Jacob's rambles- what to expect

Hey, so you decided that my blog was where you wanted to stop? You mad people... This here, will be a small introduction into what to expect and why you should stick around (That last part however, is up to you). Well, as the name suggests this will be about the Star Wars board game X-wing. X-wing is a game based on the starfighter combat seen in the star wars film saga. The game has lots of rules and complicated little cards that have lots of words on them. All you need to truly understand is we are grown men (Most of us are, anyway) who stand at a table and make "Pew Pew" noises as we roll green and red dice (D8's with special sides printed on them). I'm not expecting many people outside of those who know about X-wing, so be warned I will be using jargon and awful amount's of star wars trivia which I'll use to buff out the page (I'm sorry, you'll just have to put up with it). 

So, I'm guessing if you made it through the blurb that you want to stay. Well, join the humble club of about 10 people, mostly male. More will join promise! The idea behind this blog is to document my part played in one of the many online tournments, due to the lockdown over here in Great Britain. If this takes off, well I'll carry this on to my casual play at my local store and the tournments after that (We have a league, but I think I'll have to fight the local newswriter on that one, so I'll leave that for our facebook page). I play in coventry, at escape games. I first entered the game by complete chance. At the time, I'd just started Dungeons and Dragons, so entered the store looking for new dice (I'm not a dice goblin yet, promise!), but stumbled upon these little spaceships, sat there begging to be brought. I looked at them, the TIE fighter, X-wing and the starter set. I decided I'd ask who played in the area and found the group played in the shop, upstairs in the community area. Well, I got in touch with the head of the group (A man named Gary Bailey) who mentioned they were having a tournment in a few weeks on a Saturday. It was a Quick Build party with the escalation rules being used. I turned up, without any real idea... 

Some of the ships that got used that day!

I left having not won a single game, a million questions but a raging desire to play far more of the game! 

Now, in hindsight, I had my heart set on making TIE's work. My problem was one faced by every new player- Not understanding how to fly them. I toyed with the idea of TIE's and Vader with the idea for weeks and weeks, until I brought a starter set and looked at the X-wings. Now, I had an idea... but was still hesitant to plug money into the game (Ha, famous last words). When I brought them, I was also given a gift, a sole B-wing (Before the S-foil card). Now, I had always had a soft spot for the B-wing, ever since I watched it fly into battle, on a christmas showing of return of the Jedi on ITV (Now it's Harry Potter, but I have Disney+, so no adverts!). I quickly made a list consisting of a B-wing (Braylem Stramm) and two X-wings. Well, there I am and I feel invigorated. I lose, but the X-wing feels better to fly vs the TIE's. It's tanky so survives longer when I fly it terribly. The B-wing, I quickly found I could capitlise on it's slower nature, by flying the X-wings as bait and have a Heavy Laser Cannon rip into them at range 2 (Avoiding the bonus evade dice). So, I abandonded the empire, brought another two X-wings, an A-wing and a Y-wing. I tinkered and built and worked on new lists with them. Until, I stumbled on an Idea. Two X-wings, an A-wing and a B-wing. With point changes and new cards (B-wing S-foils, I'm looking at you!) I'd stumbled upon a list that I loved (and still love) flying. I also brought the Republic starter set, but haven't really flown it often, due to not owning a lot of them. In lockdown, I've brought a resistance conversion kit and a falcon (So much for not spending money!)

but, before lockdown, we all decided we wanted a local league to start, so we designed rules and list building ideas. We decided on Extended (This was just after hyperspace had been cleared by the massive changes). You would have two lists and would pick the list before battle. So, I turned and saw my TIE's collecting dust on a shelf. Quickly gathering them up, I decided I'd progressed as a pilot, so realised I'd judged them far too quickly and well, by this point I had 8 (but only 4 dials!). I settled on a lambda being there to help. I went with Sai, so I could bump my TIE's and have them still get their needed tokens (They die far too quickly without). I saw that many in the league were flying Swarms, so went with vader with Cluster Missles (This threw everyone, but I love them!) and three acadamy pilots. I swear by this list, Vader does vader things and if you get Sai to co-ordinate, you can talon roll with a target lock, focus and force! With zero practice, I won my first game against a familar list. A variation of my favourite rebel list (The one I mentioned above), with a few tweaks. It went swimmingly, a few mistakes (Like the lambda going over a gas cloud) But I also got lucky (console fire taking 3 turns to kill a tie on 1 health!). I learnt some things which helped me with the list for later in the league. It's a fun list, but could easily make changes. 

So, I haven't put certain things on here (mainly because my memory of my playing timeline is hazy) so I thought I'd put them here... at the end so they stick with you all! After the system open (I didn't attend, damn college!) one of the group (Sam) came back proclaming they were king of Coventry, (were we play). This was beacuse he had finished highest out of the group that went. He kept challenging people for his crown. I was the second player to face him. Now, I haven't won many games (It's never the point of playing, right? Just me on that one then...) well, I beat him... quite convincingly. So I gained the name Kingslayer. Problem is, a mistype of king in the group chat led to my new nickname becoming Kigslayer! I must say, better than being a kingslayer. The other story comes from comicon at Birmingham. Well, the 501st are there. I know another member is dressed up (He had said as Boba Fett) but then this random imperial officer came up to me dragging me to my front and making me kneel and proclaim how much I love the empire! Well, within two seconds I'm on the floor doing push ups... by the third, I'm pushed into the ground. After all this was over, we had a quick conversation to the relief of a fellow 501st member, who had become panicked that my friend had picked on a random member of the public! But, soon my new nickname was found, empire lover. Ah, the amount of fun they had with it. Well, I don't mind now. It's my badge of honour... I think. Don't quote that though. 

I'm terrible at ending things, hence why I called this my blog a ramble. I will ramble, possibly about things totally unrelated. So, like I said at the start, why would you want to come back? Well you read to here and let's be honest, you enjoyed it. you got here, because you share a love of Star Wars, X-wing and rolling dice at a table. All the while getting frustrated when you completly blank out a range 3, stealth device and obstructed shot on a TIE fighter (6 dice! 6 DICE!).