Welcome to post 100 since I started this thing! I’ve literally written enough to be a book on X-Wing now, well Firesprays in X-Wing at any rate. Thank you to everyone who has taken time to read it over the last 18 months or so. It’s been amazing to meet so many people in my travels, long may they continue.

This weekend see’s yet another double header, they’re coming in thick and fast in 2.0! My 6th and 7th tournaments in 2.0 respectively.

Saturday is a trip to regular haunt Firestorm Cards in Basingstoke, and Sunday will be the 200 mile round trip to the UKTC… I love 6am starts, honest. My list this weekend is the same as the one I took to Entoyment last Sunday. It’s what I’ll be flying at the UKTC so it’s only sensible to run the same list for some practice on the Saturday.

With a whole lot of games to play and write about this week I’m just going to dive on in. 14 players and 4 rounds. Some of the regulars who we usually see at Firestorm, Jesper Winstrom (Hills), Alex Birt, Martyn Chivers and “Two Steaks” Finlayson are busy playing at some small event in Minnesota at the FFG Centre… so 14 players is a pretty good turn out.

My first opponent was Phil Rawles from down in Portsmouth, stopping for the day on his way to the UKTC, running two B-Wings and 2 Y-Wings. Proton Bombs and Ion Turrets galore. Boba did manage to land the perfect seismic bomb on a one health B-Wing but it was Guri who was the star of the match up. Range controlling and arc dodging while Boba led Phil’s ships on a merry chase. The Marauder title making that rear arc incredibly consistent against the one agility ships.

Game two and my only fellow 186th member of the day, Tom Tattersall, flying Palob, 4-Lom and Fenn Rau. The game was so absorbing I totally forgot to take a photo. It’s somewhat familiar now, I think I’ve flown against it at every tournament I’ve been to so far! It’s a good list and Tom is a good pilot. This was out first ever match up despite playing plenty in the same area for 2 years. Tom was expecting the Phil GC of old to send Boba tearing into him, so when Boba said “no” and flew away he was a bit surprised. Fenn died first, as it generally necessary, then Boba and Guri were able to slowly pick apart the other two ships. Both 4-Lom and Palob are very dangerous ships and if you get it wrong they will punish you. Fortunately I’ve had some reps against this list so was able to get rid of his ships without taking too much damage in return. Even with the big gun of Fenn dead this never felt won until the last dice roll.

Game three against Dom Flannigan running one of the scariest lists of the day, Drea, Torkhil, two Z95s and two Quadjumpers. Regardless of how much “better” my ships might be this list is truly terrifying. Fortunately for me, and less so for Dom, he is not used to flying swarms, usually preferring the aces archetypes. After two rounds he was getting a headache, and when the Quads and Zs turned in one way hunting Guri he flipped the dials for the other two going the other way. The mistake let Guri in among the Initiative one ships and it proved too big a mistake for Dom to recover from. We all have hot dice and cold dice games, and this game Guri turned it on. Between her consistently doing 2 or 3 hits a turn and Boba being able to punch 3 or 4 damage with alarming regularity the swarm fell apart pretty fast. With just Drea left Dom conceded the game, no way a single Y-Wing can handle a healthy Boba and fully mobile Guri.

After 3 rounds I was the only player on 3-0, comfortably up on MoV having not lost a single ship and feeling rather happy about everything. Then the pairing for round 4 came up (we always play 4 rounds at Firestorm) Mark Feldschreiber running Vader, Soontir and Marek. This list is kryponite to Boba Guri, they can handle one I6 but 2 is something I haven’t worked out yet.

Where against Dom my dice had been helpful, here they decided to bring balance to the force. Mark managed to roll 4 hits and 7 crits on 11 dice in a turn, which did Boba in. Then a double crit on Guri saw a Hull Breach and a Console Fire, which triggered instantly to give her a Fuel leak… Like I said, this type of list is Kryponite to Boba Guri and I would expect to lose it more often than not, and when the dice and cards swing that hard there is not a lot you can do! I was able to half point Soontir and Marek but needed to kill one of them to get the overall tournament win. As it was Mark snuck into the top spot by 20 MOV at the end of the day.

Still, I was happy with 3-1 for the day, and an early night before the long drive to Milton Keynes and the UKTC!

Or not. That little event over at the FFG Centre had some games being streamed, and the European crowd were doing rather well. When UK System Open Champion Martyn Chivers’ game got announced as being next on the FFG stream the whole of the UK collectively cheered and groaned at the same time… another hour staying up to watch one of our own do battle in the U.S. of A was inevitable. What had been planned as a decent night sleep turned into a mere 5 hours before the early morning drive.

My team this year is 186th Blogcast, where I am joined by fellow 186th members who blog: Joel North (Rebels) and Oli Pocknell (Imperials). The only discussion was which faction each of these guys would fly. Someone called shotgun on scum before there was even a team… Joel is probably one of the key people in me starting to write about X-Wing, he totally inspired me to pick up my keyboard and start typing. Oli has become one of my best friends through this game, and was captain of the last team event I went to, the ETC where we did a win.

The UKTC format is very simple. Teams add up all the points they have in their lists, compare that number to their opponents, who ever has the lower number gets to pick one of two options. Either they can Pick the first match up, OR they can pick the second, which in turn defines the third. So guarantee a pick or orchestrate the last two match ups. With match ups being so significant in the game having a strong Initiative bit is pretty significant.

My first match up was against good friend and recently crowned Italian national champion Dale Cromwell. Boba Guri is strong, but it does struggle against 4 and 5 ships lists. Dale was running 4, and I pushed him very hard, when Boba dropped both Dale’s Soontir and Duchess were on one health, but unfortunately Guri’s somewhat dramatic early exit from the game meant that he’d been on an uphill struggle from the off.

Game two was a Boba off! Adam Stephenson with 2 Fangs and Boba. Despite a strong early start Guri decided that again, she didn’t really feel like hanging around, leaving Boba to deal with Adam’s Boba and a severely injured Fang. Fortunately my Boba’s better action economy meant that I was up in the damage race when Guri exploded, and as my Bounty Hunter saw off the last Mandalorian my two health left was enough to see me through.

Into round three and unfortunately one of our opposition had had to leave early due to a family emergency which meant no game for me, so instead I joined Lee Williams on the Cloud City stream commentating on Boba Guri going up against some rebels. Thanks for having me on Lee, really enjoyed that. Technically 2-1 (although I don’t count byes in my win loss count over all) and with the team on 2-1 we were in a pretty good place, and got a scary match up.

UK Champion Luke Townsend‘s team featuring the man who almost knocked out Ben Lee on his run to the European Championship, Adam Stainton. When Joel, Oli and I looked at their lists there were bad match ups pretty much everywhere, so I elected to take Adam’s 7 Quadjumpers out of the equation and give the others a better shot. After three turns there were 5 Quadjumpers, then it went down to four, Guri took a tractor beam. It was inevitably going to happen at some point, however getting a double damage crit from landing on a rock proved the swinging point of the game. The following turn she did her usual thing of the day and decided to evapourate. Unfortunately for me this marked the turning point in the game. And a mere 3 turns later the three remain quadjumpers had reduced Boba from 6 health to none, with only two of them actually firing. Adam and I both stood there scratching our heads at just how dramatic the swing had been.

Which led to the last round of the day, and Matthew (who’s surname I do not know, sorry) flying Boba and Guri as my opponent. My list comes in at 186 points, his came in at 187. You know when you have a match up you really don’t want to lose? Between my one point bid and greater experience with the list I was able to win this one only losing two shields on Boba in the process. Then I wandered off to watch the mouth watering top table clash between European Champion Ben Lee and World Champion Simeon Dellapina (which was on the Cloud City stream).

We finished 3-2 as a team for the day, had hoped for more but it was not to be. The Weekend Warlords team of Rasta, Sim and Tim Marsden went on to win the whole event. For Rasta and Sim that is their third consecutive UKTC championship. No small feat there.

After a stupidly long journey home (why the M25 gets so horrifically jammed up on a Sunday evening I will never know). Any hopes of an early night were crushed as the Coruscant stream had Zombie Squadrons’ Tom Forstner, defeated finalist at the UK System Open, competing in the final. And he went and won it in pretty dramatic style! The entire UK X-Wing community cheering on!

You’ll probably note that the word “champion” has been used a lot in this particular post, and that is very much deliberate. This year has seen the UK stand peerless at premier events, it’s incredible. Players from this crazy island have had an amazing 2018:

Worlds (Sim Dellapina)

Euros (Ben Lee)

Coruscant (Tom Forstner)

UK System Open – the biggest tournament ever (Martyn Chivers)

European Team Championships (Oli Pocknell, Dale Cromwell, Martyn Chivers, OJ Hemmings, Rob Ramm, me) won from 2 times champions the Polish

Luke Townsend won back our own National title from the Dutch

Dale Cromwell won the Italian National Championships

What’s more these guys have not only played at the highest level but have conducted themselves with dignity, integrity and a great attitude. I think it is worth taking a moment and feeling proud to be a part of this community that fosters not only great players but encourages such sportsmanship. We might be in a political mess, we might be feeling the impact of where our economy is at, but we’re bloody good at X-Wing.

Anyone in the world who plays X-Wing and wants to come visit us, please do. 2019 could see even bigger events happening, why not come see us and see how you can do?

Away from the glitz and glam of big trophies won by other people, here’s how I’m doing in 2.0 tournaments:

Tournament Games Played Win % +/- from last time 30 70 -3

Next Time: ANOTHER TWO EVENTS!

If you’re looking for tournaments then head over to the 186th Tournament Calendar.