Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. – Yoda

For the longest time, X-Wing has been the game I’ve played so that I could just play a game. It wasn’t about playing competitively, or analyzing each decision, each point, each weakness and strength of my squad and my opponents. It was just about playing a game and having a blast. I’ve always thought this was the funnest game I’ve ever played. I have been afraid that by playing competitively I’d lose the casual side of the game.

It was at Worlds 2014 where my fear finally broke. I saw hundreds of X-Wing players having the time of their life and realized that my fear of losing the casual side of the experience was costing me an equally good and likely better experience. Last night, I took my first step into a much larger world… one filled with tiny ships, lots of dice, and some of the worlds best people. Of course, I’m talking about the competitive side of Star Wars X-Wing. My decision didn’t come alone thankfully, as my brother Tim and I mutually decided to play X-Wing competitively this year. With that I put together my first test squad (with some help from Theorist) and sat down across the table from Tim.

The difference was immediately apparent. I was in a ‘competitive’ mindset. For me this is soaking information in, analyzing everything, and making choices to test to see what happens. Where before I was just picking what on first glance was the best maneuver, now I was trying to gain as much information out of each decision as possible. In my years of playing X-Wing, this was the most excited I’ve ever been about X-Wing!

I’ve played X-Wing since the beginning, even before the beginning. If you’re looking for something hilarious to do or maybe you don’t believe me, Steven and I unbox Wave 1 here at the GenCon it was pre-released. We hadn’t slept the night before due to traveling issues on the way to GenCon, but we had picked up a starter and the first wave at GenCon and were too excited to wait!

I would consider myself a decent X-Wing player. I’m a long time competitive gamer, so there are a lot of skills that carry over from one game to another. Being competitive at any game requires the ability to be good as a player, but it also requires knowing what your opponent is capable of and how best to play against what they bring to the table with your squad. There is a level of being comfortable that you gain from experience and this is something I’m not even close to achieving.

My intent with blogs posted here about X-Wing is to detail my experience getting familiar with this game and to get feedback from this stellar community. Without further ado, my first report!

The Swarm and the Decimator

It’s important to note that I’m a huge fan of Darth Vader and Soontir Fel, both as game pieces and in the Star Wars universe. I was talking with Theorist and he gave me ideas on lists that I could run that would feature Darth Vader (as a pilot or crew) and/or Soontir Fel. With one of the possible lists including the Vader crew and Soontir, I felt I had no way to resist. Here is the list I played last night.

Commander Kenkirk (62)

Lone Wolf

Gunner

Ysanne

Darth Vader

Engine

Soontir (37)

Push the Limit

Shield Upgrade

Stealth Device

The idea is to use the Vader crew to activate Kenkirk and Ysanne early while dealing out some critical damage. Ideally you focus on important ships, like a Phantom or Howlrunner. At that point, Kenkirk is getting a free evade, rolling an evade die, and able to re-roll thanks to Lone Wolf. He’s a juicy target, so by the time they take him out you’re hoping it’s a full health Soontir against one or two ships. Outside a full health Phantom, Soontir can usually win that match.

When deciding to really dive into competitive X-Wing, one thing we knew is that we’d need to build and get familiar with the ‘popular’ lists in the game. Tim happily volunteered to put together and learn how to fly a TIE Swarm. So, my first match was playing a two ship list against a seven ship, traditional swarm…

I learned a tremendous amount in this game, particularly that Tim doesn’t know how to fly seven ships in unison across a board and that sending a Decimator head first into a swarm is a big, big mistake! Once Tim had to turn, he was bumping and flying all over the rocks. I think he took four damage in one turn thanks to asteroids! My respect for a good swarm player definitely went up after this game.

I also played the game completely wrong. Starting with positioning and ending with Vader triggering on the wrong ships at the wrong time. I sent the Decimator straight at the swarm and just got out gunned. The Decimator went down pretty quickly, leaving Soontir against a full Swarm. It was only a matter of time before they were on me, clogging my lanes, and denying me actions. Then it was lights out.

I’m not ready to give up on this list, or something similar, just yet because I played it that bad. However, I do think in the particular matchup against the Swarm, it is going to struggle. I can’t really let either ship go 1 on 1 with a Swarm, so they have to stay together. This makes Lone Wolf a non-issue, which was a big concern of mine when considering positioning. The greatest lesson here is likely that you shouldn’t let something you spent two points on determine how you play a game!

I’m more excited than ever for X-Wing and will be playing again tonight with this list and another with more ships. I have a slew of lists and ships I’m wanting to try, but at this point I’m also looking for lists to try! If you have an Imperial list you’d recommend, I’d love for you to leave it in the comments below with some basic tips on how to use it. I’ll report back after more games! Until then, may the Force be with you.

Zach