Right then, Store Championship time! On the 20 th May, A Fistful of Dice (https://www.afistfulofdice.co.uk/shop) in Portsmouth, England held its annual Store Championship.
We have a small but dedicated X-Wing community and we normally have 6-10 guys playing every Thursday night. Last year we had around 20 players competing, and with Store Championships happening in nearby Brighton and Bournemouth the following day, I was expecting us to have a similar turnout. Especially as a number of our regular players were unavailable due to weddings and so on.
It came as a great surprise to learn then that we’d sold out of tickets (capped at 32 players due to space)!
Not only that, but some very good players from Brighton had travelled over, along with a contingent of the 186 th Squadron from London. I had kind of hoped to get a top 8 prize, but with the level of competition on hand, I was going to have to fly REALLY well to achieve even that.
We don’t really have a meta as such and most lists from World’s or whatever don’t tend to make it on to our tables. As a result we’re probably not too well versed at flying against some of the lists that were here and the majority of people had brought some rather intimidating squadrons. The winning world’s squadron was there, along with plenty of K-Wings, Ghosts, Jumpmasters and so on. Not the sort of things we usually fly against.
It certainly looked like my promise to my wife that I’d be home before 17:00pm (she’s in her third trimester and I left her to look after the other kids…..) would be a sound one, especially as I was going to be tired having got up with the kids at 05:30 in the morning!
Any way – onto my list:
There’s a lot of talk on the forums that Imperials can’t cut it at the moment. Having predominantly flown Scum in the 2ish years I’ve been playing, I had fancied a change of pace for a while and had decided I’d see if I can make them work.
I love TIE Defenders (who doesn’t!) thanks to flying them in the TIE Fighter computer game and had a list with two TIE/D’s (Maarek and Rexlar Brath) and an academy TIE that I’d been experimenting with and it works very well but I had a TIE S/F that I hadn’t used once since I bought it, so thought I’d try one of those with a TIE/D and another ship.
I quickly settled on Quickdraw and Vessery because the target lock interactions are great (especially on a TIE/D). Seeing as target locks are very useful, Omega Leader seemed like a good choice as the third ship. Everyone seems to hate playing him, but in our area if anyone flies him they always say he dies early on and accomplishes nothing. So I thought I’d see if I could get him to work.
So in the end I took:
Quickdraw (35): Adaptability (0), Lightweight Frame (2), Special Ops Training (0), Fire-Control System (2), Pattern Analyzer (2)
Colonel Vessery (38): Veteran Instincts (1), Twin Ion Engine Mk II. (1), TIE/D (0), Tractor Beam (1)
Omega Leader (26): Juke (2), Comm Relay (3)
It’s 99 points, giving a 1 point initiative bid.
It’s a well-balanced list, with three ships that can all do well in the late game. I took Adaptability on Quickdraw so that I could actually drop his pilot skill down to 8 and then have him shoot after Vessery’s tractor beam had hit, but pushing him up to 10 could be useful in certain situations.
Onto the games then! I would like to say that this is all taken from memory (even worse, it’s my memory – which as my car keys will attest – is terrible!), so if I’ve got anything wrong, it’s very much not intentional.
Round 1 – Benjamin Lee
Ben was flying a Parattani variant and instead of Manaroo he had a Contracted Scout, but otherwise that loadout was the same. No token passing shenanigans (which are less frequent post-nerf), but it does give him an initiative bid.
Ben’s a member of the 186 th Squadron and his name was familiar – turns out Ben finished top 8 at Worlds in 2016, top 16 at Yavin and was runner up at the UK Nationals in 2016. This was not the matchup I wanted first thing!
The most important thing was that Ben was an unbelievably nice guy and this was my favourite game of the day – so if you’re reading this Ben – thanks!
I lost the initiative roll (always call hits / crits and NEVER get it!) and the rocks all ended up floating around the middle of the board. Ben set his ships up in base contact in his left-hand corner and I went in the opposite corner. I was hoping not to have to joust!
The opening turns were very cagey, Ben castled in his corner and my ships flew as slowly as possible in my corner – each of us waiting to see what the other would do. In the end we both sped up our respective flanks and turned round. I think Ben wanted to avoid having to go through the rocks to get to me, which is definitely what I wanted him to have to do.
Eventually we both turned in, but Ben’s Fenn was a little isolated from the Jumpmaster and Shadowcaster in the middle of the board. Quickdraw managed to get a shot at it him and put a crit through to get him down to 3 hull (not a game changing crit though).
Fenn was now hiding behind an asteroid in the middle of the table, with all three of my ships the other side of it and Ben’s other two ships far off on the right flank. We both spent a bit of time working out what to do. I decided to move away from the right flank to escape Asajj and the Scout who would surely be coming into the middle and I expected to Fenn to fly that way to meet them.
I barrel-rolled Quickdraw to the left of Fenn’s asteroid, expecting to get a rear shot at him as he retreated, but Ben went left with Fenn, straight into the back of Quickdraw, parking him the rock. To make matters worse, he also took a damage for his trouble. Vessery hit Fenn with a tractor beam and finished him off with his range 1 primary to put me into the lead.
What followed was a tense game of cat and mouse and Ben tried to get at my ships, with me running and taking shots when a decent opportunity presented itself. I took a couple of shields off both Asajj and the Scout, while Ben removed all of Vessery’s shields thanks to a great shot from Asajj.
The game went to time, but we just had enough time to get dials down for one last turn. We were pretty much the last game playing so had drawn a bit of a crowd. Asajj had a range 3 shot at Vessery, who was facing the Scout at range 1. Omega Leader and Quickdraw were out of contention. I just had to survive two shots…….
Asajj attacked and got hit, blank, blank so he couldn’t spend his focus – Vessery evaded that one without needing to spend his own focus. I then fired at the scout, but could only take his last two shields so I wouldn’t get half points.
And then the Scout fired – Crit, hit, hit. I rolled my dice and completely blanked out! I’d kept my focus for defence and it sat there wasted as Vessery exploded in a giant fireball, losing me the game by six points! Bugger.
That was probably the best I flew all day, and my dice betrayed me at the last. I felt like I’d had the better of the game, but Ben was such a good player that I couldn’t shut him out completely.
Despite the loss it was a tremendous game and I hope to cross swords with Ben again in the future.
LOSS – 32 Vs 36
Game 2 – Ryan Randall
Ryan was from Southampton and had brought along a dual Shadowcaster list with Ketsu and Asajj piloting. Ketsu had Expertise, Dengar, Glitterstim, Rigged Cargo Chute and Gyroscopic Targeting. Asajj had PTL, Latts, Glitterstim, Rigged Cargo Chute and Gyroscopic Targeting.
This felt like it was going to be a tough game, staying out of arc of a Caster is tough work, never mind two and both have great pilot abilities. I also couldn’t get behind them due the debris they’d drop on me.
The opening turns saw us circling the asteroid, keeping each other at arm’s length. I caved first though and cut in through the asteroids to get some opening shots at Ketsu. Unfortunately I misplayed Omega Leader, who got isolated and received a stress from Asajj. Asajj then flew past next turn and dropped a Rigged Cargo Chute. Giving Omega leader a stress and no action. Another stress was piled on thanks to her ability and Asajj then put through three damage, leaving Omega on one health. Crap!
From here on it would be a tough ask to pull out a win – I couldn’t really commit Omega as they’d just get blown up, so he/she went and hid in a corner. Quickdraw charged into Asajj’s primary arc while Vessery kept the two Casters at range 3. I managed to take a shield from Ketsu while Quickdraw took two of Asajj’s shields at range 1. The retaliatory strike took a shield from Quickdraw who then removed Asajj’s final shield. Ketsu fired at Vessery and took all of his shields (stupid blank greens again!) – making my task even harder.
Ryan went hard at Vessery with both Casters while Quickdraw pursued Asajj. This is where I got a bit of luck. Asajj was heading towards her own board edge and had a stress token from PTL. Quickdraw managed to put a crit though – all hard turns are red! This meant that Ryan couldn’t stop Asajj from flying off the board edge, two speed 1 banks meant her base just went over and eliminated her from the game.
Ketsu continued to chase down Vessery, but couldn’t get a kill shot off. This allowed Quickdraw to get Ketsu to half at the games end.
Without that crit on Asajj, I definitely wouldn’t have got such a big win, but after round one’s bad luck, I’ll take whatever good luck I could get!
WIN – 77 Vs 0
Game 3 – Stephen Churchett
Stephen has been to plenty of events at A Fistful of Dice before, but we’d never met on the field of battle before today. He was flying a rather unusual list that was really interesting to fly against:
Ahsoka Tano – Snapshot
Sabine Wren – Snapshot, Operations Specialist
3 x Green Squadron Pilots – Snapshot, Crackshot
Ending up in range one of this list was not advisable! Without tokens (even with them in Vessery’s case!) I was going to start taking damage very quickly from Snapshot and suffer a death by a thousand cuts.
The game was very from my perspective – I spent the whole time trying to avoid landing in range one of too many ships and I managed this with great difficulty. I think Snapshot only went off 4 times all game. But trying to avoid taking damage meant I also didn’t put much out and with a few minutes to go, all our ships were still on the board. Vessery had lost his shields, but Quickdraw and Omega Leader with still at full health. Stephen’s A-Wings had all lost shields, but that was it. It had pretty much been a game of handbags at dawn.
On the last turn I turned Quickdraw in with a 1 turn and took two snapshots from A-Wings, losing one shield. This allowed him to destroy the offending A-Wing. He then barrel-rolled directly in front of the second A-Wing that fired at him, but failed to do any damage (as did the A-Wing)!
We just had time to put a dial down as time was called, I felt in the next turn I could get down another ship or two as I’d need the MOV. By now the room we were playing was VERY warm and Stephen really wanted to get outside for a cigarette before his next game, so rather than play the last turn he conceded the game, giving me a 100-0 win. I was a bit surprised by this, but it had been a tough, tactical battle and I could certainly understand him wanting a break before the next game.
Stephen was a pleasure to play against and hopefully we can get a rematch in sometime in the future.
WIN - 100 Vs 0 ( 20 Vs 0 in actual points killed)
Game 4 – Craig Bradford
So onto my final game. The MOV I gained in my last game meant, should this game go well, I could have a chance at making the cut.
Craig had brought a rebel list with:
Corran Horn – PTL, R2-D2, Engine Upgrade, FCS
Ahsoka Tano – Captured TIE, Sabine’s Masterpiece, VI, Rey crew, Scavenger Crane
Biggs – R2-D6, IA
This gave him a two point initiative bid. Naturally Craig gave me the initiative so that Corran could move after my PS8 ships. As a result I decided to adaptability up Quickdraw to PS10, this would also let me shoot at Ahsoka should the opportunity present itself.
This turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. In the initial joust I forgot that Quickdraw was a 10 and bumped Omega Leader in her. A tokenless Omega Leader is a dead one as Biggs and then a Corran double-tap took care of him. Vessery and Quickdraw did manage to kill Biggs the next turn though, with Quickdraw also putting two damage onto Ahsoka thanks to a front/rear shot.
Our ships all got split up the next turn as we prepared to come round for a second pass at each other. I started to go after Corran and plinked a shield from him which he kept on regenerating. Quickdraw then managed to switch targets and caught Ahsoka at range 1, killing her swiftly.
Without an extra action from Ahsoka, it became slightly easier to chase down Corran. Vessery caught him at range 3 with a tractor beam, put him onto a rock and finished him with his primary weapon.
Apart from my poor start, I felt very happy with how the game went, especially as Corran is such a hard ship to pin down.
WIN – 100 Vs 26
So I ended the four rounds on a 3-1 record and decent MoV. Game four ended with about 25 minutes to spare (all my others had gone to time), so I had to wait around to find if it was going to be good enough to make the cut.
After a decent break and a chance to grab a drink the standings were announced and I’d made it into 3 rd place. My round one opponent Ben had finished 1 st , whilst fellow club mate Pete Mugridge had finished second, going 4-0. 4 th place was Dan Prewitt (a friend of my round two opponent Ryan) who had finished 3-1, but his defeat came to Pete via a final salvo as both remaining ships on the table killed each other!
As Ben finished 1 st he got to play against Dan, whilst I was up against Pete. At least this way a Portsmouth player would make the final!
Semi-Final – Pete Mugridge
I had played Pete the Thursday night before the tournament, with both of us using our tournament lists as practice. I had come out on top that game and was hopeful of doing the same here. Pete has an uncommon list which is:
Tel Trevura – Punishing One, VI, Overclocked R4, Dengar
2 x Syndicate Thugs – TLT, Unhinged Astromech (and Bomb Loadouts and Guidance Chips!)
I don’t particularly like fighting TLT’s, especially without Autothrusters, so was hoping I could gang up on them early on to make the game a bit more manageable. This is what happened on Thursday’s game and a repeat would be most welcome.
Pete’s Y-Wings went down in the middle, while all three of my ships went down on the right flank. Tel set up opposite my ships facing along his board edge, but I suspected he’d turn in.
It was a very cagey opening, Pete was wary of Vessery and his tractor beam which can be horrible for a Y-Wing to deal with and turned them away from my incoming ships. This left me with an isolated Tel. I managed to block him with Vessery and a Quickdraw double-tap, followed by a second round of Vessery / Quickdraw fire meant that Tel was destroyed very early on.
The Y-Wings came back into it and removed Quickdraw who only had two health left at this point before starting to focus on Omega Leader.
It quickly became a case of me trying to chase his Y’s and get them into range one, but Pete flew them well. I manged to knock off their shields and get both down to 2 or 3 hull before Omega Leader died from an in arc range one Y-Wing (Crit, Crit, hit) with an unmodified shot!
Fortunately Vessery was well equipped to bring down the Y’s himself and send me through to the final.
Pete, as always, is great fun to play, so took a bit of pressure off playing the semi-final. I made a few mistakes though and would have like to have chased the Thugs down with more ships to hand than just Vessery, but Pete made a few mistakes as well. Leaving Tel as isolated as he was really let me get myself ahead of the game.
Final – Dan Prewitt
In the other semi-final, Dan overcame Ben 100 – 00 (I think, I was focussing on my own game and we both finished at around the same time). So he would be my final opponent.
Dan was flying:
Wedge – Predator, BB-8, IA
Warden Squadron Pilot – Advanced Slam, Cluster Mines, Conner Nets, Ion Bombs, Sabine Crew, Extra Munitions
Gold Squadron Pilot – Title, TLT, R3-A2 (stressbot)
So two rebel meta staples in the K-Wing and Y-Wing, but backed up by a T-65 not piloted by Biggs! Dan had clearly flown well all day – his only loss was a final salvo roll off to Pete’s list in Round 2. It was going to be a tough match, especially as he also managed to table Ben in the previous game. I don’t have a great deal of experience flying against bombs either and should I get hit, my ships won’t last very long.
As we set up (I had initiative as Dan won the roll off) I had decided to concentrate on Wedge first and then try and focus down the remaining two ships. Wedge was on my left flank on his own, with the K and Y-Wing in the middle. This worked rather well to begin with and I took Wedge off the board with no real return fire, other than Vessery losing a shield from the stress hog. It was here that everything went wrong. Dan dropped a well-placed cluster mine on Vessery, doing 5 damage and taking him off the board. It was then that I realised I should have focused on the K-Wing first of all. Wedge would have been a tough end game ship to take down, but it’s preferable to having no ships left at the end!
The stress hog also did it’s thing on Quickdraw (who also lost all his shield to another well-placed cluster mine), but I did get it down to 2 hull. Quickdraw then went to intercept it as it went round an asteroid, but instead of dialling in a 1 straight like I’d intended, I dialled in a 2, putting me firmly in it’s arc without a return shot. Sure enough, an unmodified crit, hit, hit followed and destroyed Quickdraw. Omega Leader was all that was left now – this would be a real uphill struggle.
Dan anticipated my next move with his K-Wing and laid a conner net in front of me. I went through it, taking two damage, but had the stress hog at range two in front of me. I blanked on both my attack dice, while the hog rolled a crit and a hit and took my remaining two health to give Dan the win.
Dan flew really well all match, especially with losing Wedge early on and his bomb placement was spot on. He absolutely deserved to win and he was a top guy to fly against (as was everyone else I played all day). I just wish I’d focussed on the K-Wing first. With Vessery’s tractor beam, I should have had a decent chance of taking it down very early and next time round that would be my priority. But I also made a few other mistakes along the way, so I really can’t grumble! J
I managed to walk away with some shiny new templates and cards, along with another TIE/SF as a prize so I can finally get round to fielding Quickdraw and Backdraft. They really are good ships and I’ll look to fly them a bit more in the future.
Finally a big thanks to A Fistful of Dice for hosting a great tournament – there were no real issues all day and everything ran smoothly. You really can’t ask for much more than that. Oh, and thanks for reading, assuming you made it through the wall of text!
My buddy, who also went 4 - 0, took top prize.