I've been lurking on the forums for a long time, but haven't played much actual X-Wing. I finally jumped in and signed up for season 9 of MegaSilver's Vassal X-Wing tournament. I had played maybe half a dozen games prior, so I didn't expect to do very well. I decided that if I could destroy at least one ship and not end up in last place I'd call it an unqualified success. My list was:
Fenn Rau, Sheathipede-class Shuttle (22)
Jan Ors
Poe Dameron (PS8), T-70 X-Wing (41)
R5-P9
Comm Relay
Juke
Autothrusters
Red Squadron Veteran, T-70 X-Wing (37)
R2-D2
Comm Relay
Juke
Autothrusters
My strategy was to deploy in a pinwheel formation and go slow the first two rounds to give Jan a chance to hand out evade tokens, which the X-Wings would keep for Juke. In combat Fenn would try to lock down the biggest threat, while the X-Wings jousted and withdrew to regen when necessary.
In my first match I was up against Countess Ryad with a pair of gunboats. The first thing I did in this tournament was bump myself. Not a promising start! I did some damage to Ryad, but overall I didn't do a good job of focusing fire or setting shots up for myself. I ended up getting smoked, losing 0 - 200.
My second match was against Chewbacca and Jake Farrel. Right away I saw my opponent's strategy was to have me chase Jake while he took me down with the Falcon. Like an idiot, I thought "I'll do what my opponent wants me to do, I'll just do it better than they're expecting!" which had predictable results. I thought the Falcon would take too long to whittle down and I could pop the A-Wing quickly, but that didn't happen. Another 0 - 200 loss!
My third match was against a Palp aces list with Soontir Fel and Darth Vader. Learning from my mistakes in round 2, I went hard for the shuttle right away and took it out in two rounds. My first kill! My opponent had deployed Vader at the far end of the board, so I was able to go after Soontir without his interference. A couple of bumps later and I had my first win! 200 - 0!
The fourth round was against a pair of gunboats escorting Kylo Ren. I decided to go for the gunboats first. After an initial head-on pass, my X-Wings stuck with them while Fenn peeled away and was chased by Kylo. Fenn survived just long enough for the X-Wings to take down the gunboats, and then Kylo managed to stay alive until we ran out of time. Another win, 131-69!
Unfortunately my opponent in the fifth round had a real life emergency so we didn't get to play, but I came in 17th of 29 overall. Everyone I played with was incredibly nice, and I was happy to face such a variety of cool lists (based on the forums I thought it'd be nothing but bombs). Many thanks to my opponents and to MegaSilver, the tournament was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to the next one!