After a much needed weekend off this weekend is back on the road. I played with two ship Resistance, I played with two ship First Order, but this weekend is all kinds of excitement for me. I’m playing with two ship Scum.

I thought 2 T70s was bonkers, then I tried Kylo and Quickdraw and had so much fun. The closest equivalent to that template in scum: Fenn and Guri: less health, less shields, less points. I’ve really been enjoying this little adventure in seeing just how hard I can push myself with lists that are basically dumb. But this is special, this is where I get to fly my beloved Guri again, it’s been a while since I put her on the table, and I cannot wait to pick up that one bank template and barrel roll away.

We’re going to start with the weak link in the list: Fenn Rau. Why is he the weak link? Cause he’s Fenn. One dice roll he will decide he is going to roll 5 hits and make something explode, the next moment he is going to realise that the dice need to balance out and get one-shotted by a tie fighter at range 2. It’s what he does. It’s what he’s always done. If he makes it through a game I will be shocked. I’m giving him Outmanoeuvre as his solitary upgrade. The way I’m looking at him is that he’s a 74 point proton rocket, I might as well try to make sure he counts!

Fenn is far more subtle than a lot of people give him credit for, the inclination to just throw him into a fight and trust to dice is wrong. Sure he CAN be tanky, he CAN be resilient, but his capacity for going pop when you do that means in the face of multiple ships you will get punished. And with only two ships there are going to be a lot of engagements where I am likely to be out gunned and out diced. In a 3 or 4 ship list you can to some degree take the chance and say “So long as he burns something on the way out I’m fine.” In a two ship list that attitude leads to a loss.

But, there is another ship in the list. She’s basically had a year of introductions from this particular blogger. She’s my queen of X-Wing, my “Waifu” as Kai pointed out on his alt art card. And I get to fly her again this weekend, there isn’t really a way of explaining how happy I am when playing this ship. If you read my Famous Five article last week you’ll have gathered all this anyway, hell, if you’ve read this blog for more than a few months you’ll know it anyway. In my heart Guri is X-Wing.

She epitomises everything I love about the game, she’s best at range one, she’s mobile, she can hit like a truck, she’s a knife fighter and a dancer. Every turn is full of decisions and getting into the right position., and it really matters, cause get that wrong and watch her die.

Fenn Rau Guri Outmaneuvre Outmaneuvre

Advanced Sensors Virgao Shield Upgrade Afterburners

I’m on 177 points, I’m giving up 23 points. A now before I get the inevitable comments allow me to address them here.

You could buy another ship for that! – I Know. You could give one of them proton torps and still have an 11 point bid- I Know. You don’t need a 23 point bid! – I Know.

But to answer these legitimate points in order:

I don’t want another ship. Why have 2 ships you really enjoy flying only to lessen the experience by having a ship you don’t enjoy flying. Proton Torps are a range 2-3 thing. These two ships are designed to get up close and personal and excel at range 1. They don’t have the action economy to warrant a proton torp. If I’m at range then I’m taking a token for defensive mods every time. So this would be pointless… Now, if Advanced Proton Torpedoes were HS legal. More than 70% of list in hyperspace have a 6% bid or smaller. If this was only about initiative I could happily come in at 191 and expect to have the choice 90% of the time. The reason there is a 23 point bid is there is nothing I want to add to the list.

I’m going to have to play on point the whole way. After 5-1 with the T70s, 4-2 with the First Order I’ve got to be realistic and look at 3-3 as being a good result. I understand my win conditions, I understand my strengths and I know my weaknesses. It’s going to be great fun though. I’m so excited I even re-wrote the words to a famous song for it.

Hello Falcon my old friend, It’s time to shoot at you with Fenn, You turned your arc towards Guri, You saw that shot and you did get greedy. And now I’m rolling five dice and there’s nothing you can do, No greens for you, Just hear the sounds of Pew Pew

After work on Friday I picked up squad mate Alex Birt and we did the long drive down to Cardiff, when Alex was to stay at the home of James Dowdall, and I would be spending the night hosted by Steve Gage, perennial lovely human being and a very good X-Wing player. The venue for this weekends Hyperspace Trial was the fantastic Firestorm Games. If you’ve never been there it is a sight to behold! Tris Moran is their resident TO for X-Wing and had done his usual fantastic job of putting together a smoothly run and fun event.

There are a lot of games about to happen and I’m writing on Monday having flown on Saturday (and done 4 rounds on Sunday) so things are a bit blurry here and there!

Game 1 against Kieran Evans, with Anakin, Sinker and Wolfe. Jedi are kind of new to me so I was properly excited to see them on the table. Anakin had to die cause he is super good, so I killed Anakin. After that Kieran was really up against it. Fenn and Guri are both big fans of one agility ships and as valiant an effort as Kieran put up I got the victory with a 200-37 score line.

My next game was against Lyn Davies, flying 6 ships, that is a lot of firing arcs! Last time I was here Lyn had broken his collar bone a day or two before and was STILL playing X-Wing, even though he was loaded on probably every painkiller imaginable! The Republic in game one had had some cool tricks. The Seperatists have some too! Fenn got stuck in too many firing arcs. But he killed a Droid on the way out, and by this point Grevous was halved as was the other “command” ship in the list. The same turn Fenn died Guri decided to turn it on… and proceeded to one shot another droid the next turn and an another the turn after. I felt a little sheepish as 4 paint rolled into outmanoeuvred droid after outmanoeuvred droid and they just melted. But Guri got the job done. 200-74 win in the end

Game three, and my last with a photo cause my battery basically died, was against Nick Bond flying Cassian, Magva, Braylen and Dutch, with the obvious auto include of Leia there. Nick and I have been mates for a couple of years now, but have always avoided playing each other at events. Normally cause he’s been busy being a hero and has given up the opportunity to play so he can be a Judge. This game was so intense. I killed Dutch first, cause that ion cannon is not welcome here! Then Fenn died, then I killed Magva. With 10 minutes left to play I was winning, with a 4 health Guri vs a full health Cassian and a 6 health B-Wing. The was only one option to me. Run. Had Nick landed a single hit on me there was no way that I could ever get the points back in the time, as time was called Nick picked up his 3 dice from Braylen and rolled perfectly. with just a calculate Guri had to get 2 evades and a focus…. Guri did it and I scraped a win by 104-74. A little close for comfort!

Still, 3 games won, one ship lost all day so far, I was feeling good and having fun, at which point round 4 happened and I ran into Fenn’s “favourite” ship. Darth “crit machine” Vader, and he had bought Howlrunner, Iden and two academy tie fighters to make it even more uncomfortable. To compound the fear it was being flown by James Dowdall of the 186th and, well, he’s REALLY good at X-wing. He’s one of those players who doesn’t play for three months, then casually rocks up to an 80 man event and wins it. When Fenn died there was no Howlrunner, and Iden had burned her charge. That left a full health Darth Vader and 3 tie fighters against Guri. This in one of those moments where I could have had a 100 point initiative bid and it wouldn’t matter. No matter how much I wish she was… Guri will never be and should never be a 6! I somehow managed to pull it off, but had to do some pretty erratic flying or could simply kill me and be done with it. After a lot of dancing and some more paint on my dice than I probably deserved Guri did the deed and dropped the last TIE fighter. 200-74 win.

Which took me to round 5 and Ben Hyde (the guy who does all the REALLY ENTHUSIASTIC SELFIES that crop up on facebook every once in a while. Ben was flying Boba and Guri, it made me so happy to see it on the table and 4-0 at the time! It was a savage game, Boba mugged Guri. Ben capitalised that rear arc brilliantly, and when Guri died I had a 2 health fenn up against a half health Boba and full health Guri. This I saw as a problem. Fortunately Fenn was able to kill Boba the following turn, but Ben’s Guri was worth more points than Fenn so I had to go kill her to get the win. Ben ran, he started running and he ran well, but Fenn was able to catch her eventually and a couple of big hits from the Mandalorian saw me squeak to a win, 200-140, but I find it hard to remember a more entertaining match up than this one was.

So there I was 5-0, in the cut, and not really sure how. I’d flown well, and had a slice of luck here and there but I was a bit shocked to be at 5-0, and in my 4th consecutive top 8 cut. My opponent for the final round of swiss was Alex Birt, my travelling companion for the event and the man with the 5 A-Wings. The highlight of this match was that Alex had finally won the templates his commitment to the game so deserves. We were both in the cut, there was no real pressure, then Tris said we were on stream… Even though we were on stream we were able to relax a bit and have a laugh. It went to time, I edged the win 140-89, which meant that I had not only made the cut, I’d only gone and won a 60 man swiss, something I have never done before ever. I’ve never gone undefeated at an event with more than 5 rounds before, so I was buzzing.

If you go to this link and start 16 minutes in you get my game against Alex, if you keep watching you get my next game too.

Into the cut and everything is a bonus now right? I get to play one of my very best friends (and third fellow 186th of the day) Martyn Chivers (who will be defending his UK Open title next weekend) who was flying Inferno squadron. Again this one was on the stream, and it was great fun just to relax and play with a mate. We both have worlds tickets already so the only thing really at stake was a binder, I already have one so if I won it Martyn was gonna get it anyway. Again if I can find a link to it I’ll share it. The aces were mean to the TIE fighters, Martyn went for one of those 50/50s that make a planning stage so intense. If he guesses right he probably wins, wrong and he is in all kinds of trouble. fortunately for me he got it wrong and two TIEs died. 200-74 win.

And so to the top 4. Julian Hood, who won his worlds ticket at Dark Spheres HST the weekend before. In Cardiff he is flying Anakin, Ahsoka and 2 torrents. We weren’t on stream, that was between Alex Birt and Gavin Kirby. That game mattered way more, who ever won that was guaranteed a worlds spot. Julian and I have been mates a while now and share a somewhat caviller approach to the game, especially when we’re both very tired. I made a mistake with Guri, before even rolling the dice that turn we both kinda knew I’d lost it, but I was just so happy to have been there and had a great day. Julian won 200-89 and then Alex got to the final so got his Worlds spot which means he’s the 8th 186th to get one, which was better a better feeling than winning swiss. Julian, having come so close at Dark Sphere got to take home the trophy.

The entire event history can be found on TTT here.

A rapid drive to Basingstoke on Sunday morning for 4 rounds of extended followed. I went 3-1 and won that event with the cunning use of adding Advanced Proton Torps to both ships. 12 rounds in a weekend, 10 wins and 2 loses. If I can do that next weekend that’s like, top 16 or something at the UK System open… the question is how do I feel about Phantoms…

So, that’s it for this week, a lot of games a lot of fun and a whole lot of bendy rolls. If you’re one of the 640 odd people headed to Milton Keynes next weekend for the biggest X-Wing tournament in history come say hello. If you’re not coming, there are still some tickets available! I want one of those shiny Guri cards, anything else is just gravy.

Next Time: THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

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