Evening all, episode 4 of the podcast is now up on iTunes and Soundcloud

This episode is part one of our two part meta gaming special. Alex Birt, James Dowdall and Mike Dennis are joined by special guest, UK national champion Jesper Hills to discuss our approach to meta gaming and tournaments in general.

We also discuss the first store championships we attended!

Let us know what you think guys!

James

Dark Sphere X-Wing Store Champs finals stream: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXyRn_VLOdM

List Juggler Entry lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney…ney_id=1126

Kristofer Bengtsson’s You Tube channel:www.youtube.com/user/veldrin77

Contact us: [email protected] Twitter: @186Podcast Facebook:www.facebook.com/186podcast/

We are recording episode 5 this week as a follow on from Episode 4 to focus on list building.

We'll be joined again by Jesper Hills and I wanted to open it up if anyone has any question for us or Jesper. Either following on from episode 4, about list building or anything else!

Just comment here, on Reddit, or on our Facebook page and we'll get through as many as we can!

We are recording episode 5 this week as a follow on from Episode 4 to focus on list building.

We'll be joined again by Jesper Hills and I wanted to open it up if anyone has any question for us or Jesper. Either following on from episode 4, about list building or anything else!

Just comment here, on Reddit, or on our Facebook page and we'll get through as many as we can!

I would like to know how people are finding the growth of X-Wing in their communities? I listen to and follow several podcasts and it appears in the USA Store Championships are very frequently but only have up to 16 players all the time, which means earning a bye over there isn't too difficult (in a sense).

I am from Hull and we now finally have a very small community developing with those numbers for small tournaments but I attended my first Store Championship over at Element games which had 56 players two weeks ago (BUT I had to travel 2.5 hours to attend) and am going to IQ Games this week (2 hour journey) who are expecting 70+ players. Do we have a stronger scene in the UK for championships, are we just better at organising these things in to big events or is it that we just have a few large tournaments over here due to smaller stores not applying for kits?

Also with Regionals now being announced how do other people feel about locations selected? Again I am from Hull and have seen that for Yorkshire we have nowhere nearby to attend. Nearest opportunity is over 2 hours away for me to attend which means, due to fuel and hotel costs, I'm looking at near £100 to attend.

I hope I don't sound like a whinger as this is not my intention I just wondered how people found these things compared to the US?

We are recording episode 5 this week as a follow on from Episode 4 to focus on list building.

We'll be joined again by Jesper Hills and I wanted to open it up if anyone has any question for us or Jesper. Either following on from episode 4, about list building or anything else!

Just comment here, on Reddit, or on our Facebook page and we'll get through as many as we can!

I would like to know how people are finding the growth of X-Wing in their communities? I listen to and follow several podcasts and it appears in the USA Store Championships are very frequently but only have up to 16 players all the time, which means earning a bye over there isn't too difficult (in a sense).

I am from Hull and we now finally have a very small community developing with those numbers for small tournaments but I attended my first Store Championship over at Element games which had 56 players two weeks ago (BUT I had to travel 2.5 hours to attend) and am going to IQ Games this week (2 hour journey) who are expecting 70+ players. Do we have a stronger scene in the UK for championships, are we just better at organising these things in to big events or is it that we just have a few large tournaments over here due to smaller stores not applying for kits?

Also with Regionals now being announced how do other people feel about locations selected? Again I am from Hull and have seen that for Yorkshire we have nowhere nearby to attend. Nearest opportunity is over 2 hours away for me to attend which means, due to fuel and hotel costs, I'm looking at near £100 to attend.

I hope I don't sound like a whinger as this is not my intention I just wondered how people found these things compared to the US?

I would also like to know, and I'm from the US! In my area all stores except 1 have been capped at 16 or 20. Strictly speaking, this is a gaming space issue. Most stores will not rent out a space to host between 15 and 50 people, not knowing just how many players will show. We have one very spacious store (capped at 60) get 33 players for a store champs! Last year, we didn't even fill out at 16 at some stores. To be fair, within an hour drive there are 7 or 8 store champs near me. I've attended 3 of them, I think a total of 5 are done. I know of 2 more that are going to happen, one is capped at around 25 people (don't know if its full or not), and another is capped at 40 (I don't know if they will hit that cap, but already 25ish are signed up). I don't think we over here in the US really understand how game stores work across the pond. I've heard of gaming clubs where you rent space (very foreign idea for US stores), and have seen lots of pictures of how you setup stores - like mats bumped up right against one another, 10 wide across tables. I guess that only leaves 20cm or so on either end behind the deployment zones for cards, tokens, etc? I would love to hear more about all the logistics of this! In a couple stores we made sure that people had 4 foot x 4 foot to put everything, mat included. That's a LOT of extra space.

I'd say in this area of the US (Denver, CO) the game has doubled in size from last year. It would be even more if some folks didn't migrate over to Armada, but its very healthy at the moment. I think each of the 5 Store champs have all run pretty different variations of "meta" lists.

Last year for regionals we had 80+. In the US, regionals are easily an 8 hour or more drive. I feel pretty lucky we have one in the state, let alone the city. I would think attendance will go up again (probably not by double, but who knows?!) this year, and I hope so!

You guys both raise an interesting question - I was *ahem* heavily involved with a "discussion" on the UK Facebook Group on this very subject!

So involved in fact, that I made a pretty map of our regionals (overlaid on a population density map of the UK, with a 50mile/80km Radius around them!)

I suspect that comparing the UK & the US could be a significant part of an episode in itself! I am interested nonetheless! I'm sure regionals will get mentioned though.

Not quite done listening yet, but I wanted to say that your discussion on meta gaming is fantastic. This has been a topic that the other podcasts haven't covered as well. Others have had episodes talking about the meta heading into different seasons, but no one else has done a comprehensive overview of what meta gaming is, and providing specific examples of what's good, and what's not so good when meta gaming.

Very well done guys, I look forward to more!

I'd be really interested to hear your opinions on tie swarm in the current meta, where it's going and and advice you have for swarm players at the moment

You guys both raise an interesting question - I was *ahem* heavily involved with a "discussion" on the UK Facebook Group on this very subject!

So involved in fact, that I made a pretty map of our regionals (overlaid on a population density map of the UK, with a 50mile/80km Radius around them!)

I suspect that comparing the UK & the US could be a significant part of an episode in itself! I am interested nonetheless! I'm sure regionals will get mentioned though.

I have concerns regarding your methodology:

the population of a place does not necessarily reflect causality to the population of xwing players, i think in this instance sale data from locations might be a better representation of the density of people who play xwing (and therefore places that should get regionals.

secondly, drawing a bubble around an area is not reflective of travel distance from one place to another.

thirdly all of this should be placed within an analysis framework of local shops that have the ability to host a regional event.

I have concerns regarding your methodology:

the population of a place does not necessarily reflect causality to the population of xwing players, i think in this instance sale data from locations might be a better representation of the density of people who play xwing (and therefore places that should get regionals.

secondly, drawing a bubble around an area is not reflective of travel distance from one place to another.

thirdly all of this should be placed within an analysis framework of local shops that have the ability to host a regional event.

I can't disagree with any of these concerns, I look forward to you producing some maps using this data

Spectacularly good. Very thought provoking.

Keep up the good work chaps!