Just over a month until the end of the 1.0 and there’s only a few tournaments left to go to. So let’s say goodbye to some old friends. This weekend it’s the store championships at Eclectic games. Last year I came in as runner up to Mark Feldschreiber with my three mind linked protectorates after having the best swiss I can ever remember. It was a bit gutting slamming into a hard counter in the final, but that’s how it goes.

There are a couple of lists that have emerged as “rather good” with wave 14, the first is the 5 X-Wings, it does exactly what you expect it too, lines up and guns things down. It’s presence has done very bad things to low agility lists like Nymanda, RAClo and Ghost Fenn (can you hear my sorrow?) which means that they’re havin a bit of a rougher time in the competitive environment right now. We’ve seen it do very well in swiss, it’s a great take on all comers list, but as yet I’ve not heard of it winning anything particularly big.

It’s easy to think that it wins purely because of firepower and health, but a good player makes use of it’s surprising mobility and ability to block the hell out of other lists. And there are a lot of very good players running it, or variants of it. So something that can go toe to toe with it and trade blows with it favorably matters.

Next up we have Reapers. These things are horrific. Jam is phenominal, and the combinations of Krennic, Vermeil and their tricks is incredibly hard to fly against. Something that functions without tokens in quite necessary. There are a couple of lists with it but the principle is always the same. Jam the hell out of people and then wreck them.

At the same time something that can take on the more established lists is necessary as people will still be flying them.

So my answer to this? Go back to the protectorates. There are 2 default upgrades that make them resilient. Autothrusters, which if you ask Tom Duncan are the single most evil thing every introduced to the game. There will be maths involved in the explanation, maths I don’t understand. The other is Concord Dawn Protector, which you can also enjoy Tom Duncan ranting about endlessly too if you ask nicely. The combination of the two… well that’s a whole different kind of rage from the maths wizard. All of which makes the map of where the the ships get passive mods look like this:

So there’s some defensive mods sorted. Now let’s look at the attacking mods. There is only one that can handle the Reaper: Expertise. If we put all these things on protectorates then you end up with this:

Fenn Rau Old Teroch Kad Solus Concord Dawn Protector Concord Dawn Protector Concord Dawn Protector Autothrusters Autothrusters Autothrusters Expertise Expertise Expertise

Which conveniently comes in at 100 points. Theory being that you always have offensive mods, and unless you’re getting jammed to hell should always have a defensive one too. Obviously it doesn’t want to run into anything that causes stress but find a list that does? Also, if bombs could not be around too much that would be great! I’d love an initiative bid, but nope, that’s not happening, and you have to beat things that move after you as well as things that move before you. (One of Alex Birt’s favourite conversations)

Sure, they’re vulnerable as anything when they take damage, but they are also fantastic at dodging it, and importantly causing it. So this weekend at Reading’s store champs, my Space Wolf themed Protectorates are going to have a good go! Without Push the Limit their re-positioning options are limited, but they aren’t token dependent for attack, and their game has always been, burn your opponent down before they burn you down. Sure I’ll have to fly my socks off, but avoiding stress keeps their amazing dial amazing so they can do all kinds of fun tricks.

Looking at the 5 X-wings, they should burn one down before it shoots. Looking at the Reapers, especially the Reapers and the Inquisitor they definitely have game, because the Inquisitor really doesn’t like Old T.

There’s another big store champs in the South East today, Warboar, which will no doubt also be a hugely competitive event, but I booked into Reading first so I’m here with the 23 other pilots to contest the prize. Fellow 186th Tom Duncan has won 4 out of the 5 store champs that Eclectic have hosted so he would very much like to win this one, but wouldn’t we all.

So you remember when a couple of minutes ago you read “if bombs could not be around too much that would be great!” well, game one was against Piers Horry with a Resistance bomber and those insanely good value Proton bombs, along with StrEzra and VI Poe. Kad died first, then Piers kindly balanced the equation by flying his bomber off the table. With Ezra on the otherside of the board Teroch and Fenn hounded Poe for a few turns, however I got worried that Ezra was coming back in so sent Fenn after him. Only for Fenn to be caught in no-mans land by Poe and go pop. I should have kept the pressure on Poe because he was in all kinds of trouble. I let it go. Bad decision making there. Old T did kill Ezra but when the final joust happened Poe came out on top and my last protectorate blew up. 60-100 loss. All my protectorates suffered one crit in the match-up. Double Damage every time!

And then there was that time when I said “if bombs could not be around too much that would be great!” Well game 2 was against Dom Flannigan with his bomb throwing Nym, R3-A2 Fenn and Wes Jansen, also at PS10… I knew this game had loss written all over it, but it was about doing as much punching on the way out as possible. Dom has a lot of table time with Fenn and Old T from back in the mindlink days, so knows full well how dangerous they are as ships. Old T died, but so did his Fenn. Next up my Fenn dropped but not before his Nym burned both thermals, one ion and was on 3 hull. Kad could have done it he is worth more points than the PS10 X-Wing with flight assist, the ability to strip tokens and integrated astro… (Wes is gonna stay bust for a few more weeks, he was cheap at 31 points, at 28 with barrel/talon rolls he is insane) I just needed a bad dice roll from Nym’s auto blaster turret. It did not happen. Kad died, and with him my hopes of the cut.

But still 2 games to play, and these were dogfights, now you’re talking. No bombs, straight up firing arcs and a lot of fun. First up Jim Firth, with Corran and Poe. Jim and I have played a few times. The record is very much in my favour, but I fancied my three ships against his two. Again Old T died first. Why do people hate losing tokens so much? He’s not nearly as bad as a reaper with slicers! But trading a 33 point Fang for a 50 odd point E-Wing seems fair. Having learned from game one I kept both my boys on Poe and as agile as he was he didn’t have enough to out fight the Mandalorians. 100-33 win this time!

Which took me to my final match up against Rhys Jones, with a tragectory bomblet Punisher, Ryad and PS11 Quickdraw. So Ryad is okay then, the other two ships give me problems. A lot of red dice into the punisher saw it melt, leaving Ryad with her token stack and Quickdraw with her Quickdrawness. Rhys tried to shake Fenn off Ryad’s tale with some unpredictable moves, but it was too little too late and the Mandalorian saw her off. With Old T blocking and Kad Solus following Quickdraw had a bit of a rough time, he dropped Teroch, but then Kad finished the job. Another 100-33 win and a more respectable 2-2 scoreline.

I came in 11th, one point behind Piers who beat me in round one, a few points above Dom who beat me in round 2. If only my boys could have had four straight up Dog Fights I think they could have had a great time of things! As the only Scum player out of 24 at the event I was pretty happy to represent my beloved faction.

The list will live on in 2.0, with spinny wings! It’s incredibly simple:

Kad Solus Old Teroch Fenn Rau Fearless Fearless Fearless

At only 187 points this will definitely find it’s way onto the tables in 2.0. So the Triple Fangs join the Triple Vipers and Triple A-Wings in retiring from 1.0, and I think they can bow out with their heads held high. I lost to what I expected to lose to, and got some wins I was happy to take.

With only 2 tournaments left in 1.0 I have a couple of lists left to bid a fond farewell too. It’s strange, I had the feeling of “c’mon, 2.0 just get here!” but actually I’ve really enjoyed saying goodbye to things these last few weeks. That said, I cannot wait for what the future holds!

Next Time: CENTINARY!

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