Next weekend is the European Team Championships (ETC), and I’m off to Croatia with a whole bunch of awesome people to play this game that we love. This weekend is a bit of a warm up. I’m off to Canterbury with fellow 186th members, Dale Cromwell and Cormac Higgins, both of whom are also heading to Croatia in a few days. We are joined by Tom Tattersal and Joel North, who sadly are not coming on our adventure next weekend. Cormac is the captain of team Ireland and Dale will be one of my team mates representing England.

After some fully pointed gamed of 2.0 on Friday evening, Saturday means a visit to Dice and Destiny for their store champs. It’s a comparatively small event today compared to some I’ve been to in recent weeks. 14 players, 4 rounds and no cut, after four rounds one player should be on 4-0, everyone else will not be. Dale, Cormac and I are flying our ETC lists. Cormac has his Scurrgs, Dale his Imperials and I have Boba Guri.

Last weekend on the Sunday Guri terrorised a few people, then in practice games during the week she has continued her good run of form. It’s quite simple, Intensity Guri has become my absolute favourite ship in 1.0, and with the PDF getting released on Friday I’m pretty sure she is going to be my favourite ship in 2.0 as well. Along side Boba and Fenn she makes up the triumvirate of “ships I want to fly” and all three look like they’re going to be strong in 2.0. Wave 1 events Boba Fenn, everything else Boba Guri.

A few people have asked “If everyone starts flying Boba are you going to stop?” Please! I’ve been running him solidly for over 18 months as my go to ship when he’s not been “great” I like to think of him being pretty good as my reward for the perseverance! I know some people are sad to see the end of Nymanda, Ghost Fenn and RAClo but I’m not. I love what they have done with 2.0. The increased premium of action economy means that dice variance becomes a bigger factor in the game, which means that positioning is more important than it has been for ages.

The big reset button that is 2.0 has levelled out the playing field on so many things. Sure there is an argument that more emphasis on dice means that luck will play a bigger factor in the game, but and it is a big but, X-Wing has always been a game of risk management: is shooting here worth getting shot there? The truth has always been that the best green dice are the ones you never need to roll. Positioning is what the game will be about.

I’m really happy to see what my lists will look like in 2.0… Guri will be insane!

Super expensive Guri, but a 7 health high Initiative Star Viper sounds worth it to me. The other list that I am more than likely to fly (especially in Wave 1) where there may be some restrictions is Boba Fenn. With Fenn weighing in at only 71 point with Fearless this Boba just gets a whole lot of toys.

But that is for the future, there is plenty of 1.0 to enjoy before the 13th of September. Back to Canterbury. The venue is warm. For anyone unaware the UK has been “enjoying” the craziest heat-wave I can ever remember for the last few weeks, and a hot Saturday spent in a basement with a bunch of other people is warm.

With only 14 players top 8 basically means going 2-2 to get templates. The games were a thing of fine margins, mainly painful for me just being the wrong side of most of them.

In the opening exchange with Dave in game one his Quickdraw refused to get hurt when Boba put 5 dice into him and Guri 3. Had Quickdraw died when he should have then the Dave’s two, very well flown, Silencers should have been relatively easy pickings for Guri due to her higher pilot skill and maneuverability. Alas that extra turn of double tapping from Quickdraw meant that she picked up too much damage to make much of a fight of things. Had the crit her APTs landed on a silencer been a double damage then she would have been up on points and pilot skill, but alas it was not to be, and she dropped 36-100 loss.

Round 2 and paired up to play Dale running his Vermeil, Vader and Sabaac list. I was fully expecting this one to go heavily in Dales favour, I think we both were. But when Boba did what he is meant to do in the opening engagement I dared to believe. I was able to somehow drop Vermiel and Sabaac in the same turn and then turn both ships towards Vader. I won this one 100-27, I don’t think that it could happen again and I am very glad that next weekend I will be on Dale’s team rather than having to play against him!

Game 3, and paired up again! This time into Fred Bettsworth running Assaj and Dengar. This is the third time I’ve played Fred using this list, so he clearly as a lot of table time with it. Before the game we were 1-1. This game was comfortably the best of four enjoyable games. Boba and Dengar tore absolute chunks out of each other, with the firespray limping away on top. Early dancing with Guri against the PS9 jumpmaster had resulted on here taking a bit of a hit. With both ships on one health against a 9 health Ventress it was a bit of an ask. Had Boba landed a second ion on her before he went pop then Guri could have zoomed in the following turn for a free APT, unfortunately that missed and Ventress dropped Boba.

9 Hull Ventress, worth 45 points. 1 hull Guri worth 46. Let the chase begin! I had to run, and ran for a while, then I was able to surprise Fred and get in the side of him rather than keeping running. At which point Guri began to whittle down the Lancer one hull at a time. A crit sneaked in, the glorious “don’t” bump. Guri can block. Guri can really block.

The next three turns saw Fred blocked and landing on rocks and Ventress’s health plumet to 1. Had he been kind enough to roll a hit on any of those rocks then that would have been nice… and so we came to that last turn. Guri sitting in front of Assaj, one block to win the game. Fred needing one hit to win the game. I have to pick to block, Fred has to pick a move I have to try and work out where he is going to be. He has to work out where I am going to be. I opt to block the 3 bank or the 3 forward. Fred does the 5 forward. Guri dies.

This was one of those games where the desire to win was eclipsed by the intensity of the experience. I love playing X-Wing because it can deliver games with this sort of tension. I didn’t lose because of the dice, I lost because I had 2 options in front of me and I guessed wrong, Fred won because he had two options in front of him and he guessed right. A Boost would have won the game for me, but I chose not to. That’s not flying badly or a poor decision, it was a 50/50 and thrilling climax to an unbelievably tense game. I was dead chuffed at pulling the damage balance back the way I did!

My fourth game has no photo, Ricky was flying Rey Low, and I love this match up with Boba Guri, matching pilot skills, big slugging jousters and plenty of damage. I’ve played it a whole bunch of times and it’s a 50/50 pairing. Or should be. This was one of those games when the dice took the tension out of the game. When Boba with Fearlessness, four re-rolls and Glitterstim only manages to roll two hits in the opening engagement the trade of with Rey is simply too heavily in her favour.

An excellent block from Ricky in the second engage saw Boba sit still, not what I wanted there, then the dice swung it further in his favour. A top opponent but a frustrating game because it should have been closer than the 100-0 that if finished as. I found myself repeating the bad dice mantra in my head, “the odds of rolling 3 blanks is the same as the odds of rolling 3 evades.” The dice were lucky, they just weren’t good. Ricky was a top sport, almost wincing when the dice landed every time. He flew his list really well and as all good players do took advantage of the situation presented him. It’s just the way things go.

Tom Tattersal won the day, with his Poe and Chewie build, with Cormac coming in second, so that was a good day from a team point of view. But I was left with the feeling that but for some fine margins I could well have had a much better day of results. Don’t think I could ask for a better day of games though.

Next Time: CROATIA!

If you’re looking for X-Wing tournaments to play in then head over to the 186th Tournament Calendar to see what you can get to.