This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend my first ever Store Championship at The Labrynth Games, my local shop in Baraboo, WI. I've been playing X-Wing since a little before Christmas and my only previous tournament experience was a four-person affair two weeks prior, so I was hoping to win at least one game while having fun and learning a little about flying plastic ships.
I ran the following:
- Etahn A'baht (32) with R2 Astromech (1)
- Biggs Darklighter (25)
- Rookie Pilot (21)
- Rookie Pilot (21)
My idea was to fly them in tight formation as long as possible while focus-firing ships to pieces with Etahn's crit-passing ability. The lack of upgrades and easy-to-remember pilot abilities would ensure I could focus on flying and not get hung up on activating situational powers and synergies.
Game One
My first game was against another squad of four low-PS Rebel ships: a Gold with TLT, two Blue T-70s, and Roark with a TLT. My opponent made the mistake of boosting his Blues into the firing arc of all four of my ships (at range 1 and 2, no less) for the first two combat exchanges. I managed to take out a ship each round. From there, I let the TLTs slowly eat away at Biggs while my other three ships loaded his YW and HWK with crits. After winning 100-25, I felt pretty good about my prospects for the rest of the tournament.
Game Two
My second game I was matched up against a guy I had played once before at a game night where he had completely dismantled me with the same list he was playing at the tournament: Vader and Zertik with ATCs and a PTL Fel. I was pretty nervous, having lost to him so badly the last time we played (albeit with me playing a very different list) and having lost with my EXXX squad to a similar Imperial squad the previous Friday night. Surprisingly, the crits that bled through all those green dice managed to pull up as Direct Hits more often than not. Likewise, my dice, red and green, were on fire and Biggs withstood two or three rounds of fire more than he really should have according to basic probability. I ended up tabling him 100-0.
Game Three
After winning my first two games, I already considered the tournament a complete success. Anything else that happened that day would be a bonus. Good thing, too, because the four Gold with TLTs my next opponent ran ate up one ship a turn thanks to some truly terrible flying on my behalf. I ended up bumping him in the worst possible ways, robbing me of both my actions and, in most cases, any chance at focus firing. At the end, three of his YWs were just hanging on by a hull or two, but I was tabled 0-100.
Game Four
Having won two games with only 14 people playing in the tournament, the winner of my fourth game was likely going to decide who made the cut to the final four. My opponent was running Vessary with HLC and three named TIE F/Os. The game was quick and close, with pretty much every ship exchanging fire every turn after the initial exchange. We ended up with a shieldless Vessary facing off against a one-hull Etahn and shieldless Rookie. Etahn fell after an ill-conceived 4K, but the Rookie managed to bring Vessary down to one hull. The next turn, however, Vessary's HLC landed 3 hits on my Rookie. I lost 66-100, with my opponent moving on to the semifinals.
I finished the tournament 2-2 with a good enough MoV to get 5th (and win a sweet acrylic range finder in addition to the alt-art C3PO). Turns out three out of four of my opponents finished 2nd, 3rd, and 4th overall, so I'm really proud of my finish. What really matters most though is that I had an absolute blast playing X-Wing a group of nice guys. I can't wait until next year ... if my wife lets me attend again.