This weekend was another great weekend of X-Wing fun and games, no stores involved though, this time it’s all about teams/clubs.

Friday night I made the familiar trip to Basingstoke, this time to hang out with my friends from Firestorm Squadron and do some streaming for their new project the Firecast. Nic Harris, Dom Flannigan and Phil Pond are working together to try and create what could be seen as X-Wing TV.

Currently they broadcast every other Friday evening trying to show two or three games. They’re doing it purely for the love of the game and the community, wanting to get content out there for us all to enjoy. Please head over to their facebook page (linked here as well as above) and give them a follow. I got to play all three of them using the Triple-70s I’ve been flying the last couple of weeks and the games are linked here if you want to watch them:

Their next show is going to be on the 1st of February at 8pm UK time. I believe their special guest is going to be none other than Mr Charles “Deathrain” Berkhold who will be enjoying in the banter and games, it’ll be my turn to poke fun at him over the internet. It was a great fun evening and I highly recommend checking them out.

Onto Saturday: if you’ve never been to Wandsworth, allow me to describe it to you: it’s a bit of London, that’s not as nice as other bits of London. It is however the home of one of the many Spread Eagle pubs which is where a gaming group called Eagle Squadron meet.

Eagle Squadron’s most famous son, Sim Pone, has become a good friend over the last couple of years. His rise to one of the top players in the UK community has been commented upon in this blog before. Not only is he a truly quality opponent, but one of the most conscientious and supportive people you’re likely to meet over a game of X-Wing. He’s the organiser of today’s 20 man event.

The event is Hyperspace format and the diversity of lists in the room is really encouraging for the game mode, there’s a couple of TIE Swarms, some Trench Runs, various different Resistance and First Order options and some Scum. Anyone who thinks that the more restrictive game mode means a more restrictive competitive scene need to have a look what you can do with HS. Sure there are LESS options, but there are MORE viable options of what list you can fly and expect to compete.

Eagle Squadron meet in the upper room of the Spread Eagle. It’s fair to say that the lighting is pretty terrible, but the people are great. A few London based squadrons are represented, Dan Bouckley from Warboar’s TNX Squadron, fellow 186th members Alex Birt and Joel North. James “Two Steaks” Finlayson also in attendance as well as Eagle Squadrons players and a few others. All this means that the event is not only full of great people but also some great players.

My first opponent is Chris Douglas from Eagle Squadron, running a Trench Run list. Thane (Predator), Wedge (Outmanoeuvre) and Luke is going to be a familiar sight in HS. The ships have great abilities, they’re solid, and they hit hard. Chris’s variant had Heightened Perception on Luke, aside from that it was just all the proton torps.

This is a list that only a fool takes lightly. I’ve played against it before in various iterations, and it provides real issues. Two volleys of torps will pretty much end a T-70, so the name of the game is to net get hit by them very much. It’s a tricky game. Chris flies very erratically, lots of moves I didn’t anticipate came my way and even with three ships so good at arc dodging it’s very hard to not get caught in an arc! At the first opportunity I hammered Thane, no way did I want to let that ability trigger later on in the game!

It came down to Luke vs Ello at the end, fortunately Luke had burned his torps finishing off Poe, but even moving second I had to be careful not to get caught because with Luke shooting at I7 Ello could get hurt hard and fast. Fortunately that white talon roll save my bacon repeatedly and I crawled over the finish line with a 200-132 win. A great game, against a thoroughly entertaining opponent with two lists that interact in some really interesting ways.

And on to game two against another Eagle Squadron member Sam Ledwich. Sam beats me, pretty much every time we play. This is the guy who came second at the Armada Nationals last year, it’s safe to say he’s good at the planning phase of miniatures games.

It started so well, I was able to hit Sam with a tough decision point early on about where he wanted to commit. Then I performed what can only be described as X-Wing suicide. I had a plan, it was a great plan, Ello and Nein were going to pull the Y-Wings away having drawn the attack leaving Sam with a couple on shots on Poe. Dials set, then I forgot what I had planned. Rather than suddenly having two X-Wings diving around behind his less mobile ships I had one X-Wing parked in front of multiple Y-Wings with locks on Ello and the other blocking him there…. It doesn’t matter how good or bad your dice are, Heroic ain’t gonna help bad flying.

With a cluster of ships in the centre of the board and my ships on fire I clung onto the hope that Poe could maybe turn it around, he is capable of that. However a superb block from Sam’s Norra saw Poe get wrecked by a torp from Dutch. 56-200 loss.

If you don’t chat to your opponents about the game you’ve just played, why not? Sam and I had a really useful talk about what I could have done differently, what he could have done differently (to end it sooner). If you want to develop as a player then take on the feedback and see what you could do to not get it wrong next game. He made some great points which will certainly help inform my flying going forward. (plus I should have checked my dials before the catastrophic self block with Nein…)

Game 3 and another Eagle Squadron member, 3/3 so far! This time Moby, who plays at the club but doesn’t really travel. Flying Blackout (trick shot and proton torps), Squad Leader Null, Midnight and Scorch.

Poe dragged Blackout out of position then Nein and Ello went toe to toe with the FOs. Null went first because letting anyone co-ordinate at I7 is foolish. Then Blackout because after two games against Proton Torps so far I didn’t fancy getting hit by them again. It cost Poe for those ships but that trade worked out.

I said it a while ago, when I was flying Dash Poe in first edition, but I think there are few ships as good in the game at latching onto someones tail and staying there as a T70. Even a ship as nippy as the TIE FO struggles to get away, and the game finished 200-101 to me. Another thoroughly enjoyable game against another engaging opponent.

All of which leads to round four, and my fourth Eagle Suadron opponent. This time my friend Ben Barber. Ben is still relatively new to the game, but he is a class player and I’ve seen him absolutely ruin people over the last few months. With Han Solo, an Escape Pod, Seevor and Boba Fett on the table Ben had a LOT of guns on the board for me to worry about!

I gunned for Han first, he’s a lottery of a ship, so dice heavy, but risking that potential 6 dice attack is just not something I’m ok with. With all guns pointing at him the 1 agility Falcon dropped pretty quickly. Just Boba Fett, a TIE fighter, an escape pot about to detonate and a trickshotting, jamming, ignoring rocks TIE fighter to deal with.

Ben killed Nein, Poe hurt Boba badly but blew up for his efforts. The escape pod flew away to explode in a corner by itself, leaving Ello to finish the TIE and Firespray on his own. I got Boba, the curse of panicked pilot on the Firespray is a thing for other people too it seems, leading to a dance between a TIE and Ello. We both knew that Ello should eventually win that, but Seevors ability made it incredibly hard to push damage through. We had joked at the start of the game that it’d be over pretty fast with so many big guns on the table. 4 minutes from time I won, 200-160, which is the smallest margin my list can win by without going to time.

I think that may be the first tournament ever where I have only ever played members of one Squadron! Another 3-1, another pleasing result. I came 6th tied with Sim on both MoV and SoS, he got that spot on extended strength of schedule. Two players went 4-0, Sam who I played in game 2 and the overall winner George Barker, also of Eagle Squadron. (With Ello, Nein, Talli and L’Ulo)

I remain on a 68% win ratio in 2.0, with a few more tournaments ahead before Hyperspace kicks off properly. I’m loving the list, enjoying flying it and really looking forward to the weekends to get it on the table again.

The day ended with going out for a meal, a warm reminder that this games greatest strength is the people that make up the community. The friendships made along the way are what keep me as addicted to this game as I am.

Next Time: BACK TO BASINGSTOKE

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