I’ve had a very thought provoking week when it comes to X-Wing, after last Saturday’s Tournament the 186th had a mini get together at Warboar Games in Bromley to get some practice in for Euros next weekend. It was a really enjoyable day and a lot was learned, especially in a game against Lloyd Boman running quad Wookiees for me to practice against. He made some observations about my play style and how I worked the opening engagement. Where Lloyd was articulate and thought out the every consistent Paul “Full-On” Owen summed up the same sentiments on the Saturday with a slightly more concise but no less accurate “You’re crazy!”.

Two players I have huge respect for as pilots and people bought up some very interesting points. Rather than go into a long explanation of what they meant I’d recommend reading Joel North’s latest article on opening engagements. I think it is the single best article about X-Wing that I have ever read and would highly encourage you to have a look. Joel isn’t the kind of man to say that he’s a great pilot, I think he is (he’s also brilliant at hugging) but from his writing you can tell that he is a passionate and eloquent student of the game.

1.0 is dying, it’s a weird limbo between what we have now and what is to come and there’s a general compunction to want to hibernate until 2.0 arrives. But we also make the most of what time we have left with this game we love.

With the announcement of the prizes at Euros and Nationals in the last few days there can be no doubt that there is still plenty to play for. A few people have talked about a jank season happening after Euros until 2.0 lands, but I very much suspect the last few weeks of 1.0 are going to be as competitive as we have ever seen.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the last few weeks chatting to Oli Pocknell about lists. Oli is captaining the English team for the European Team Championships. One of his biggest challenges is to look at the meta and see what lists are going to be most successful in the team environment that the ETC has to offer. Scum are probably my specialist area in the game and they are probably the hardest faction to find truly competitive lists with at the moment. We talked long and hard about how to make them viable and got onto a list that I came up with when Guns for Hire first appeared.

Talonbane Cobra Viktor Hel Captain Jostero Swarm Tactics Veteran Instincts Deadeye Harpoon Missiles Harpoon Missiles Harpoon Missiles Glitterstim Glitterstim Black Market Slicer Tools Guidance Chips Guidance Chips Guidance Chips Stealth Device Stealth Device Munitons Failsafe Vectored Thrusters Vectored Thrusters Pulsed Ray Shield Vaksai Vaksai Vaksai

I took this to one tournament, at the Consulting Gamer in Ashford last year, and it did very bad things to people, losing one ship in four games. Since then the concept has been modified by various people to incorporate Captain Nym and Torani Kulda, both coming in at Pilot Skill 10. And as we all know pilot skills 10 alpha strikes trump pilot skill 9 alpha strikes, especially when backed up by an additional hull.

In spite of comments from my fellow 186th members that games are allowed to last more than 40 minutes, I’m not ready to accept that. I’ve always played fast, always enjoyed making things explode and I’m not sure this leopard will ever change his spots. So the idea of running a scum alpha strike list does kind of appeal to me, Alex Birt mentioned a while ago that maybe a scum Alpha list is worth a look. It hurt things, and it does it fast and effectively.

Alpha striking is not quite as gung-ho as a jousting. There is a difference between alpha striking and jousting; they are closely related and not mutually exclusive. But where a joust is straight fly at someone (hence the name) an alpha strike is about timing, about coordinating an initial strike not always from the same angle. While a joust will always be an alpha strike, an alpha strike will not always be a joust.

As you have all no doubt noticed by now I am a bit of a butterfly when it comes to list building, sure I always end up back with Boba but I do like to try different things out.

So I set about writing my take on what a scum alpha list should look like. I don’t like Nym, he’s expensive and ugly and I don’t want to fly him, so he’s out of the list. His absence leaves me a big hole of points to spend. As said earlier 10 is better than 9, it therefore follows that 11 is better than 10. I’m not a fan of the endless use of Veteran Instincts. It’s departure is one of the best little things about 2.0, but it is unavoidable in the current game state that it be used in an alpha striking list.

I won’t go into everything about the list or how I got to it, the objective is making sure the Alpha lands. It’s fairly obvious what each ship is meant to do and how they are meant to do it:

Talonbane Cobra Torani Kulda Captain Jostero Veteran Instincts Veteran Instincts Deadeye Harpoon Missiles Harpoon Missiles Harpoon Missiles Glitterstim Glitterstim Black Market Slicer Tools Guidance Chips Guidance Chips Guidance Chips Stealth Device Unhinged Astromech Munitons Failsafe Vectored Thrusters Enforcer Vaksai Vaksai 98 points

I get to try it out this weekend at stores where you always have to bring your “A-Game” to do well. I think I have come up with something a little different to the norm which is genuinely competitive. I’m not claiming to reinvent the wheel here, just to have put my own slant on it.

And I played 4 games with it at Firestorm Cards on Saturday, and got bored. It’s potential to inflict pain when you get it all triggering it’s pretty impressive, but I got bored! I like the Kihraxz, it doesn’t like rolling evades at all (4 games and Talonbane lost his stealth device first shot every time) but the Kimo felt somewhat uninspiring to fly, I just can’t see myself falling for it as a ship at all. A beautiful sunny day, some top people, really good pilots, but the list did nothing to inspire me. The room was full of chat about 2.0 and how much we are all looking forward to it, precisely because almost every list present would be virtually unworkable when it arrives. James Finlsayson came out on top, going 4-0 with his OP3 list.

I watched Solo and Deadpool 2 on Saturday night. Gift vouchers are awesome. Both movies were very entertaining, but I was left a little blank about what to fly going forward.

So on Sunday I got to thinking what to fly on bank holiday Monday at Ibuywargames. Torkhil is one of my favourite trick ships, Fenn is always an option in my world, I have my two lovingly painted Shadowcasters that have never seen the table top… When you’re not sure where to go going forwards it’s sometimes worth going back to the last place something felt right and building from there, in X-Wing and life. So Boba Guri is coming out again. The “fly what you love” ethos remains at the core of how I play X-Wing, and I really love these two.

Another conversion kit is up for grabs for the first and second place at this event. Ian has said this’ll be the prize for every event over 20 people between between now and 2.0 releasing. It’s thanks to this that I already have a Scum pack locked in, but I wouldn’t say no to another.

Boba Fett Guri Fearlessness Intensity Ion Cannon Advanced Proton Torpedoes Engine Upgrade Autothrusters Bomlet Generator Scavenger Crane Glitter Stimm Star Viper Mk2 Andrasta Virago Dengar Fire Control System

Five rounds with some quality players to go against, and I had SO MUCH MORE FUN than I did on Saturday. Boba did bad things to people, slamming into blockers, taking the range one Fearlessness shot and inflicting pain on everything that ended up there, except for the one game I lost on the day where Lawrence “Boggy” Marsh’s Quickdraw just refused to take damage, Debris Gambit proving a winning upgrade.

My mistake in the game was to let Kylo show Boba the Darkside. Had I focused harder on Quickdraw and then worried about the shuttle once he was dead I probably would have fared better, Boba moving first became problematic. Boggy got the kill shots he needed when he needed them, and I learned to have a little bit more respect for the Upsilon Shuttle, it hits like a train.

The dominant list on the day, as seen at worlds was the three ship rebel variant known and hundred point ace, Lowhhrick, a sheathiped and Miranda (or Norra) but there were some Firesprays about, and they had some fun.

I went 4-1 for the day, finishing second and getting my Rebel update pack reserved. My only loss to a list possibly more janky than mine. 16 points of MoV would have seen me top the day on Strength of Schedule, but alas it was not to be. But it got me thinking on the drive home: the scum alpha list on paper is better than Boba Guri, but if I had to play against me in flying each list I would expect the Firespray to come up trumps more often than not. Why?

I know the Firespray better, I fly it better. I know Guri and she is more often than not the ship that shines.

I care more about the Boba and Guri as ships, and as characters, I want to do better with them than I do the scum alpha ships.

They aren’t boring to fly, the fragility of the list means that nothing can be taken for granted, I concentrate more.

None of these things are about the list, they are all about the player. Too often we get caught up (very easily) by the assumption that X list always wins. While some lists certainly have a lower skill threshold than others it is evident that a bit of self belief, a lot of experience and a bit of luck here and there goes a long way.

Ian Kafka finished a good weekend off winning with Miranda/Lowhhrick/Fenn, having won a store champs on Sunday and put in a strong showing on Saturday at Firestorm.

I can’t not take this list to Euros next week, I enjoy flying it way too much. Sure I expect that running into more top meta lists will be a huge issue for me but the 1.0 malaise is so great now I just don’t care. Listening to the podcast guys chatting to Simeon Dellapina about where we’re at at the moment they reinforced the perception that people are fed up with so many things in the game and now we know they are changing soon, the change can’t come fast enough.

Despite going 1-3 on Saturday and, as Dan Flewitt observed, being bored out of my mind (possibly why I went 1-3) I finished the weekend with a total of 5-4 keeping the overall win % at 61%, no movement there. Boba Guri has seen me go 7-3 in total. Two of the games I have lost I can clearly point to a couple of clear bad decisions that contributed to my loses. I may still have lost them, but I didn’t help my case by making those choices. More importantly, I’ve not had a game that I didn’t enjoy with this list.

Tournament Games Played 117 % Win Ration 61 +/- 0

Next Time: EUROS!

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