Monday 10 March 2014

X-Wing Tournament Report - Chaos City Store Championship



Last weekend I attended my first X-wing tournament, an official Store Championship at Chaos City Comics in St Albans.  In addition to being my first tournament, it was the first time the store had run one.  This considered, they did a pretty good job.  The only issue was the fact that the tables were smaller than regulation.  They were the correct width but the length was 6 inches shorter than normal.  The store was very open about this from the start, and it was made apparent in all their adverts, so I had no problem with it, and I don't think anyone else did either.  It just meant you had to adjust starting moves accordingly.  It was a four game event with 75 minute rounds, which turned out to be the perfect amount of time. very few people failed to finish each round, and it was always the same people, so I guess they were just slow players.

I had no idea how hard the field would be, and my only thoughts were that the current meta is supposedly very rebel based, so I came up with something to combat that threat, but which i felt might be able to hold its own against Imperial squadrons.  I was playing around with Squadron Builder a few weeks ago and came up with the following: 

B-wing - Dagger Squadron, advanced sensors
B-wing - Dagger Squadron, advanced sensors
Y-wing - Gold Squadron, ion cannon
Y-wing - Gold Squadron, ion cannon

Pros of the list
  • Durability - you have 16 hull and 16 shields in total.
  • Maneuverability/ability to stay on target (turrets, advanced sensors) even while ion’d.
  • Complimentary dials enable formation flying.
  • I like pilot skill 4 ships, as they are cheap, yet enable you to fire before the majority of other non-named pilots.
  • Brutally effective against anything with agility 1 and very good against agility 2. 
Cons of the list
  • You are amazingly easy to hit, and therefore easy to focus fire down.
  • Not enough damage output to regularly put hits on agility three ships.
  • Slow overall speed (4 forwards are red).
It turned out that this is a well known list nicknamed 'Golden Daggers' and is pretty widely used, but I wasn't aware of that until after the first game of the tournament.  I went into the event with genuinely zero expectations, so let's see how I fared. 


Game One


HKW - Roark Garnet, Ion Turret
Y-wing - Dutch Vander, Ion Turret
X-wing - Garven Dreis
X-wing - Rookie Pilot

My opponent deployed fairly poorly, with the two X-wings and the Y-wing facing me down on my left board edge, and the HWK out towards the right.  I deployed in a square formation on the left with the Y-wings at the front (same in every game).  I flew forward as fast as possible with the aim of focusing my fire, but it wasn't to be what easy.  My first few turns of dice were very bad and it wasn't until my ion cannons effectively took Garven and the rookie out of the game that I got a handle on things.  This meant I could destroy the two X-wings easily, ignoring Dutch (who spent the whole game ioning one of my bwings) till the end.  My opponent didn’t get the HWK into the fight until turn 4, which in my opinion cost him the game.  
Result – total victory (wipeout) I lost a Gold and a Dagger

Game Two


Lambda Shuttle - Colonel Jendon, Rebel Captive, Weapons Engineer, ST-321
Tie-Interceptor - Soontir Fel, PTL, Stealth
Tie-Interceptor - Turr Phennir, PTL, Stealth
I deployed all my ships centrally, while my opponant deployed on my left.  I moved forward cautiously and waited to see what he would do.  He reacted similarly, wanting to build up his target locks before engaging.  On turn 3 I was in range three of his shuttle with all my ships, and with some incredible shooting I stripped all its shields.  On the following turn I was in range two and easily finished the job.  I also performed my best maneuver of the day, anticipating where Turr Phennir would do and doing a surprise hard three (red move) with one of my y-wings, thereby forced him to end on an asteroid.  Turr Phennir died fairly soon after.  The rest of the game consisted of me trying to draw a bead on bloody Soontir, who was a massive pain in the ass, but eventually a few lucky hits inevitably brought him down. 
Result – total victory (wipeout) I lost one Gold.

I am on the right, clearly deep in thought!
 

Game Three


X-wing - Biggs, R2-D2
X-wing - Rookie Pilot
B-wing - Blue Squadron, advance sensors
B-wing - Blue Squadron, advance sensors
Again, I deployed centrally in formation.  My opponent deployed all his ships on my right and moved forward at full speed.  I turned to face him and we exchanged two rounds of shooting.  At this point I was fairly certain it as all over for me as I barely scratched him and he takes all the shields from one Dagger and one Gold.  Then my ions got into range and he was suddenly in trouble.  I eventually took out Biggs and started ioning his Bwings, which meant he couldn't fire at me as often as he liked.  This, combined with a few key errors of judgement on the part of my opponent, mainly in target priority, cost him the game.  In one case he was a little unlucky and flew into the back of one of my B-wings by only 1mm.  If he had been slightly further back he would have had a 4 dice shot at me and things would have been very different.  
Result – total victory (he conceded when he has one ship left) I lost a Gold and a Dagger I think, possibly only one ship.


Game Four

At this point it was between me and one other player on three wins.  There was also one guy on two wins and a modified win on the second table who could still have won overall if we drew the game. 
My opponent had a really amusing troll list and had played superbly to make it to the final round (I had watched the end of all of his games). 
Y-wing - Horton Salm, ion turret
Y-wing - Gold squadron, ion turret
Y-wing - Gold squadron, ion turret
Y-wing - Gold squadron, ion turret
Yes, that is 4 Y-wings with ions.  I was a little scared, especially as in his previous game, my opponent had faced an almost identical list to mine and smashed it.  However, I had good of idea how to beat it – by focusing fire on one at time at the exclusion of all absolutely all else, bringing them down one at a time.  This is usually a good idea in any game of X-Wing, but in this case it was vital because he could and would ion 3 and usually 4 of my ships every single turn unless if given free reign.  I rationalised that as soon as I could take one of his Y-wings down I would have a major advantage because one of my ships would always be able to move freely.
He deployed in the centre facing to my left and I deployed on the far left in response.  I knew I had to put pressure on him immediately, and force him to come at me rather than having to chase him and his turrets all day, so I went forward full speed and he turned to face me so as not to get ioned off the board himself next turn.  As predicted, he attempted to ion all my ships, but because I had two ion cannons myself we get stuck on each other (if two ships touching are ion'd, neither is able to move) and no-one can move until a few point blank shots resulted in me exploading one of his Y-wings.  From then on my extra attack dice won me the game even though it ended with only a B-wing on no shields and a Y-wing on 2 hull points.  On the final turn he finally and very amusingly managed to ion one of my Y’s off my own board edge.
We both played very well in this game and I am very proud of the victory.  In the end, the extra attack dice and advanced sensors on the B-wings were the critical factor.   
Result – total victory (wipeout) I lost a Gold and a Dagger.

This left me in first place with the full 20 points.  I won an optional bye in the first round of a regional tournament, a cool plaque, certificate, Star Wars LCG box and acrylic range ruler.  Sweet!

Winner!

11 comments:

  1. Well done on the win dude! I've played two games so far and have to say I'm hooked. It makes a refreshing change from 40k as my competitive output every week.

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    1. Thanks, i absolutely love the game, and i'm really happy to see it steadily growing in popularity. I also feel it is genuinely competative, as well as being great fun, which is so refreshing!

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  2. Congratulations buddy!
    Fantastic result for the first tournament! Well done Patty
    I've seen the Gold Daggers discussed online, how is it to play?
    I've been rolling with 4 AS B wings or 4 Interceptors at the minute for manouevring frolicks.
    Plus tie swarm with Lambda
    Not sure how I'd deal with the massive number of "hits" required to get through your ships..
    Focus sure, but I can definitely see why it's a beast!
    Surprised to see 4 Y wings up there.. But that is what I am enjoying with the game ... Almost anything is totally viable!
    Brilliant result mate, made up for you.
    Have to get some tips sometime...
    Andy

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    1. Thanks man, I love to have fun, but I sure do love to win as well ;)
      Golden Daggers is fantastic, but as I found out in my practice games, if you fuck up the early game you are basically doomed. amusingly, if you deploy in a square with the Golds at the front, and head straight for the enemy you generally can't go wrong because you disrupt their formation and you dont care about the clusterfuck that results due to your turrets and advanced sensors.
      You guys should come to the Regional Tournament in Milton Keynes on May 3rd. Only one day, and easy to get to. http://www.guardiansoftyr.com/star-wars-x-wing-series-2014.html

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    2. Adv Sensors is amazingly good.. Love it on the Shuttle and more so on the B Wings.
      PS 4 as well is a nice sweet spot without paying too much for it. Still go before a huge amount of ships.

      Ion.. Not played with it or against it yet. Understand the principal - dictate movement therefore limit return fire as well as controlling the next turn.. In addition, slow drips of damage sure..what are the weaknesses of ion? Shorter range. Less attack dice and therefore high agility targets?
      Less damage output so need to be on a resilient frame?

      Re May... I'm pretty hooked so I'll be clearing this with Mik but otherwise in... :)

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    3. you should get hold of some Y-Wings or HWKs and try an ion cannon or two, great fun. i'm sure you have already realised that not getting to fire for even a single turn with a single ship can change the course of a game which is why i love ion so much.
      it does lower your overall damage output if you have too much of it though. not sure about the resilient frame, as it works ok on a HWK as well, and is cheaper too.

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    4. 2 ion hawks and 2 smugglers with pursuit lazers can be funny :P

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  3. Great result, haven't played it yet, but all the talk has certainly got me interested.

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    1. as well it should! get yourself a core set, you wont look back :)

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  4. We've got a tourney running in Doncaster on the 5th April at our new Gaming centre in Doncaster if you boys fancy it.

    I know you southerners often struggle with the northern climate though, check the The Grid Doncaster on Facebook for details.

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  5. I may come brad - got some details?

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