Regionals Episode 1: Lots of Learning

So I’ve been a little quiet since my last post on my Q4 kit tournament back in November which went really well for me. Since then we’ve had Christmas etc and just really been building out my collection expanding into Scum and Rebels as well as playing with the not-so-new-anymore Silencer and Gunboat.

FAQ and meta drama aside- because I really have nothing else to add that hasn’t already been said on every podcast, blog and reddit post- I’d been playing with new options in Boba/ Asajj, Palp/ Kylo/ Sabacc and triple x/7 Defenders through January on some game nights down at Dark Sphere, London. Seeing the meta begin to take shape domestically and overseas as my first Regional approaching I must have had 20 lists on my list builder- all stuff I wanted to try. One week off work sick and having moved house and..

BOOM. WARBOAR REGIONAL IS HERE.

I must have panicked. I ran (100pts)

PS11 Quickdraw: VI, FCS, Advanced Optics, Harpoon, title and LWF [40pts]

PS8 Colonel Vessery: VI, Ion Cannon and TIE D title [39pts]

PS2 Sienar Test Pilot (TIE Advanced Prototype): Harpoon, GC and title [21pts]

And it was a disaster. I went 1-5. But I really like the expression that losing is learning- and there was a lot of that!! This isn’t going to be an in-depth battle report because honestly I’d rather not talk about it. And I’ve written these posts previously the night after events just to help me learn but this.. oh this one I’ve slept on all week and wondered if I should write this or just let it pass by but I hope that my quick summary will help others learn from my mistakes.

First round everyone crowds the match-up sheets and between heads I see I’m paired against 186th member Paul Full-on and I couldn’t help but laugh. I faced Paul previously in our last league at Dark Sphere and he really knows his stuff and also really enjoys a good post-match analysis (great for learning)! Across the room he’s ready to go putting Nymranda on the table- do I turn and go home? Is pre-round 1 too early to drop? (Paul went on to be top of swiss over both days.)

To toot my own horn this was a closer game than 100-0 would seem. The pic above shows Nym about to be Ioned twice and reduced to 2 hull before escaping for the remainder of the game. It was a good one!

But then it fell to pieces. Game 2 against a mate and practice buddy Ben Barber running Thweek, Intensity Guri and Fenn was a good one but oh boy did I struggle against his bendy-barrel rolling shennanigans. And proc’ing my harpoons at R1 of my own ships- disaster!

Then a game against David running Dash Poe and a very dubious focus added from Rey crew to Dash half way into the combat round- which in all fairness I allowed but will now for ever be a stickler for ‘missed opportunities’- meant Dash’s hit eye blank blank + target lock into hit, eye, eye, eye and I blanked on green dice causing a 4 damage death blow to Vessery right before a damaged Poe took an Ion cannon and range 1 shot to the face. Game changer.

My day can be entirely blamed on one thing- that my girlfriend insisted I moved in the day before a regional. THATS A JOKE OMGIMSOSORRY.

I lacked practice. Every picture I took that day would suggest I flew 2 ships, not 3. My Sienar Test Pilot was constantly out of range but having never flown the ship before I don’t know what I expected. I hadn’t practiced with harpoons and I flew TIE D like I flew TIEx/7 Vessery- into the face of danger only for him to melt. Green dice may have been horrible but when my head was down all I could see was the extra punishment the dice were laying on top of this heaped mess.

I accept I need to practice my lists- I need to fly better. I need to play what I know. But looking back I did enjoy the day. I enjoyed being surrounded by everyone having an amazing time. I saw guys from previous tournaments and got to chat about what they were running.  I got to chat to Justin who was running the event and owns Warboar and he’s a real standup guy. The regional was a charity fundraiser for the local Children’s Cancer unit which we raised over £2000 for in raffle tickets as well as donations from many of the teams that attended. I enjoyed going down there with practice buddies Ben and Christian and they smashed it each going 3-3. And I enjoyed playing the last game casual with a beer. Thanks to all my opponents- Paul, Ben, David, Azad, Chris and Mark. This is what regionals is all about, now I just want to win some games.

Cue the training montage.

2. Broak the Intense

Welcome back to the saga of Intensity Vessery. In this episode I will break down the highs and lows of Broaks day at the Ibuywargames Q3/Q4 Kit this past Saturday.

But firstly, my recent love for Mr Vessery sparked my interest to get to know him a little more. Wookiepedia can’t reveal too much about this mysterious man describing him as tall, dark and.. ‘having sharp, noble features’. Sooo handsome? And apparently he respects the New Republic pilots for their skill and aimed to work with them to help bring down a rogue warlord. He even helped train these pilots to fly Imperial Defenders! So X-wing community, we can drop our prejudices and focus killing the Scum and Villainy of the galaxy!..

ANYWAY

After some brainstorming and some lovely suggestions from numerous podcasts I produced this:

The 28pt defender was to act as a blocker and when he wasnt blocking he’s going to be loaded with tokens taking no prisoners. The rest do as they do. *tilts hat to Vessery and Quickdraw*

Game one was a close one playing against Ian of Zombie Squadron playing Thweek, Asajj and a Contracted Scout with a subtle 5 POINT BID. Quickdraw was thweeked for his PS9 and played cat and mouse with him for the duration of the game until Thweek tweeked. I have to admit to some beautiful evading from QD- he’s clearly a morning person to pull off multiple green natties before we’d even reached Elevensies. Unfortunately for Ian his contracted scout seemed to do little for him except for pass Asaaj focuses with mindlink and a peek at Quickdraws dial with Intel Agent. My Delta pilot could do what I wanted- blocking, 4K’ing and putting out the damage. Thweek gone, half points on Asaaj, a last ditch efford at a final blow to my limping QD came to no avail for Ian. Win 1: 49-0.

Game two is maybe the most frustrating game I’ve played in a while and the most painful to recall. Michael lined up 3 Jakku Gunrunner tugboats with hotshot blasters backed up by a PS2 YV-666 with Ketsu crew. Okay. Quick flick through my 6 months xwing experience.. 1 previous run in with a Quadjumper and I don’t know what the space whale was or it’s crew.

Something like this?? Eeek.

Ahh now I recall.. yes. Vessery went for an early bath after being tractored into a position that then flew him just off the table. One Quadjumper dropped. Then the YV666 after a block and focus-fired on by QD and then the rookie defender. Things were looking up but the delta was limping round after round spewing tokens for evades. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough. QD took too much of a battering from the YV666 earlier on and the delta just needed putting down before it became too sad to keep watching. QD lost his last shield after a tractor beam onto a rock leaving him not so quickdrawy anymore and boom. Loss 1: 58-100.

Game three was against Christian, a fellow recent x-wing hobbyist exploring the competitive scene and Imperial recruit. We faced off in our local league in week 1 and had discussed our lists previously last week at decent length- this match was on the cards. Christian’s Intensity Harpoonin’ Stealth Device Vader and Intensity x7 Stealth Device Maarek lined up alongside a TIE shuttle with Fleet Officer and Agent Kallus’d my QD. The tokens jeez.

I lost count of how many times I bumped my own ships this game and was pretty disappointed with myself. I couldn’t understand- I’d had at least 3 of my 5 a day at lunch and this is how I’m repayed by my brain?! We then lost count of how many times this game flipped in favour of one another round after round. QD lost his shields early on in exchange for taking the token-factory TIE shuttle and then scrambled, limping with a harpoon in his side. The stealth devices remained until Vader bumped the rookie defender and took fully modded dice from my main man Broak- having returned strong from his soak in the bath. The game finished 60-0, Maarek was spared. The score is no reflection of how close this game was and if Vader wasn’t gone in a round it would’ve been an awful lot closer. Win 2.

Ships like Sim’s make me want to get some paints. Damn thats cool.

Finally! Game 4- Simran! My main man. A mirror match but VI and Ion engine on Vessery. Is this really how we’re gonna finish this day off? Having won the dice roll for initiative Sim positioned his ships perfectly for the initial engagement and having never played a mirror match it was interested to see how he flew my own list against me. I think I displayed some great blocking with the odd non-3/4/5 speed with my delta pilot that made things a little more unpredictable. Ultimately though, this came down to 4k’ing, token stacking defenders and a dice game. 72-100. Loss 2.

I apologise for using up your mobile data. I’m wrapping it up.

What a great day. I positioned 10th out of 24. TENTH? TENTH! TOP TEN!! With an MOV of 439. 439! I walked away extremely happy 🙂

Lessons learnt/ lessons to learn

In my last kit day over at Warbor my MOV was poor. I was bottom of the 2-2 group and in my losses I’d failed to remove a single enemy ship. My practice since then and the aim for the day was to remain focused on removing ships even when a game is apparently lost. This may be nothing new to seasoned players but it’s so easy to become lack-luster when the chips are down.

Multiple tractor beams were one hell of a lesson to learn but if I didn’t know- now I know, right? Sim’s mirror match was great and it was nerve-wracking playing against Christian again. I think I need to practice more of the first engagement and lining up for the second engagement. Baby steps!

Really great seeing Ibuywargames and the guys down there are great and super accommodating. Thanks to all my opponents for some great games.

Next time, I may have some scummy tricks… stay tuned!

01. Live to Vessery Another Day

SO my first blogpost! I’m writing this after having participated in a Q3 competition at Warboar Games in Bromley, southwest London..ish. Having been toying around with an interesting combination of Colonel Vessery (Tie Defender) with x7 title and intensity over the last month, the focus has been on tweeking his wingmates. Today I went with

Colonel Vessery (TIE Defender):|Tie x7 title|Intensity|

“Quickdraw” (TIE S/F): |Trickshot|Fire Control System|Lightweight Frame|Pattern Analyser|Spec Ops title|

“Double Edge” (TIE Aggressor): |Predator|Twin Laser Turret|Lightweight Frame|

How did I do? I do good. Despite a rocky 4 games earlier in the week with this list I stuck to what I know and what I enjoy flying at the moment and these 3 troublemakers got me 2 wins & 2 losses (mov 352, sos 0.500, for the record) and a satisfying 14th out of 19. I would like to thank my opponents Paul, Rob, Ashley and Thomas for some great games and a couple moments I’d like to discuss.

---

Moments I’d like to discuss..

A win and a loss took me into game 3 of 4 and after having been refueled by the lazy-lunch enablers at Tesco I set up against Ashley who was running a menacing little number including his own outfitted Colonel Vessery but with TIE D tractor beam alongside Countess Ryad with TIE D ion cannon and the Imperial 26-point crowd-pleaser himself Omega Leader jukecommrelay yada-yada.

After my ship placement bottom right I see my opponent top left of the table and a lovely alley of asteroids leading diagonally. Here, if I was Ashley I would hope that I would take a lovely left bank maneuver and joust his double D and OL squadron. I recalled a game at my LGS earlier in the week where my experienced opponent helpfully suggested If you dont like the look of your initial engagement turn around, reassess and reapproach. Cheers to Charles for that. As my opponent banked into the astroid lane I took a left turn with both QD and Vess followed by a K-turn/ S-loop according, positioning myself here:

My Vess bottom right of the image. QD green “2” straights and barrel rolls left for a great approach next round. Annd yes, Double Edge took a smashing from Ryad and OL. And no. My green dice were nice to me so thankfully he wasn’t tractor beamed off the table..

This positioning made me happy. I managed a take shields and more off of his Vessery with QD and the TLT and then the following round removed Vess from the board (there isn’t room for two!) This game finished 100-0.

Another Tale of Two Vesserys

My last game was against Thomas and an intriguing list consisting of VESSERY TIE D TRACTOR BEAM RUTHLESSNESS WAT? Having not seen Ruthlessness before and seeing it lined up alongside QD Decoy FCS LWF and also having not seen Decoy previously my brain couldn’t figure out what was about to happen to me. Lets also ignore that there was a Lambda Omicron Pilot with Fleet Officer and Electronic Baffle.. because that’s what I did.

I repeated the opening maneuvres from the previous game with Ashley- ‘4’ straights with the Double Edge bait while my QD and Vessery turn followed by s-loop/k-turn into position but ohno why did I send doubleedge that high up on his own ohnoooo!! Then this happened: Decoy to get Vessery to PS9, tractor beam him closer to his QD with -1 agility. Into range one infact so Ruthlessness triggers taking a shield from QD meaning he takes his ability-shot then back to Vessery for the Tie D-primary shot and back to his QD who is sitting now at PS6. Pewpew. Double Edge gone before he got to show off his TLT.

I managed to hold out for near-on the remainder of the game with some lovely maneuvering and generally I was happy with my piloting decisions most of the time sooo go me! But alas, I lost 100-12. I’d like to thank Thomas for the half points on the shuttle. I really can’t take credit for the 7 damage it took when I only dealt 1 of those and the others were from Baffling- I really couldn’t have done it without him :’)

We’ve ran out of prizes for correct guesses at what maneuvre is dialed in for both Defenders. Sorry.

What can I take from this

Firstly I’m so glad to see that I’m getting a hang of these maneuvre templates and that my practice is coming into good effect away from the kitchen counter. I have to regularly check in with myself- a base is a ‘1’ straight, range 2 is a ‘5’ striaght etc. I know this is elementary to most but this information and my personal pep-talk is invaluable to my game right now. Secondly if a ‘2’ straight will do but a ‘3’ might fit but I’m not sure and it’s not that important at this stage in the game keep it simple. My opponent today couldn’t get a shot on Double Edge because he marginally bumped a rock and the TLT wreaked havoc for the rest of the game.

Working points: I know these games aren’t supposed to be stressful and I have enough stress at work but I think right now that in combination with going to these competitions where I don’t know anyone and everyone has there this Squadron and that Squadron tshirts and affliations and just wanting to get involved with discussions and chatter, I feel like a bit of an outsider. I hope that this initial anxiety settles as I become more assure of my game, more experienced with the game and get to know this great community more.

Thanks to all those at Warboar Games, they really look after you down there. Table service is 5*!

*******

 

Bit about me. I started playing in April 2017- pre- Wave 11 Nym/Bomblet Generator and have been playing games at home with my flatmate as well as regularly at my LGS Dark Sphere in Lambeth, London. I enjoy wading through the X-wing blogs, podcasts, subreddit and youtube content. My aim isn’t to ace this hobby, just keeping it casual.. only now I’m writing blog posts! If you see me around say hey. At tournaments you’ll find me around the bottom tables or looking a little lost around the top ones! 😉