Austin, Texas
May 23rd 2015
X-Wing Regionals Tournament
So I am going to preface this with this was my first tournament I have ever attended for X-Wing. I signed up a few weeks before the event to make sure I was able to get in. The limit was 64 to make sure we all fit. To get ready for the tournament, I decided to give the weekly X-Wing meet-up where the tournament was to be held a go. I met up with Jason, the TO of the regional event and the guy who runs the weekly meet-up. He set me up with some games that night and we talked about lists and the upcoming regionals. It was fun. Met some good people, won some and lost some. It was just a great time.
One big thing that I did in preparation for the event was watch the regional listings that Majorjuggler has been running since the start of the season. I kept my eye out for any obvious patterns. The big one at the time was Soontir/RAC. So I practiced against that list with the lists I was thinking about running and tweaked them until I was happy with their line up. It wasn’t until about 3 days before the event that I decided on my list. It was a choice between 2. This one: Binaries, or this one: Bexican Food. I played them both enough to be comfortable with them, but there was just something about IG-88s that I couldn’t pass up. So I went with it.
Day of the event, my wife and I made our way down to Dragon’s Lair, where the event was being held. We were about an hour and a half early. I loaded up my package of snacks/drinks. Then before leaving the car, listened to the theme from The Fist of the North Star film. Here’s a link: YOU WA SHOCK. This was now stuck in my head. Honestly, couldn’t ask for a better song to be in there.
Got in, got my name checked off the pre-registered list, then I started the old game of hurry up and wait. It was about an hour of waiting with a start time some time after noon.
My first opponent was a lady named Gwendolyn Gifford. She was flying 3 Syck fighters and a Z-95. 1 Syck was Laetin A’shera. All the Sycks had title and HLC’s on them. The Z-95 was N’dru Suhlak. I think it had missiles? Can’t really remember because it didn’t last long. I took a ship off a round and didn’t lose one of the coldhearted droid menaces. 100-0 win! 1-0
My next opponent was Clay Longino. He was flying 4BZ. I don’t remember which I lost, but this game went to time. I took down 2 B’s and he took down 1 of my droids. I learned a lot on this fight and I won’t go into it because this is already a novel. 50-44 loss. 1-1.
My third opponent was Jake Verkeyen. He was flying Scum Boba and some Warthogs. This was ugly. My green dice betrayed me so hard in this. Lesson I learned here is that Iggy Bros don’t joust. 0-100 loss. 1-2.
The last game was over so fast that I texted my wife to get me something to eat (she had left to go shopping/hang out with some friends). She showed up about an hour later with what can only be described as a GYRO OF POWER!!! After scarfing that down and getting some of her special French luck *wink*; I was ready for war.
My fourth opponent was Brian Cook. He was flying a list I can’t remember all the details on. I know it involved some Y-wings and that’s about it. I just remember him getting discouraged with the list. He was down to his last Y when he called it. 100-0 win! 2-2.
My fifth and final opponent was Joel Puryear. He was flying a Fat Han with Keyan Farlander. Han had all the trimmings and Kyle and Keyan was tubbed up too with Jan. I focussed down Keyan as fast as possible. Almost losing IG-88C in the process. He bugged out while IG-88B went after Han. Got him down to low hull and then dropped a proxy on his face. Probably my favorite move of the day. Took him out with the proxy! 100-0 win! 3-2.
At this point, we had had enough people drop out of the event for the need to have a 6th round was moot. So we cut to top 8 at that point and during that we announced top 16. Everyone who showed up got the alt-art Scum Boba. Top 16 got shield tokens. Top 8 got shields and dice. I was hoping that on my wins I didn’t lose a point and one of my losses wasn’t a full tabling that I would get in the top 16. When my name was called for 15th place, I was very proud. Like I said above, this was my first tournament ever for X-wing. I think, with it being a regional event, that I did pretty well. Here’s hoping I can get around to going to more X-wing events as I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
I would like to thank Dragon’s Lair for hosting the event and Jason for TO’in like a champ. Seriously, thank you for all the math.
