Champ in the first round of the cut (Dale) of course, my next match up was going to be against reigning Coruscant Champion Tom Forstner… I mean… who wants easy games of X-Wing anyway?

I want to take an aside here to talk about 2 superlative moments of sportsmanship that I witnessed in the top 8. The first was the game between Louis Leong and Jay Elvin. Jay set his Vader up the wrong way and was about to fly him off the board in turn one. Louis promptly offered him the opportunity to turn it round and forget about the mistake. Jay held his hands up and said “My mistake” and flew his damage dealing ship off the table. The second in the game between Mark Boreman and Ben Lee, Mark forgot to transfer a tractor token at the end of activation, Ben graciously allowed him to go back and transfer it onto his inquisitor. Of course Chertek one shotted the Inquisitor… Ben would go on to win the game as with his last move Mark misjudged a turn and Chertel flew off the board. It’s always a great to see a reminder of just how sporting our community can be.

Anyway, back to playing X-Wing: I’ve seen swarms before, I seen Seperatists before, I’ve heard rumours of 8 ship lists that hand out calculates when they have someone explode, throw exploding things at you and now I would get to play one, flown by Zombie Squadrons finest, Tom Forstner.

I have played 6 ships lists, 7 ship lists, never an 8 ship list. I know that Guri is very good against droids, but EIGHT ships? What is this nonsense! I just got in there and starter wriggling, with 8 ships Guri was always going to have a focus…. Fenn took a structural damage crit… obviously and would die a couple of turns later. Meaning the win condition was Guri had to get the Swarm from 6 ships (cause I’d already killed two) to 3 and half. One that had to die was the Bellbulab cause it was worth the most points, she danced and chipped and did a good job, go halved… which mean I had to basically kill another ship. My brain hurt so much at the end of the game, but I got the win just. I think I killed 147 points, maths is hard with that many things on the table, and Tom killed 126. It was a mind melting game that I will happily never play again unless I absolutely have to!

And so to the final. Mr Ben Lee… again… Structural Damage for the 4th time in three games. I thought shuffling your deck was meant to stop you drawing the same crits constantly! I couldn’t quite land a killing blow on Ben’s Soontir fast enough, otherwise the outcome might have been different. Unfortunately for my intrepid Scum duo Soontir took long enough to kill that Vader had time to come screaming back into the fight and finish Guri off. With Ben’s Vader and Inquisitor hounding him Fenn had a rough time. He dove into range one and prayed for Concordia Face Off to save him, but the crit machine that is Vader was just too much for him to take. Vader and Fenn obliterated each other leaving a single Inquisitor sitting amidst the ruins of the finest pilots that the Empire and Scum and Villainy have to offer, probably feeling a little confused. And so Ben deservedly took the plaudits and trophy for a hard won day.

Cause this man needs more prizes?

So that finished at midnight and I had a two hour drive home… a very sleepy Phil crawled into bed at 2 A.M. and literally dreamt of X-Wing.

13-2 over the weekend. The best MoV in Swiss at the Hyperspace Trial, top MoV individually in the Squadron Championships on Saturday, my longest run of games without losing one ever. It looks like I only have 2 more events before getting on a plane and visiting the United States of America for the first time in my life. I am quite excited, but do I feel ready to play at a World Championships? Maybe.

Next Time: Hyperspace comes to Basingstoke

If you’re looking for some X-Wing to play then head over to the 186th Tournament Tracker and see what is going on.