So I entered into the UK north-west regional at IQ gaming centre in Huddersfield. This would be my third tournament since entering the scene early this year. I’ve been playing since early 2014 having got a core set for Christmas in 2013, but I probably played about a dozen games total in 2014 so I still count myself as a relatively new player.

Prior to the regional I played in a small winter kit tourney and a slightly larger Store Championship at the same store (11 and 14 people if I remember correctly).

I flew my trusty Defender at both, and managed a 5th place and a 3rd place finish which I was fairly happy with. I knew Huddersfield would be the biggest X-wing event to date in the UK, so I didn’t really fancy my chances but really just wanted to have some fun and would be happy if I won any kind of prize. I guess my only goal was to not leave empty handed! 79 people turned up on the day.

I've been developing my list slightly each event whilst keeping the core principles. For the regional, I ran;

Colonel Vessery – HLC, VI (43)

Omicron Group Pilot – Vader, Advanced Sensors (27)

Dark Curse – Targeting Computer (18)

Academy Tie (12)

So into the games!

Game 1 – Can’t remember name sorry!

Soontir Fell - Royal Guard Tie, Push the Limit, Autothrusters, Stealth Device

Turr Phenir - Royal Guard Tie, Push the Limit, Autothrusters, Stealth Device

Tetran Cowel - Royal Guard Tie, Push the Limit, Autothrusters, Stealth Device

He deployed quite spread out, with Fell on my right, Turr in the middle and Tet out on the left. I opted for my standard deployment; Shuttle about range 2.5 from my right side, offset 45 degrees to the left, Vess next to him on his left and the two ties just left of my centre line.

The opening turns were cagey as we both vied for the best possible approach; Tet came screaming up the left flank whilst Fell and Turr convened in the middle and slowed the approach. Vess whipped himself out to the extreme right flank with a series of three hard turns. As the first combat round began, my shuttle was covering the entire middle of the field, my ties were swooping into the middle from the left, and Vess was now out on the right in the middle of the board facing the left edge directly. This gave me the perfect opportunity to combine my guns on Fell and Turr, but did leave Tet behind my ties. I knew however, that the PTL-ing squints would be vulnerable to the Defenders 4-K in a head on fight, which is exactly what I had managed to engineer.

After a few rounds of firing, I’ve lost my academy, Tet is dead, Soontir has taken one crit and Turr 2 crits. Things are looking good. I’ve herded both squints into the right corner in my deployment zone, and have the majority of my guns trained. Some frustrating rounds of firing sees Soontir drop to 1 health too, and the shuttle go down. Over the next 6 or so rounds, I managed to land 5 4-hit/crit attacks on the two 1-health squints, but every time he is able to complete evade the damage whilst he whittles Vess and Dark Curse down one hull at a time. I am wiped with both squints still on 1 hull and laughing in my face. A tough game to lose but he flew his squad well so I’m not wanting to take anything away from his game at all, but let’s just say those green dice were so hot throughout the game the table was covered in scorch marks! Haha, 34 – 100 Loss.

Game 2 – Chris

Second game and I know another loss and I’m out the knock out stage already! No pressure then!

4 x Blue Squadron Pilot – Advanced Sensors

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t expecting to face a lot of B-wing lists, so I wasn’t too concerned with Chris’ list. My list is very good at removing a B-wing a turn in the early rounds and I was hoping that trend would continue. I had initiative and he set up in a block in the centre of his left flank. I took standard deployment, but with Vess and the Shuttle on the left this time, Ties on the right. My ties bombed down the right and cut in, whilst Vess and the shuttle slow-rolled forward, waiting for the B’s to enter the rocks before I pounced. Turn three saw the opportunity, the Ties cut in from the right and Vess and the Shuttle moved into what I thought would be range three of the two front B’s only, but with some barrel rolling shenanigans he managed to get all of his B’s into range three of the shuttle. I whittle one of Chris’ front B’s down to 1 hull as he manages to pull out an evade on his dice against every attack, before all the B’s fire back on the shuttle. 2 have focus, and two are through a rock. At range 3. On the 10 green dice I roll from all the combined attacks, I get a grand total of zero evades and the shuttle is destroyed in the first round of shooting! Oh dear, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t part of the plan!

Next round I finish his wounded B and maim another for little in return as his B’s are struggling in the rocks and being attacked from two separate directions. A few more rounds ensue and another B goes down and another is taken down to 4 health but both of my Ties are now dead. Vessery has taken some serious damage and is facing the full health B. I need to bug out, get the injured B in my sights and destroy him. Within the 10 mins remaining. Without letting the uninjured B kill me. Chris knows this is my only way to win, and correctly the injured B turns tail and tries to flee. We spend 4-5 rounds with little to no shooting as I am both flying as evasive as possible whilst trying to close down the final B. Time gets called whilst the first B wing is activating, so we finish the turn. Vess is just, and I mean JUST in range of the injured B after moving. I target lock, knowing that I have to kill him this round to win, despite having both B’s with line of sight on me. I shoot, managed to get the 4 hits needed and injured B, who just K-turned so has no focus token to convert the eyeball he rolls on his green. Boom! Just have to survive a range 2 focused shot through a rock now at my 1 HP Vess with no tokens. Two hits.... Two natural evades! Victory! Barely! I felt bad for Chris who was in a commanding position going into the end game, but after he blew up my shuttle in the luckiest display of shooting I’ve ever seen, I decided it was just Karma evening things out. 75 – 57 win

Game 3 – Tom

I’ve played Tom’s dad and brother in the store championship I played in previously, and lost to both. His Dad (Craig) is the UK 2013 national champion and his brother (Scott) won the 2013 escalation tournament at worlds! Tom’s no slouch either, with plenty of Store Championship and Regional titles to his name. I was determined not to let the Reed family hat-trick me so this was a real must win game. I can’t remember his list completely, but it was something like;

Dash – Mangler Cannon, Outrider, Recon Specialist + ???

Chewie – Millennium Falcon, Predator, C3PO

There were some other upgrades in there but I can’t remember. Pretty sure he was 100 points. There was definitely no engine on either YT.

He set up facing forward in the corner on my left. I went standard deployment with Vess and the shuttle on the right and ties centre-left. He 1 turned towards his other deployment edge on the first turn and starts heading along his board edge. This is perfect for me. I should note in my early days with this list I struggled against the Falcon, particularly Han. I quickly recognised I have the firepower to hammer him down fast if I can bring my guns to bear. My whole ‘standard deployment’ was developed to allow me to have all ships in range of ‘insert big ship here’ by turn 3, wherever they deploy or move. That’s what happened here, but because he headed into his corner rather than moving forward, I had him pinned in the corner with all ships beating down on him by turn 3.

My shuttle and academy pilot made it very difficult for him to get clear, whilst I beat down on him with TL/F Vess and TL vader shuttle and TL range 1 Dark Curse shots. By the time he got out of my blockade of ships and lasers, Chewie was dead and Dash badly beaten. He managed to kill my Academy (the bane of his existence this game with his fantastic blocking) before Dash went down. Sorry no more details, but this was a fast and one sided game. Tom’s red dice were poor and because most of my shots are TL’d each round, the big low agility ships didn’t last long. 100 – 12 Win.

Game 4 – Tom (yes, another Tom!)

Toms a friend of mine from playing at the previous events I attended and we’ve met up for a few games since, so this was a very laid back game. Tom was 2 wins – 1 Loss – 1 Draw at this point, so it was the end of qualification hopes for one of us. As we’d travelled up together, it could mean the loser had a long night of waiting around for the cut to be played out. He flew;

IG88-B – Mangler, Autotrusters, Advanced Sensors, Predator, IG2000, Inertia Dampeners

IG88-C – Mangler, Autotrusters, Advanced Sensors, Predator, IG2000, Inertia Dampeners

Running at 98 he gave me initiative to be able to react to Dark Curse. Knowing IG has the upper hand in terms of speed and manoeuvring over my fleet, I knew trying to pin him down would be relatively useless. I set up Vess and the shuttle in standard formation on the left and the two ties went on the extreme left, hopefully protected from early sniping from them Manglers by my hard hitters. He danced around in the opening rounds whilst I slowly crawled to get the asteroids in front of me, forcing his approach through them. We engaged around round 3, and by round 4-5 IG-B (I think) was down to one health and fleeing back down the left flank towards his board edge whilst a full health IG-C swooped in.

At the start of his activation phase, C was facing the rear of my severely wounded shuttle at range 1, and my academy had bumped into the rear of him. Vess and Dark Curse were lined up just off to his left flank at range 1. Tom has planned to activate Dampeners, blast the shuttle out of the sky and deny the academy pilot a shot. In what can only be described as a ‘brain-fart’ he instead decided his 1 right bank would just fit in behind the shuttle, allowing him to boost over it, out of arc of the academy, and putting him at range 2 from Curse and Vess whilst gaining an evade token. In short, it didn’t fit, he bumped the shuttle, lost his action and took range 1 shots from Vess (TL/F) Dark Curse (TL/F) and Academy Pilot (F). He took six damage from the bombardment. The next turn it was impossible for him to get anything in arc so he tried to flee, but the shuttle just had IG-B with his 1 hull remaining in range planning to Vader him, but Toms dire green dice continued and he killed him (with Autotrusters activating and an evade token) without needing to activate Vader. With IG-C on 2 health, facing the wrong direction and against my full list, Tom conceded. Win 100 – 0.

Game 5 – Lewis

So going into game 5 I just needed two more wins. I was on table 8 for this game, so I was somewhere around 15th or 16th place after my two big wins in rounds 3 and 4. Tom and Pav (the other gent who made the trip with me) were both out of being able to make the cut now, and to be honest that kinda made me not too bothered about making it myself and keeping them guys hanging around. It took the pressure off and let me simply enjoy my last two games. Anyway, Lewis was flying;

Chewie – Recon specialist, Jan Ors, Millennium Falcon, Push the Limit

2 x Blue Squadron Pilot – Fire Control System

He won the roll of initiative and gave it to me. He set up in the corner on my right, and I went standard deployment with the Shuttle and Vess on the right. He came straight at me. But slowly! 1 forwards for three turns I believe. I engaged with everything on the 3rd turn and by the 5th turn a B was badly injured and Chewie suitably mauled, Vess had lost a few shield and the shuttle was into hull. Chewie had a 4 forward to clear the traffic jam I’d parked in front of him and I had no way of blocking it. I could have 2 turned the shuttle which may have kept Chewie in arc, but it may have resulted in the shuttle going off the board so I kept him still to deal with the remaining B’s. Unfortunately the turn before I had forgotten to activate Vader on Chewie, which would later prove to be the costliest mistake I made all day (and I made a fair few!).

Chewie gets clear, but is pursued aggressively by the ties whilst Vess K’s to keep Chewie just in range and he’s out of arc of the B’s. I get Chewie down to 4 hull and kill off the injured B, but the shuttle is toast and Dark Curse takes a hit. I have Chewie in the corner now and I’m confident I can finish him off before he escapes. Another round of pounding puts him down to 1 hull. Next round, my Academy goes for the block but Chewie fits barely, getting his double evade/focus off again. Vessery can only eat his tokens and Dark Curse totally whiffs before the game gets dumped on its head. Chewie fires and 1 shots my Focused, full health Academy pilot at range 1 with an unmodified attack before the B Wing sneaks a crit through on Dark Curse. Of course, this is a direct hit to explode him too! The next three rounds see Vess not be able to land more than 3 hits a turn on Chewie, who manages to get the focus or evade he needs each time to take no damage with his evade/evade/focus combo. During this period, Chewie and the B chip Vess down to 1 health. I have to kill Chewie and run like the wind to win this, I move into Range 1 of Chewie, with the B tailing me at range 3. I TL to give me the best chance of getting the 4 hits I need to guarantee Chewie’s demise, but yet again I can only manage 3 hits and Chewie dodges them all, before slamming me with another 4-hit range 1 shot and ending Vessery’s hope, and my chances of qualifying.

This was a crazy, crazy game. Whereas my first loss to the dodgiest interceptors ever made was frustrating, this game flipped so quickly we could only laugh. Lewis was as amazed as I was that he’d won and couldn’t believe how it’d happened either. We had a good joke about it and Lewis offered me the consolation that I was without a doubt the best opponent he had flown against all day, particularly complementing my blocking ability. This was incredibly nice of him, Although I am without-a-doubt sure he was exaggerating, but as a new player to the tourney scene it was nice for someone with Lewis’ experience to compliment my playing and let me know that despite my new-ness I’m not too far behind the curve. Lewis went on to make the play-offs and finished in the top 4. I had threatened to come looking for him if he didn’t make the play-offs after knocking me out, so I’m hoping that was the wind beneath his wings to finish so strongly!

Game 6 – Can’t remember this chaps name either.

This was the final game of the day for me, and I was determined to enjoy it regardless of its little bearing on the results. Plus, I was fairly certain that a win would put me in the prize bracket, which let’s not forget was my ultimate goal! As I was setting up on a very cramped corner table the TO and store owner approached me and asked if I’d fly my list on the feature table, which was being recorded. I’m not sure if this was due to luck of the draw, my quirky list, or because he was as impressed with the game against Lewis as Lewis was, but when I looked at that feature table, all by its self with 5 foot of room around every board edge, and looked back at my cramped table in the corner with chairs cluttering up the 2 foot walkway between our table and the guys behind us, I didn’t need much convincing to let them record the game!

He Flew;

Panic Attack

Gold Squadron Pilot – Ion Cannon, Stress-bot

3 x Blue Squadron Pilots – E2, Tactician

More B-wings, and lots and lots of stress. This would be a difficult game as if Vess gets a lot of stress stacked up on him, he will lose his focus for defence and die quick. Similarly, stress on the shuttle/Dark Curse would limit my ability to stack TL’s for Vess to use and seriously hamper my offence against what can only be described as a heck o’ lot of HP’s. So, the only plan going in was simple – Don’t let him stress me! Yeah...

He deployed his B’s in a higgly-piggly line just off centre to my right and his Y wing quite far out on the left (countering my Tie who’d gone down first I think) I think I had initiative in this one. I went standard deployment with Shuttle/Vess on the right, Ties centre-left. The ties bomb forward whilst the shuttle and vess slow roll up. The B’s predictably bank to their left to come to engage Vess whilst the Y-wing heads towards the Shuttle and Vess too. The Ties meet the Y wing round two and after he manages to park himself on a rock, getting a range 1 and range 2 shots on him, which I think strip all his shields. The next round see’s The B’s and Vess and the Shuttle engage at range 3 (no stress, whoop!) and I give one B-wing a good old beating for a few shields off the shuttle. The ties continue to hound the Y-wing doing some more damage, before the Y-wing hits Dark Curse with an ion shot (1 hit, no evades, Gahh!!) after I barrel rolled instead of focusing to get a rock out of my line of fire (look mum, another mistake!) This meant he moved onto a rock the next round and rolled a crit, and yep, you guessed it, direct hit himself off the board. Good work son!

During that round, Vess had some difficult decisions to make, a slight bank would definitely let all three B’s target him at range 2 (maybe the back one would be 3) but any other move that would give me a shot would put me at range 1 of all of them. In what I can only describe as my own personal ‘Paul Heaver Moment’ I dialled in a straight 5 and hoped I’d read his game right. When his back B 2-banked instead of 1-banked, I thought I was going to bump and get ranged 1’d by 2 B’s, but Vess had other plans and glided beautifully into the space behind and between the B’s. No shot, but what a great position to be in. I beat down on the Injured B with my Shuttle and Academy pilot and the shuttle got another shafting.

The next few rounds are a blur, but there was some blocking from the shuttle and Tie, some B’s getting hung up on rocks, the Shuttle exploding, and Vess K-turned after his fly-by to gun down the injured B at range 3 before swooping round behind the Y wing and finishing him off too in the next round, all without taking any return fire. Next he cuts in to start on a fresh B whom despite my best efforts I just can’t seem to block with my Tie (reading his moves right, just incorrectly calculating where my move + barrel roll will place me) but I get him down to 4 health and lose only a shield of Vess. The tie fighter dies mostly due to his own ineffectual blocking, leaving Vess vs a 5 HP B and a 4 HP B. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s pretty much the exact situation I found myself in during the second game. The difference here is I have 2 shields and 3 hull remaining rather than a couple of hull. I can afford to be bold, and I am.

I’m behind the injured B and certain he will K turn. Because of the angles, I should be able to K turn to keep him in arc whilst getting out of his, but it won’t leave me in a great position against the remaining B wing, so I instead opt for a soft 1, putting me head on with the 4 hull B at Range 1. Yet again Vess proves his value with a 4 hit/no evades shot to blow the B out of the sky and I’m pretty sure that’s game. No more need for silly risks so I lead the remaining B (who has me TL’d from many turns ago) on a wild goose chase around the board whilst ends back in my deployment zone. The angles look right so I K-turn, ending barely outside range 3. He banks into me and I into him with 3 bank, letting me barrel roll out of his arc. My unmodified range 1 attack yields whopping zero damage. He K’s, I turn and time is called going into the combat phase. We exchange final shots and I mange to put 4 damage on him reducing him to 1 HP. He shoots back and pings another shield off and that’s that. 75 – 57 Win. Interestingly, he only inflicted 1 stress on me all game, and that was on the Academy Pilot. Game plan worked! haha

I was happy with my flying in this game, and although I lost Dark Curse far too early and flopped about uselessly with my Academy for a few turns before he died, Vessery proved why he is certainly worth every one of the 43 points invested in him, tearing apart the B-wings and Y-wing single handed. He should never had let Vess of the leash, but once he was behind the B-wings, they had some difficult choices to make and when you give your opponent difficult decisions, you can usual bank on them getting a few wrong. When IQ Gaming uploaded the video of this game, I’ll post a link to it here for your general amusement at my clumsiness whilst playing and undoubtedly my incorrect description of the game from memory! (and my silly accent for all our American friends).

Overall I was happy with my performance. I finished 24th out of 79 players, which bagged me the Alt Art Boba card and a £20 gift voucher for the store, which very quickly turned into a nice new Firespray. I was low on MoV, with only 2 or 3 other 4-2’s beneath me. If I’d have finished Chewie (game 5) and the last hull of the B wing in the final game, I’d have jumped up to 15th! Coulda, shoulda, woulda I guess.

I never felt outclassed in any game, and I think that’s testament to the versatility of the list. I know people like to bag on the Defender, but I honestly think it is one of the most unique ships in the game and if you can crack it, it’s a terrifying weapon of pain and death for your enemies. 3 of my opponents on the day had never played against a Defender before, and that makes me a little bit sad. It does however give you a big advantage when you bring one to a competitive event, as it simply throws people off their A-game as whilst they probably know how they’re going to play vs Deci’s and falcons and B’s and Phantoms, most people don’t have any plan to deal with the Defender. I would certainly run this list again, and if I was a little better pilot and made a few less mistakes, I’m certain I could have won all six of my games with this list. For this reason, I’m going to stick with it going into my second (and final) regional this month. For the record, I was the only person fielding a Defender at the event.

I missed out on tickets for Nationals before they sold out, and thus my only way in is through a regional win. This time, my goal is to make the play-offs, and, ideally, bag myself some sexy acrylic templates.

Side note; any UK players who have purchases a nationals ticket but can’t make it, fear not, this man right here will ease the burden and reimburse you with interest for your ticket!

Thanks for reading!

And just as a final note I'd like to thank all my opponents for making this such a good day and fantastic event to play in. The guys at IQ did a great job too. If anyone I haven't named remembers playing me let me know and I'll add you into the report. Same if I remebered any details wrong let me know and I'll update the game post.

Thanks guys

Thanks for the write up! You did really well against some of the top "meta" builds!

Thanks! No problem on the write up, slow day at work!!

Great narrative.

If you could snap a quick photo at the start of each game to give a sense of the asteroid deployment and your placing it would help immensely for

newer players to visualise as it can be quite hard to imagine if you're not a veteran.

Did Keith win it?

No lee Duncan won it, going six nil in Swiss too. Unfortunately didn't get the chance to meet him but seemed like a good guy. I don't remember anyone called Keith sorry. Good call on the photos though. I had no intention of doing a report, but I had some time today and figured it might help me remember the games and the mistakes a little better so I can hopefully take as much away as possible!

Great set of reports - well remembered and good work! While it's great to see the top players and builds reporting on their wins here, I'm just as interested in the rest. For one thing, it's a lot more tense and exciting when there's doubt as to whether you'll win any match or not

My previous (and second) tournament was also six rounds, so I know it can be pretty gruelling - it's a lot easier to make mistakes when you've been on your feet and thinking hard for hours on end.

Good luck in your next tournament!

Great read dude. Sounds like you had some great games and a lot of fun. Sounds like a perfect day of X-Wing.

Thanks guys - glad you enjoyed the report. It was a great day and a great atmosphere which eased the fatigue somewhat. Unfortunately still no videos from IQ yet. I'm dying to see the final as well.

You know, Keith Wilson, UK National Champion 2013 and 2014...

Haha, oh, THAT Kieth! No I don't think he was there

Very cool. I always love seeing Defenders get played. There's something about them that just feels great. I love Dark Curse with the Targeting Computer. He and Night Beast are the exceptions to my rule to never put Targeting Computers on TIE fighters to help Vessery out. Sometime I'm going to put a TC on him and that will be the only one other than Vessery in the whole squad. It will just sit there, getting Target Locks, and the enemy will so badly want to kill it to shut down Vessery's ability, but they won't, because it's Dark Curse, and that would be a waste of firepower.

Haha, oh, THAT Kieth! No I don't think he was there

He was the TO.

gr8 report, thnx for posting. ur list reminds me a bit of a list i flew a while back but i used Kath scarlet instead of the defender and a few diff upgrades on shuttle (engine over vader)

Haha, oh, THAT Kieth! No I don't think he was there

He was the TO.

Well don't I feel silly!

Dark Curse with the TC is probably the best amendment I've made for the list. Him and the shuttle provide great TL coverage for Vess and like you point out, people generally don't want to put shots into Curse unless there are no other options. Running the academy alongside him during games means there usual always is an easier option to shoot (i.e the academy). I haven't found a better duo to run with Vess yet