Alex Birt (of our 186th Squadron Podcast) has been busy collecting the full squad lists of each player in the Top 32 cut at the UK Nationals last weekend. You can find them all posted on our website:

186th.org/news/uk-nationals-2016-top-32

Wow. A complete bore fest of mainly jumpmasters and imp aces. Long live Epic/HotAC.

Wow. A complete bore fest of mainly jumpmasters and imp aces. Long live Epic/HotAC.

As much as I dislike trip-jumps (I'm less bothered by Imp Aces, although they are clearly a very good list), I think it's a little unfair to criticise people bringing the most powerful lists available to the Nationals.

Disc. I flew Eide list, played 2 palp aces and one jumps/party bus. Went 4-2, lost to bus and one of the aces.

I see defenders so it can't all be bad.

I see defenders so it can't all be bad.

The Defenders were the surprise of the weekend for me, those things are a big pain to play against, there were a good number over the whole tournament! Mike Dennis' Triple X7 list is a big favourite of mine.

Palp Aces 4
Decimator + Ace 4 (3 had Palpatine)
3 Jumps* 7 (1 had a YV-666)
Domgaroo 4
Crackshot TIE Miniswarm 3
Defender 3
Pure Aces 2
Dash Ghost 2
Falcon+1 2
IG 88 2
Mind link 1

Only 4 rebel lists 2 falcon, 2 ghost

2 IG

4 palp shuttle

4 palp deci

4 Dengar manaroo

6 triple jump,

1 double jump with a trandoshan slaver

3 tie 'swarm'

3 defender lists

2 imp aces no palp

And something else

Not a bad spread between imperial and scum, fairly mixed too. Just a shame rebels don't have more squads making the cut to make it a real spread.

Sorry for repeating above I started typing before his post was up lol

I see defenders so it can't all be bad.

The Defenders were the surprise of the weekend for me, those things are a big pain to play against, there were a good number over the whole tournament! Mike Dennis' Triple X7 list is a big favourite of mine.

Even after I spent the best part of a week telling you how scared of x7 Defenders I was?

Wow. A complete bore fest of mainly jumpmasters and imp aces. Long live Epic/HotAC.

As much as I dislike trip-jumps (I'm less bothered by Imp Aces, although they are clearly a very good list), I think it's a little unfair to criticise people bringing the most powerful lists available to the Nationals.

Disc. I flew Eide list, played 2 palp aces and one jumps/party bus. Went 4-2, lost to bus and one of the aces.

That doesn't necessarily need to read as criticism of individuals but criticism of the state of the game in general. Personally, I think there are some nice surprises in there. The Juno Eclipse list finishing ninth wins the prize for originality.

If I'm not mistaken, that's 4 Rebel lists in total out of 34 shown. The highest placed was 19th.

Wow, that's bad.

Still, looking at those lists, #22 was quite innovative. Normally I'd say this was a terrible idea... perhaps I should revisit the overpowered space freighter once more.

Chewbacca (42)
Predator (3)
C-3PO (3)
R2-D2 (Crew) (4)
Millennium Falcon (1)

Sabine Wren (21)
Lone Wolf (2)
Twin Laser Turret (6)
Recon Specialist (3)
Hull Upgrade (3)

Bandit Squadron Pilot (12)

Only 4 rebel lists 2 falcon, 2 ghost

2 IG

4 palp shuttle

4 palp deci

4 Dengar manaroo

6 triple jump,

1 double jump with a trandoshan slaver

3 tie 'swarm'

3 defender lists

2 imp aces no palp

And something else

Not a bad spread between imperial and scum, fairly mixed too. Just a shame rebels don't have more squads making the cut to make it a real spread.

Sorry for repeating above I started typing before his post was up lol

you have no idea how proud i am to be representing the "something else" category.

Palp Aces 4

Decimator + Ace 4

3 Jumps* 7

Domgaroo 4

Crackshot TIE Miniswarm 3

Defender 3

Pure Aces 2

Dash Ghost 2

Falcon+1 2

IG 88 2

Mind link 1

Worth noting that there were 3 of 4 Decimator lists included Palpatine (for a total of 7 Palp lists) and something like 11 lists included at least one Jumpmaster. Only 8 lists were small ship only.

Only 4 rebel lists 2 falcon, 2 ghost

2 IG

4 palp shuttle

4 palp deci

4 Dengar manaroo

6 triple jump,

1 double jump with a trandoshan slaver

3 tie 'swarm'

3 defender lists

2 imp aces no palp

And something else

Yea... I get that people want a more even faction distribution, but other than that this is some **** good meta diversity.

The dark days of X-wing were far worse...

Only 4 rebel lists 2 falcon, 2 ghost

2 IG

4 palp shuttle

4 palp deci

4 Dengar manaroo

6 triple jump,

1 double jump with a trandoshan slaver

3 tie 'swarm'

3 defender lists

2 imp aces no palp

And something else

Yea... I get that people want a more even faction distribution, but other than that this is some **** good meta diversity.

The dark days of X-wing were far worse...

There are other ways of looking at it, especially since so many new cards have entered the meta since "the dark days" (so there's more ships and cards, period).

I guess I'd like to see a larger number of viable small ship exclusive lists (and I think that those trip aces lists will be going away when Wave 9 hits) since 24 lists had large base ships. Most people won't bat an eye at that when 8 of 10 were big ships in Wave 5, but I find it concerning. I think a case could be made that we're also continuing to see more and more reliance on more recent cards.

Juno Eclipse made it to #9? I always thought the AC + Evade Juno combo had potential, but I didn't think it made it out alive past the TLTs and torpedoes that eat Advances. Looks like she might still have a bit of untapped potential when you can't make room for 31 points!

That and #8 are both very interesting.

How many people were at the UK nationals? It must have been like 500+ if they got a cut to top 32, and Gencon with its ~250+ only got a cut to top 8.

Only 4 rebel lists 2 falcon, 2 ghost

2 IG

4 palp shuttle

4 palp deci

4 Dengar manaroo

6 triple jump,

1 double jump with a trandoshan slaver

3 tie 'swarm'

3 defender lists

2 imp aces no palp

And something else

Yea... I get that people want a more even faction distribution, but other than that this is some **** good meta diversity.

The dark days of X-wing were far worse...

Before the dark times... before the Empire Phantom Nerf.

How many people were at the UK nationals? It must have been like 500+ if they got a cut to top 32, and Gencon with its ~250+ only got a cut to top 8.

I think it was 166 in total far less than Yavin (probably due to the proximity)

Kudos to players finishing #13 and #28!

Double phantoms in this day and age are NOT easy to win with, especially at such a large and long event!

Also, a mindlink list! Yay!

Even on the Imperial side there seem to be a good number of non-Palp lists in there, more than half of them.

Well its nice to know that my Dash, Chopper list that I have been testing works. It's been quite a joy to fly too.

Even on the Imperial side there seem to be a good number of non-Palp lists in there, more than half of them.

My take on it was that the group who usually run Palp Aces had tested vs Dengaroo and got beat, and they seemed to swap en masse... with the result there weren't actually that many Palp Aces in the whole event for them to prey on. I can't remember the last time I saw quite so few Lambda Shuttles.

**** yeah Ian Holmes!

Way to go rockin the Phantoms man! I am super stoked to see this list at Nationals.

Not a bad spread between imperial and scum, fairly mixed too. Just a shame rebels don't have more squads making the cut to make it a real spread.

The question is whether Rebels really are as bad as some people feel or if the overwhelming negativity on the net makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy? People believe Rebels are poor so few people fly them so not many appear at high levels in tournaments. This further fuels the claim that they are not competitive and thus the cycle repeats.

Ian has been flying that for like two years, and usually seems to place very highly. in fact, I'm not sure I've never seen him use anything else.

Not a bad spread between imperial and scum, fairly mixed too. Just a shame rebels don't have more squads making the cut to make it a real spread.

The question is whether Rebels really are as bad as some people feel or if the overwhelming negativity on the net makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy? People believe Rebels are poor so few people fly them so not many appear at high levels in tournaments. This further fuels the claim that they are not competitive and thus the cycle repeats.

I guess that depends on whether you think the best X-Wing players are weak-minded idiots who do whatever the internet tells them without, you know, playtesting or practicing to make their own decisions.