Our awesome local game store, Paradox, in Fargo ND, landed the honor of hosting one of the regional level tournaments this year for X-Wing.
I went. I played. I lost. I had fun.
Let me tell you all about it.
This was by far the largest X-Wing event I’d ever been to (I’ve never been to Worlds…). Exactly forty players showed up from all over the region: our local players, many from Minnesota, Canada, and some from Nebraska and South Dakota. Two guys even flew out from Los Angeles to play. Just ’cause apparently.
Forty players in’t a huge number compared to a lot of other regional tournaments, even some store championships bring in more than that, but this was a pretty big deal for us and it was the biggest X-Wing event Paradox has ever held.
I was excited to be there, since I had planned on not making it. The tournament was exactly one week before my wedding and I wasn’t sure if I would be busy or not. Luckily I wasn’t.
I slapped together a list around a particular Kath Scarlet build I’d been enjoying and prepared for battle.
My List:
Kath Scarlet + Rebel Captive + Mangler Canon + Calculation
Bounty Hunter + Tactitian
Scimitar Squadron Pilot + Proximity Mines
This Kath generates Crits like crazy, increasing the odds that one will be cancelled, netting the defender a stress. It worked many times. When combined with tactitian on the other Firespray and Rebel Captive on Kath, each round I had one ship that had 2-3 stress for almost the entire game. Fun, annoying to the opponent, but apparently not that deadly…
I tacked on the bomber because I just really like flying Tie Bombers.
Round 1
First round of the day I was up against another imperial list.
He had a Patrol Leader + Vader + Gunner and 4 Obsidian Squadron tie fighters.
After the first round of shooting, one of his Ties had 3 stress on it, and not much else had happened.
All of the ships were in a big cluster in the middle of the board, and Kath had nowhere to go. Trying to untangle Kath from the furball, she ended up on an asteroid, denying her a range 1 shot at awounded Tie fighter. 
After that things went downhill as Kath was forced to turn away from the fray and my Bounty Hunter and Bomber were ruthlessly hunted down and murdered. Kath was dusted off the board shortly after.
The brave little bomber did manage to dump his proximity mines on an unsuspecting Tie, but it only did one damage. He met this grizly fate pictured above not long after.
I didn’t manage to kill a single Tie fighter (though a few only had one hull left).
Ok. Not sure where I went wrong there. Two firesprays should be able to kill at least one Tie fighter right? Maybe the next round will go better.
Round 2
After relocating to the ugly end of space (seriously, that mat was hideous to play on), I squared off against a Scum list headed by Prince Xisor himself.
My opponent had Xisor loaded to the gills, two Y-Wings with autoblaster turrets and unhinged astromechs, and a heavy Scyk interceptor with a mangler canon. 
In the last match I was a little too cautious with my bomber. It was out of the fight too long and didn’t really do anything.
This round I figured I would just throw my bomber at the enemy and set myself up for a good proximity mine drop on Xisor or one of his wingmates.
Throwing the bomber in as such tempting bait, my two firesprays would at least have the heat drawn off of them for a round since they’d all have to shoot at the bomber to take it down.
Right?
Oh.
Hmm…
Not long after that, Kath once again was forced onto an asteroid. Only this time she was torn apart by the Y-Wing’s autoblaster turrets and the Bounty Hunter followed her to the afterlife soon after. 
See that tiny nub on the asteroid in front of Kath? Yeah, she landed on that by a hair. Clipped by a pebble.
Xisor had about three stress tokens on him throught the whole game, but it didn’t seem to make much of a difference.
This match I at least managed to take out a Y-Wing. Moving on up.
What would round 3 have in store for me?
Round 3
I got a bye.
Which turned out to be a great stroke of luck. Not because it technically counts as a full win, but because I got to be a guest commentator on the live stream.
Paradox was running a live stream throught the whole tournament (from 10 AM to around 10PM) and doing a fantastic job of it.
Since I had a bye they asked me if I’d like to help commentate for a round so I hopped in the booth with them. It was incredibly fun and I’m happy I did so poorly in the first two rounds that I got a bye, and therefore a chance to do X-Wing commentary.
You can check out the videos from the livestream at Paradox’s Twitch Channel.
Round 4
Feeling refreshed after having a nice break from the action, I squared off against my next opponent.
He was flying IG-88 B and four Black Sun Soldiers.
The bomber managed to get his proximity mines off on a headhunter, but only dealing one damage to it.
IG-88 feeling Kath’s stress, was stressed from the first round of combat up until the last. But whatever. He didn’t even come close to dying.
Splitting up his forces, Kath was killed off and the Bounty Hunter and the Bomber duked it out with two of the Zs.
Eventually the one-hull bomber burst into flames and the Bounty Hunter made his final stand.
Blasting 4-Forward here in order to force a bump with IG-88, the Hunter lived a round longer since IG couldn’t shoot him. Eventually he was finished off by a headhunter, but due to the rule of Simultaneous Fire I manged to take one to the grave with me.
I killed three of his headhunters that round.
Round 5
The last round of the day for me, since I obviously wasn’t making the cut to top-8.
But I came to play X-Wing with lots of people, not to get 1st place so I was happy to play out all my rounds despite my curiously horrendous defeats (I’m usually not terrible.)
This time my opponent had IG-88 C, two Headhunters with dead man’s switches, and a Y-Wing with the BTL upgrade.
Before we get too deep into this match, I need to point out, his red dice were the beginning and end of this game.
Lots of people blame games on dice, and most of the time that blame is unfounded, but in this case… I felt bad. In a this is so ridiculous it’s hilarious but also super tragic kind of way.
His Y-Wing got stuck on the debris field, and stuck in a way that meant he’d have to fly through it again on his way out.
That debris field netted the Y-Wing TWO damage. He managed to roll a crit result both times he flew through it. He said he managed to do that in every match that day besides one. 
I managed to take out one of the headhunters, though since it had a dead man’s switch both my bomber and my Bounty Hunter took a damage.
Then his Y-Wing maneuvered to drop an expertly placed proximity mine on Kath. Which came up all blanks.
He couldn’t catch a break.
With IG out of the fray for a bit due to being super stressed by Kath and the Bounty Hunter, I was able to track down the fleeing Z and Y-Wing.
I blasted the headhunter first so it would deal splash damage to the Y-Wing as it blew up. The Y-Wing had lost all of its shields and hadn’t even been shot at yet…
Eventually IG-88 made it back into the fray and started pegging away at my Bounty Hunter.
Round after round IG’s attacks would come up with just one hit, and every time the Bounty Hunter would roll one evade. Every time. The Bounty Hunter lived through the whole match with one hull left. He should have been dead halfway through the game.
Eventually IG-88 died and the my ships tracked down and put the Y-Wing out of its misery. I won that game 100-0. But it was a hollow victory. The red dice absolutely hated him that game.
Tournament Results
This was by far the worst I’ve ever done at an X-Wing event, but I had a hell of a lot of fun. Particularly being able to help with the commentary. It was a great day. I got to see a lot of new faces playing X-Wing and a lot of interesting new builds.
After that it was about 6:30PM (about 8 1/2 hours since we started) so I was pretty worn out. I went home and finished out the tournament watching it on the live stream.
- Winner: Boba Fett + VI + Gunner + Inertial Dampeners + Engine Upgrade; IG88-B + Predator + Advanced Sensors + Mangler + IG-2000 + Autothrusters + Inertial Dampeners
- 2nd place: Whisper + VI + ACD FCS + Intel Agent; Soontir Fel + PtL + Autothrusters + Stealth + title; Omicron Group Pilot + Vader