I don't get to play x-wing that much, but I really enjoy it when I do. I never got to play when I purchased my first core set, but I liked the models and hoped I would find a friend to come and play it with me. Well, eventually I found someone who played, and he introduced me to the local game store.

I've been going there ever since, and after laughing off my abysmal performance at my first tournament, I was ready to get back out there and play. A lot has changed in my life since that first tournament, negatively for the most part, so I had an almost childlike sense of excitement for a 2nd tournament. I watched Rogue One that morning, organized my list in a single box for when I moved table to table, and swore off a church Christmas party so I could attend.

I saw Rogue One, and after having heard so many great things, I felt...unsatisfied regardless. Shaking that off, I grabbed some cash for the tournament buy-in and headed out early to make sure I got to the right place at the right time. It was at a cafe that wanted to host our particular gaming communities tournament and we had the whole place to ourselves. I hurriedly assembled my list and set it in a box on a chair. It Fel off and broke my interceptor model. Luckily, for some reason I had decided to bring two interceptor models and switched it out. We started playing at 4:15.

My list was as follows:

Pure Sabaac- VI, Lightened Frame, Title

Carnor Jax- PTL, Autothrusters, Title, Shield Upgrade

Deathfire- EM, Ion Pulse Missiles, Conner Nets, LRS

Academy Pilot

I've had a lot of fun with the list before and felt a strange sense of pride for having a list that I thought was good and original. I love bombers, Jax, and generic ties. It may not be perfectly optimal but this game wouldn't have list building if alternative non-meta lists weren't valid.

My first match was against palp aces, a striker and a defender, Ryad. I misjudge a maneuver with my striker and end up barrel rolling out of the way of a rock, because if adaptive ailerons triggered I would roll twice for damage. Pure Sabaac has two shots on him. Ryad pings Sabaac for 1 but the palp shuttle deals a crit with the help of Palpatine. Major explosion into direct hit, dead Sabaac on the first round of shooting. I take out his Sabaac in a round or two, but eventually its Carnor and the bomber vs Ryad and his shuttle. I had the advantage in the match up, but I blew it all when I barely landed on an asteroid. The asteroid roll takes out my shield, and Ryad kills Carnor in one shot. There was a lot of time left in the round so I kept going, and watched as my pitiful bomber was destroyed with little difficulty. I then had no ships to keep playing, even for the sake of practice maneuvering. It was not a close game. My MOV was 27. I waited about 35 minutes until the next round.

All the other folks at the tournament had been drinking since the cafe had a bar. I'm not of age and really don't have any interest in drinking, but they were poking fun at my bad game, and I felt pretty hopeful that I could make up for it in later rounds. I was very hungry in between rounds and ordered some food. A couple of the guys I usually played with came over and ate with me and that cheered me up. My next game was against a fellow that I was familiar with. You could say that I hated him actually.

He only played the best lists, Dengaroo, Palp Defenders, and stuff like that and had a habit of nudging your ships, even when you placed them perfectly. It was kind of cheating, but not enough to call a judge over for.

He was playing palp defenders, something I thought my list countered. I start moving my ships towards the middle of the board, but... he doesn't move anywhere. When planning his dial, he takes a long time, which makes you think hes going to try some sort of grand strategy, but it ended up just being 20 minutes of him fortressing with his shuttle, and having his defenders k-turn back and forth. Once the shooting started, I thought I was in for an exciting game, I dealt 6 damage to his shuttle on the first round, even pushing through a crit. I started to perk up a little,I was glad that I was getting some good rolls and it showed.

"Don't start celebrating yet." My opponent said, bursting my bubble. He took out my entire list in 3 rounds by endless k-turning and palp+evades. My brother had shown up near the end to see how I was doing, but I was getting really disappointed by that point. Carnor got 1 shotted again, by a different Ryad. I complained to my brother about the free evade considering my MOV went up 14 points, since the only damage I did was to the shuttle. My opponent defended the X7 defenders, making the case that you only get the free evade on certain maneuvers.

"Yes, but you never performed maneuvers that didn't grant you the free evade, did you?"

My match was over quickly, and there was another 35 minutes to the final round. In about 2 hours I only played about 40 minutes of X-Wing, all my defeats were swift and crushing. The cafe had given out free "Red Lightsaber" shots, and I jokingly asked if they had anything for minors, secretly hoping that I could just get one nice thing or free drink out of playing in a cafe. There wasn't. I checked my MOV and found that I would have gotten a by in the final round. I didn't even get to play anymore, so I collected my things and grabbed my alt-art predator card, an EPT I already have and dont even use. I went home before the second round was over, only destroying 1 enemy ship the entire night, scoring only 41 points total, and never moving from the loser's table.

It was a waste of a Sunday night, to sit there and not even really get to play, to get berated by the drunken older guys for losing my matches or playing a list they thought was bad. I had high hopes for an, at least, decent night, win or lose. Instead I lost so quickly that I spent more time waiting for a game than playing, and basically spent $10 for an alt art Predator card.

It was a disappointing day.

Welp, I'm over it now. I don't know when the next local tournament is, but I'll do my darndest at that one. Thanks for the feedback, and I wasn't trying to have a bad attitude, it only occured after my second match.

Time to go fly 5 HWKs and a Z, thats some low variance right there.

Um, is there more to the story?

Um, is there more to the story?

I accidentally published prematurely, its all fixed now.

Sounds like you'd have more fun going to a casual night of x-wing instead of a tournament.

Fun isn't the only factor in a tournament. You can't blame people for wanting to perform well in tournaments.

Yikes, sounds like you had a rough time of it. My first tournament featured me running 89 points of Tie Fighters and Interceptors, since I didn't have enough to meet the full hundred and I got smoked pretty hard core. I would definitely recommend playing some casual games that don't require a buy-in, over a tournament, if you're not feeling like you're enjoying the competitive scene. If nothing else, it's a great way to get practice in and make some friends over a no-stakes, fun game.

Yikes, sounds like you had a rough time of it. My first tournament featured me running 89 points of Tie Fighters and Interceptors, since I didn't have enough to meet the full hundred and I got smoked pretty hard core. I would definitely recommend playing some casual games that don't require a buy-in, over a tournament, if you're not feeling like you're enjoying the competitive scene. If nothing else, it's a great way to get practice in and make some friends over a no-stakes, fun game.

Yeah and I play casual all the time, so i though that would be a nice change in pace. I kind of hoped I could win some store credit for a U-Wing.

Yikes, sounds like you had a rough time of it. My first tournament featured me running 89 points of Tie Fighters and Interceptors, since I didn't have enough to meet the full hundred and I got smoked pretty hard core. I would definitely recommend playing some casual games that don't require a buy-in, over a tournament, if you're not feeling like you're enjoying the competitive scene. If nothing else, it's a great way to get practice in and make some friends over a no-stakes, fun game.

Yeah and I play casual all the time, so i though that would be a nice change in pace. I kind of hoped I could win some store credit for a U-Wing.

Sorry for the bad day, JonasBenz. I know where you are coming from; I spent 2 years losing over and over and was nearly spent on the idea of playing. I only play casual, and I don't mind losing, but after a while you just want to win something.

I learned to fly better, and realized that I was not doing well at 300 points because I was using 100-point tactics. I know that is not entirely relevant to you, but the moral of the story is I am again having fun at X-Wing. Heck, I just spend ALL day today playing 1,000 points vs. 1,000 points. It took 8 hours and we never did finish, but it was a lot of fun.

The game is great fun often, but it seems when it sucks, it sucks a lot .

Meh, so you had a bad day. Get over it and move on. I go with my 12yr old son and he has not won yet but has a blast and is getting better each time so that he is no longer in the looser table all the time.

As far as the drinks, talk to the organizer, you paid your money like everyone else and they should be able to accomidate soft drinks. It is BS if they cannot since alchol costs more. How much would have a Red Mountain Dew have cost?

For the K-turns, practice, practice and practice even with yourself. Also plenty of research and some good options spoken about in this thread https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1441183/defeating-k-turn

Yes, it's frustrating to loose, but you only really loose if you did not learn anything and not had fun. For example, you saw his technique, so setup a solo game with yourself and play against yourself until you find some good counter measures. Your not going to win them all and since you do not have a lot of people to play with, you lack practice that is all. Oh, and so they said "crap" about your play, big deal. Turn on their heads. Ask them how they would have approached the same situation. If they can't answer, you can call them out as knowing no better. If they help you, then they are good guys and you learned something.

Getting upset and frustrated is emotional and not productive. Have fun, take notes, remember how people play and go back with a different strategy.

You will find in life as you grow up there will be far more frustrating things and far more annoying people that you will encounter. Brush it off and move on. Learn your lessons and come back with a new plan. At the end of the day, it is ONLY a game. Read the book Outliers: The Story of Success -- you will find the most successful people has several common traits: 1) Constant Practice, 2) Did not let their failures define them and 3) perseverance.

Go have fun, keep at it.

You sound like you basically dove right into the tournament scene with little practice and you had some douchy opponents. Dont get discouraged, some people dont get the hang of this game as quick as others. I play anywhere between 2-6 games a week, and it took me several months to stop doing stupid maneuvers and bad calls. Also Strikers aint easy to fly, theyre almost as difficult as a Phantom to judge where theyre going.

Its impossible to never get discouraged at a bad game, whether it was your fault, rock to your scissors, or dice gods hating you. But you need to remember its just a game, and nobody succeeds without failing a lot. Majority of the time i lose i run through my head what i did/should have done, and most importantly who was the weakest link in my list. Sometimes its just dice, ive had games where i did 2 damage despite outflying the hell out of my opponent (easily getting 2x the shots he got) and in the end it looked like he steamrolled me. It happens. If someone like me that has anger issues can not flip out over bad luck, you can too.

Practice makes perfect.

Sorry you had a lousy time. This happens sometimes in competitive tournaments. Stinks that people were being verbally abusive like you said though. I'm actually very surprised by that, as X-Wing players have ALWAYS been incredibly supportive and nice from my experience.

What I'm taking away here is that minors shouldn't go to bars.

I thought fortressing was deemed an offense.

I thought fortressing was deemed an offense.

It is generally disliked but there is no tournament rule against it. The designers themselves have said they will make an anti-fortressing rule if and only if an overly dominant build appears that uses it.

JB, I know how you feel. In my first tournament I finished 6th. Out of 6. In three games I managed to kill 1 ship and was tabled the other two times. I had a list I was comfortable with and proceeded to forget everything! Even to the point of dialing in reverse maneuvers because I forgot to account for the ships facing me. A year and a half later I finished 5th out of six. Hey, it's an improvement! Fortunately most of my opponents were good guys. I say most because there is ALWAYS that one guy that rubs you the wrong way. It could also be his way of gaining a psychological advantage.

Play the game because it's fun. If you don't have fun during a tourney don't play in them. Sorry about the behavior of some of your opponents. Alcohol and a lot of other things don't mix and you saw that first hand.

It takes time to get good and practice is the only way to do it. You also need to know what maneuvers are available to your opponent so you can evaluate their movements. In the end the only thing that counts is having fun.

some one always has to lose.... and when you land in the highly competitive tournament world its survival of the fittest.

What a community of pricks you gets :-/ that's not a problem about skills or anything. He his a minor, and what? A lot of older guys laugh about him?

Meh...that's sick. Wtf, really? We are all playing with PLASTIC TOYS, did anyone of those guys realise that?

"Yeah you are a pro...with plastic soldiers. Good luck in your life", really..

What I'm taking away here is that minors shouldn't go to bars.

Then maybe they shouldn't host an X-wing tournament in a bar...

Screw them for berating you for your list. Getting whomped by x7 defenders is just what happens at tournaments, though.

sorry you had a rough time, some lists are not fun to play against until you've played them already many times. When I've run into too many lists in a row where a list is being played in a way that feels like it's grabbing loopholes in the rules, well, I always turn to Vassal afterwards. I find the vassal community has always been warm and open, and totally on board with experimentation. It's tough, but at the same time, my experience has been you get beat by genuinely weird lists and brilliant flying, as opposed to a string of opponents demonstrating serious gamesmanship. Further to the thing, play ships you like. don't feel you have to follow the meta. I'm pretty fond of triple t-65s, and most people would regard that as lunacy in this meta, but with vectored thrusters they pack a wallop. Luke Wes and Wedge, all at PS10, it's well worth a go and an absolute hoot to play.

Sorry you didn't pick up any cards there that felt worthwhile, send me a PM if you have a favourite pilot. I'll do my best to get back to you by the end of the January with some art for you to take to the printers and get an alt-art card of your own if you like. It's not an FFG card, but maybe it'll help fill the gap.

Sorry to hear that JB, I do agree with what TurboCooler though with one little addition. Most people hate to hear this but it's often the truth. Adjust your attitude towards situations. I'm not talking about the guys berating you about your list or some ****** fortressing (that annoys us all) but you went to a tournament you tried your best and you flew some hard ships to fly.

Take it as a learning curve and do a little better the next time, and a little better the time after that. It doesn't matter how many time you fall as long as the times you got back up is one more!

Good luck!

We all were smashed in our first tournament(s), don't worry. I was unaware that there are things like PtL that smashed me to the floor and wiped it with my list. I had a period of "screw this im only loosing in this stupid game, im out" and now in most locals i play i end up playing for top spots.

Your list is non meta one. Lot of tryhards consider non meta lists to be inferior and mock them until one time an experienced played wipes a floor with them using such a list. Practice. I can see you made some flying mistakes (flying agains K-turning defenders - never a good idea, he choose when to engage and your list was fragile enough that its you who need to choose it). TTS and Vassal are your friends in terms of practice.

Making fun of someone because he's a minor is just... low.

I thought fortressing was deemed an offense.

Just offensive sadly. But if he's going to spend 20 mins over a couple of turns setting his dials, I'd be calling him for slow play.

Yees...yeees...

Come to the dark side, let the anger flow through you.