I recently played an 11 man kit supported tournament. I had a ball, but played pretty awful. The quick background: I mostly play with my wife. In xwing, Impass, and armada, I have taken on the role of the empire in the household (no force choke jokes, please). We have a great time bringing two squads to our watering hole The Pig's Meow, and playing a game over some pints. It's lovely.

Just getting into the game, my wife and I drove out to a SC at now defunct Empire Games (pour one out for our homie). The store staff, the pilots and the TO (Mr. Chihuahua himself, no less!) were gracious hosts. super friendly, I'm really lucky to be a part of our local. and it turned us deeper into the game (my wife certainly noticed the gender balance, but was ultimately unfazed).

So I slowly built up our collection, leaning on imps, paint is on the way to take me back to my 15 year old wh40k painting days, played a store championship, and enjoyed the deep dive down the rabbit hole, going deeper every day.

My work schedule destroys most weekday nights, and I miss out on a bunch of prime leagues and xwing nights as a result. But here was this tourney on a weekend, and finally got to get out. I was thrilled. 98% of my list building of late had been focused on imp vets. With that damned boat not reaching our shores as of yet, I built a squad of cherneau with engine upgrade, Mara jade, a seismic, predator, and Gunner. RAC was supported by Quiz, title, outmaneuver, and ion pulse missiles. The goal was to put stress and ions in the mix, as I had not really flown any sort of control flights, and naturally, my Vets lists are dependant on those mechanics.

The first round saw me up against a mix of 4 named scum. I flew terribly, landing RAC on rocks almost every other turn, something wasn't clicking. Nevertheless RAC was able to pour out damage when he was off the rocks, and took out three. But suffered a damaged cockpit crit towards the end with only graz left to hunt him down, which was simple enough with PS 0. Loss 100-70.

The second game was more scum, the time kavil and three z95s. My goal this round was to simply fly better and keep RAC off the rock, that poor addict. Mission was mostly accomplished but RAC lost a red die to weapons failure early in the round he couldn't seem to shake, and was thus pretty handicapped most the game. I did get some nice uses of Mara jade plus bomb again, but mostly just reinforced the notion that the way I fly my deci, I should be bringing oicunn. The inquisitor shone this round, taking out kavil, but the z's I poorly managed target selection and left them all on the table to finish off RAC too quickly. Loss 100-30ish.

The bye was nice. I bought some imp dials.

The fourth game was trying. Three y's with autoblasters and a toilet seat. The initial engagement saw me misjudge RAC right into all three autoblasters, the jump bumped his own y, but the turrets gave RAC another damaged cockpit.

At that point, eveything came unhinged. Mara's stress hit each of his ships, and the opponent himself. He was tired, he was getting frustrated. I flew RAC like I should have all night, playing keep away from the ys. He kept self bumping, getting more frustrated as I plinked away at his y's. He chose to concede, we shook. then he made some strange mov calculation in his head, and chose to play on, which I allowed. But as we carried on, tokens got moved sloppily, maneuvers were imprecise, his state of mind was too much for me. He was done. So I conceded in frustration.

0-4. Got an ion token. Had a good time. Learned some lessons.

Nice write up. I've just got into X-Wing and I'm fascinated by how easy the rules are but how complex the game is. Keep flying and learning, that's all we can do!

Thanks for the write up, that last game was a bit of a shame however I feel.

That was how my day went. Yesterday, we had a lovely 15 man tournament. First time out to this store, comfy and pleasant (even the MTG kids were polite!). The TO, as always, gave us a smooth game. There was a nice variety out today, toilet seats and a party bus, swarms, brobots, some palp aces of various flavors, scum, but I think we may have had no rebels represented.

I bought a second TAP for more guidance chips, as my mind is still dancing around builds that are reliant on vets. I spent a couple of weeknights setting up rocks and working on maneuvering, liked the dial, and thought of a list of two taps and a defender, the crazy eights:

TIE Avanced Prototype: · Valen Rudor (22)

Veteran Instincts (1)

XX-23 S-Thread Tracers (1)

TIE/v1 (1)

TIE Avanced Prototype: · The Inquisitor (25)

Push The Limit (3)

Autothrusters (2)

TIE/v1 (1)

TIE Defender: · Rexler Brath (37)

Predator (3)

Cluster Missiles (4)

Guidance Chips (0)

-- TOTAL ------- 100/100p. --

The goal was to have quiz and valen shoot first, so rexler could have a better chance to crit an unshielded target. Always with eyes towards the vets release, I put clusters/chimps/pred on Rex to simulate a krassis build I've been working on. I wanted to put valen in the lead with rexler behind, and quiz would jet up the side, get behind the engagement, and be the arc dodging ballerina he's supposed to be. Well, that was the plan at least...

Some general notes: the good news is that I stayed off the rocks this time. I think I only clipped a single rock or debris field in all my games. The bad news is the bumping. Giving credit where credit is due, my opponents maneuvered quite well throughout the rounds, but I was hampered all day by a massive brain fart. When I was setting my dials, I was looking at the target of where I thought my opponent's ships would be, I would set my dial to that target, not to where I wanted to be to get said target in my arc. Therefore, I spent much of my day bumping, and self bumping, and given my list, often denied myself all the action economy it affords.

Valen's ability is fun, but he's not really pulling his weight in a three ship build. The tracers were there for a point, but never felt worthwhile. Rexler... he scares people, he was everyone's primary target. The white 4k is of course hard to say no to, and he did alright. Titles and tie engine will help. I posted about my cluster experience, a neat idea, but with the wrong target, like brobots with tokens, pretty underwhelming. I'll hold the flame, however. Think I can make it work. Another note- I need a ton more time with arc dodgers, I was always doomed by overcommiting quiz, I feel if I spent one more turn getting him in the fight, I would've been in the position I wanted to be in.

So the games..

Round one: kenkirk, yssane, Palp. And whisper.

Think this was my first phantom fight. Holy cow, that ship can be anywhere. (I'd love to see echo). I chose to burn the Deci, got some hits here and there, and got a nice cluster attack on him, but kenkirk's single die was hot, plus yssane, just blocked hefty damage from getting through. Whisper waited in the wings, and then made short work of my squad. I got half points on the deci, but just could not seal the deal. Kenkirk just laughed at my prior RAC, flying victory laps with its slipperiness.

Loss 100 -40ish? Probably less.

Next up: Palp aces. Ion projector on the shuttle, with Vader and quiz. As stated before, my maneuvers were pointing directly at where my target was going to be, so couple that with ion projectors, and you can guess where this round went. We traded inquisitors early on, and in the end it was rexler chasing the shuttle trying to close the deal, but Vader was in perfect "I have you now" setup, and that extra crit die was enough to push the damage that was needed.

Loss. 100-48ish.

That opponent left after that round, and likely switched my bye to a third game, when I played brobots. I was excited, because that was my matchup the first round of my SC, and my RAC and firespray almost won the round. But this time brought me to the picture I posted. Our first engagement was through the rocks, and I committed everyone and ended up bumping with valen, then throwing quiz on top of valen, and the rest went further south from there.

Loss: 100- whatever three shields off is equivalent to. This was a bad fight. My maneuvers got sloppy, rexler dropped in seconds. Not fun.

All said and done, it was marvelous flying something other than a decimator. I had a great time, recovered and regrouped from terrible decisions. The paint has arrived to carry me off deeper down the rabbit hole, and I'm loving my time in xWing.

Nice recap. Refreshing to see the humility and willingness to learn from our mistakes, sometimes absent from these recaps. Good work! Keep flyin'

The first Saturday of july, we had a standard store tourney that drew a whopping 32 people.

Vets was fresh out of the gate and moderately represented, but there was a ton of variety on the tables.

I brought:

TIE Defender: · Countess Ryad (34)

Intimidation (2)

Twin Ion Engine Mk. II (1)

TIE/x7 (-2)

TIE Avanced Prototype: · The Inquisitor (25)

Push The Limit (3)

Autothrusters (2)

TIE/v1 (1)

TIE Bomber: · Tomax Bren (24)

Crack Shot (1)

Extra Munitions (2)

Homing Missiles (5)

Seismic Charges (2)

Guidance Chips (0)

-- TOTAL ------- 100/100p.

General thoughts:

I put intimidation on ryad assuming my mediocre skills would find her often bumped, but it only was effective maybe twice, if that. She's a hoot to fly, and that x7 certainly works as advertised: a tough nut to crack.

Quiz, as per usual, I overcommit a turn or two too early, and put him in tough spots.

Tomax is lovely. The nonstop crack shot is great, and homing missiles do their job. He could certainly use prox mines at his PS for better bomb placement. Seisemics didn't hold their weight. And, of course, I also overcommitted him to the fight often when I should have rolled even slower, and made a k turn or two too many.

So the goal of this list was to fly the x7 in front of the bomber to soak some damage wile tomax sets up his shot. Quiz flies up the seam and attacks from behind. Great in theory, but in practice, I made some errors.

First round was against blue squadron, xxbb, FCS on the b's, and I cannot remember the astro on the xwings. My opponent flew well, but took a few too many k turns and BRs on the b wings to make better use of his FCS. He had a great shot on quiz, and perfectly had Tomax in his sights at range 1 with a B, but rolled blanks, and had no mods, so I squeaked by. Ryad was unstoppable. Won this match thanks to manouverability. (100-31, I think)

After that, I faced a 76ish pt RAC with OL as its wingman. I split my squad, sending some after OL in vain. I remember losing quiz by clipping a rock within range of a thermal, and rolling a hot on the rock, but with some modest piloting, ended up burning down the decimator, when in a last ditch effort to even the field, he vadered his last health to finish off one more pilot. Won at time, 76-62

Next match was a close mirror, and introduced me to the double crack, which if the ruling holds is quite sexy (crack, flip, crack, discard). We traded ryads, but then he just outflew me and brought the rest down. Loss.

Up until now, I was floating around the top 8 tables and feeling great, but the loss pushed me down the tables, and the last game saw me against Vader, soontir, and deathfire. I burned down deathfire, but took a little too long, as once again, poor target management saw me chasing aces for too long. My wife showed up during this round, too, my sweet cheerleader, So I can have something to blame, but ultimately my opponent made the most of his aces and destroyed me.

Overall, I went 2-2. I made some good decisions and some awful ones, too. I'm getting the feeling like this game is like a round of golf: you find yourself not so much playing against your opponent, but playing against yourself, and trying to minimize your errors.

Great recap again. Implayed tournament Star Fleet Battles back in the late 1980s, finished in the Top 4 a couple of times, Gencon, and Origins. I have yet to play a tournament game in X-Wing, but I can relate to the experience and progress you are making to my own back then.

With all the rocks you're clipping, I wonder if you'd be wise to set up a dozen asteroids in a map at home and just practice moving around them, maybe do it with a timer or something to make a game out of it. Play against your spouse, and give yourself a bonus point if you get within the vertical width of a range ruler or something to make it interesting,

Loser does the dishes.