I’m not a huge fan of being cold, it doesn’t make me happy, I’d rather be warm, comfortable, on a beach somewhere with the sea lapping at my toes. So Norway in December… that fits the bill right?

Leaving work early on Friday afternoon and heading to Gatwick to meet up with 186th squad mates Ben Lee and Oli Pocknell is the start of my first Nordic adventure, and excited doesn’t cover it. We’re off to the Trondheim regional, out first regional this season and being the entirely noncompetitive people we are winning isn’t at all on out minds! This will be the last tournament before waves 12 and 13 drop on December the 7th so we’re all flying things we are familiar with as next Thursday everything changes.

Oli is taking Dash Poe, he’s been flying his variant of the list for a while now and is definitely quite astute with it. Oli is one of the most consistent gamers in the UK, making cut after cut at major events where ever he goes. His engagement management is probably as good as anyone you’ve every played against.

Ben is taking Dash and Miranda, for those that don’t know Ben, he is one of the UKs most successful competitors at Worlds and his approach to the game is one of the most thoughtful and considered I have ever seen. He has a very nice collection of dice…

And then there’s me taking Lowhhrick and Rey. I’ve come second at a couple of store championships… and like rolling lots of red dice.

All the lists from the weekend can be found here.

Our host for the weekend, on top of being event organiser and judge is Robert Mortensen, and a better example of all that is good in the X-Wing community is hard to find. He’s given us space to sleep and been hugely supportive in our visit.

This is my second experience of international X-Wing and I am thoroughly looking forward to playing some new people!

The event is small for a regional, with 16 players anticipated but one drop making it a very compact field. However chatting with Robert we found out that the entire X-Wing population of Norway probably weighs in at about 50 active gamers. We in the UK are so fortunate to have such a large scene and I think that sometimes we take for granted the regularity of tournaments and size of community that we enjoy.

But it is worth pointing out that quality of player and quantity of player don’t equate. With a small field the three of us felt fairly confident, all using two ship lists that we’re pretty competent with, only to find out on being greeted by Robert that there were potentially 5 Kylo Rens coming, exactly what our lists want to see….

The event was tucked away in the top floor of a university building, Robert’s excellent stream channel table in the hall way, the rest of us playing in a large class room. I’ve played in events where 30 people would have been crammed into the same space and we have been grateful! But the space provided to walk around the table, have loads of room for cards and templates contributed to the chilled out atmosphere of the whole event. Rarely have I enjoyed playing X-Wing in such comfort.

15 players and going to go to a cut to top 8. Some people might think that’s excessive, but given that three of us had come from the UK and a few guys had made the drive over from Sweden I think it was a great decision to give us all the opportunity to play more games.

In the four rounds of swiss we played, I had one of my most memorable games ever, against fellow 186th Ben, with a small field it was inevitable that we would play each other. I think it is one of the most intense games have ever played, and finished with a final salvo due to mutual destruction. The whole game can be seen on Robert’s excellent twitch channel if you fancy it. It was a great game against one of the finest opponents I have ever played, mistakes were made at the end cause our brains were fried!

I went 2-2 and scraped the cut by 19 points, had the player who came in 9th taken one more hull of RAC in his final game he would have trumped me. Had I not rolled a crit when Rey dodged Poe by zipping over debris I might have gone 3-1. X-wing is a game of small margins, where one dice roll can made all the difference, or clipping a rock can mean the difference between Rey ruining Dash and her taking 6 damage.

Oli came in top of swiss with 4-0 and Ben, despite taking on Kylo RAC twice with Dash and Miranda managed to come in 5th. So we all got shiny dice. Oli would go on to smash me in the top 8 match, lining up a semi final with Ben. If you want to watch the best game of X-Wing I have yet to see then watch this. Two players playing almost perfectly for 75 minutes with the game swinging one way then the other was an enthralling watch, do yourself a favour and have a watch. I’ve watched it again this evening while writing this and it’s just as good the second time round!

Players hung around and watched, enjoying the atmosphere of final, which was not won by a visitor, but by one of Trondheim’s own flying Thweek, Guri and Fenn Rau. Fantastic predictive flying by Gaute screwed Oli and the event had a well deserved champions. The whole event ran smoothly, was full of the exceptional standard of sportsmanship I have come to expect from the X-Wing community where ever I travel and the quality of players was incredibly high.

Hopefully people reading this will come along next year and make a bigger event of it, the guys in Norway would love some more visitors to show of their beautiful home to. I suspect that if we give Robert more to work with then the standard of the event will be worth all the time and money it costs to get there… and I haven’t even mentioned the incredible prize support.

Last week I debated between LowRey (or as it was dubbed for the event Furrey) and Boba Fenn. I should have taken Boba and Fenn with me:

I love them more

It would have been a more interesting meta call

Both ships can actually hurt things. Lowrrick is 30+ points of never hurting things.

Lowrey is a really, really good list, but Rey has to do a lot of work, if she gets it wrong…

But as of Thursday everything changes so who knows where it goes from here.

I’m not going to pretend that the three of us didn’t travel all that way because we didn’t want dice, of course we want the shiny dice. However anyone who travels 1000 miles for some dice needs their head read about as much as someone who spends £100 on a set! But X-Wing is about so much more than shiny bits of plastic: the community, the experience and the people you meet. Norway was a revelation for all of us and we all left wanting an excuse to come back. I would hope that any one visiting the UK to play X-Wing enjoys their experience half as much as we did.

And it would be morally abhorrent not thank Robert, his wife and children for opening their house out to three strangers from a foreign land, feeding them, driving them around and being the most exceptional example of hospitality. On behalf of Oli, Ben and myself Robert you are a hero.

International X-Wing. Give it a go.

NEXT WEEK: A MEMBER OF THE 186th VISITS THE HOME OF THE WEEKEND WARLORDS…

If you’re looking for tournaments then head over to the 186th Tournament Calendar and see what’s going on that you can get to.