****** EDIT: ACT 1, ACT 2 AND ACT 3 NOW POSTED ******* (forgot I couldn't change thread title)

Texx’s (Dallas Parker) Report for World’s 2014

Howdy ya’ll! (Normally I don’t say that, but it works with the screen name).

Note that I’m more of an engineer type, so my story telling/english skills are not amazing. So there will be misspellings and typos for sure (although no Typo). It is also turning out to be long, so you may want to grab some popcorn or something while you read.

ACT 1

So last year, I had an absolute blast at 2013 Worlds, coming within 1 hull point of winning it all, but Paul beat me to the punch. I was really looking forward to Worlds all year, and made it a priority to attend. I had some good success this year, winning a Store Championship and the California Regional (just before Wave 4 hit). I didn’t do great at Gencon (went 2-3 on the final day), so I was hoping to pull out a better position this year. Although, as I joked with a couple friends, if I made to the final match and lost by 1 hull point again, I may have had to flip the table (after all the ships and stuff get removed for safety of course).

First up was the choice of choosing a squad list. With wave 5 poised to be released just before Worlds (like Wave 3 last year), I needed a list that could do well against anything. Over the past year, I had been doing very well with the Tie Swarm, being my go to squad. Wave 4 put a bit of a damper on things, with the introduction of the elite Whisper or Echo which, if flown well, can kill off 7 Ties if given enough time. However, with Wave 5, I was expecting a lot more big ships, with some nice Decimator builds, and the already infamous fast/3 action Dash.

Thus sticking with the Swarm seemed like a good idea instead of trying to work in phantom. However, with the announcement that Wave 5 would not be legal, it did give me pause, but I decided to stick to my guns and see if a Swarm could pull it out again.

For the list design, I took the swarm that had been slightly tweaked throughout the year. Originally, a formation of 6 ships with a flanker was not as good as last year. I was trying to plan against the three big scary archetypes (Swarm, Fat Falcon, and elite Phantom), trying to minimize any weaknesses. Both a Fat (and fast) falcon as well as a Phantom love to see a solo flank ship like Backstabber, charge forward and rip it apart before the swarm formation could catch up. Thus I figured half the time I would have to fly the flanker over to the swarm as protection. So, I might as well integrate the 7 ^th ship into the formation at that point. The original column formation from last year was not well suited for 7 ships, so I had to make some changes. I liked the horizontal offset formation (Nick has a good video on youtube about how it works with 4 bombers). So, I took that idea and ran with it, making a second turn ‘blunted diamond’ formation, that was 2 by 3 by 2 after two barrel rolls. This kept the formation rather compact, without worrying overly complex angles (an expanded pin-wheel formation would have given me fits). Its best firing arc angle is actually when the swarm banks, since most of the time this is the orientation angle of most first engagements in my experience. It also had the added bonus of every ship being within R1 of each other and gave me couple of speeds I could do Turn 1 instead of locking me into a single option.

For the final list, I went with:

Howlrunner+hull+VI

2x Black Squad+DTF

4x AP

100pts on the dot. It’s pretty much ‘Protect the QB’, wave 4 edition.

I always like running APs. Being able to move first with several ships can open tons of options, and can mess with your opponent while giving you assurance that nothing will mess with your final spot. Also, as most people have experienced (but may not think about too much), is the efficiency of shooting last. Playing a lot of 40k necrons, I have learned how it can be almost as advantageous to shoot second rather than first. If you shoot first and roll a focus, you have a really hard choice. Do you spend that focus and hope the defender doesn’t roll good evades? What if the enemy then sends all his shots at that one ship? If one ship out of 4 uses it, it makes it a clear target for being the target of all the later attacks. However, shooting last means that as the green dice come up, as the defender, you know almost exactly if you need to spend focus or not. Plus, with multiple 1’s, whichever ship is focused can use focus, while all the others can spend it on offense.

The Blacks were the newest addition. Having a single one, while nice, isn’t nearly as good as two. It lets them have a good shot at killing a weak ship (say another Tie or Z) with Howl’s pot shot before it can fire. One of the big changes was DTF. A single Black with DTF makes a really good body-guard for howl, taking those nasty crits away that result in a howl 1 or 2 shot. However, with two DTF’s it gets even better. It teams up perfectly with the APs, as well as the other Black. It really gives a no win situation for the enemy shots. If they focus on a front AP, it’s the cheapest margin wise, and a Black at the back of the formation can draw a crit off it. If that AP takes another crit, the other Black can draw that without risking a direct hit insta-gib. Same situation for howlrunner, it just usually even harder shots since she is in the back. Also it makes a shot on a black squad not good, since one can draw from the other. Note this is not as good come Wave 5, since there will be a significantly more heavy laser cannons out and about.

Last up is howlrunner’s build. Hull was a great addition. Just watch the final match from last year and you’ll know why I swapped it for Stealth device. The hull pairs up well with double DTF as well. One extra hull is just as good as a shield upgrade if you are not taking any early crits. However, DTF will take care of the crits, so you can save a point . The last item was the most interesting. VI on Howlrunner. I know I know, it sounds really stupid, and that’s what I thought when I first heard it when the idea was thrown out in a brainstorming session during Gencon with Dave/Richard/Jonathan with whom I was rooming. However, it kept coming back into my brain over and over. The worst matchup for the swarm in the current meta is an PS 8 or 9 Phantom. That ship’s biggest advantage is seeing where everything moves and getting out of arcs, while lining up its own shot. Plus if anything shoots at PS8 or below, the phantom should be recloaked (most likely with a token or two), and laugh at the attempts to hit it with two red dice. Spending a SINGLE point flips it on its head. I know, Howl only has two attack dice without a reroll. However, just think about this scenario for a quick second. What if you are flying a phantom, and there a few moves that a single fighter could do to leave it with a 3 red dice, focused shot against your 2 green dice defense (maybe without actions) on your phantom? What happens if it comes up hit/hit/crit vs. blank/blank? What if there are a few more focused/reroll shots following that up later? Would that make you nervous? I would be, even more-so at a Worlds event. That is one of the reasons for my choice: make Phantoms, my counter build, sweat. It is also a defensive. The best moves for a phantom would be skirting around a Tie formation, and being barely in arc to shoot at high priority targets. However, they can never be absolutely sure where Howl will be now. Plus, with her native BR, I can get out of arcs if the phantom tries to get too fancy. It even has a bonus vs. a Pred Han. I can block him up, and know approximately where he is going to be. I can then fly Howl into Han, which means she could be safe. Just have to remind myself I can’t use Howl to block Han like normal. Note that I could have left VI off, and gone for 99pts. However, last year I went with a 98 pt initiative bid, and it either never mattered, or when it did it was up against 98 as well and I lost the roll. So I figured I would try to completely maximize my points total this time.

The other nice bonus for this squad is the simplicity. Gives me some options on maneuver timings, and there are few upgrades to remember, and they are mostly ‘passive’, meaning there is a lot less to focus on in the list so I can focus on maneuvers and my opponents squad and tricks. Plus 7 ships take a lot more effort than 3 or 4, so I could save some mental energy.

Unfortunately I didn’t get much practice with the list a ton (only like three games against a counter phantom list), but figured my odds were pretty good for not running into phantoms compared to say Falcons. I also didn’t get the time to try out Hothie’s death blossom move and modify it for my formation. Plus I had been flying versions of swarms off and on so I figured I should be able to do well enough when the time came.

Off to Worlds. I had entered into Flight 1 (which left me a *chance* at Flight 2 if I needed it following Gencon’s example). It sounded like it was close to full, so somewhere around 110 ish people playing. I’ll more or less give a summary of the games, as there are some I remember more about than others.

Note: I didn’t write down names, and I am very bad at remembering them, so please don’t take offense if I don’t mention your name (or just straight up get it wrong). Feel free to correct me in a reply.

Round 1:

I got my first matchup against 4 Blues and 1 Bandit.

Felt pretty good about the matchup, killing the bandit early for little return damage. However, with the pileups, the Blues where very resilient with, and the game came right down to the wire. I believe it came down to time, with Howl and an AP alive to 1 Blue alive. So I SQUEEQUED out a match win at a 12pt margin for my first game. Rocky start, but at least a win is a win.

Round 2:

E’than+PTL+R2, Tarn+stess droid, 3 Bandits.

At first I was happy my double DTF would be very useful vs his crits. However, then I released just how many crits he was churning out. I don’t remember many specifics, but the game was very bloody. I was almost able to kill Tarn in a turn, but he was able to live for an extra turn. It came down to him trying to chase down Howlrunner for the margin.

I do have to thank my opponent for being very gracious with me. With all the chaos of moves near the end of the game, Howls dial got pushed across the table into the pile with all the other Ties. I found it in the group, but it had rotated over to a 3 straight. He let me go ahead and put it back to the 3 turn I had originally planned, since it was somewhat obvious I wouldn’t let Howl fly toward the board edge and stay in arc of everyone in his list. I am very thankful to you sir, and it was a great example of the Fly Casual attitude I ran into over the whole weekend.

In the end, I ended up winning by about 20ish points, securing my second match win.

Round 3:

Farlander+HLC+PTL, Luke+VI+engine+stress droid, Biggs+hull?

I stayed behind the asteroid cluster, blitzing forward trying to come around on his side. My opponent did a good job moving up and coming back at an angle, picking off a ship for little to no damage in return due to arcs around the big asteroid. He then pulled a rather good 3 turn with Biggs to split my fire between a R1 Farland and a R2 rock Biggs. However, my dice where red hot on Farlander for the shots that didn’t have to aim at biggs, eating through his shields and landing a very big Blinded pilot. This allowed me to pile-up and block Farlander and drag him down without worry. He ended up killing 2 or 3 Ties, but I was able to finish off Luke and Biggs before time was called. This gave me a rather large margin match win.

Round 4:

Vs. Bernie running Echo+VI+ACD+FCS+Rebel Captive, Doom shuttle+scopes+intel agent?, BH+intel agent?

So, got matched up against a phantom, and unfortunately its Echo (whisper is harder to hit, but can get blocked easier). So, the basic plan against phantoms is to more or less ignore the phantom, kill everything else, then either block the phantom up or run away from it. I started on the left, with the shuttle middle, BH shifted right and echo on the left-ish. I moved up slow, and echo danced around in his deployment zone while the BH and shuttle start to bank in. I held straight, covering the left of where echo could be going, which kept the BH out of range, and the shuttle with a single R3 shot on my front AP. As such, he had to move echo kinda to the side of the shuttle, facing at an angle away from my swarm. Next turn was amazing for me. I got a 3 hard in with everyone, landed almost everyone at R1 of the shuttle (even though the shuttle moved first). The BH had to go straight, and barely missed his arc on the swarm. Most surprisingly, echo went 4 straight, AWAY from the whole swarm. I’d like to think the VI howl helped with that

I was able to melt his shuttle (only eating a direct hit from vader on Howl). The BH fell shortly after, and then it was Echo vs 7 Ties. I tried a couple times to block him up and land some hits, but with all his cloak options open, he was able to skirt over half and then one shot Ties a couple times. At this point we only had a few min, so I ran Howl away, and Echo gave chase. Thankfully she was able to survive a long range shot, so I was able to get a match win without it being too scary.

Round 5:

Vs. Josh who had Whisper+VI+ACD+FCS+Intel agent, and 5 AP.

Dang, it was another Phantom matchup. Also the worst kind of phantom. Per my basic Swiss pairings plan, I had to go after the Phantom’s support, kill it all, and hope the phantom wasn’t one-shotting Ties. However, Ties have a real hard time killing other Ties fast, so I knew I was in for a hard game. Hopefully I could kill all 5, while only losing 4 of my own. I lost the initiative roll so I knew it would be even more uphill…

He sets up his 5 on the right, and I setup my formation to joust. This would force Whisper’s hand and she would probably have to either miss the first round, or engage from long range. However, he had my number. I also didn’t quite get my starting speed right, so he was able to block most of my formation going full speed for two turns. Without focus, whisper was able to punk a Black squad at R3, and the other APs where able to drop one of mine while I was able to drop one of his. Unfortunately I was in a bad spot, so I figured I’d try to see what shenanigans Howl could pull. After some good moves by Josh to block a couple of my K-turns, he banked in Whisper to avoid a shot from one of my hard turning APs, while getting to the flank of one of my now stressed APs. However, Howl at PS10 did a 3 hard, and landed in point blank range of Whisper and focused. I shook those red dice so hard, hoping for the magical 2 hit+1 crit roll, and got 3 hits with the focus. He evaded 1, so I got two shields off. Not bad, but not great. However, I had one more shot from an AP who had made his K-turn. He got a single hit (barely out of R1 of Howl), and Whisper blanked her roll, leaving her with 1 hull left. ARGGGGGGG. I had one more chance to try and drop Whipser next turn, so I did some moves trying to block whisper and K-turned howl. However, Josh banked Whisper away, using Intel on howl, and did a pro BR to be JUST outside Howl’s range. He was then able to drop another Tie, and the two APs of his were able to drop Howl at R2. It was mop-up from him from there. In the end I lost, having 2 Ties to his 2-3 Ties and Whisper. He definitely out played me, and the end result proved it, although I had a couple small chances to try and hang on.

Thus I had one more shot to get at least a Tie/Mod/Match win in the final round.

Round 6:

Vs Jonathan Gomes running 3 Blues+E2+Tactician and 1 Gold+ion+stress droid.

The good news is it wasn’t a phantom build. The problem was it I was paired against Jonathan. Since last year when we both were in the top 4 at Worlds, we have chatted a lot and hung out together all through Gencon. We had even gotten dinner the night before and talked about our lists and strategies. And here we are paired together, both at 4-1 in the final round of Swiss. So whoever lost this match was almost guaranteed to get knocked out of the top 16 (since our Margins where about ave).

Asteroids are setup in a pyramid shape, with the base long my deployment zone. I setup my blunted diamond left while he sets up his ships in a line mid table-ish. I start moving quick, while he banks away and then does 4 red straights. However, I make a small mistake. Before he reveals his 4 red straights, I decided against Rolling my formation up and left. This would leave me very tight to the center asteroid next turn, with my back right Black Squad going over the rock. I elect to focus, hoping to do some free long range damage instead. It does pay off, and I get 3 shields of the gold (only thing in range/arc) with no return shot.

Next turn gets interesting. I hard 3 turn the four APs to try to block the blues from my view, while being in their flanks at R1. However, when he 1 banks the blues, they move out far enough from the Ties, and land their 45deg bases in-between my 45deg bases, leaving him with focused R1 shots on my bottom row. Add to that, that front one moved and block the 3 hard from the back Black. This pushes him back onto an AP, which makes him land on the rock I was planning to fly through. Really not good. Howl banks and has no shot but is in good position. During shooting, the front Blue who blocked now has a shot on the beached Black, and one-shots him. The other two blues also manage to kill a front AP before it shoots. I do some damage to the blues, but they roll good evades and I can’t do as much damage as I expected.

We are both in a weird position. I can’t get the whole group to K-turn, since we are at an angle. Also, if the Blues K-turn as well, I’ll be at R2 and start eating double stress. So, for the most part I elect to ram my whole formation, trying to stay away from the gold that is facing away, and hope Jonathan rolls average on his unmodified 4 red shots while I maximize my Howl RRs with the return fire of 3 red vs 1 green. It doesn’t go well, and he punks another Tie, while I am only able to drop the nearly dead blue and do like a single shield to the back one.

I stay bumping bar a single K-turn, and the blues can’t K-turn due to the rock and the remnants of my two deep formation. I do more damage, but can’t kill the damaged Blue. I believe he drops a third Tie with a really good roll. He also is in range with the gold that is flying into the asteroids and ions the Tie that did the K-turn (not a big deal since he would bump a blue next turn anyway).

Time is running out, and I’m behind in points. I really have to kill a second blue. I K-turn everyone bar the already stressed Tie. He then goes for the K-turns on the blues as well. I thought when looking at left blue, that his angle would clip the rock that beached my Black earlier with his K-turn. Jonathan goes for it anyway, since he has very few other moves and we are very close on time. He puts down the ship, and we both look at it. It is rubbing the side of the asteroid, but not overlapping it. ARRRGGGGGGGG. So, with two shots instead of one on my previous ion’ed Tie, he drops it. I then roll bad and his hurt blue lives with 1 hull. He is also barely in range to ion my black that had to go forward the turn before and ions him.

We have one more turn. I have 3 ships to his 3. I have to drop a ship. I know the points are real close, but with the stress of the situation I have to just focus on killing his second blue without losing any of my Ties (both AP and black are damaged bad). I am able to setup a move with the AP to block both his blues, and Howl to run into him to get a R1 shot. For the last shots, Howl rolls well and Drops the damaged blue. The last blue can’t shoot at the AP (overlapped) and tries for a long range shot on the evading black, and doesn’t kill him. The Ion is also just out of range. Time was called right near the end of shots, so game over!

We are having a really fun time, but we are both really worried at the points. We tally it up. He destroyed 3 APs and a Black for 51 points destroyed. I destroyed two Blues for 50 points. ARRRRRGGGGGGGGG. I wasn’t sure on my quick math, since I was forgetting about the single point on E2, and points left on the board got mixed up with points destroyed while I was rushing for the last two turns. So Jonathan ends up with a mod win, and makes it into the top 16 with a total of 23 match points on the day. Since I lost, I’m stuck at 20 match points, and since my margin is not amazingly good, I don’t get into the last three spots for the 4-2 group. If my last game was a tie, I would have had 21 point and made it in guaranteed. Sadface.

I did have a really fun match with Jonathan, both of us joking around while we were trying to kill each other. I had a really fun day, but every round except one went to time, so I was utterly exhausted. At first I wasn’t sure if I should even try and enter the lottery for Flight 2 or not since I was so drained (being 4-0, then getting whisper to 1 hull, and losing last game by 1 point was a downer). I put my name down on the list anyway, even though the rumor was that since Flight 2 was close to full, there would only be a few people out of say 50 that would make it in. So my hopes weren’t high. Oh well, figured I’d go back the next day and cheer on my fellow SoCal buddies (most of whom were already signed-up for Flight 2).

To be continued……

(I was home sick today, so was able to spend a lot of time on this one, not sure when I’ll get ACT 2 and 3 written and posted, guess it’ll add a bit of suspense).

ACT 2:

So, didn’t sleep fantastic, but at least most of the pressure was off since I didn’t think I would make it through the lottery for Flight 2. How it worked was like this: First, everyone pre-registered for Flight 2 had to sign-in with squad sheets. Then, the FFG guys had to wait a little bit to make sure those missing were actually no-shows. About the same time, they were taking walk-up registrations for those people that DIDN’T play in Flight 1, since they would get priority. Lastly, there was a ‘lottery’ from the wait list of people from Flight 1. Whatever spots were left would be randomized out to those remaining players, until they filled the 128 person cap. That the selection process.

I get there early (~9:15am), just in case organizers need another piles of squad sheets to select from. So, there I was chilling with the SoCal guys (several of whom had the pretty awesome you ‘Stay on Target, San Diego’ with Ron Bergundy’s face photoshopped over Han’s) Friday morning. Anyway, they do last call for pre-registers at 9:45. They then do a call for any walk-ups that hadn’t played yesterday a few minutes later. Time goes by. I’m debating about getting some of my stuff out, since it takes me like 15min to setup everything. But, that would make me way more depressed to not get called and pack everything up again. Around 10:00am (the time when the tourney should be starting), they announce that since there was a significant number of drops, the ‘majority of the lottery should get in’. Still had no idea how many were in the lottery though. They call out a bunch of names, each one getting a small cheer from their friends. They probably go through some 20-30 names, but no Dallas Parker. They stop, talk frantically with the other organizers, and head back to the desk without a word around 10:10 ish. So I figured that was that. However, they come back a few minutes later, since it seems like a few people that were called on the lottery weren’t there as well. Each name is spaced out, and the cheers are louder. They leave for a quick minute again. Oh well… Wait, they came back again. They then announce ‘final spot’, and call out one more name, and it’s still not mine. But they stay there trying to track who is moving forward to claim their spot. A minute later, they blurt out another name or two, looking around for those people. At this point I’m dying from the anticipation, since my head and feet were still somewhat sore from yesterday’s grind fest. Thankfully, one of those last two names Starslinger recognized and yelled out to ignore it since he was already in. They double and triple check their sheets, working as fast as they can. It’s now going on 10:20. Oh well, it’s not meant to be. They then blurt out one final name: Dallas Parker! I think I let out the biggest sigh I have ever sighed in my life, and nearly sprint up to the table to turn in another squad sheet while the SoCal guys and some others let out a cheer. That ended up being the actual final, final call, and I was put into the system in the 128 ^th spot.

So, now I have to start over from ground zero, and my focus is a wreck. Thankfully the SoCal guys were able to help me unpack and setup everything on my tray, since I knew they had to start the first round super quick. Luckily I get everything setup in the nick of time, and the pairings come out, and the chaos to find the correct table begins.

Flight 2:

Game 1:

I get to one of the tables on the other side of the room, and the list turns out to be…

Whisper+VI+ACD, Kath+Cluster missiles+Rebel Captive, and Howlrunner.

So, if my nerves weren’t upset enough already, they are now a complete wreck. First game is against a Phantom again, although the support isn’t as hard to deal with than 5 APs. Come to find out, my opponent was actually still rather new to the game, but a really nice guy. However, he started pulling some REALLY pro maneuvers, like avoiding a trap I laid to block him onto an asteroid. I get the advantage early, and take out Kath while only losing 1 Tie (and some damage on Howl I think). I then continue on with my plan to eliminate his Howlrunner, while keeping mine alive. Ships are flying everywhere, and Whisper starts to open up on my Ties. I try to block a couple decloak options, but he gets around it. In the last turn, I have the remaining (and hurting) 4 Ties scram, but one of them block’s Howlrunner’s escape path. Whisper gets a shot on her, but isn’t quite able to land enough damage. I end up winning on points at time. Rocky start, but getting a win under my belt did a lot to help relax myself.

Game 2:

We get assignments, and my opponent comes up. He looks familiar, but I can’t place him exactly. He then pulls out his stuff, and he has the exact same dark red templates that I have. Wait a minute….I look at his list:

2 AP, 3 Obsidians, Backstabber, and Howlrunner with stealth.

Wow, it’s Dave from last year’s top 4! Running the exact same Swarm too! We start talking, and he informed me that he hasn’t been playing as much X-Wing, and has gotten into the other FFG card games. I wasn’t sure if he was serious, but he said he hadn’t played X-Wing since last year. He is a really cool dude, and we had a blast talking about last year, and how hot my dice were compared to his cold green. Our 2013 Top 4 match is on Youtube, so you can see just bi-polar the dice were. I’m telling him it’s his time to get revenge. I also noticed that I just played Jonathan last night (who was also Top 4 last year with Dave and I). If the trend continues, it looks like I’ll be matched up against Paul before the day’s end….oh dear, can’t think about that right now.

We setup, and he actually puts his three asteroids in the exact 3 spots that royally screws up my formation….huh. So I have to deploy centrally with one of my blacks off to the side in order to miss flying over asteroids in T1. He puts his swarm at a 45deg angle facing the middle of the board, with backstabber on the left. We then proceed to duke it out. The dice seem pretty average, but he has the initiative and better PS with the Obsidians. There were all sorts of chaos in the middle of the board, with K-turns, and hard turns and rams and BRs. However, the tide turns when I notice I have 3 shots from howl and my two Blacks on his full health Howl. No actions, but the opportunity is too good to pass up. My first shot barely strips Stealth, and my Blacks each squeeze a hit through, killing his Howl before the majority of his swarm fires. That was the turning point. I end winning with 3 of my ships dead (not Howl) to his 4 or 5 dead. He mentioned that the loss actually helped him make up his mind, since Cuthulu (I think) was about to start, so he decided to drop out in get in on that tournament. A real classy guy, but unfortunately I don’t think I’ll get a chance to play him at X-Wing again. You never know though.

Game 3:

Vs. Han+Pred+Luke+C3P0+title+Engine, 3 Bandits

Ah yes, the infamous Fat Han list. I was feeling pretty good about facing this list, the only caveat is I have only played against C3P0 a few times, and never against this exact version (which is the most efficient against Ties IMO). However, I had to be careful. With Engine, Han can take some massive damage one turn, but if he escapes the swarm’s clutches, it’s nearly impossible to pin him down again with enough guns to bear against his defenses to drop him late game. So, the typical game-plan is start heading directly for Han, or head for the support, and force Han’s hand. Try to get lined up on him, block his move, and drop him in 3 turns of fire before he can escape.

I setup the swarm left where the asteroids were less dense. He sets up on the right side with his three bandits. He starts moving Han along the right board edge, and the bandits turn in the middle of the board. I approach with my formation on the 45deg angle. In the first engagement, I do some minor damage to a couple Zs, and he doesn’t do anything back (most shots where R3 and obstructed. I now had a tough choice: do I spend 1 more turn focusing on the bandits, almost guaranteed to drop two of them, and let Han come up around behind me. Or do I K-turn everyone but howl, and face the location where I’m pretty sure Han will end up? I chose the latter, and it pays off wonderfully. A Z misses arc, other two don’t have good shots (but can still try for Howl at R3). Han boosts forward to try and get a shot on Howl, but my green dice hold strong. I plink off a few shields from Han with the Ties that are in range. The following turn, I manage another good guess, and take my outside Tie and go 5 straight (with stress) to block Han’s 4 straight escape move. I have 5 guns, almost all focused with Howl and give Han a major beating, bringing him low. The next turn, I’m able to split my forces, and cover the escape routes, while having a couple guns on his original location in case he bumps on purpose. It works, and I’m able to drop on the last shot of the turn, pretty much securing me the win. In the end, I lose Howl (the bandits did not let up), and I bagged Fat Han and one bandit right as time was called. A fun game for sure, and a couple worse dice rolls could have meant Han escaping with 1 hull.

Game 4:

We have a break for food, and I’m catching up with Thomas (one of the SoCal guys I know) to see how his off the wall list was doing (especially since I saw how he somehow made it up to table #1 last round). To my surprise he actually managed to barely squeak out a win against Dom. As we are talking Jeff comes over and mentions we should stop talking to each other about our lists since we are going to be paired up. I laugh since I didn’t think that would actually happen. Jeff says go check the sheets, and sure enough, me and Thomas are matched on table 7ish. Oh dear. We are both 3-0 so whoever loses this is going to be in a bad position in order to hit the magical 5-1.

Thomas is running: Han+VI, Jake+PTL, Tycho+VI+PTL.

It’s a really strange list, dropping all the upgrades on Han to make the flankers much better. Definitely gives phantoms a hard time, but it’s a good matchup for my swarm. From a mechanics perspective, the AW’s with their two dice won’t be able to land much damage on 3 AGI Ties. Also, if I go for one of them, they can get away like non-other. So, my best plan was to go straight for Han, ignore the AW’s, and drop Han without taking major damage.

The match turns into a big positioning game. I start left and he starts right. I slowly bank into the center while he goes average speed down the right side. It takes several turns, but with the formation I am able to keep banking in on an inward spiral, and start to land a few shots on Han when he’s in the bottom right, with the AWs in front of Han’s flight path. Thomas does a good job of hiding Han behind asteroids, and is able to survive for 4 turns of semi-concentrated shots. He makes it all the way over to my original deployment spot on the left before he is dropped on the last turn before time is called. I destroy his Han, and he destroyed ****EDIT: two Ties***** (poor AWs just couldn’t land the damage and DTF didn’t help). We both had a good time, chatting it up. Thomas still has a pretty good margin, so he could even have a shot at a 4-2 slot depending on how the last two games go.

So, I’m now 4-0, in the exact same situation as yesterday, needing a single tie in order to make top 16. Please don’t let it be another phantom…

Game 5:

I moved up a couple tables to fight:

Chewy+Pred+C3P0+R2D2+title+engine, 4 bandits

I let out a big sigh of relief, no phantom. Looking at the list, I noticed a few things: 1. His chewy is EXTREMELY hard to kill. Like, I’m not sure if my swarm could do it in three good firing rounds. Thus he could get away, and that would be game. I also noticed that 2. He has no gunner. This is a very interesting situation for a swarm. Without gunner, there are many times when the big falcon only lands 1 or even 0 damage with his big turret. So I might be able to even out-tank him, points wise. 3. We two of us have 4 APs and 4 Bandits. An AP is the same price as a bandit, and is a prime target for a non-gunner falcon with Pred. Thus I figured if I could slow roll it up my board, ignore chewy and drop the 4 bandits, I had a VERY good chance of at least coming up with a tie (say each of us destroys 36 points), which would put me into the top 16 guaranteed.

We are both stressed, knowing what’s on the line. However we are both extremely courteous to each other and have a semi relaxing opening. I start left, he starts right, with most asteroids out of the center. He moves the bandits up the board, and turns chewy in sooner. Unfortunately, the first engagement starts going downhill for him. Chewy is further back from the swarm at a slight angle (since I’m going from left to right directly toward his bandits). If I do a 2 fwd, I have perfect target selection and distance on his semi-Congo line of bandits. But if I bank 2 or 3 upwards, I’ll have all 7 great shots on chewy if chewy rushes up to get a better shot himself. In the end, I go 2 straight for the bandits, while chewy 3 banks away from the swarm, putting him just inside R3 of the outside of the swarm. Shooting goes well for me, with green dice being hot, but I have more green dice and more shots. In the next 3 turns, I drop 3 bandits after going straight, then K-Turn, then straight back again. All the while chewy is horribly out of position. In the last turn, I have only lost a single Tie while destroying 3 bandits, and snag the 4 ^th one on the last turn. Chewy lands some good shots at the end, but without gunner it’s not enough. We both comment on how nice it is to play nice people, even at a very stressful, and that is still one of the biggest draws for me to go to one of these huge events.

So I am super happy, I am sitting at 5-0 with all match wins, going to the top two tables, but auto qualified for Saturday (the next day). After two very stressful and tiring days, it will be nice to get a game in that I can relax during a bit more.

Game 6:

I’m talking with some of my friends including Jonathan and Paul to see who is where on score and whatnot. The pairings get posted and what do you know, I’m matched up against Paul on table 2!

Paul is running:

Han+Pred+3CP0+R2D2+title+engine, and 3 Talas

It’s a very interesting list for a swarm to fight. It’s the core of a fat Han build, but with some significant tweaks. Like my last match, the falcon doesn’t have gunner, plus it has one less Z to output red dice. It’s not as tanky as chewy, but edges him out slightly on damage output, plus it can deal with phantoms easier. It’s kind of a weird trying to figure out target priority.

Paul and I talked some before the match started, trying to figure out if there was much tangible benefit to winning the final match bar seeding position the next day. I knew how freaken hard it was to make top16 (personal experience ), so I figured anyone I played the next day would be scary, no matter what the seeding was. Also I was slightly worried. Last year, I had never seen Paul’s opening before, and after a few turns realized how it was planned for maneuvers and such. Plus my list had some flaws, such as bad asteroid positions that could put a damper on things. I figured I had a decent chance of meeting him again tomorrow, so I wanted to stick with a more ‘Swiss pairings’ style of strategy, and see if it worked or not. Besides, if I did figure out how to beat him, if we met the next day, he could probably see that same approach coming a mile away and counter it, since well, he’s Paul . So I figured I’d try to go after the Tala’s first, and see how much damage I could survive from Han. Plus I could try some risky moves here and there, to keep Paul guessing. This strategy would at least give me a decent margin if I ended up losing anyway. Plus this was my 12 ^th game, so I didn’t want to try and think that hard

A crowd is starting to gather a bit as we setup asteroids (I place my 3 in my typical out of the way spots, while he goes for an offset line down the center). I setup right and he sets up left. I have to figure out a way to get 7 Ties through a line of asteroids. We both kind of slow roll for a few turns, neither committing to a lane between the asteroids. I bank in slightly and BR right to give myself breathing room. Paul also decides to try a K-turn to swing han around to still not commit to a lane. Hm, interesting. I figure I might as well commit, since the Zs looked ready to turn into the asteroids. I decided to play gutsy, and head for a narrow gap in the top two asteroids. This gave me some really good shots on his Z’s, but left me trying to squeeze 3 rows of Ties in a space that barely had room for 2. We trade a couple long range shots, but don’t do much damage. The next I turn I do a bunch of 2 forwards, bringing the swarm almost point blank to two asteroids, but get some really good focused shots on his Talas. I believe I killed a Tala, and damaged another one, either losing the front AP, or having it nearly dead.

The next turn was pretty interesting. The two Talas were right in front of the swarm, so I couldn’t K-turn most of them without serious problems. Also, Han was heading between two asteroids, poised to fly past my swarm and broadside it while the formation was hung up on the rock. I saw a small opening. I did a bunch of 1 hard turns with the APs in the back, causing them to stall and keep arcs on both Talas. I then 3 hard turned the front AP around the rock, in front of Han. I then BR’ed him away from Han, right onto the 4 straight spot where I figured he might be going. The Tala’s move 1 fwd and 1 bumps a Black that had to hard turn in front of them (he couldn’t stall or he’d be on the rock). Han reveals a 4 forward, doesn’t quite clear the AP, and gets pushed back significantly; landing the back of his base on the rock he was flying past. In the words of Mr Burns: ‘Excellent…..’ No shot from Han. I had Howl, a black, and 2 APs with point blank shots on the Talas, and I also had a R1 focused rr shot on a beached Han. I did some very solid damage, which did a couple shields on Han (+1 from asteroid hit). I also dropped the wounded tala, and was close to dropping the third.

At this point I had a decision. I could still ignore Han (bar a pot-shot or two and blocking), kill the last Tala, and try to run away for 30ish minutes. If he didn’t get two more Ties (not that bad without gunner), I could win on points at time. But that didn’t sound like fun at all . Plus, I wanted to see just how tanky this Tank Han build could be, so I decided to try and start splitting fire to begin working on Han while leaving a few guns to kill the last Tala. Unfortunately I used up most of my good moves the previous turn . I K-turned an AP over a rock and got a crit which was no actions, oh well. I lined up the blocking AP and the Black that shot Han last turn right in front of him and focused, daring him to try and run. I bump another Tie into the tala, but then I misjudged my bump for the Black still in the formation. He went two bank, just cleared my AP, and landed straight on the rock and took a hit. How Embarrassing. The Tala bumped, leaving it a nice shot on the now damaged black beached on the rock. Han went straight as expected and focused. I didn’t think it would quite work, but I wanted to see if Howl to escape over the formation to the right (which would give her good buff range and stay away from Han). A 3 bank would not work, but I thought a 3 hard might. Turned out to be short (oh well), so Howl didn’t move. Unfortunately, since Han didn’t go very far (I thought he would be going 4 not 2), he was just in R1 of a actionless Howlrunner (oh dear). I still had a decent chance to live, since I had 2 hull left, with a black nearby and 3 green dice. Unfortunately Paul got 4 hits, and I got a single evade, so down went Howlrunner. I was able to land a couple more damage on Han with the black and AP at R1, and the other Ties dropped the last Tala.

Unfortunately I was in a losing situation at that point. My Ties where mostly spread out, half with damage, and Han still had options to go left or right. I tried spreading my net as best I could to get shots on him on either directly, but he took the one that was a bit harder for me to cover. He then started picking off Ties left and right. In the end, time was called, and he had Han with 5 or 6 hull left vs 2 APs and a Black. So, it was not a huge loss margin wise, but I definitely did lose. This at least kept my margin up.

As an aside, I had a really entertaining situation happen (completely by accident). You know that one AP, that K-turned over the rock and took a hit? Two turns later, he was near the other asteroid. Han was getting away, and he couldn’t perform actions. So I said screw it and did a 3 bank through an asteroid to get one more gun on Han. The template obviously went through the rock. I also ended up just bumping one of my Ties who moved first, but not by much (with damaged sensors and flying over a rock, I definitely didn’t have an action some bumping didn’t concern me much….at that moment). I roll for rock and get a crit. I pull the damage card: stunned pilot (whenever you overlap another ship, take damage). It gave me pause for a moment. How did the timing on this thing work out? Does it turn on half way down the move (thematically) and the Tie explodes on contact? Or since the asteroid roll is after I have already completed the move for my ship, I am no longer overlapping the ship, only touching, and thus it is activated after that point. I showed Paul the card, he read it, and also wasn’t sure. We both turned to the audience, but no one had any ideas. So we had to call FFG Frank over. I actually started chuckling at the situation. Here is the 2013 World Champion and World Finalist having to call over a judge to explain to us how the game worked . Anyway, I described the situation, and showed him the card. Frank’s face was priceless. It was contorting in a few different ways, trying to figure it out himself (this is the game designer Frank btw). He said he had never heard of this situation before. Unfortunately he was under some stress since there was about 20ish people waiting for his answer in the middle of the match. He gave the unofficial ruling thematically based that the Tie would have the crit activated as soon as he touched the asteroid, then fly into his buddy immediately following, and blow up. I had no problem with it and removed the Tie. After, I actually felt a touch of pride, knowing I had temporarily broken the game of X-Wing. Frank said he would definitely add it to the FAQ list, even though it’s kind of one in a million thing. Looking into the rules a bit, I think it should be the other way, since there is a sequence of actions, but we will have to see what Frank officially adds.

So, I really good end to a fun day, and got position #11 to be firmly in the top 16 for Sat. I got some congrats from friends, since they knew the wild ride I had in order to make it this far. A little bit later, Doug (Hothie) comes over me and shakes my and wishes me good luck. I look at him weird, since this was a bit out of the blue. Turns out he was able to check with the TO guys, and they had already determined the formula for choosing brackets for Sat. He informed me that we would be matched up together for the first round of the Top 32! Oh boy, I just had to play one World Champion, now I have to play the first One the next morning! I knew I had a fun match ahead of me, but it was definitely going to be a battle.

Stay tuned for ACT 3……

ACT 3

Top 32:

So, its Saturday morning, and I am both dreading the first game, and also really looking forward to it. Doug (Hothie) is one of my ‘X-Wing’ idols, so to say. He has done some amazing things, especially contributing to the creation of the swarm play style. I also really enjoyed reading his articles on teamcovenant about ‘evolving the shark’, which was in essence some practical tips on how a swarm player could stand up and combat a Phantom player (due to it being such a rough matchup). Plus, I’d admired how he stepped up and created the whole ‘fly casual’ movement, which has gone a long way to making evening highly competitive X-Wing games fun, and almost relaxing.

So, going into the game I knew it was going to be tight. We were both very experienced with flying swarms, so I more or less couldn’t make any big screw-ups. The swarm matchup was also intriguing. For maneuvering, I was going for the most compact version of a block of Ties, whereas Hothie had developed a solid method for a pseudo pincer attack, and collapse in to get better Howl coverage. The lists themselves were a slightly different take:

Hothie was running:

Howlrunner, Backstabber, Black+DTF, 3 Obsidians, 1 AP

I had the more defensive Howl, but we both had at least one DTF to help protect. He had backstabber, who adds a significant punch to the list, especially against 3 AGI opponents. He also had the PS advantage, with 3xPS3 and a PS1 to my 4xPS1. However, I had double DTF, so as the damage would come in, I could draw it to the back to help spread it out potentially.

We had both got there early, and were able to chat some while taking our time getting our stuff out. I also want to thank FFG for spreading the tables out for the single elimination rounds, which made it much easier to move around and keep our extra stuff nearby. We setup, with my blunted diamond on the far right, and he’s split formation on the mid-right. He also has the initiative, so I had to keep an eye on that lone AP to try and counter any blocking attempts.

First turn, I slow roll, getting my formation setup. He takes the right-most AP, Obsidian, Black, and Howl and hard turns around the corner asteroid, prepping for a hard turn to face my directly. He slow rolls the two obsidians and Backstabber, keep them on my diagonal left flank. Turn two was a very difficult choice. Straight or Bank. If I go straight (especially if its fast), then I would have the Backstabber and two ships to my left. If I bank to the left, then the other four ships (including Howl) are in my diagonal right flank. Hothie does some hard turns with the group of 4 Ties, and moves up to the 45deg angle with the Backstabber group. I then 2 bank the formation, heading for Backstabbers group. I usually don’t do that so early, so I figured I would mix it up. Plus this meant I didn’t have to worry about Backstabbers ability, and there was no DTF. Plus it would help setup next turn, since the AP couldn’t fly straight and block my formation, whereas I could land my 4 APs and block up his 2 Obsidans and backstabber. We commence firing. Unfortunately both of our green dice are a bit cold. It’s hard to remember, but I think he did some heavy damage to my front AP, with me drawing a crit to the back. I either kill or do two damage to his front obsidian from the right group (since he had the majority of my ships in range to shoot) and do a single hit to backstabber. I think I have two ships out of range, with two of his also out of range).

Next turn gets bloody. I move up 2 fwd, causing the three Ties in Backstabbers group to bump (was worried he might jump over me, but that would be super risky). His right group 3 banks in, to get a good option of R1 shots). A ton of damage goes out this round. It’s really hard to remember, but I think I drop Backstabber and an Obsidian, and he nabs an AP. After this it’s interesting, since I have destroyed 1 more ship than him, but almost all of my ships have damage (thanks DTF). The next few turns get too difficult to remember, since we both start doing all sorts of maneuvers (scattered K-turns, 2 banks to bump, 1 hard turns to block the blockers, etc.). We keep laying into each other. Up until the second to last turn, I am able to stay up by one ship (neither of us can kill each other’s Howls, and there was always more juicy targets). On the second to last turn, time is getting low, but Hothie gets a slightly better shooting turn, and is able to get ahead in points.

At this point I have Howl, a Black, and an AP left to his Howl, Black, Obsidian, and AP left (although I think I had slightly better position, and he had more damaged ships). We are really setting down our dials, and time is called. So we both confirm that this will be the very last round of the game. I need to kill off one more ship than he does in order to regain the lead. Hothie does have a chance to try and run, but our ships are so scattered that I would still have some shots on him, so he decides to duke it out and go for the gusto. Unfortunately, he misjudged one the K-turn on an AP, which hits a rock and blows itself up (I could tell he was very frustrated with himself, I have been there). I have my AP line up a R1 against his PS0 Obsidian. My black lines up a shot on his black and evades, with his Howl and Black K-turning to line up shots on my Black. My Howl hard turns toward the AP, but he was destroyed already from the rock. The game is by no means over, since we have a one-on-one shot of two evading PS1 and PS0 ships, and two stressed Ties (no RRs) shooting at my evading Black. We go through the shots, and his Black and Howl cannot land the damage on my Black to kill it. I am able to roll well (with Howl RR) to drop his Black. The other two ships don’t land any damage.

We shake and tally up the scores, and with the extra Tie kill in the last turn, I’m up by around 20ish points, securing my Top 32 win! I had a really good match with Hothie, and would love to play him again whenever I get the chance. It was very tense with the high stakes, but he was very courteous so it made the game a great pleasure to play.

Top 16:

I didn’t get a chance to really look at the bracket, but I found out that I was matched up against a fellow SoCal player, Jim L. I don’t think we have had the chance to play each other yet, but we have talked a lot at some tournaments, and especially the day before. Unfortunately, the both of us were the last two SoCal players left in the tournament. Jeff L. also qualified, and had a very close finish to his game which easily could have gone either way, but unfortunately was knocked out. But he was there to cheer on his bro Jim, along with the rest of team ‘Stay on Target, San Diego’. Even though we had all been hanging out and having a blast together, I did feel like the bag guy from LA a little, since I was outnumbered But Jim is a really nice guy, with a smile on his face for the whole round, and we were able to joke and poke at each other through the whole match, with really helped calm my nerves. Plus, as he said, the good news is a SoCal guy was guaranteed to make it to the Top 8 round.

Jim was flying: Han+VI+recon; Chewy+Pred+recon+Jan.

I really liked his list, very solid (especially if you don’t own the C3P0 card). It gives both ships a focus/evade each turn, and they can both reroll attack dice on the offense. Plus each ship is 50 points, so it’s hard to figure out exactly which one to go for first. Unfortunately for Jim, my swarm list is a bad matchup for his list, since he doesn’t have engine to arc dodge, and bar the focus/evade, my formation can chewy through his defenses quick.

Setup was interesting. He forms a line of asteroids on the left. I have my starter two in my corners. I put the last one in the top right corner. For setup I have a hard choice. With the asteroid line, it looks like he could congo the two ships and fly down the channel on the left. But, if I put my formation down there, I don’t think I could get out of the channel without several collisions. So I decide to place my swarm on the right. He then places on the far left, and Chewy on the far right, facing each other. Huh, I don’t think Ive seen this style before, and its throwing me for a bit of a loop.

For the first couple turns, I move up, with some BRs to try and angle between the two asteroids in the top left and middle. I’m anticipating him flying chewy over Han, and Han K-turning to have them both run away. However, he doesn’t K-turn, and has them swap positions as I approach. In the first shots, I do some damage to Han (he was the closest and facing right), but with his two ships he is able to drop a Tie, so not great for me. I then bank in the swarm to face off against, and he keeps up the angle, continuing the split. This turn hurts for Jim, as I am able to land significant damage to Han. Plus with his two shots he can’t kill a Tie (I think DTF activated).

For the next turn, Han is in a bad spot. He can either go straight, to get distance and face the right top corner, try to bank in near the asteroid, or hard turn into the Ties to try and bump and avoid one or two shots. I do a hard 3 with most of the Ties to line up good angles on Han. However, he goes for trick play, and does a 1 forward. Unfortunately for him, it takes him just a little too far, and thus all my Ties have arc on Han. I am able to vaporize Han, while he and chewy drop my 2 ^nd damaged Tie.

At this point it’s looking a bit grim for Jim. I still have 5 ships to his chewy, although I’m out of position. We do several turns of a positioning game, with chewy trying to dodge arcs while lining up good shots on howl. Unfortunately he just can’t land the damage, and it takes him a few turns to kill another Tie. I am able to make a couple passes and keep chipping away at Chewy. In the end, I’m able to pull a really tight reform with 4 Ties to get them all focus/RRs, while chewy is at 1 hull left. I am able to drop chewy with concentrated fire with about 5-10min before time is called. I think we both had a fun game, but it was primarily a bad matchup for Jim. He took the loss well and wished me luck for my next match. Plus the SoCal was very supportive, getting me some small water bottles and some bites of food (I couldn’t stomache more than 3 bites when I’m nervous).

TOP 8

For the next match, one of the SoCal guys lets me know that I’m up against the Australian National Champ (oh boy), who is running a whisper/mini swarm list (oh noes!). This doesn’t help my nerves very much I chat a bit with the SoCal guys, and tell them my basic to plan to kill the mini-swarm and try and survive/block the whisper shots. If that is not working, then I can switch to Plan B real fast and try to take out Whisper (but it’s not an optimal strat for me).

I introduce myself to Morgan Reid, and we chat a little about how much fun we are both having while we wait for judges to get prepped. We show each other lists:

Morgan was running: Whisper+VI+ACD+FCS+rebel Captive; Howl+Swarm Tactics; 3x AP

So, looking at the list, it’s not as bad as 5 APs, but it’s up there. Like my game in Flight 1, Ties don’t kill other Ties very quickly, but at least there are only 4 instead of 5. Whisper is decked as usual, but I’m hoping I won’t have to deal with her, since I know that Morgan has to be a cloak Pro to be Aussie Champ and make it this far.

I also want to take quick moment to talk about Morgan. He was super nice the entire match, very friendly and outgoing. Throughout the match we helped each other with stuff, were able to work out any close calls easily, and were cracking jokes left and right. I would have to say that this was my second favorite match of my X-Wing career (kinda hard to top the Finals last year), and a really tight game. I don’t think I have had more fun in a single match than any other premier level match. If you ever get a chance to play him, you should. He really takes the fly casual approach to his matches, and is very talented player. I’m hoping to play him more, although have the entire Pacific Ocean between our local game groups doesn’t help

Anyway, onto the match! He get the imitative, so again it’s not good from a blocking and Howl buff point of view. He sets up his rocks around the center, and I setup my first two in the back corners, and the last one in the upper right. He sets up his mini-swarm in the center, and I deploy my formation in the bottom left where the rocks at the most open, and have space to move all along the left side. He deploys whisper on the 45deg in the far back right corner. This is good for me, since I don’t want whisper firing for as long as possible.

Turn 1: I slow roll up, assuming the formation. He surprisingly turns hard 1 away from me toward whisper. Again I’m happy with this, since I think I can kill his Ties faster than whisper punks my Ties, but the longer whisper has free reign at the end, the more in trouble I am. Whisper moves up 2 toward the rock and cloaks.

Turn 2: I again slow roll, since I’m not sure what he is up to, leaving myself the option to bank in toward the center, or keep going straight. He hard 1 turns toward the center of the board, ready to bank or go straight next turn. Whisper decloaks around the rock and goes straight again, staying to the outside of his Ties, leaving a couple paths open to swing through the rocks and come around to my right flank.

Turn 3: I now have a tough choice. I can either bank into the center, engaging the mini-swarm, or head straight for later better positioning. I believe that the turns with the mini-swarm early are an attempt to bait me in. If I head center, I’ll be loosely surrounded by 4 asteroids. Thus I won’t be able to maintain my formation for long, and K-turns will get risky. The rocks are also space enough, so that whisper can come in from the diagonal right flank, or swing all the way around to the full right flank of my formation. Plus, I will be facing his mini-swarm, so he can put on the gas, and block me up with initive next turn (if he banks in, he could go straight, but a bank is the solid move). So I take option two and head straight. Unfortunately, I will need to go 5 straight, which will put me far enough past the asteroid that I can 1 hard turn everyone. I also can’t be block easily in that position. Problem is, I won’t have any arcs on his ships, so if he gets range with his Ties I can’t return fire. Oh well, I risk I need to take.

He does a 3 bank in with the mini-swarm, which was a bit more aggressive than I hoped. I go 5 forward, which looks to catch Morgan a bit off guard (but he still has arc on me, so no biggy). To my dismay, he is about to decloak whisper front left (toward the mini-swarm), and two bank up in front of them without bumping (for a bit it looked like he blocked himself, but he knows his stuff and lands it without much of a worry). See Sozin’s pic below for board position after the decloak:

In shooting, he checks range, and whisper was just able to get in range of my far right AP3 (not good). He get something like 3 hits/1 crit (ouch) and I think I get a single evade with focus. Thus I have to use DTF from Black5 and pull consol fire (which I flip next turn). He has two other shots, but thankfully my green dice hold up for those at R3.

Turn 4: Ok, I took a lot more damage than I was hoping (thought whisper had to decloak straight or right, which would have been out of range). I lock in a 1 hard with everyone (since I want to keep some arcs to the bottom as much as possible to make whisper sweat. He ends up banking in quick with the mini-swarm, with his front AP doing a hard turn to leave space for whisper if she needs it. Whisper decloaks back (as in toward my table edge), and two banks toward the swarm. Morgan checks the angles, and debates doing a BR (to get out of all arcs), or stay there and evade at R3 for 2 or 3 shots (got to watch out for the PS10 Howl!).

During shooting, Whisper uses the FCS lock to punch the front evading AP to ensure getting him dead (he took two phantom shots before dying, can’t ask for too much more). Unfortunately, he concentrates fire on my farthest Black 5 (2 hull and no action from flipping consol fire), and is able to drop him with solid dice at PS8 with swarm tactics (no crits to draw to Black 6 unfortunately). In the return fire, I am only able to drop his Howl (who had to bump), and no other damage.

Turn 5: ( This is going to be a long turn ). So, the situation is not looking good. I need to kill his Ties faster than he is killing mine, then survive. Unfortunately he is already ahead on that race, which I should have the advantage in currently (while the majority of my guns are alive). That means I know have to kill 3 full health APs before he kills 2 or 3 more of mine (depending on if he can punk Howl). But I have lost two of my six buffed shots. Also, Whisper is in a position to skirt around my formation, throwing out R1 shots at whim, and it’s still rather early in the match. I don’t have any confidence that plan A will hold up. So solemnly look over to the SoCal guys, and mouth (while Morgan isn’t looking) ‘Plan B’.

The problem with Plan B is its kind of an all or nothing situation. I have to throw all 5 Ties at whisper to block and land shots, plus if I miscalculate a single move, he can decloak to the side and bail, or stay cloaked and weather the storm of split fire. However, I study the board for a bit, and I think I see an opening……it’s a long shot, but it might just work.

First I have to figure out where whisper is going. With her current angle, any hard right turn is too risky, because if I stall my formation, she could over-shoot (or even land on a rock). A left hard turn is more risky, since she would land directly in front of 5 stalling Ties (including Howl), then it’s up to the green dice. A straight two might also overshoot, or ram the middle of the formation. So I’m guess he is going to 2 or 3 bank right, and try to decloak left (which I can’t physically block).

So, I go try for the ‘stars aligned’ move. I’m trying my best to eyeball, but if my dead center AP goes 5 forward, I can jump his Ties (if they don’t stall), and BR back and left, which *should* block whisper’s right decloak bail out path. It’s hard to tell though. Then, I plan a hard 1 with black 6. From the angle, I think I can get the corner of the back to clip the 2 forward decloak position, making that a no-go. Again, it looks close, but I’m committed. I also have to worry about where his 3 AP’s are going to be (he moves first). I think he will ram with one of them, so my front right AP1 plugs in a 2 turn (which hopefully swings me around, and lines up arcs on whisper’s 2 bank. I also plug in a 1 hard with AP 2 (I think my formation might be a bit to tight to completely land it, but the arc will be great for whisper. I then plug in a 1 hard with Howl, who is the key to this idea. Remember that Howl is PS10, so I can shoot before whisper cloaks. With a 2 or 3 bank from whisper, Howl will be a point blank range, with a focus (3 red) against whisper’s 2 green (most likely she’ll evade if she clears everything). I’m hoping to land 2 damage, or ideally 3 damage. I know the odds aren’t great for that, but I got to try. Then, Whisper’s return shot will be unmodified. So 5 red against 3 green (focused), I don’t think I’ll get one-shot. I then will have a R1 shot from the black, (RR and maybe focus), and two follow-up R2 shots with RR and maybe a single focus. Again, not great odds, but they are good enough. I lock everything in, and pray…..

He moves first. The angled AP does a 4 k-turn to get to the outside flank of the formation as expected. One of the middle two does a bank in, and crashes into my front AP. He reveals his last AP’s move, and my eyes get real big. He does a 3 left bank bailout….. The ship jumps my formation, and lands to the near flank of my formation. I instantly get excited and scared. He just blocked his own two forward decloak! Granted, I didn’t think he would do it, but still. However, that Tie is REAL close to block the final spot of Black 6 (who is the one who needs his focus). Plus that position crowds up the location where I think whisper is planning on banking to. Is he not banking? Is he trying something more risky? Now it’s my turn to move, and I have to stick to the plan *gulp*.

I do the 5 forward with AP4, get past everyone, and BR back into whisper’s right decloak spot. Not the BR didn’t take me as far as I thought, so there is a chance he could shift the decloak to barely clear, but I have to keep going. I also glance up real quick as I’m moving. I can tell I caught Morgan off guard by the 5 forward, but I can’t tell if it’s a good or bad surprise. I do the 2 hard turn for AP, who swing around his ramming AP, and almost completes the entire move. I look at the ship and the arc looks good, no action though. I 1 hard AP2, and he nearly land its completely between the ramming Tie and the Black, but has to backup a smudge, so no action. I then move the Important Black 6. The hard 1 carries him just far enough and he lands the move with his base pretty close to the bailout Tie (I let out a small sign of relief). He takes a focus.

Then the moment of truth….Whispers move. Morgan comes around, and has to look at it for a bit. The anticipation is killing me. He check the right decloak position but my banzai Tie managed to fully block it (feeling good). He looks at the straight decloak, but there is absolutely no way with both my black and his AP. He declares he is decloaking left (I’m now getting antsy). However, before he gets the template, and asks me ‘what maneuver do you think I’m doing’? I reply ‘2 right bank’. He barely nods and picks up the template. I’m getting excited. He puts down the 2 straight decloak, and start shift up and down slightly. He keeps adjusting the final spot. He says under his breath ‘I think I blocked myself’. Oh man, I am getting super giddy! If he rams, that’s no evade action for defense, nor focus for offense. He does the moves, and barely clips his own Tie. It’s the best possible scenario I could hope for! Every star has aligned (with Morgan’s help) bar one. Now all I have to do is not crap out on dice, and if he rolls average or below, I have the game practically won! Even if I get Whisper to 1 hull, I can try and hunt her down with Howl, and all it takes is one shot. I walk around a bit waiting for Morgan to finish his move, and walk (almost hopping) over to the SoCal guys and mutter ‘I think I got him’. In practice with this list, I was never able to get as good a shot as this, and never quite able to fully finish of Whisper completely (usually she would run and survive with 1 hull). This changes now! I move Howl last, landing her fine, and focus with a R1 shot on whisper uncloaked.

We go to shooting, and I’m starting to shake a bit. Please, oh please, if ever there was a time to not roll a blank, now is the time. I pick up the 3 red dice, and shake them so hard. I give Howl a stress for rebel captive, but I know that won’t really matter. I know I’m talking out load, appealing to the dice gods. I think Morgan mentions something along the lines of ‘I think you got her’ solemnly. I roll the dice………….

Hit/crit/blank……CRAP. Need every single hit right at this very moment. He rolls his two green dice (unmod) dice…..evade/evade CRAP CRAP CRAP. My heart sinks, my best shot, COMPLETELY failed ARGGGGGGGGGggggg. Ok, it’s not fully over. Whisper decides to take the R1 shot on my focused Black. He rolls the 5 unmod red dice…..hit/hit/hit/crit/blank. I roll my evade: blank/blank/eye KJDLK;ADKDAFLKJ;ADGKLJFGNKL;FGKJL; Black6 is one-shot. I of course don’t get his R1 RR/focused shot on whisper, and whisper gets to cloak and gets a focus token. At this point I’m depressed. I think there was one shot from him, that didn’t matter much, and he missed. I decide to take the two R2 shots at whisper, hoping his luck changed. I get two hits each time, but he rolls 2 evades without a sweat. Well, that entire plan just went down the tolet, so fast….. and to top it off, I lost my second Black squad….putting me down 1 ship to 3 ships destroyed.

Turn 6: Well, at this point I’m super down. Instead of killing or maiming Whisper, she is unscratched, and vaped one of my Ties while she was at it. Everything just straight up failed, and of course I’m out of position to do much since whisper will get away (can’t stop the forward move). Morgan and I are still chatting and cracking a few jokes, but at the same time I’m staring at the board, trying to find some way to pull this out, but nothing is coming to me, and I’m shaking my head. Shortly thereafter during dials I say to Morgan ‘I’m thinking about conceding’. He was a nice guy and told me to never give up! So I said I’d give it a couple more turns, see if anything crazy happens for me. I think I just revert back to auto-pilot a bit, and lock in a couple K-turns (the one out in the boonies and the AP near the rock, and lock in a hard turn to bump AP2. I’m looking at howl and she has a stress. Plus she is about to be surrounded by enemy APs, so I don’t have any ‘good moves’. On a whim I plug in a 3 hard turn toward the left board edge. Its real close, but I think I could 1 hard after and be ok (if she doesn’t get shot down first that is).

We do our moves, and he does some turns, trying to multiple arcs on Howl. I K-turn and such, with AP2 clipping the asteroid on the move, and got damaged sensors (no actions, but no big deal). Whisper goes straight ahead and stays cloaked, being safe from all but a single long range shot. I move Howl and surprising the 3 hard turn lands her in the perfect spot to avoid both R1 arcs. That’s nice, I’m thinking ‘too little too late’. I get some various shots in, I think I everything from both sides misses bar a damage (maybe two) on an AP of his.

Turn 7: I do some decent moves, hard turning the AP that went over the rock to avoid it again (keeping stress). Hard turn the other to get a shot at an enemy AP chasing Howl. He lines up a single AP to lay into Howl if she hard 1’s down. I also moved AP3 (the one out in the bonies) up 3 and BR up to avoid the rock and maybe get a R3 shot at an AP. Whisper hard 3 turns further away, not risking anything and stays cloaked. I hard turn 1 Howl up, toward whisper’s side, but with no arc. We do some firing, and I’m able to get a couple shots on his hurt AP, and am somehow able to take it off the board. I also shoot at an undamaged AP in the middle, and do 2 hits to it with the RR. He has two shots, but either whiffs or I evade.

Turn 8: Now, the intelligent reader will notice something….something I am about to notice while I’m doing dials and I look at the time, and 75min is coming up very fast. I then look at what’s dead on both sides. I have destroyed only two ships, but one of them is Howl, giving me 32 points destroyed. I look at my side, and I still only have 3 ships dead somehow (2 Blacks and an AP), giving him 42 points destroyed. I blink a few times. HOLY CRAP, I can still win this! In all the emotion and excitement, along with all the ships, bumping, and slow roll start, the round time is almost over. I think I mention to Morgan that I still have a chance, and he said something about having more points on the board. I can’t tell, but I think he got confused for a bit between points destroyed and points kept alive (the FFG livestream was deceptive that way). I mention that I’m not behind by that much, and we both start checking what’s destroyed. I double checked, although my head is still spinning from before, but I think Morgan realizes it as. He was playing keep-away with Whisper, since I think Turn 5 really startled him. We both pick up our dials again and start looking at them much more intently. The board is a mess, with Ties facing every which way, so both he and I are trying to figure out what each other are doing. We are nearly done with dials and Time in the round is called. We each look at each and chuckle some. We confirm with each other that this is going to be the final round since we are doing dials. I also stop him for a quick sec, to confirm with FFG (who is now watching the game) that we got our points totals right, and I am currently behind by 10pts. I also didn’t notice, but there is a bit of a crowd forming….*gulp*. Morgan and I keep joking around some, which helps lighten the ever growing stress. I think we each wish each other luck and put down our dials.

He moves first with his 2 APs. The hurt one in the middle does a 3 hard, jumping over a ship, landing near the left board edge, hoping to dodge an arc or two. He evades. The other one pulls a hard 1, missing one of my Ties, lining up a shot on where howlrunner is going to be (she has 3 hull left from what I remember). I think he clipped slightly or something, since he didn’t have an action. I go. I do a hard 1 with AP2 near Howl, turn him just parallel with the Tie that just moved. Unfortunately, both of our bases can be seen by the other. So I really want to focus, but figure I better evade for safety. AP1 (who K-turned over a rock earlier) does a 1 hard, and focuses (he fixed the crit last round). The last one was interesting. He was still by the rock, but whisper had him close to arc last round. So, if whisper does a 1 hard toward my side, I think she could decloak and barely get him in range. Thus I do a 4 forward, and land at point-blank range to the hurt Tie and focus (missing two ships). I’m starting to feel pumped. He currently has a single shot, but its unmod 3 red vs my full health AP with evade. Also, looking at Whisper’s position, I don’t think she can decloak left (too risky near the board). If she decloaks forward or right, and does a 1 hard, it doesn’t look like she can get arc to my AP3 who just went 4 forward. Morgan thinks for a bit, everyone around waiting nerviously. He decloaks left. Unfortunately, from my ‘perspective view’, the distance looked a lot smaller than it actually was. He does a 1 hard to face my board edge. He then does a forward BR toward the chaos. Oh no, I think he might just have range to my evading AP2. Well, at least he has no modifiers. Howl does a 2 bank, finally getting rid of that stress, and focuses (since he won’t be shooting her).

It all comes down to the dice now. Can I kill 1 more AP without losing one myself? I decide to shoot Howl at whisper for fun. 2 hits, blank/blank/blank on green dice, whisper is down to 2 hull. (DANG IT Howl, why couldn’t you have done that 3 turns ago!?!?!?). I get a small moral victory for that. Whisper is next. She shoots, hit/hit/hit/hit. AL;DKJADFKJLFLKJ;AFGLKJ;FADLJK; I roll my 4 green: blank/blank/eye/evade. Oh no oh no. I spend the token and take 2 hits on AP2. Next is his APs. The one at the bottom is running and has no arc. However, the top one barely has arc on AP2 who just got rocked by whisper. Unmod 3 red vs unmod 3 green. He rolls and gets blank/hit/hit. Oh please green dice, if ever there was a chance to get above ave, now is the time. I roll……….blank/evade/eye. UGGGGGGGG, so close, but AP2 goes down, putting Morgan up by 22. I get real depressed again, hearing the sign from some people in the crowd.

WAIT A MINUTE…..Simultaneous fire……I still have three R1 shots with my Ties, and two out of three have arcs to both his ships. Ok, remember your target priority and firing order Dallas, focus! I tell Morgan that I have to kill both of these two APs, or he wins. He nods, looking very nervous. I shoot with AP4, who’s only shot is on the 1 hull evading enemy. I have 3 red with focus to his 3 green with evade token……….hit/eye/blank. ‘Ok, two hits’. He rolls his green……..blank/eye/evade. ARG, one shot down, and couldn’t kill him. I really needed both shots on the other one. Ok, AP1’s shot, 3 red (with either a focus or Howl, I can’t remember which now). I roll…..I get hit/hit/blank. He rolls, and get blank/eye/evade. YES, I got him! That Tie goes down, getting back only 10pts down.

I pause for a quick moment. I say out-load ‘if you not get 1-shot from this attack, you win sir’. I have R1, and a focus and Howl RR, vs 3 unmod green dice. Ok, please oh please oh please dice, get me 3 hits. I roll……..

Hit/hit/eye. I quickly grab the focus token and say ‘spend it’. 3 hits. I look at Morgan and start smiling. He is still smiling too, since we are having so much fun. I tell him ‘all you need is one evade’. He’s nodding, shaking the dice, trying to keep calm. He rolls the final dice of the game………blank/blank/EVADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I offer my hand, letting out a big sigh. We shake, and the crowd that is gathered cheers (they don’t go wild, but still ). That’s it, I am now out of the 2014 Worlds Championship, but I couldn’t have thought of a better way to go out. I was beaming. The game was amazing, to highs and lows, changing strategies multiple times, dice doing crazy things, plans working and failing, all to come down to the very last roll. That’s exactly what makes this game of X-Wing Miniatures sooooo much fun. Part of me does wish I could have made it to the final table, to have an epic rematch vs Paul again, but I lost to him in swiss, so that would have probably just happened again .

I was able to talk about the game with Morgan for a little bit afterward, with what we thought the other one was doing and what not. He actually surprised me, since he wanted show token of appreciating for the game (and being in the States), he actually gave me one of his Promo cards from earlier this year! I felt kind of bad not offering anything in return, but I remember that since he beat me, he was about to get a pretty sweet Han Solo X-Wing backpack, so I didn’t feel THAT bad .

In the end, I got a lot of the stuff that I wanted, including: Vader promo card (I’ll be putting that to good use in the near future), transparent dice for TOP 32 (only had 1 set, so now I can really roll in style), light teal shield tokens (I won’t be using Ties for a little while, so I can actually use those), and the transparent Orange movement templates (I might just have to try Dom’s idea, and use the transparent dark red for the straights, transparent green for banks, and the transparent orange for hard turns ). The prize support was even better than last year, so hats off to FFG for that, and for running an even better event from last year!

In closing, if you (the reader) somehow made it thus far, my hats off to you too! I know its not an easy read (I know I’m not great at this), but I really wanted to share my amazing experiences from this year. I’m still getting goose bumps thinking about it. All I can say, is if you haven’t gotten a chance to make worlds yet, do you best to try and make it out next year. I have had a blast, and I’m sure you will too!

Thanks all for reading!

Dallas (aka Texx)

Round 4:

Echo+VI+ACD+FCS+Rebel Captive, Doom shuttle+scopes+intel agent?, BH+intel agent?

So, got matched up against a phantom, and unfortunately its Echo (whisper is harder to hit, but can get blocked easier). So, the basic plan against phantoms is to more or less ignore the phantom, kill everything else, then either block the phantom up or run away from it. I started on the left, with the shuttle middle, BH shifted right and echo on the left-ish. I moved up slow, and echo danced around in his deployment zone while the BH and shuttle start to bank in. I held straight, covering the left of where echo could be going, which kept the BH out of range, and the shuttle with a single R3 shot on my front AP. As such, he had to move echo kinda to the side of the shuttle, facing at an angle away from my swarm. Next turn was amazing for me. I got a 3 hard in with everyone, landed almost everyone at R1 of the shuttle (even though the shuttle moved first). The BH had to go straight, and barely missed his arc on the swarm. Most surprisingly, echo went 4 straight, AWAY from the whole swarm. I’d like to think the VI howl helped with that

I was able to melt his shuttle (only eating a direct hit from vader on Howl). The BH fell shortly after, and then it was Echo vs 7 Ties. I tried a couple times to block him up and land some hits, but with all his cloak options open, he was able to skirt over half and then one shot Ties a couple times. At this point we only had a few min, so I ran Howl away, and Echo gave chase. Thankfully she was able to survive a long range shot, so I was able to get a match win without it being too scary.

Round 6:

Vs Jonathan Gomes running 3 Blues+E2+Tactician and 1 Gold+ion+stress droid.

Great report Dallas! That was a fun game against you in Round 4. Great flying and cool formation. I knew I made a mistake when you went 2 straight for 3 turns in a row and should have had Echo on my left looping around to force you to deal with her or my 2 big ships. Another miscalculation with the shuttle (should have gone 3 forward instead of 2, to block your 3 hard) pretty much meant that I didn't have time to salvage the points when the 2 big ships melted. Amazing flying with landing TIEs in the middle of TIEs. It was definitely a great experience to play someone at your caliber in my first major tournament!

Funny that you also played Jonathan. I played him in R5 and would have lost to him by 1 point (he killed my shuttle for 26, I killed his gold for 25), but decided to take a gamble and parked Echo at R1 of 2 of his B-Wings. Killed 1 B-wing with the help of the BH, and hoped for the best with 4 v 4 dice. He got 4 hits, I rolled 1 evade and Echo had only 3 HP left. Such fun playing two Top 4 players back to back for me. I learned so much from those two games.

Very happy to see you make the top 4 again and see you around at Regionals in California!

Bernie

Here's a few more pics I've snapped.

Taking on a rebel swarm.

Crushing rebel swarm

Day 2, versus Paul

That game with you and Jonathan was such a nail bitter. You guys were right behind me, so I was lucky to see those last couple of rounds.

Great report, I linked to it in the 2014 Worlds Results thread!

Thanks Sozin, really good pics of my day 1, game 1 and day 2 game 6! Although I wouldn't say *crushing* rebel swarm, since I ended up losing everyone bar howl and an AP to those remaining blues. That one green evade dice can really do some scary things

MrFroggies, yep, that was super close, and my math wasn't working correctly, but I had to hope I was wrong on my numbers. Good to talk to you over the weekend as well!

Where's Act 2? The suspense is killing me!!

Where's Act 2? The suspense is killing me!!

Luckily for you, I spent some time on it today and just got it posted, see above! (pretty sure I can't complete ACT 3 tomorrow though).

Thanks for the report! It is really fascinating to follow the drama and it would be nice to see some recaps if some matches were recorded.

Never got on camera unfortunately, only the pictures that Sozin posted (or what other people managed to grab).

Ok, after a long cramming session, I was able to finish ACT 3. See above! Note the last game is very long, so pace yourself

congrats on your excellent play and thanks for an outstanding writeup! even remembering the exact die rolls is amazing. i wish i could remember as many details from my weekend but so much is lost to the cold meds i just tried to remember the really critical turns and the flow of the games. shame we didn't get to play, look forward to it next time!

That was awesome, Dallas! Inspirational in fact.

Great reports Dallas! I was reliving our game as I read through your play by play descriptions! I really did get lucky that game and you set a beautiful Whisper trap early that should have netted you some damage at least and at best her downfall.

That was easily the most enjoyable game of X-Wing I have played in and will go down as my favourite game to date. It had everything; good moves, clever traps, laughs and jokes, suspense and the game being decided on the final roll. What more can you ask for in a game?

Despite the close finish that could have gone either way - it was a great game because of how you played it - focused when you needed to be but relaxed and willing to have some banter and a laugh between moves.

For anyone reading this who hasn't started playing in tournaments yet, or find themselves being a bit to serious too often when playing (happens to us all, myself included) - I encourage you to take Dallas as the example on how to conduct yourself while playing this game - Not only is he phenomenal player (World #2 last year and Top 8 this year), he is a great bloke and a pleasure to play with.

My recap of my game with Dallas:

I knew the night before that I was going to be playing Dallas, the guy who came so close to being the World Champ last year. I knew it was not going to be an easy fight, but I had my game plan. I knew how he was going to set up, and I knew I didn't want to joust with him, so I was going to set up a pincer and make him choose the Backstabber group or the Howlrunner group.

I set my asteroids up to try and goad him into lining up across from the Howl group, so the BS group could flank. If you can imagine 9 numbered dots on the board, the asteroids were placed at roughly 1,2,3,6,7,9, from my vantage point. That left the left side and center fairly open, which is where I wanted him to go. And he obliged by setting up across from the Howl group, thus allowing the BS group to flank. This would give him a difficult choice of which group to attack and which group to allow to rain shots down on him.

First 2 turns were like he said. He banked towards the BS group, which left the howl group on his flank. The first turn was all Range 3 shots for the most part. I was trying to focus down one of his AP's before it could shoot, but his double DTF was working well. (I hadn't gotten it to work for me in my lead up to Worlds, so I dropped the second DTF for Backstabber.) He managed to take out one of my TIes, whereas I had mostly damaged his due to the Blacks drawing the crits. The next round, I didn't know if he would try and block my BS group with a 5 fwd, or if he would play it safe with a 2 fwd. I thought a 3 fwd from me would jump his 5 fwd, but still land in front of his 2 fwd. It turned out it just bumped his 2 fwd, so my 2 Obsidians and BS didn't have actions, and he burned 2 of the 3 down pretty quickly that round. In hindsight, I should have gone 5 fwd to disrupt his formation and block his Blacks so my Howl group could more easily take them down.

He did have the ship advantage, but I had the damage advantage, as he said. I managed to get back in the lead by finishing off some of his TIEs. And when time was called, I was ahead. We decided to play it out, and I could have played it to not give him shots, but that's not how I play. I played it aggressively. My Howl had a shot to get 1 hit through and finish off his Black at range 1 and didn't roll a single hit. that would have won me the game (I was behind when my AP killed himself on a rock) as it would have kept my Black alive. But alas, it wasn't to be. Dallas won, and was a pleasure to play against. Great guy and an outstanding player.

I'll get you next time, Gadget!!

Thanks for the kind words everyone, as well as the partial insight to what Morgan and Hothie were thinking during the match. Always nice to get a glimpse at what the opponent is thinking after a game. I'm looking forward to future match-ups!

I was rooting for the winner of the hothie-texx game to go all the way. It's a shame that one didnt get recorded. Dallas you're a great player and an underrated asset to the x wing community, I'll be rooting for you in the future.