Star Wars: X-Wing Tournament at Titan Games Stourbridge

I took part in my first X-Wing Tournament today; it was a day of fierce competition and tense matches! I was running a Rebel squad, and my army list was as follows:

Components	Points	Total Points	Total Army
X-Wing: Rookie Pilot	21	21	100
X-Wing: Rookie Pilot	21	21
X-Wing: Rookie Pilot	21	21
Y-Wing: “Dutch” Vander	23	37
Concussion Missiles	4
Cluster Missiles	4
Ion Cannon Turret	5
R2 Astromech	1

 

So, a lot of my strategy was centred on Dutch’s special ability, which is to allow a friendly ship within range 1 to acquire a target lock as soon as he does the same. I invariably deployed in a square formation, usually on the right corner of the board. Here’s how I got on:

My first opponent was Gareth, who was running the one thing I wasn’t expecting: Swarming rebels. Rebel fighters are usually quite expensive but when the Z-95 Headhunters were released for the Rebels, it became possible to buy ships for twelve points each, and since each has to take four hits to go down, tackling them head on is a messy business indeed. Gareth had six of them and also a Smuggler YT-1300 for some extra clout. I managed to take out one of the Z-95s, but after that they blocked anything that remotely resembled a clever move and I lost the game outright.

My second opponent was another guy called Matt, and he was running an interesting combination: two TIE fighters, a Firespray and a TIE Phantom. I recognised that there was going to be a lot of talent on the field, given that Imperial squads usually run numbers, so I decided to press my advantage by taking out the two TIE fighters first. Here the Y-Wing came into its own, as I managed to Ion Cannon the Firespray into an asteroid so that he couldn’t use his considerable firepower. After destroying that, the focus came onto the TIE Phantom and that proved to be a pain in the bum, since I just didn’t have the manoeuvrability to get a clear shot on it. I did my best with the Ion cannon, but in the end time was called and I won the game on points.

My third game was fun and extremely tense. Andy was running a peculiar set-up of Soontir Fel, Howlrunner, Backstabber, a Black Squadron and an Academy Pilot. This struck me as odd as it was the first time I’d fought a squadron with no duplicate pilots, which meant that for once it mattered which one I should take out first. Andy suffered from trying to fly the four TIE fighters in close formation; a powerful move if you can pull it off but if not you end up crashing into each other. This gave me some more time to get into position, and while my first Rookie Pilot didn’t last very long, I was fortunate enough to be able to take out Howlrunner quite quickly. Backstabber was the next to go, but the rest of the match was a deadly game of Cat and Mouse as we tried to outmanoeuvre each other. I wasn’t able to destroy anything else but neither was Andy, giving me a win on points.

My final game was against Russ, who was running two B-wings and an A-wing, rather cleverly deployed. I thought I was doing OK to begin with; I lost a Rookie but manage to take the lesser of the two B-wings with me. However, by this point I was exhausted and my concentration was slipping; I managed to make the mistake of flying my Y-wing the wrong way. I ended up off the board, which meant I had one Rookie left to take on two Named Pilots. He never had a chance, but I made Russ work for it!

So, two wins, two losses, and out of fourteen people I came ninth. I’m quite pleased with that, since as it was my first tournament I thought I was going to get absolutely destroyed. There’ll be time enough later to think about how I could improve my squad, though. I might get an A-wing next, and see where that takes me!