Sanctuary Games X-wing Store Championship Battle Reports

Dear reader, please accept my humble apologies for the delay in the compilation of this set of battle reports. I have been, and still am struck down with a virus that has made all forms of narcissism such as blogging and vlogging difficult.

Anyways… on the 5^th of March I attended the Sanctuary Games X-wing Store Championships in Sutton in Ashfield. And on this jaunt I had a driving buddy! Shane from Weekend Warlords in Loughborough was along for the ride, with his triple YV-666 list, which drew a lot of admiring looks (plus a sizeable amount of wins) over the course of the day. The Sanctuary “store” is actually a reasonably sized de-commissioned church, lovingly kitted out with a lot of gaming tables (there were 16 games of x-wing going on, and we weren’t using more than a ¼ of the space!), a kitchen to buy coffee and pizza, and some decent toilets. Being a Christian, it is not unusual for me to spend hours in a church praying, but attending a tournament there would require a weirdly different kind of prayers. I would deffo recommend the venue, it’s got a certain sense of grandeur. 

formation flying!

For this second store championships in succession I took my 4 Scum Y-Wings with Twin Laser Turrets (TLTs) and Unhinged Astromechs (all speed 3 moves are green). This is partly because I really like flying the list, but there were a couple of other serious reasons. Firstly, whilst I’m sure wave 8 will shake up the meta I may well take some version of this list to regionals in May so I wanted more practice against different lists. Secondly, with only 1 game night in-between to prepare I would have effectively been flying a new list cold at a tournament.

My first game was against a very friendly chap called Paul who was flying the following:

Commander Alozen (free target locks at range 1)

Lieutentant Colzet (spend a target lock to flip a damage card face up)

PS4 Tie Advanced

(these three all had the title, and the advanced targeting computer which allows you add a crit if you have a target lock)

Omega Leader with Juke and Comm relay for un-blockable shots

I have to confess, I completely underestimated this list. Nothing special I thought. I mean I know Omega Leader is a pain, but even so I thought “this should be a walked in the park”. What a n00b I was. And more importantly, what a disservice I did to my opponent. I deployed in the bottom right, with Paul in the top left. I went straight up the flank, and we engaged ¾ of the way up the star field.  In the first engagement, I think managed to maul one of the Tie Advanced’s, but in return one of the y-wings started to eat crits, and became ps0. I then completely forgot that this meant he’d be moving first, and this poor chap bumped, instead of masterfully dodging out the way. Then Paul burnt him down.

We then had a very close range dogfight in the top right hand corner of the map, where I tried to get cute and double or even triple guess my opponent. This worked about 50% of the time, but trying to block with the y-wings means that they don’t really get shots. I eventually ran for it, with my 2 remaining ships, hotly pursed by Omega Leader and Alozen. I traded Omega Leader for a y-wing, but began triple or quadruple guessing myself in an effort to take the last point of health off Alozen. So much so, that instead of head on jousting with him I turned towards the board edge, and left myself with nothing to do but fly off the edge of the board. This of course, cost me the game.

Result: Loss 74 – 100

they do not have 1 sharp turns.

My second opponent was a chap called Alex, fielding my favourite B-wing Keyan Farlander and Han Solo, both fairly heavily tricked out. This time I went bottom left hand corner, and he went opposite in the top right. I sped up the flank, not wanting to get caught in the side by his heavy firepower, and he swooped in, boosting with both ships. We engaged ¾ of the way up the board, with his targeting computers locking onto the engine glow of my y-wings. The combination of a B-Wing and a Millennium Falcon at short range began to make short work of my fleet. However! They both only have 1 evade dice, so my turrets sliced through the b-wing in just over a turn, leaving me with a very angry Han Solo against 3 y-wings.

this is Alex, wondering why the hell im taking a video of him

I have to confess, I got somewhat lucky here as I correctly guessed so of Alex’s moves and was able to block the Falcon with the y-wing he was trying to kill (if they’re touching they can’t shoot each other). That meant he couldn’t focus his fire down, and I was able to keep chipping away at him. After a few turns of this, Alex tried to break out of my trap, and it nearly left him in a perfect position to even the odds somewhat, but the dice failed him. I wrapped this one up with a win.

Result: Win 100 – 25

following game 1, i couldnt believe this

Game three then. And I end facing the guy that Alex travelled with, called Joseph. He had the other B-wing Pilot (Ten Numb) with a Mangler cannon, Blount with Ion Pulse missiles and Corran Horn with all the normal stuff. This game was a matter of honour for Joseph, who wanted to prove that he had the better b-wing than Alex. I set up in the bottom right, and he chose to joust me. So I immediately ran away, and in his haste to catch me, the angle meant that his ships got drawn into a line and when we did engage in the bottom centre Ten Numb was out of range for the first round of shooting.

This meant that I lit Corran Horn up like the Death Star on a Friday night. However, he’s a tricksy one and came through, with one or two hull left. At least for that turn. I sent him downtown the next turn, but this had allowed Ten Numb to close and prove his worth, whilst Blount had used his auto hitting Ion Missiles to stall a y-wing in the middle of my line astern formation. So I starbursted, flying my y-wings every-which-way in an effort to land his remaining pilots in a kill box. They helpfully obliged and whilst unblockable Critical Hits were very painful, being in the middle of TLT kill box was a deciding factor. I rolled of the winner.

Result: Win 100 – 50 (giving Joseph bragging rights over Alex)

 

thats me! left middle, with Shane next one down

In my 4^th game of Swiss, I played a friendly chap called Richard. (on reflection I noticed that he was the one who gave me parking advice, so thanks!). Richard had two Tie Phantoms - Echo and Whisper and a named Tie Fighter (im really sorry but I cant remember which one!) The most significant thing on the Phantoms was sensor jammer over fire control system. This was actually a bit of pain for me tactically speaking because I was shooting twice with each ship, but only had 1 focus. So I had to think really smart about that.

I tried to position the rocks to make it hard for him to hit me in the flank as I came up the left side of the board, and I think It probably did a bit. Crucially, I bottled trying to block echo’s decloak quite early on, Id forgotten how manoeuvrable phantoms were! Instead of protecting the other 3 wings, I allowed both phantoms into range  1 and they started having a lot of fun. So I sped up, turned back into the board and starbursted. In the process I took the Tie Fighter out, and also got rid of Echo. This left me with 2 y-wings against Whisper. I was winning on modified points, but knew that wouldn’t be good enough to make the cut, not with a loss first round. So I turned around near my board edge and came back for another pass. I decided to bank right, on the assumption that was the unpredictable thing to do. Whisper then decloaked in the same direction and I was gutted, I assumed id blown it. I moved my ships, and then Richard revealed a hard 1 away from my y-wing, meaning he didn’t have a shot! Despair turned to elation, and I was fortunate enough to take Whisper down that turn.

Result: Win 100 – 50

Shane's YV-666 conga line of doom

In the final game of Swiss I faced a double Scum Firespray list, Kath Scarlet and Boba Fett run by Jamie (I think, only name I forgot to write down sorry!). I set up on the left, and he jousted me with Kath, whilst sending Boba to flank me. I remembered my rule of 11 here, and blocked Kath out in the second engagement, meaning she had no actions and she died that turn. Boba was more of a problem, and he chased me around a bit. I starbursted to try and make sure I was always getting 1 shot, and this helped a great deal. In what was to be the last turn, I actually blocked Boba and would have forced him off the board if it wasn’t for inertial dampeners. I was still able to just shoot him with another y-wing, killing him and winning me the game.

Result: Win 100 – 25.

my y-wings hunting down and blocking boba fett

Top 4 Cut

I squeaked into the top 4 in 4^th place, getting another challenge coin (man I love those!) and facing Darren, who had gone 5-0. Happily, Shane also made the top 4 cut. That meant that neither of us was waiting around for the other person, or at least not yet! Darren was playing a list that had a YV-666 (bossk crew, tactician and Gunner), 3x ps1 Binayre Pirates in z-95s,  and a ps2 scum y-wing with a TLT and unhinged astromech. Id noticed Darren from across the tables as he had a very cunning fortress that meant he set up in a corner. I think people had been having trouble because it forced them into a joust, and he could just sit there as long as he wanted. Shane had faced him in the final round of swiss and lost, and shared some wisdom with me.

it was something like this. although not completely like this.

What I decided to was head towards him on that flank, and see if he’d take the bait and come out of his fortress. Either way, I wasn’t going to let myself get blocked up, id just turn into the board regardless of whether he followed me or not. If he didn’t, id circle back around and try again. And then again. Thankfully, he took the bait. I think he knew that I didn’t need to face him conventionally what with my turrets and all. On my first pass, after id turned in just outside range 3 of his fortress, he broke the following turn and came after me.

However, the way he broke from the formation meant that I was able to chew off the ps1 corners of his fleet, bringing the entirety of my firepower to bear against half his fleet on more than one occasion. He was very unlucky to land the yv-666 on a rock (one of the big ones that id brought I think!) on a turn when it was in range one of a nearly dead y-wing, which helped me out, and im not convinced that his yv-666 dodged anything I threw at it, so I definitely had my fair share of luck. It ended up with me taking down his y-wing with 3 of mine, sealing me a place in the final.

Result: Win 100-25

Final

And in the final I faced Shane! Which was good for both of us in a way, as neither of us would be hanging around for the other person. However, I was sure to make several thinly (read not at all) veiled threats about his lift home. He didn’t listen to those, in fact he was way to busy getting completely inside my head for the first 30 minutes of our game, and it nearly ruined me! I had to start ignoring him completely. I felt a bit rude, but I couldn’t handle it at all! It was like the whole of basketball in a 3^rd of the time. As a reminder, Shane had the following:  3x ps2 YV-666, all with ion projectors and feedback arrays. This loadout also gave him a small initiative bid.

 

great film. great film.

As per my standard tactics, I set up some rocks to cover 1 flank, giving me the option to creep up my left if I felt like it. I knew that Shane’s list was designed to try and trap you, slapping ion tokens on you every which way and not allowing you to break away. For some reason, I did nothing to stop this happening. I let him box me into a corner, ioning 3 of my ships over various turns. I eventually broke away with 2 y-wings, leaving the other 2 hulks behind. I had by this point killed 1 and a half of his ships, and wasn’t fancying my chances. I regrouped on my top right and this time skirted the top corner of his ships as they came back around, managing to trade a y-wing for a yv-666.

No you idiot! dont get trapped there!

I was suddenly feeling a lot more optimistic. Pulling around back down my left flank, having him chase me meant that he couldn’t trap me, and I was able to keep chipping away at the final YV-666 until it blew up. And with that, I won my second store championships!

Some, from a situation 2 weeks ago where I’d never won a wargames tourney, I’ve now won 2 x-wing store championships in 2 weeks! Sanctuary Games is a really amazing location, being in an old church gives it a grand, imposing atmosphere. The facilities are great, and the staff really friendly. It does get a bit chilly, so make sure you take a jumper and a coat though! 

Do come back later in the week, as i'm hoping to have vlogged this experience. I've got it all ready, i've just been way to ill to do any post production. 

with a fancy glass trophy