Titan Games Battle Reports: Store Championship

So, this is a write up of last weeks store championships that I attended at Titan Games in Lichfield, with the review of Sanctuary following in the next week. If you'd rather watch the Vlog, go here.

As a reminder, I ran 4 Scum Y-wings with Twin Laser Turrets (TLT) and Unhinged Astromechs. The Twin Laser Turrets shoot twice a turn (at ranges 2-3), but can only cause 1 damage per shot, and the Astromechs make all my 3 speed manoeuvres green. For thems that don’t know, these cards pair really well because it means you can keep your speed up to keep out of range 1 to allow you to shoot twice, and also gives you a whole bunch of different ways to clear stress.

In my first game at Titan, I played Josh, who was fielding 4 tie fighters (two of which were First Order Ties) and Whisper with a whole bag of tricks. I placed my rocks centrally, and deployed on my left. He deployed slightly of centre with the ties and then put whisper on my right. I sped up the board, winning the first engagement and taking a Tie fighter off. At this point, Whisper was avoiding my 4 turrets and coming the long way around. The phantom didn’t get into the fight until quite late on, and by that point I’d chewed up most of the Tie fighters. Whilst I wasn’t very good at dodging Whisper’s de-cloaks, the three remaining Y-wings were too many shots for the Phantom to deal with.

Result: Win 100-25

My second game was against Oliver, who had Soontir Fel, Omega Leader and Vader. They all had lots of tricks and I was a little worried about this match up. I think my lists strengths and weaknesses are magnified against aces. This time I went to the right and swooped up the flank to take Soontir head on as the other two came round the back. Soontir actually dodged a whole round of shooting from me, which was frustrating. However, because rocks, his green manoeuvers were predictable, and I blocked his escape as I knew he needed to clear his stress. That meant that I was able to kill him with primary weapon attacks that turn. Vader followed a couple of turns after, and then Omega Leader shortly after.

Result: Win 100-0

My third game was against Brian. Ah yes. This was, and remains one of the best games of X-wing I’ve ever played. Brian had Kavil in a Y-wing with a TLT, a YV-666 with Boba crew, Gunner, tactician and the Nashta Pup (free z-95), and a Scum TLT y-wing like mine. I got good asteroid placement this game, limiting where he was able to approach me. Brian had initiative, and placed in the top right. I placed in the bottom left and sped up my left flank. I then faked a little at going straight to but actually turned into the board, leaving the YV-666 to face a broadside from all 4 Y-wings. Second round of engagement I burned the YV-666 down, for no loss and was feeling confident. I now only had 2 Y-wings and z-95 to deal with.

We both regrouped, and the re-engaged across the bottom of the map. After the dust had settle, I had 2 Y-wings left against just a z-95. The following turn, my Y-wing with 5 hull left got one shotted by the z-95 and I started to get concerned. I was even more concerned when the z-95 started pursuing my y-wing and dodging most of my shots. I managed to break out from his pursuit, and regrouped. We were both now on one hull. Somehow id traded 7 hit points for 3. I could have played for time, but there was a lot of time and that wasn’t what I wanted to do. We came in for a final joust, he hit me once, I rolled an eyeball and burned my focus. I fired back with the TLT and killed his z-95! I was elated. And drained! Great game, Brian really made me work for it and taught me that you shouldn’t just give up.

Result: Win 100-75

My final game of swiss was against Mike, who had Wes Janson, Biggs and Keyan Farlander (Fire contral system, opporuntist, Heavy laser cannon). Keyan and Wes combined to give a 5 dice target locked and focused attack from Keyan. This meant one of my Y-wings didn’t even get to shoot before it died. That woke me up a bit! However, I got good shots back at Biggs, taking him down to his last hull with the three remaining Y-wings. After Biggs died, I realised that whilst Keyan was scary his 1 agility was no match for my TLTs and took him out. 

Result: Win 100-50

This meant that I was 4-0 and top player after Swiss (they only did four rounds, which I didn't mind, I mean we all have homes to go to!)

I don't know if you can see from this picture, but my MOV was 650. Comfortingly, I didn't just scrape through. But there were a couple of times when I was trying to avoid getting shot to save points. Thats something I've really learnt in the last few months actually. 

So I headed into the top 4 cut, playing a really great guy called Anthony. He had Kath scarlet in a firespray, with a mangler cannon and IG-88A, with HLC, advanced sensors and some other stuff. If the third game of the day was the most exciting, this was the toughest. I did not fly very well at all here. I got a decent rock placement, but just went straight up my right hand side and let him crash into my left flank, getting inside range 1 and everything. After the first engagement, I had two y-wings slightly dinged up vs IG-88A, who was mostly ok. Regenerating shields for fun as he killed me. 

As we swooped around and I tried to get a two vs one engagement, I went for a really dumb block attempt with one of the y-wings. Just read the board and game totally wrong. He just did a super obvious move and killed me. Which left me a half dead Y-wing against a half dead IG. I ran away thru the asteroids, and was left on one hull. I was facing towards the board edge and only had one option, turning into to the left. He was in a reasonable position to turn and catch me in arc, killing me. 

However! This was not what happened. Anthony had to go they an asteroid to get me, which took him down to 1 hull and then he had chosen to sloop with his ship, meaning I wasn't in his arc. But I was able to TLT him, and duly killed him. Winning the game on 1 hull and progressing to the final. 

Result: Win 100-75

Which meant I made the final! I faced Mike from round 4. I got a reasonable deployment of rocks, and set up on the left. Mike set up to joust with me, so I decided that I probably shouldn't joust with him! I broke to the right, and made him follow me thought the rocks. This really benefitted me, because his fleet went from flying next to each other to conga lining through asteroids towards my ships. 

I timed my starburst just right to catch all four TLTs at the correct range, removing Wes and Keyan without loosing a ship. This meant that Biggs was faced with having to deal with all four by himself, and at that point Mike called it. 

Result: Win the store championship!

So I rolled out winner for the whole day, which was a nice suprise. The first time I've ever won a wargames tournament! A really enjoyable day, thank you to all my opponents and to Titan for hosting a great, smoothly run event. Hopefully at some point in the next week I'll do a report on yesterday's store championship as well. Thanks for reading!