X Wing Tournament Report - GREX September 2014

After much flying about using my tournament list and playing in the PI League, the day arrived and I entered the GREX X Wing Tournament. 

"Whisper" — TIE Phantom	32
Veteran Instincts	1
Fire-Control System	2
Advanced Cloaking Device	4
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter	12
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter	12
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter	12
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter	12
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter	12

The list was designed to take down Falcons as I was expecting them to come in droves owing to the heavy Phantom meta. Unfortunately for me, I did not meet a single Falcon build. Here are my 3 games.

Mark brought the new Rebel ACES which was released this week. I did not know what to expect so kept Whisper out of the battle for a very long time. Early game saw it swing in my favour when I managed to take down Gemmer but in response, Mark's Z95 swarm took down majority of of my Ties. I played quite badly and hemmed myself in losing Whisper and then the game.

X Wing League Week 2 and Nagash

Week 2 and I got 4 more games. Played Jeremy, Andreas, Roy and Dale. Managed to beat Jeremy, Roy and Dale but lost to Andreas. He is currently the leader of the pack so looks like I may not get dibs into the prizes. Dang. 

Game with Dale who brought a 4 Interceptor + PTL. Excellent flying although I am not convinced by PS6 pilots. 

Tournament Practice

The GREX store tournament is coming this 28th Sept and I will be playing. Will probably be bringing my Phantom Mini Swarm - one of the variants. With the PI League in full swing now, I took the opportunity to score some league points and get some practice in with Dale.

"Whisper" — TIE Phantom	32
Veteran Instincts	1
Fire-Control System	2
Advanced Cloaking Device	4
Alpha Squadron Pilot — TIE Interceptor	18
Alpha Squadron Pilot — TIE Interceptor	18
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter	12
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter	12

1st Game against Dale - managed to win this. The small block had difficulty chasing my Phantom

X-Wing: PI League and Marshall 40K

The PI X-Wing league has started so I headed down to PI yesterday to get in a few games. Dale who works at the store gave me 2 solid and close games! I brought a variant of my Phantom + mini swarm for my first game. Dale brought Chewy, Airen and a Red Squadron. 

Whispers Academy 2

99

"Whisper" — TIE Phantom	32
Veteran Instincts	1
Fire-Control System	2
Advanced Cloaking Device	4
Alpha Squadron Pilot — TIE Interceptor	18
Alpha Squadron Pilot — TIE Interceptor	18
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter	12
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter	12

I lost my Phantom early due to a bad call by flying between two asteroids, hemming me in from Turn 2 onwards. Dale quickly took Whisper out. Surprisingly, my Alphas managed to down Chewy and even took out Airen and the X Wing. Amazing show and all within the hour. 

"Whisper" — TIE Phantom

32

Veteran Instincts

1

Fire-Control System

2

Advanced Cloaking Device

4

Alpha Squadron Pilot — TIE Interceptor

18

Alpha Squadron Pilot — TIE Interceptor

18

Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter

12

Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter

12

1st game with Dale

X-Wing with Roy and Space Hulk

Changed it up a little yesterday. Got into BB at about 1:30PM and while waiting for Roy, I worked on the paint job that I botched up previously. Also added red dots to start up the Tie Fighter engines! 

Playing Rebels instead this time. Actually sat down and created a list based on Airen Cracken. I was going for full range 1 synergy. 

Synergy at 1

100

Biggs Darklighter — X-Wing	25
Garven Dreis — X-Wing	26
R3-A2	2
Airen Cracken — Z-95 Headhunter	19
"Dutch" Vander — Y-Wing	23
Ion Cannon Turret	5

Struggled to work on how to keep Biggs behind and ended losing Dutch early game. Didn't help that the Ties were scoring Hit, Crit or Hit Hit. Kept on playing but eventually could not take the punishment meted out by the Phantom.

More X-Wing, PI League

Got a few games of X-Wing in yesterday with Jeremy and Vick. Also managed to pick up some loot for the PI League. Thanks Dale! 

Flew the Whisper's Academy: 

"Whisper" — TIE Phantom 32

Veteran Instincts 1

Fire-Control System 2

Advanced Cloaking Device 4 

Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter 12 

Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter 12 

Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter 12 

Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter 12 

Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter 12 

My list was meant to take on lists like this which had Biggs and Chewie. Unfortunately I flew like a muppet and lost this game

X-Wing: Second Video

Managed to get in 6 solid games of X-Wing yesterday. 4 with Vick and 2 with Jeremy. I played two variants of the Whisper list that I have been experimenting with. In both builds Whisper is kitted out exactly the same:

"Whisper" — TIE Phantom 32

Veteran Instincts 1

Fire-Control System 2

Advanced Cloaking Device 4

The two other lists had either Academies x5 or Defenders x2 - all without upgrades. 

I also managed to get in 2 videos albeit the second one got cut off due to a flat battery. I also tried to mitigate the problem with moisture by leaving the camera to dry up first. It worked only until 1 hour into the video and then it started fogging up again. I'll keep trying. 

X-Wing Practice with Video

Played 2 games of X-Wing today with Dale of PI.

I thought I change things up a little by tracking my games so I brought my trusty GoPro to film my game (wider camera angle than my regular point and shoot). I was initially hoping to film both games but the battery ran out after 1 hour!

I played the first game which was recorded using list: 

Whisper's Academy

99

"Whisper" — TIE Phantom	32
Veteran Instincts	1
Fire-Control System	2
Advanced Cloaking Device	4
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter	12
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter	12
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter	12
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter	12
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter	12

I don't know why my camera split this into 2 videos but here they are. Apologies for the cloudy ending, the fogginess was due to the moisture trapped inside the camera. I have taken steps to ensure this never happens again. As for the audio, I was thinking that it would be secondary to the actual feed since I was hoping to show you guys the actual flow of the game.

More X Wing Practice

Was originally practicing for the tournament this weekend but missed it due to paintball practice ending too late. Nonetheless, I managed to squeeze in a few games with Roy and Vick last week. Here are some pictures of the games. 

Roy brought a Decimator list with 2 Interceptors from Alpha Squadron. I brought my Ten at 10 list.

Ten at 10

99

Ten Numb — B-Wing	31
Veteran Instincts	1
Ion Cannon	3
Etahn A'baht — E-Wing	32
Push the Limit	3
Advanced Sensors	3
R2 Astromech	1
Gold Squadron Pilot — Y-Wing	18
Ion Cannon Turret	5
R3-A2	2

Decimator Size Comparison

Dropped by the store the other to have a few games of X Wing with Jeremy and Vick. And someone was lucky (or mad) enough to get one of the Gencon early release of the Decimator. I was keen to see how large the model was so took out some of my other models for comparison. Here they are:

Decimator and Shuttle side by side

Decimator next to the Falcon. I was quite surprised that it wasn't so much bigger than the Falcon. 

But the footprint of this model is quite large compared to the other big ships we have.

Star Wars X-Wing Tournament: Tough Choice

Vick organised a 100 point tournament with an interesting twist. You bring two 100 point lists and your opponent gets to choose which one he wants to play against. You choose one of his lists as well. No duplicated unique pilots in either lists. You can bring unnamed ships but only 4 of each kind total in both lists. That's it! 

So I brought two lists:

Wookie Bees

99

Chewbacca — YT-1300	42
Gunner	5
C-3PO	3
Millennium Falcon	1
Blue Squadron Pilot — B-Wing	22
Fire-Control System	2
Bandit Squadron Pilot — Z-95 Headhunter	12
Bandit Squadron Pilot — Z-95 Headhunter	12

2014 regionals

100

"Echo" — TIE Phantom	30
Veteran Instincts	1
Recon Specialist	3
Advanced Cloaking Device	4
Bounty Hunter — Firespray-31	33
Seismic Charges	2
Tactician	2
Omicron Group Pilot — Lambda-Class Shuttle	21
Tactician	2
Tactician	2

3 rounds Swiss style. Highest points win using the new VP difference in the FAQ. Here are some pics from my games.  

First game played the previous Malaysian Regionals Champion. He chose Wookie Bees. It was quite a slow game as we deployed on both ends of the board. I knew he was trying to lure me in and use the Ion Cannons to pull me offboard so I did everything I could to hold back. He did the same and while other players were killing off ships, we were still moving 1 forward, 1 gentle. LOL! I almost lost Chewie but that one Evade counter saved me! Woot Millennium Falcon! We ended playing to time and I managed to kill off his Dagger Squadron B Wing and HWK netting me a 24 point win. 

X Wing Practice for Tourney and Grex League

I've been quite quite busy practicing X Wing for the Tough Choice Tournament prior to the event and didn't manage to put it up on the blog. Here are some pictures of a few builds I tried prior to the event. I dubbed it Wookie's Bees:

Wookie Bees

99

Chewbacca — YT-1300	42
Gunner	5
C-3PO	3
Millennium Falcon	1
Blue Squadron Pilot — B-Wing	22
Fire-Control System	2
Blue Squadron Pilot — B-Wing	22
Fire-Control System	2

I played a few games with it and actually managed to win against the few lists thrown at me. 

Against a nimble Empire list with Echo, Bounty Hunter and Shuttle

Star Wars X-Wing Wave 5 - Details of the Contents

As Rebel Aces come out this month, we can expect Wave 5 to hit us pretty soon with the two large ships. Last spotted at Gencon, this picture will give you a rough idea of their sizes. I personally am going to enjoy trying out the Decimator. 360 degree firing, Millennium Falcon, chew on this. 

Star Wars X Wing Wave 6

Gencon 2014 had a surprise for all of us. Scum and Villiany is the 3rd faction to join our game. I will let the pictures speak. 

Improving the Gameplay X-perience for X-Wing

Like many of you who dived nose deep into X-Wing have come to realise, you'll find that our ships slide about on the gaming mat quite easily. This makes for a disruptive game as the game is meant to be quite precise. 

My friend Roy found a simple solution. 3M Bumpon stickers. Once stuck under the base of the ships, they provide a solid grip. You can now push your template against the base and the base still would remain locked to the spot. Here's one example

4 to a base. This ship now grips really hard on the mat. 

Singapore X-Wing Regionals 2014

So what have I been up the past few weeks? Besides work and real life, it was practicing for the Regionals. Held at Gamersaurus Rex, we had a small contingent of Malaysian players who turned up as well. 

Unfortunately I could not take many photos as the games were really tight. We had 35 people sign up and 6 qualifier games to play. I brought the following list:

"Echo" — TIE Phantom	30
Veteran Instincts	1
Recon Specialist	3
Advanced Cloaking Device	4
Bounty Hunter — Firespray-31	33
Seismic Charges	2
Tactician	2
Omicron Group Pilot — Lambda-Class Shuttle	21
Tactician	2
Tactician	2

The following pictures are caught before I kicked off each round. Swiss rounds.

First game against Elliot fielding a Jonus + Bombers x3. He is an old gaming buddy of mine so we had a blast. I did lose this game though.

X-Wing 100 Points Battle

After a short hiatus from X Wing, I finally got back into it with Roy at Titan. Flew the Aces and I am impressed with some of the moves those new ships can do. 

This was the list that I played (courtesy of Roy):

Kath Scarlet with Expert Handling, Autoblaster

Carnox Jax with Push the Limit

Turr Phennir with Veteran Instincts

Roy flew this: 

Wes Janson

Ibtisam with Opportunist and Heavy Laser Cannon

Jan Ors with Blaster Turret and Recon Specialist

Didn't manage to take a lot of photos except for the two below. Found Carnox Jax and Turr Phennir really powerful when it came to small skirmish because I could dart out of fields of fire and bring their guns to bear. I struggled with the use of Kath Scarlet as the ship has a large base so I kept clipping asteroids. 

Our ships ready to do battle

X Wing 2014 Store Championships - Singapore

Yesterday was probably one of the largest turnout of players for X Wing the Tournament in a long time. Granted I have only been to 3, but it was massive. So large that we had a Swiss format at the end. We had to play 3 qualifiers, 1 at Quarter Finals and 1 more at Finals. 

I brought my Swarm list and qualified to the Quarter Finals (Top 8). Finally lost out through elimination to Wiloon who went on to get the 2nd place. Vick came in numero uno. Well done and congrats to all! 

1st game against a new player called Daryl. 

A few of the guys on my left

Got some loot too. Got 5 plastic shield tokens and Ten Numb alternative art card. I had lots of fun and recommend anyone who has 1 hour between games to try it out. Also, there are few minis so carrying them around is a breeze.

X-Wing Wave 4 Ships Spotted

Someone managed to snap a few pictures of actual models from Wave 4. Finally something real and not touched up graphics. 

Finally the Rebels can swarm

Looks scary and I love it

E Wing but I fail to see the "E" silhouette 

This ship looks awesome. 

X Wing: Swarm vs B's

Swarm those B's to death! 

Had the chance to play X Wing yesterday and boy it was fun. Roy and myself are practicing for the Singapore Championships which will give us a bye at the Nationals in the US. Also up for grabs are the acrylic measurement templates and alternative art cards.

We are still toying around with the builds and just trying to get used to flying. Bumping into each other seem to keep happening...I am a lousy pilot..

Thought I just share this with you guys. Happy gaming!