This past weekend, fourteen other Arch Alliance members and I drove out to Valhalla’s Gate Games in Columbia, Missouri to participate in a team tournament. The tournament format was based on a team chess format and, as far as I know, is unique in X-Wing. There were three teams of fifteen people each, one from St. Louis, one from Kansas City, and one from central Missouri, mostly Columbia and Mexico, MO. After four rounds of Swiss, the top ten players from each team’s scores are tallied. The two top scoring teams each send three people to a best out of three final match. The second place team puts forward their top three players first, and then the first place team gets to decide which of their top three team members to pit against those players.

This was the first team event I had ever been to, and I have to say, it felt wonderful to have traveled somewhere to play X-Wing and be able to go the whole day without having to worry about getting paired up against someone from home (looking at you, Matt Cary). It was also really fun to feel like your wins and losses affected the whole team, and you needed to pull through for them, even in a game that normally wouldn’t have particularly mattered. If you’re zero and two, you can still submarine to two and two to give your team two points!

I played a total of four games, and went two and two for the day. My first game was against a Drea swarm flown by Kansas City’s Alex Smittle, who’s recent claim to fame was winning the Third Annual Crossroads Classic.

I knew as soon as I saw who my opponent was and what he was flying that I was going to have a really tough road ahead of me. I lost the game, but both Guri and Boba put up more of a fight than I had any right to expect. Alex was a great opponent and this game was very possibly the most fun I’ve ever had playing a tournament game of X-Wing. Thanks for the great game, Alex!

I’m not much of one for “bat repping” my games, so I’ll just say that the rest of my games were also a blast to play, and all of my other opponents were all fantastic people. I feel privileged to have been able to push plastic ships around a table with this great community.

Now on to the tournament overall. The Kansas City crew pulled ahead of both St. Louis and the Mid-Missouri guys pretty early on in the tournament and maintained their lead right up until the last round of Swiss, when Arch Alliance pulled out win after win to take the lead. The final Swiss round points scored for the each team ended up being:

11 points for Mid-Missouri

28 points for Kansas City

29 points for St. Louis

Kansas City had some very strong individual showings, as three out of the four undefeated Swiss players were out of K.C., but Arch Alliance had a stronger team showing overall with one 4-0 and seven 3-1. In the end though, Kansas City’s top players for the day pulled out the win for them, winning two out of three of the top cut games, and claiming the Missourichlorian trophy.

For those who are interested, here’s the List Fortress entry for the tournament. Thanks Doug, for getting that up so quickly. In the top four, there were two Scum and Villiany lists, one Rebel, and one Imperial. The two Scum lists both brought a pretty standard assortment of the excellent pieces Scum had to offer – Boba, Kavil, Palob, Fenn, and 4-Lom. No real surprises there. The Rebel list was a cool take on all the good things Rebels can bring to the table: four ships with a hard hitting proton torp Wedge, Dutch for action economy, damage dispersal with Biggs, and a cheap coordinate with AP-5. All good stuff, and fairly typical of the type of Rebel lists we are starting to see at the top tables. The one crazy outlier was the Imperial list. Michael Simon took four Saber Squadron Ace Tie Interceptors and Gideon Hask all with Crack Shot all the way to the top of the Swiss rounds. To see Michael’s list in action for a few rounds, check out the Arch Alliance X-Wing channel on YouTube when they get it posted in the next few days.

Overall, it was a great day and everyone had a fantastic time. Many thanks to Mr. Bob Howe for organizing the event; to Anthony Lutz, Doug Howe, and Alex Smittle for helping with the organization and putting together prizes; to Jamie Toon, Matt Nute, and Alex Bell for the alt art cards; and to Valhalla’s Gate Games for hosting us. I know that we of the Arch Alliance are looking forward to a rematch next year when we will be reclaiming the Missourichlorian trophy and bringing it home.

If you are in the St. Louis area or coming to visit, reach out to Arch Alliance X-wing on Facebook to find out where we are playing on any given night.