Hello all, I’ve had a break for a couple of weeks. Life in game and out of game has been a little turbulent of late and I’ve felt like I’ve done a few rounds in the ring with someone a lot bigger, stronger and faster than me… Between stress with my car being broken, a very busy time at work, and feeling a bit lost in the world of X-Wing it’s been hard to pick myself up and feel motivated.

“But somewhere along the line, you changed. You stopped being you. You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you you’re no good.” Rocky

I’ve always been a player who plays with my heart on my sleeve, I have to enjoy flying what I’m flying, it has to inspire me. It doesn’t have to be a snowflake list (although I’ll admit that’s my general direction of travel) but it has to interest me in more than just being mechanically good. I get that style of play, it just isn’t a good fit with me.

Last weekend I took Old Bobalob to a couple of events (you can guess the components from the name) which I quite enjoyed flying. I went 5-4 over all with it and had some really good games. The loses I encountered were against some absolute top tier players including European Champ Ben Lee and Coruscant Champ Tom Forstner. no real shame in losing to them. Despite regarding Palob as a scum-weasel I did find the list pretty fun to fly and felt that it held up well in every game where I didn’t make a stupid mistake.

Old Teroch Boba Fett Palob Marauder Mouldy Crow 0-0-0 Engine Upgrade Han Solo 56 90 53

“I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life.” Rocky

After a bit of a heart to heart with my personal blogging hero, Joel North, I made some decisions about what to fly. We were talking about how quite a few people are struggling with 2.0 and finding something that fits them to fly. It’s strange, I love the direction the game has gone in 2.0 but I’m finding it hard to feel “at home” with anything. There’s greater pressure to “do well” because I want to go to Worlds next year, and the only way to do that IS to do well. If you need a pick me up talk, and Joel isn’t around I can suggest Rocky Balboa as a good alternative.

The meta we’re seeing in the South East is full of Punishers. I suspect it is the same elsewhere but at Aldershot’s recent tournament there were no less than 6 Punishers between the 9 players, 6 of those players were Imperials and only one didn’t have a Punisher. There was also a lot of Whisper. Now, I quite like the Punisher as a ship, and in 1.0 I gave a generic a run out once in a while, largely because Charles won’t shut up about them so I thought: Why not try it? But I’m not an Imperial player at heart. I also don’t really want to be another person running Punishers because the general consensus I’m seeing is that people are getting quite fatigued from Trajectory Simulator over load.

“But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!” Rocky

So I’ve been mulling over what to fly, and one of the things Joel said was “Well Rasta has been smashing it with his Luke and Z-Swarm list“. It was a totally throw away comment but it stuck with me. I’m not as good a player as Rasta, I think that is evident from our trophy cabinets that he’s definitely a tier above me. I’m also not a huge fan of Rebels, I like them more than Imperials and First Order but less than Scum and Resistance, so I didn’t want to follow suit on that. But I got to thinking, “What’s my version of Super Luke and a swarm?” And so I came up with this:

Guri L3-37 Advanced Sensors Virago Jakku Gunrunner Shield Upgrade Hull Upgrade Binayre Pirate x2 Debris Gambit 97 100

Guri is the love of my X-Wing life, and a few weeks ago I was losing hope of finding a way to make her work for me. Feeling like I “should” have Boba in a list too because that’s where I started this whole journey was always in my mind and on reflection I probably focused on that too much. Looking at Rasta’s list Adsense Guri and Super Luke have a lot in common, so she could be a good equivalent for him.

Then the mini swarm bit; Rasta has a lot of Z-95s. Scum don’t have all the interactions that Imperial ties have (Inferno Squadron and Howl is crazy to see in action, Bernado Hourmat narrowly beat me at Aldershot with Soontir and 4 Ties), but they do have some good options, possibly better ones that Rebels. We share the humble Z-95, but have the Quadjumper and crucially the coordinating L3-37 in an escape pod which makes up quite a tidy tool box of abilities and threat. It gives a diverse array of tactical options in play but is focused very much on the blocking and rocking techniques that scum swarms currently seem so at home with. I don’t like the fact that the Quadjumper is so cheap, but it makes sense for it to be present in this list.

Then it dawned on me, if this Guri is really good, and the 90 point Boba from Old Bobalob is really good, if you put them together, could they be really good? What if this is the chemistry I’ve been looking for, what if this is my list and I’ve finally uncovered that winning combo? What if, once all is said and done I love Boba Guri more than anything else and would rather fly them than anything else?

Guri Boba Fett Advanced Sensors Marauder Virago 0-0-0 Shield Upgrade Han Solo Hull Upgrade Debris Gambit 97 90

It was Nerfherder this weekend, the biggest non-FFG X-Wing event in the UK (The UKTC being a team event rather than a singles event) 132 players in attendance including National Champions, former European Champions, current World Champion…

It’s a celebration of everything that this community stands for: friends meeting up to play games, to enjoy spending time with each other, to support a charity and think about things that are bigger than us. Hosted by Element Games in Stockport it’s a bit of a drive north to participate but myself and few of my fellow 186th made the long journey to have a go. Steve Fase, Jesper Winstrom, Alex Birt, Oli Pocknell and fresh from his heavily jet lagged top 10 finish at the Mynocks open, Dale Cromwell all put in the travel. Us southerners have travelled up trying to see if we can steal this Northern prize. The North though, has dragons.

My bunk for the weekend was with Twiggy Williams, the man who topped swiss at the 2018 UK System Open, and is definitely among the elite pilots the UK has to offer. Our community thrives when we support, encourage and look out for one another, and I was privileged to have a host who really exemplifies these qualities. My games on Friday night with Twiggy and his housemate Dan were a real confidence booster. Boba and Guri took on 5 ship scum and 5 ship imperials and they did very bad things to them.

I really don’t have time to go into every game, because of some analysis coming later but my six rounds of swiss were cracking, even the inevitable “urgh, dice” game was thoroughly enjoyable, but a bit shout out to everyone I played. It was a blast playing against each and everyone of you on 4 hours of sleep!

Round One: Chris Dolan. Win to me

Round Two: James Humphery. Win to James

Round Three: Tom Candlin. Win to Tom

1-2, feeling frustrated. Pep-talk from Oli Pocknel needed. Mov was really good, not losing a game by more than 60 points anywhere and my win was pretty solid, but at this point I’m tired and feeling down, and with only one 4-2 making the top 16 cut I need to turn it on to have a shot. My Round four opponent put a smile back on my face, I love this guy, he’s just SO LOVELY, he’s just a joy to play against.

Round Four: Steve Boulton. Win to me

Round Five: Ashley Tennant. Win to me

Going into the last round I was top of the 3-2 bracket having had solid wins against Ashley and Steve’s three ship rebels, it’s game on.

Round Six: Ewan Farr. Win to me

Round six finished fast, and the waiting game began to see if I had done enough to tip the scales and get that one and only top 4-2 top 16 place. The 67% win ratio has long been my target when playing X-Wing. Consistently hitting 4 and 2 will put your game in a place where you have a shot of making cuts. I had come to Nerfherder with a list I love, flying but still believing that two ships probably don’t cut it in the game at the moment, I was realistically happy aiming for 3-3, to go 4-2 had already exceeded my expectations. There was some tension but I knew I had done my best to get there, so if I did great, if I didn’t great effort. On the big screens this popped up:

I had made it. Topping the 4-2s by 87 MoV, not only that but I had somehow managed the 5th highest MoV of all 132 players there. I’d be playing King of Swiss Anthony Yates in the first round of the cut, who had a staggering 1994 out of a possible 2400 MoV with his five bombers.

Back to Liverpool and waking up at 3.30 in the morning unable to get back to sleep. By the time I got in the car to go back to Stockport I had had 5 hours of preparation on turn one and two outcomes, how I wanted the rocks, where my ships were going to be, what I was going to do if Anthony did option A, what I’d do if he did option B, and all the way down to about option Q… Anthony has only lost with his bombers once before, it was to Fix Bornes flying Boba Guri so he was as nervous as me! The game started and Anthony had chosen option A for his opening.

Apparently I fly Boba Guri very differently to how Fix does. I got the opening joust I wanted and for the first time ever reinforced on the Firespray. Four 3 dice attacks from Jonus and his crew did a total of 2 shields to Boba in return for 4 damage onto a Bomber. I think at this point Anthony knew that the game had swung heavily in my favour. A Few short turns later he offered his hand in concession after Guri had torn chunks out of the TIEs and Boba was coming back in for a second pass. Which meant that not only had I made my first cut at an event with more than 32 people, but I’d made it through the first round of the cut.

Before we go on here though I want to give a massive shout out to Vagabond Squadron from the South West of the UK. I hung out a lot with Anthony, Steve and Ross over the weekend and they are are just fantastic guys, handling themselves with fantastic attitudes and being such positive influences at every event I have met them at. I want to give Ross Pearson a special mention because this weekend he proved that he is one of THE best pilots in the country. He took Skull Squadron, which he’s been playing around with for a few weeks and went 5-1 with it, in a game currently full of bomb throwing Punishers, token stealing HWKs and tractor beams he went 5-1 with three 4 hull ships and no shields. That is an incredible achievement, he got knocked out in the top 16 by tournament winner and my top 8 opponent Dan Slb from local team the Sithtakers. Dude, an unreal achievement, well done.

So now that you know I don’t win the event I’m going to do something I’ve wanted to do for an age but haven’t really ever had the opportunity to. I get asked a lot if there are any videos of me flying Boba Guri, and also get comments on wanting more detailed analysis in looking at key points of games. It’s not something I can usually do as I don’t usually have an expert Streamer asking my games to be broadcast! Thanks to Simon Green from First Earth for his work over the weekend, and putting me on stream for the game I was dreading.

“The issue with 4 ships is that you can build a very effective list out of them. Good health, good damage consistency, good levels of resilience and that fourth firing arc make a mess of two ship builds. Boba can’t tank all those shots, and whilst Guri can give it a damn good go of dodging all those firing arcs doing so generally comes at the cost of not getting to shoot.” Phil GC October 14, 2018

Dan Slb running Palob, Quad, 4-Lom and Cavil. I can’t joust it, it’s almost impossible to dodge with 4 primary arcs and 2 turrets. It has stress control, it has tractor beams, it has token removal… all things that Boba and Guri are not fans of.

Due to technical issues the game was split over two videos. So here’s a link to the first one, and time for the most detail self analysis I’ve ever done.

EDIT THE WHOLE VIDEO CAN BE FOUND HERE

My game plan is bait and switch. In order to fight Dan’s list I have to try and break the formation. I can’t go straight at it, it will just ruin me, so I have to try and split it up and isolate his ships against mine. One on one, one on two I’m ok with but more than that and I’m in trouble. My opening was to gently go in, fully preparing to flank with Guri and bug out with Boba.

Boba turns away, Guri runs away trying to get passed the block, the next turn I know Dan will be engaging Boba, I need to buy Guri time to get in position and threaten the formation. It means Boba is going to take a volley of Torps from Kavil, but with full health he can probably handle it. Any other shots he takes are going to be range three at best.

Boba parks with a rock blocking the view from Y-Wing and takes a focus. Those torps are coming in fully modded, there’s also a range three form the HWK and the Quad Jumper. But positionally I’m strong. I know next turn the quad won’t be able to put two tractor beams on Boba because the rock is blocking the 3 bank and Guri is going to be all threatening from next turn. Taking the hit is a gamble but it pays off. One load of protons torps gone and three shields lost to 9 modded dice. But the key is position.

After technical issues the video gets back up and running here.

The next turn sees the Quad go for the block, and the big guns follow up, Boba was never turning in there. That would have been a real short party. Instead he turns away and boosts, opening up the mighty rear arc to pick on the Quad Jumper. Guri continues to dance around the side, leaving the bulk of Dan’s ships in the middle of no-where with a solitary two dice shot at Guri from Palob. Boba puts some heavy damage into the Quad including a console fire. Looking at it I know that Boba is vulnerable to the quad right now, but I can see that the tractor beam in the bullseye is probably out of range so dial in the one bank to turn away in the next turn.

Isolation time! The Quad comes forward, as I was 95% sure of the double tractor wouldn’t hit Boba did the one bank and Dan started chasing Guri. Range 2 from Palobs turret, out of Arc of 4-Lom and taking a torp through a rock from Kavil, I thought hard about whether to calculate for the stress or not, but if I had Guri would be dead the next turn, so instead it was that horrid feeling of having to trust the green dice, but combined with the knowledge that 3 shields were likely more than enough to soak up any crits from the torp. Again this was all about position. Baiting Dan into a corner and hopefully disrupting his formation. The Quad died to a console fire and Guri took a couple of shields. In return I didn’t do much to his big hitters but I had them in the corner.

The following turn Dan has to make a choice, he can bet on Guri going right or going left. He bets left, I go right, he goes right I go left. Guri has a 4 forward dialed in and with the advanced sensors barrel roll I am happy to run either way. The options are there. Boba begin the slow journey of coming back around. The only shot he has is the range three from Kavil on Guri with a focus. I probably should have boosted here with Boba to bring him back faster but with time on my side and Dan still able to pull his ships back together I needed to make sure that Kavil at least was away from the other two. And the bait of Guri would keep the Y-Wing interested.

Boba swing in but not so fast that he can get engaged by Palob and 4-Lom together. Guri continues to run, Dan then reloads Kavil, he hasn’t had to spend the lock on Guri yet as his last torps roll was all paint, so having that as a threat is incredibly powerful and a great call by him. A range three arc with a torp is a bad place for Guri to be so it puts the pressure on. But, its a reload, so no shot. It also plants the seed in my head that if he does it once he might do it again, which comes in very handy for later in the game. He even comments that he’s never done it before.

The next planning phase is huge. I am anticipating Kavil to hard two and challenge Guri to get out of that Proton torp arc, the three bank in from 4-Lom is clearly coming and I’m thining the HWK is likely to come in quickly too. The HWK comes in, not as fast as the G1-A and Kavil indeed does the hard two. Guri has dialed in a hard one left. I am fully prepared to barrel roll back to the right and hard one in, which will keep her out of arc of the proton and out of range three of the dorsal arc, so safe. Surprisingly Dan reloads again, not what I was expecting. Suddenly the hard one becomes a thing of beauty as Guri is able to roll back and left before the hard one right right and get into the Y-Wings face as it has a weapons disabled token.

Boba meanwhile has the choice of slamming into Palob or going for the arc dodge. I elect the dodge and boost past 4-Loms firing arc. I can’t Han Solo because 4-Lom will be handing me a stress at the end of the round so it’s relying on the Boba re-roll and marauder title to try and damage the rival bounty hunter, unfortunately for no benefit. As 4-Lom took the 0-0-0 stress I know that Boba is not going to have to worry about him next turn. Fortunately Palob does nothing with his range three shot. I now have a choice to make though. Boba can bank right or bank left, it’s a tough one, if I go right I’m flying into a corner and getting rear shots but taking palobs primary. If I go left I’m getting back into the game a bit quicker but will have to take shots from Palobs turret. This was a tough one but I decided to take the left turn.

I have the option here to disengage again with Guri, but I’m thinking Guri can probably get away with it a bit here. so I try to keep there pressure on. Dan brings 4-Lom in to threaten Guri and Kavil rotates his arc to the rear, which puts firing arcs in the way. Fortunately she has the flexibility to see that coming and dodges both Kavils rear and 4-Loms gun, but for the first time I am unhappy with her position.

32:49 into the video and Simon comments “Phil seems to feel like he’s made a mistake” cause I see what’s coming, and I haven’t got a good out. Kavil and the Crow are both going to turn guns on Guri and I don’t really have a way for her to get out it. Dan Jams me at the perfect time. I have to advance sensor because of the rock being too close and threat of the torps coming from the K-Turn forces Guri to go somewhere I don’t want to be for the second turn in a row. I dodge the torps but the side arc from the crow still has a shot.

Watching it back I should have bought Boba back in with a one bank instead I go for a bit of space. I think this is probably the part of the game where I began to lose it. I’m up on points, healthy ships and all but I position Boba badly. He is offering no threat at the end of his move at a time when I need to be applying pressure. The one bank would have let me hard one in the next turn and threaten. I dodge the torps but the side arc from the crow still has a shot wise use of L3 ensures that Guri does nothing to Palob, while Palob puts a hit and a crit into Guri. Knowing that Dan can hard two next turn and that 4-Lom is going to K means Guri is in a box she doesn’t want to be in. This was great play by Dan, he regrouped his formation and has put my end game ship in a rough position. Me not bringing Boba back in cost me pressure and position.

A bludgeon of crits from Kavils torps puts Guri in a dark place but she lives. Where ever I went was the wrong move but having damaged guns, damaged sensors… urgh. My win condition is now to kill a ship and run. But with no freedom of action Guri is in a bad place. Fortunately Boba is able to put some hurt on 4-Lom at range.

Guri repairs her weapons, I need to shoot here, and shoot a lot. I also need to minimise incoming fire. My best shot is 4-Lom who is bleeding heavily from the last round, bumping into Kavil stops one shot coming in, so I get to throw 6 red dice into 4-Lom and pray that his one agility lets him down. It does and the crits cascade in the right order dropping him before he could shoot. I could have repaired the damaged sensors but I had to hit as hard as possible, 6 health 4-Lom wasn’t going to die from 5 dice. I’d be taking 2 from Kavil but I didn’t have a choice. With 4-Lom gone Guri was set to run, Kavil was bleeding heavily and the plan was use Boba to kill the Y-Wing, even if it meant leaving him exposed to Palob, Half Guri with my bid is still worth more than a full health HWK, and IF she can escape there is no way that the HWK see’s her with the minutes on the clock rapidly counting down. One more turn, come on Guri, just survive one more turn and this is my game.

Guri goes for the run, but with no actions other than flipping sensor array available she is stuck at the mercy of the dice. She escapes Kavils attention, but Palob puts 2 natural crits into her at range three. At which point she dies. The lack of focus action cost me dear here, had she been able to focus and not be restricted to calculate then her dice were enough to see her survive. Boba can still do this though, just a little luck… Thank you Guri, you tried and I really appreciate the effort.

With the threat of Palob, Boba can’t focus, it’s a waste of an action, so I have to wait to Han and take a stress. Boba half pointed with only the crow on the table is also an acceptable win condition, kill the now on fire Kavil and run. That’s all the big man needs to do. Unfortunately as the technical term goes “Shit gets real”. Kavil goes down to one hull but Palob lands a crit, and it’s probably the worst crit I can take while stressed. Panicked Pilot.

The next turn Kavil final concedes to being bludgeoned to death by Boba, but Kavil turns the screw and my one health Boba is not looking good for this worlds. Hull Breach is not cool… the cascade of crits while double stressed and unable to fix anything mean I now know that baring a miracle of dice I am losing this game. With Blinded Pilot I am unable to re-roll attacks with Boba’s ability or Marauder. It’s just not great.

The final turn sees a god roll from Boba to put the crow on 1 health, but unfortunately it is matched by Dan’s Palob who kills my Firespray with a few minutes on the clock.

I can’t express how great a sport and opponent Dan was, this game had everything, we both burned hot and cold dice, we both had savage crits affect us at the worst possible times. It was simply fantastic to be a part of it and a watching it back the level of tension and intensity of play is right up there with the very best games I have ever played in. Hopefully me picking it apart in this much detail and going into my thought processes as it happens has been useful, I’ve certainly benefited from this level of scrutiny. Thank you Simon for putting it on stream, see you in Paris buddy.

Maybe just maybe I can beat a four ship scum list. I think had a worlds ticket been on the table I might have run and preserved points sooner, but that’s not my way of playing, that’s not the way I look at X-Wing. I am so glad that he went on to win the event, Nerfherder couldn’t ask for a better bloke to be carry the prestigious title. It’s first winner, a certain George “Rasta” Dellapina would go on to win the European Championships the following year. The second winner, Simeon Dellapina would go on to win the world championships the following year. Make no bones about it, this is a big event.

I’ve taken up enough of your time, thank you for sticking with the longest post I have ever published. I’m taking next weekend off before the French Nationals at the end of the month, so probably nothing from me until I get home from that! Thank you to Carl Walker, the visionary behind the Nerfherder event, to Tim and the crew at Element games for hosting a great event and everyone else under the sun who made it an awesome weekend.

Next Time: BOBA GURI GOES TO FRANCE!

If you’re looking for X-Wing event to play in the head over to the 186th Tournament Calendar.