Yesterday I went to an escalation tournament at my lgs, Epic Loot in Centerville, and ended up finishing 2-2.

I brought;

Wedge with Veteran Instincts

Wes with Veteran Instincts

Dagger Squadron Pilot with Ion Cannon and Advanced Sensors

Dagger Squadron Pilot with Ion Cannon and Advanced Sensors

Dagger Squadron Pilot with Ion Cannon and Advanced Sensors

My plan was to use Wedge/Wes as the main damage in my force, while the daggers provide a lot of utility. Everything was 30 points, so that made building up in levels easy. I took dual vet instincts to help fight fat falcons and phantoms. The vet instincts were money, though I never fired a single ion cannon. Wes also knocking focus tokens or target locks off of ships before they could shoot was great, as I could effectively neuter a models offensive power.

Round 1

First round was against Jeff. Jeff is the only person I have lost to in tournaments, and he was running the most obese of Han Solos that I have ever seen. Sweet, I brought vet instincts for a reason, and stripping off his focus tokens meant that he was relying on naked dice+Solo reroll to do damage.

By turn 4 I had lost 2 shields off Wedge, and knocked all shields and 2 hull points off of Han. And then it happened. I was playing too fast, and forgot to knock off Han's focus token with Wes. I could hear Harrison Ford's voice in my head, "great kid, don't get cocky". He shot Wedge at range 1, and rolled 3 eyeballs, focuses it, and I rolled 2 blanks. Wedge is dead. Mobility Scooter Han is a different beast entirely when you fight him 1v1, and I had to gg since Wes wasn't doing any damage.

Best example of shitting the bed I have ever done in x-wing.

Round 2

Played against Atomic Frying Pan and his 2 outriders. List was Dash with HLC turret, ptl, Nien Nunb, and engine upgrade. He also had Eaden Vrill with a tactician. Interesting list, lots of mobility and turrets, and tougher than my list. But not as much net firepower.

We jousted, and after some weird bumping I had knocked the shields off both outriders and taken random damage across the board. 2 turns of mediocre rolling on his part later, and I had managed to take out Eaden Vrill in exchange for Wedge. The rest of the game was Wes and a dagger chasing a half dead Dash around the board. We went from end of the map to the other, where I cornered Dash. He shot and killed Wes, but the dagger unloaded at range 1 and took him out. Win for me, and 1-1 heading into

Round 3

Round 3 I played against James. He was running a souped up Whisper, Dark Curse, Howlrunner, and 3 academy pilots.

I had actually played this exact match up against James two days before, and kicked this list to the curb. Trading a b-wing for a near tabling. However, I just wasn't thinking at all this game. I chose to try and rush the swarm, and let Whisper flank me. I realized how stupid this decision was just after it was too late to change anything, and got destroyed in this game. Another dumb loss due to playing too fast, worst game of my life.

Round 4

I played against the TO, Jordan in this round. He was running howlrunner, 3 deltas with ion cannons, and Captain Yorr.

After a bloody parking lot scrum where everything bumped everyone else, He came away with two deltas, one half dead, Howlrunner, and Yorr. I had Wedge and a dagger left. But due to his positioning I was able to clean up, and he surrendered when it came down to Wedge and a Delta vs Yorr.

End Result

Finished 2-2. I think I need to really play slower and think about what I am doing in these games more. Both these games I lost can be attributed to, in a large part, to making stupid mistakes and not thinking about what I am doing. Looking back at my tournament experiences, I almost always have my dials down before my opponents, often by a minute or more. And so I think I am just rushing my play along. I used to be able to play very fast and off the cuff in 40k, but I am realizing now that I was doing that after 8 years of game experience, and I have just over a year with x-wing. X-wing is also a game that, due to the smaller numbers of models on the field and simple objective, is much harder to come back from.

The other thing that I really noticed was that I am still playing a much older version of x-wing. Almost all of my lists are built around jousting, and a very offensive front loaded mentality. I try and hit my opponent as hard as possible, as quickly as possible, and not give them time to recover. This is working less and less in a meta full of ships that can arc dodge right and left. So I either need to accept that, to some degree, I am handicapping myself in options, or move along and play a more modern fleet.