About 3 month's ago I went to the first Brighton warlords tournament, as the x wing community has been building up there. I'd first been to the Brighton warlords for a warhammer 40k tournament a few years ago. And it takes place in an Old pub with a decent amount of space in a function room.

About 12 of us from the same FLGS in london came down to try out luck. Attendance was 30 people.

I usually fly 3 ship lists, but I've been running a 6 ship swarm recently, as I feel that when wave 5 and the Ion torpedo come out it will heavily threaten swarms. And I wanted to get as many games with a swarm as I could before that happened, and also I'd be playing with the decimator

Howl's sordid slumer party (something to do with having a six ship list)

Howlrunner, Deterimation, hull upgrade

2 academy ties

3 alpha interceptors

100 points.

Each game I set up in a 3 by 3 formation, with the 2 academies on the inside, and howl at the back outside. this let me either rush up the board, or hard 1 along my board edge. It would prove rather useful throughout the tournament.

First game was against someone I've played twice, and beaten twice. He was running my original 6 ship swarm, which had stealth device instead of hull upgrade.

I won Iniative, and chose it. I managed to engage him while he was slightly affected by an asteroid, and came off slightly better then him, though a lot of damage was spread around, we ran out of time and I had killed a tie and an interceptor, while he had killed a tie.

30-12 win

My second game was against an interesting list.

Wedge, swarm tactics

Nera dantles, deadeye, 2 proton torpedoes

Jake farrel, Veteran Instincts, push the limit, proton rockets, test pilot title

I set up on my right flank, while he deployed wedge and nera central and jake on my left flank. I rushed my swarm forwards while he rushed Jake down, however my speed had taken jake out of the fight for a few turns. He tried to turn away but then turned back to engage, getting a few hits in only for me to kill wedge. next turn jake and Nera took down Howl and a tie but I then destroyed Nera. a few turns of chase the stressed a wing later and I had managed to take Jake out for no more losses.

100-34 win

My third game was vs yet another person I had travelled down with.

3 blue B wings's with tactician

Roark with ion turret

I set up on my left flank while he deployed in the right hand corner in a pinwheel formation. I moved along my board and then came up the center, avoiding the large asteroid my opponent had set up there. A few rounds and quite a bit of blocking later I had lost Howl for one of his blues and roark. I then took out a second blue but lost an interceptor (on the last turn, he moved round and we were out of time so he said to stop, I convinced him that a barrel roll would get into arc, only for him to finish off my wounded interceptor after taking my advice).

75-42 win

My fourth game was vs the flatmate of someone from our local shop, who I had never met.

Rexlar, predator, Heavy laser cannon

mauler

3 academy ties

I won Initiative again.

I deployed in my bottom left again, while he deployed his 4 ties in the top right and rexlar central. I moved along my board edge and banked in where he expected me to turn, so I got a few range 3 shots unmolested, which downed an academy. Rexlar entered the fight and put a few hits into howl, only for 2 of my interceptors to reduce him to 1 hp from 6 attack dice. I was doing quite a bit of blocking, and ended up blocking mauler onto an asteroid. Several turns later I had wiped out everything for the loss of howlrunner and another tie (I think, I was pretty buzzing from lack of sleep and caffeine at this point so its a bit blury).

100-22/34

During this game I looked around, I was on table 2, and to my left and right were mostly people I knew from my local shop, including a nice guy who is pretty good with a swarm, and was flying it there. as he won and so did I, we would be playing. We were both 100 points so knew that the roll for Initiative was pretty important, and I won it.

Game five.

Howlrunner, stealth device

dark curse

black sq tie with draw their fire

4 academy ties.

I deployed bottom right, he deployed top left, we ended up meeting in the middle coming in 2x2x2. I was able to block him quite a bit, but also had to block myself at these points to try and cover k turn locations.

During the first few turns I downed 3 ties while he returned the favour and took out a tie and an interceptor (the first round of engagement we made quite a few mistakes as we were both slightly burnt out and had no idea how to get out of the situation we had made). After another 30 min of hot tie on tie action. in the last turn of the game I managed to down his howlrunner, however he had many shots on a tie and was just unlucky to not kill it and to lose howlrunner.

58-30 win

I discussed things with my friends and realized I was on 5 wins, with the next highest being 4 a loss. I drew against someone who had given me a sound thrashing in my league games last week and hoped that I would manage to scrape second after the game was done.

game six.

Whisper, Veteran Instincts, advanced cloaking device

Soontir, push the limit, targeting computer, shield upgrade

omicron shuttle, darth vader

I deployed in my bottom left, while he deployed his shuttle and fel in the top right and whisper central. I rushed forward 5 forwards, while Soontir did the same, next turn I 3 banked round, taking a bit of fire from whisper but no damage.

I then 5 forwarded again and 3 banked while blocking one of whisper's decloak options with an academy, forcing whisper to spend his action to cloak as he couldnt get a safe shot without being range 1 of me. Sootir had manged to close by this point and did some damage to howl, but it wasn't enough and I took out whisper in 1 salvo. As he'd boosted fel into range 1 of whisper I figured he couldn't 2 turn without bumping me, so I hard turned round to target his shuttle, and took that out in a salvo for the loss of Howl. This is all taking place about range 2 from his board edge

Next turn I split to cover and block potential destress moves from Soontir, and he turns towards the edge and barrel rolls then boosts, ending about a milimeter away from the edge. a 2 turn later and he's off by a milimeter!

100-22 win

I realize that I'm the only person to have won all 6 games, and it still hadn't sunk in that I'd won my first x wing tournament!

It also made me glad that I still hadn't gotten around to pre ordering a Decimator, as I would have one winging its way to me within the next few weeks (hopefully).

There were quite a few swarms there, and the imperial's outnumbered the rebels. I saw 1 falcon on its own, and also a dual falcon list, and a triple firespray list, plus a few shuttles, but mostly 3-4 ship lists and swarms, which was rather weird, probably due to falcons being hard to get at the moment.

I'm looking forward to the next tournament there, as wave 5 will have been out for awhile, which should make things interesting.