CANCON X-Wing Grand Tournament
27th January 2025
Barry
20 mins
I haven’t played in an X-Wing Grand Champs since the start of AMG’s 2.5 rules back in 2023. Since then I’d only played in a few store competitions and my success has been somewhat hit and miss. And with AMG’s points such as they are I didn’t really find my groove with the Scum faction like I wanted, so for the CANCON GT I resorted into the toolbox that is the First Order.
Lots of bodies, with a few janky things going on but not a lot of initiative and no big hitting pieces – not without a lot of leg work. I’d had some success with the list though it has its tough match ups and this GT was no exception - even though without a trip to Worlds on the line meaning the draw was only 14 people. Which is disappointing but is also one of the reasons I can play this and Armada the following day.
More on that later.
Round 1 Ops Brief
Situation:
Factions: FO (me) vs. Resistance (ghamz)
Location & Objective: Deep Space - Chance Encounter
Ruleset: AMG
Order of Battle (ORBAT):
Me – Midnight, Commander Malarus, Nightfall, Whirlwind, Scorch, Dread (View in YASB)
ghamz – Jarek Yeager, Nien Nunb, Ello Asty, Zorii Bliss, Tallissan Lintra (View in YASB)
Conduct
As always, I don’t have a plan. The Resistance initiative of 5 across the whole list means I have to be cagey, but Chance Engagement doesn’t really support that. I setup my list in a bit of a spread across the board hoping to avoid getting stuck in an awkward joust. Talli has deployed to my left with Jarek somewhere down the middle and the rest to the right.
Turn 1 - I can’t take on two X-Wings and Zorii so I try to split left to take on Talli and see if the others are split up in the chase. I’m not off to a good start with my Nightfall bumping and taking a damage. “Skill issue.” Chiew declares and he’s right.
Turn 2 - Next turn I deconflict movements and manage to start lighting up Talli as she attempts to run the board edge past me but she cops a few hits awarding half points. Midnight is face to face with Jarek and locks him to get him down to half and so with the objective it’s 4-1.
That said, Turn 3 the two X-Wings and Zorii are able to close in and kill Midnight in exchange for Talli though I’m unable to get arc and finish off Jarek who thanks to his crits isn’t taking any actions for a while. This presents a significant problem for my toolbox as I have nothing to exceed their initiative – only Malarus to try and match it
Turn 4 - I spend re-positioning, though Dread lands on a rock conceding more points after being shot by Nien Nunb.
Turn 5 - I’m fortunate in avoiding too many shots as it’s ghamz’s turn to start repositioning, and I score some decent hits into Zorii. Score is 9-8 my way…somehow. The score has been incrementally moving this whole time and I’m quite close enough killing either X-Wing.
Turn 6 - Scorch drops a seismic charge which Jarek cannot avoid taking two points, and in his pursuit of killing Dread, Nien Nunb has to reposition to avoid Whirlwind and Scorch’s shots. Meanwhile both Ello and Zorii have K-Turned to take re-engage but with no modifiers they can’t really hurt Whirlwind who is their only target. All of the Resistance is out of range to score the objective.
End of the game.
The game has gone to time with me sneaking away 13-8 in a game where one more round would have probably shifted the game the other way.
Round 2 Ops Brief
Situation:
Factions: FO (me) vs. Scum & Villainy (pirateking)
Location & Objective: Deep Space – Salvage Mission
Ruleset: AMG
Order of Battle (ORBAT):
Me – Midnight, Commander Malarus, Nightfall, Whirlwind, Scorch, Dread (View in YASB)
pirateking – The Mandalorian, Emon Azzameen, Koshka Frost (View in YASB)
Conduct
Again just to be clear – I don’t have a plan. I haven’t really played against double Firesprays and Mando hasn’t really been in our local meta much. I decide to be conservative with the bombers and have them ready to collect objectives – they’ll lose their pre-position sure but they probably with only three targets across the board cluster missiles seem less valuable – so Dread goes on the right. Whirlwind takes centre to fly wing with Midnight.
A confronting setup to take on.
Koshka is deployed on my left so I try to approach with Nightfall for the higher initiative, Emon is in the centre and Mando is on the right. Malarus is deployed to the right to help fend off Mando.
Turn 1 - Koshka banks right ready to collect the objective, Emon goes straight up the centre and Mando banks towards the centre whilst I try and stay out of range and prepare to take some of the objectives.
Turn 2 - I decide I need to switch up Malarus and Scorch’s role as anyone picking up a crate needs to survive shots. And that’s what Malarus can do… I de-cloak Whispers forward to close the gap, Koshka turns hard one into the board opening up her flank to Nightfall.
A massive hit into the Firesprays, just needed a way to follow it up…
Emon approaches the centre and comes short of bumping Whirlwind – him up to initiative 6 with Midnight and they both put some big hits into Emon with follow up support from Scorch leaves Emon on 1 hull and Mando without shields.
Similarly Nightfall also puts 5 hits into Koshka, dropping all her shields and planting a critical damage card forcing her drop the objective. Whirlwind cops some hits and is left with a stunned pilot. Score is 2-0.
Turn 3 – Koshka stops, so catches out Whirlwind to finish him off. Nightfall successfully jams and puts two more hits into Koshka. Emon has absolutely gunned it to escape to my board edge where I have no arc. Combined shots from Midnight, Malarus and Scorch only yield minor damage to Mando. Score is 4-4.
Turn 4 - I start dropping bombs to block off Mando and Koshka. Koshka and Emon also start dropping bombs making pursuit of either a difficult venture. And this is where I start taking some hits on Nightfall and Scorch. Midnight finds herself with no way to escape Koshka’s rear arc so locks to negate and re-rolls. Emon finally is removed from the board by Scorch. Score is 13-4.
Turn 5 - I disengage with Scorch and start re-loading munitions whilst avoiding Koshka’s last seismic charge. Mando is chasing down Nightfall, while Malarus and Dread try to remove him from the table. Score is 15-5.
Turn 6 – I can’t pick the way to get out Nightfall away from Mando’s arc and somehow, he stays on the board whilst Midnight and Scorch play it safe as they’re in no fit state. Score is 17-6.
Turn 7 – Koshka has come back and is haunting Dread. Mando is still chasing Nightfall but he’s also only left with 2 hull – so he’s gotta be anxious about losing him. Score is 19-7.
Last turn and I try to get Midnight and Scorch into the fight and maybe kill Koshka as she still has a Fuel Leak from turn 2, though I just cannot for the life of me get there. The plus side is I also don’t lose anymore ships. I’ve been jamming Mando like crazy with Nightfall trying to reduce his output but I just couldn’t close out the last two without risking it all. Final score is 21-8 having built my lead with just two objectives picked up in the second turn.
Round 3 Ops Brief
Situation:
Factions: FO (me) vs. Separatists (ddsunder)
Location & Objective: Deep Space – Assault at the Satellite Array
Ruleset: AMG
Order of Battle (ORBAT):
Me – Midnight, Commander Malarus, Nightfall, Whirlwind, Scorch, Dread (View in YASB)
ddsunder – Durge, DIS-347, DBS-32C, DGS-286, DFS-081, The Iron Assembler, DGS-047 (View in YASB)
Conduct
I really didn’t want this match-up as I know Dan to be an accomplished player with lots of experience. He wouldn’t bring this for no reason – and having only briefly tinkered with Separatists myself I cannot say with any confidence that I know what he’s going to do. So in saying that it becomes clear that I still don’t have a plan. And I cannot confidently track who is who on his side of the table with the exception of Durge, tri-fighter and bomber but I’ll do my best to convey what happened as this game was tense for me. So I didn’t end up taking a lot of photos or keeping persistent score updates as at this point I’m really starting to feel the pressure.
I honestly have no idea what to do with this…
Deployment he’s got most of his force slightly off-centre, with Durge and the tri-fighter off the right. I’ve split Malarus and Whirlwind to the left, and the rest to the right to try and take objectives.
Dan launches the probe droids in the system phase and everyone proceeds to light up Nightfall who de-cloaked into range of Durge. We exchange some shots into Nightfall, Midnight and Durge respectively before Nightfall decides to just bail to come face to face with the tri-fighter. All his Vultures land on the nearest asteroid to control that zone and my approaches.
Dan shifts all his locks in favour of Midnight who he kills handily and my anxiety rises as he continues to block out two to three objectives consistently. To catch him I have to stop farming whatever objectives I do have to try and kill something. Whirlwind decides to take the plunge, dropping a proton rocket into one of the HMP’s leaving it on two health.
After this things got tense.
Scorch dives in on the vultures, setting up to drop a seismic charge. Nightfall turns in on the Hyena bomber and manages to kill it with a proton rocket and support from Scorch. But this is still a perilous position with the HMPs covering a lot of space. Whirlwind turns in on the second HMP while the other sideslips away. Dread starts trying to do some lifting but it’s not particularly efficient.
It’s the last round and the score is currently 7-9.
My last seismic charge is dropped by Scorch, and Whirlwind sloops and barrel-rolls behind the HMP with Ion Limiter Override, with Dread bailing around the corner. Scorch moves as fast as he can just missing a bump between the HMP and Whirlwind. Nightfall is unfortunately on two hull and stuck with no good options stuck in all the Vultures who have turned, two HMPs, Durge – so he boost/rotates for arc on the second HMP.
Malarus swings in, and locks a Vulture – which was stupid because the seismic has put the HMP on one health. So Malarus uses her ability and gets lucky with two hits managing to kill the HMP, similarly Nightfall and Whirlwind manage to kill the second HMP. Score is now 13-9.
Nightfall has to survive to keep me in this game. Somehow he manages to weather the shots being left on 1 hull, moving the final score to 14-11. I think I manage to finally breathe, as it very nearly went 14-15 on those last dice rolls.
Round 4 Ops Brief
Situation:
Factions: FO (me) vs. Empire (crumfish)
Location & Objective: Deep Space – Scramble the Transmissions
Ruleset: AMG
Order of Battle (ORBAT):
Me – Midnight, Commander Malarus, Nightfall, Whirlwind, Scorch, Dread (View in YASB)
crumfish – Rear Admiral Chiraneau, Tomax Bren, Echo, Scimitar 1 (View in YASB)
Conduct
Looking at this list…I think I finally have a plan. Having played against all these previously in different iterations my ability to jam the bombers will ruin their output potential. Similarly, RAC without a re-enforce token isn’t quite as scary.
Okay now finally - a plan has formed.
I position Whirlwind and Dread centre-right to go after objectives and flank, competing against Echo who won’t be there for long with that ability. The rest of my squad is to the left in a joust with RAC and the bombers.
Turn 1 - Just a bit of planning needed for the approach…and some luck with Echo there.
Turn 1 - I move Whirlwind and Dread in preparation for taking objectives, meanwhile I have to do some shuffling to deconflict moves over the left-hand side of the table. RAC and co move forward slowly and Echo moves forward and cloaks.
Turn 2 – I decloak both Whispers and move up to capture the bottom objective, while Whirlwind actually moves and boosts to flank Scimitar 1 and jam him. Everyone else manages to move up within range 1 of RAC. We both take one objective each on our side of the table.
A massive hit into Tomax!
Midnight locks RAC, and Swarm Tactics Nightfall to initiative 6 – who ignores RAC and fires a proton rocket at Tomax. The two hits and three crits cascade to kill Tomax outright even with one evade. Malarus fires a mag-pulse missile onto Scimitar 1, depleting and jamming him effectively neutralising his proton torpedoes. So the score is 5-1.
Turn 3 – Scimitar drops an ion bomb, Whirlwind does a 1 hard in to avoid it and capture the objective while Dread captures the centre off Echo. Nightfall has to risk the bomb, going through RAC (double jamming him) hoping to escape the wrath of Vader while Scorch banks in and locks RAC. RAC, Malarus and Midnight are caught in a jam they can’t escape.
RAC uses Vader crew to keep the damage up on Nightfall and follows up with a decent shot killing him, though he’s haemorrhaging hull from the multiple shots at close range, including Scorch’s clusters which also hit Scimitar 1. Score is 8-6.
Turn 4 – Scimitar 1 drops another ion bomb which ultimately only impacts Scorch and RAC – who was still jammed up with Malarus and Midnight. Whirlwind moves into centre and keeps jamming Scimitar 1, while Dread moves to flank RAC. Echo is also lingering, coming up behind Midnight who luckily survives that shot. Score is 11-6.
Turn 5 – Echo decloaks ready to flank Midnight. Scimitar 1 takes the bottom objective, Whirlwind follows behind and Dread locks onto RAC. Dread is forced to perform an ion move and so is limited to a focus action, meanwhile Echo just clips a rock. RAC bumps while Malarus and Midnight bail thinking Echo and/or Vader was about to crush them.
Midnight boosts Dread to initiative 6 who cluster missiles RAC killing him though in the course of that I fail to follow up with a shot into Echo. Scorch takes a shot at Scimitar 1 killing him making the final score is 23-7.
Final shot of the game.
Ok I’ll admit having a plan that time felt good, executing it felt better though it must be stated that first roll against Tomax was extremely fortunate. Vader crew combined with Death Troopers is absolutely soul crushing for my TIE/FO’s though so I’m fortunate to have lost Nightfall in the process – who at least traded up in my books.
Debrief
No futher comment needed.
I’ve never won an X-Wing competition – store champs or otherwise since I played my first tournament in 2015. And it is with some sense of sadness that I should win it only at the very end of the game’s official support. I don’t think X-Wing is over by any means as I think XWA is doing some great things and it’s really up to the community if they want to see X-Wing in any format survive.
Ooh pretty!
Winning this tournament means a lot to me and I had a lot of fun playing it. Everyone playing at CANCON was awesome, and it was a great day out. A huge thanks to Ando and Chiew for TO’ing the event, and for adding to the official loot available from other tournament kits gone by. I’m especially stoked to have the Spectre Cell and Inferno Squadron cardboard collections. I’ll definitely find a good use for them.
For the full stats from the tournament you can find the link here. Stay tuned for an update for the CANCON Armada GT, and stay salty.
- Barry