WORLDS PREP IV - Sith Taker Open 2023

This past weekend was the long-awaited Sith Taker Open, a large event held by my local team (the Sith Takers) at Element Games in Stockport.  The STO had already become a fixture on the UK tournament pre-Covid, but in the absence of any major official organised play events it's now the biggest event in the UK calendar.  With 105 players it's also bigger than the recent Las Vegas Open in the US and will be, until the World Championships at Adepticon, the biggest 'X-Wing 2.5' tournament ever held.  And because it's positioned right before Worlds it's also attracted lots of big name players from across Europe looking to practice.

So, what did I take in order to beat the best players in Europe?

I took Blazer Bombs.

If you're unfamiliar with the upgrade voted both 'Worst Bomb of 2021' and 'Worst Bomb of 2022' by the readers of TIME magazine then let me remind you of what it does...

There's a lot wrong with the Blazer Bomb: you get a template like the Proximity Mine but you don't place it immediately in the System Phase so it's much harder to hit people with it.  You also get a Range 1 detonation like a Thermal Detonator but because it's only 1 red dice and doesn't do critical damage it's not actually that painful.

So it's hard to hit people with and doesn't hurt them much when you do.  So why am I using it?

The answer is Grudge.  His ability to reroll that 1 red dice from Blazer Bomb restores its potency while simultaneously protecting my own ships from the flames.  Grudge turns Blazer Bomb into a lopsided effect where the opponent takes 3x more damage it than I do.  At this point the fact that the Blazer Bomb is weak actually becomes an advantage.  It's so weak I'm usually happy to drop it all over my own team and take the small chance of eating a damage from it.

When I did that same thing with Thermal Detonators the results were much more painful for me because there's twice as many dice AND because it has the potential to Strain me as well there's more results on the dice that I don't want to see.

My experience of using Grudge with Thermal Detonators was that he had two modes - a Chaff mode where I push him forwards to launch Electro-Chaff but can't afford to use bombs on my own team, and a Thermal Detonator mode where he hangs back to blow up the space where opponents want to k-turn behind me but is then too far away to usefully use Electro-Chaff.  Blazer Bomb lets me do both.

Literally nobody could give me a good Blazer Bomb story as encouragement but my Spider-Sense kept tingling that I should use it.  To put the issue to rest I played three practice games with Blazer Bomb on Tuesday night before the Sith Taker Open and expected it to be a 'well, I tried it but yeah they're bad' and instead they were good in all three game and I was happy to give them a punt for the Sith Taker Open.

With Grudge and Blazer Bombs settled on my full list for the Sith Taker Open was this:

• Commander Malarus – Cluster Missiles
• Lieutenant Galek – Proud Tradition, Ion Cannon
• Scorch – Shield Upgrade
• DT-796 – Shield Upgrade
• Ember – Elusive, Pattern Analyser
• Grudge – Electro-Chaff Missile, Blazer Bomb, Fanatical

This list has torn up everything I'd put up against it in practice, but practice games are practice games and aren't always representative of how it will fare against opponents who are really trying to beat you in ways that you've not seen before.

I really like my list and enjoyed flying it, but I was ready to find out it wasn't as good as I thought it was and was braced for something like a 3-2 result that would see me fail to make cut to the second day.

ROUND ONE – Assault on the Satellite Array

Martyn Chivers – 7-ship Crack Swarm

This was a hell of a way to kick off the day: a game against the player and squad that won the last major event held in the UK.  This is very scary list for me to sit opposite because it absolutely has the firepower to hurt me and I can expect that Martyn knows exactly how to bring that firepower to bear.

BUT

It’s also a matchup where I can immediately be most pleased that I have Grudge with his Chaff cloud and Blazer Bombs.  That’s a massive toolbox to bring to this matchup must surely transform how we approach each other.

Before we get to the frenzied shooting part there’s one piece of information that will turn out to be very important.  During setting up objectives I notice Martyn being careful to measure exactly range 2 between two the Satellites near his deployment zone “aha!” I think, “he’s being really clever here because he knows that he can park one of his Academy Pilots in the spot between those two satellites and score both of them at once.  I need to watch out for that”.  Remember this for later.

We slam into each other on turn 3.  Grudge lays his chaff out and Martyn decides that he’s just going to take it on the chin and speeds through the cloud so most of his TIE Fighters arrive in the fight jammed and without focus tokens.  This is perfect for me, but I’ve made a mistake that means I can’t capitalise on it fully.  On my first turn both Malarus and Galek opened with a 5-straight but to bring Galek’s arc around into the fight I need to bank and the 5-straight has put her too close to an asteroid, so she has to turn instead.  If Galek has to do a turn then Malarus will need to do a 3-bank instead of a 2-bank.  I think there’s room for a 3-bank but actually Malarus just clips the back of Scorch’ base and she bumps.  That’s no Target Lock action and no Cluster Missiles, a critical drop in firepower for this vital turn.

Martyn’s TIE Fighters light me up – they might not have focus tokens but with bullseye Scourge Skuta and range 1 Mauler and Howlrunner and Moff Gideon he hits like a truck anyway, while I do nowhere near enough damage back after having to spend Focus just staying on the table.  Nothing dies on either side but I come off worse from the turn and with my big Chaff play spent to no effect I figure I’ve blown my chance.

From here the middle of the table turns into an almighty scrum as 12 TIE Fighters all try to hard-1 and s-loop and k-turn to get shots on each other.  The only ship not joining this melee is Grudge, who drops his Blazer Bomb into the pack and scoots away from everyone else.  The Blazer Bomb explodes to critical effect, with Grudge’s rerolls meaning that it nets 4 damage to Martyn’s TIEs and 0 damage to my own.  Those little chips of damage set up wounded TIEs that I can then finish off, meaning I can keep pace with Martyn as he starts to finish off my own wounded TIEs.  Emotionally I feel like I’ve been getting pummelled ever since I screwed up the initial engagement, but the points tally says that I’m actually one point ahead.

Super-Grudge to the rescue!

BTW: we should have removed the chaff, if you're wondering.  We must have forgotten.

On what turned out to be the final turn I was looking at how to boost-turn Grudge around and get him back into the fight when I realised that a 2-turn without boost would probably put him in exactly the spot that I was worried Martyn’s Academy Pilot would sit to score two objectives.  

It wins me the game.  

In the big melee more red dice bounce off more green dice and nothing dies, Martyn claims the centre objective because he has an extra body on the table but because Grudge is single-handedly holding two Satellites at once I match him on objectives for theturn and hold my slender 1pt lead as time is called on the round.

WIN – 13-12

Aside: I’ve had some discussion about this game online, with the gist it being that a game that ends 13-12 on turn 5 must mean that we were playing really slowly, or that we both brought bad lists that couldn’t deal damage.  I’m not sure either of that is true – there’s certainly no problem in either my or Martyn’s list dealing damage, I think we just nullified each other in a lot of ways – and although we only got through 5 turns we did manage to move 60 ships and make something like 35 attacks in that time because we had 13 ships on the table and pitched straight into a mass duel on the second turn, which is probably as many moves and attacks as two four ship lists would manage in a full 12 turns.

ROUND TWO  - Scramble the Transmission
Darth Sparkles – Morna Kee & 3 Reapers

A Decimator and three Reapers.  This is a lot of hull to work through, but I played against something a bit like this at the Wampa Warm Up and I managed to get through it in time so I’m confident I just have too much firepower for him to handle.

The key thing I feel like I need to manage is that I need to focus all my fire onto one thing and ensure I kill it, so while I deploy quite spread out in a way that encourages my opponent to do the same, I plan all along to fold in on the centre of the table and kill Morna Kee as quickly as possible.  At first this plan seems to be going flawlessly – I pull Feroph out of the fight on my right flank by switching those TIE Fighters in towards the centre, and Grudge uses his Chaff cloud to strip away Morna Kee’s banked reinforce to leave her vulnerable.  But even down to one Reinforce token the damage isn’t stacking up on Morna as quickly as I’d like and on the third turn my opponent managed to sweep Vermeil in from my left flank to join the fight.

It's always a joy to play on this mat.  Not!

I was now in real danger of being trapped between the hammer & anvil of Vermeil and Morna and most of my ships took evasive action to escape the kill box, while I left Ember to doggedly chase Morna Kee down as she tried to flee.

With that emerging killbox dodged my TIEs are safe once again and although I’d planned to bring an overwhelming weight of fire to bear it turns out to be a steady application of pressure that wins the day.  Grudge slips in behind Vizier and chips him down over three turns, while Ember chases Morna into a corner she can’t escape from to finish the game off.

That glittering cloud of space dust used to be Morna Kee

WIN – 20-9

Talking about it after the game Darth Sparkles says he was wrong to spread his forces out like he did and given how little he managed to do with Feroph on my right flank I think I agree.  Because Feroph raced forward on one flank and Vizier hung back on the other I was able to spend most of the game just fighting Morna Kee and Major Vermeil for the middle objective.  So long as I didn’t sit one of my ships where both could shoot at it I don’t think he ever got enough firing arcs pointing at the same thing to really punch through my agility and kill things.

ROUND THREE – Salvage Mission
Jannis Fritsch – YT-Poe, Zizi, Lulo, Zay Version

Salvage feels like a good mission to hit Jannis’ list in as pretty much all his ships love a Boost action and that’s ultimately how it played out.  To cut a long story short I think there was two critical decision points in this game – one mine, one Jannis’ – that handed me the win.

The first decision point was mine.  In every other matchup I would have spent turn 2 looking to engage my opponent with a fierce volley of fire and start destroying ships but in this game I made every effort to get my ships into position where I could grab four of the five crates.  That left my ships out of position for any fighting and without any dice mods for the shots Jannis took at me, but I felt it was a risk that I could afford to take to secure a big lead on the scenario objective.  Lulo managed to immediately shoot Galek’s crate off her but I held onto the other three crates for the rest of the game and I had a 12-7 lead on objective points by the end.

The second decision point was Jannis’.  He couldn’t afford to take my TIEs on in a head to head fight and had to be evasive in his piloting, especially with Poe carrying 7 victory points in his YT-1300.  After grabbing crates my TIEs started to converge on Poe and Jannis decided to 2-turn away from the centre of the table back towards his deployment zone.  The mistake I think he made was that he then followed that up with a Boost action.  The Boost action committed Poe to which corner of the table he was going to run into and I knew immediately where I needed my ships to be in two turns in order to kill Poe.  If Jannis hadn’t boosted then next turn Poe could have run in either direction and I wouldn’t have known where to go.  That 45-degree shift gave Poe an attack he wouldn’t otherwise have got to make, which is probably what Jannis was thinking about when he did it, but also signed his death warrant.

WIN – 24-10

ROUND FOUR – Chance Encounter
Kester Smith – Kylo, Wrath, Malarus, Scorch, DT

If I wasn’t so fully happy and committed to play 6 ships than Kester’s list may well be what I would be flying as I’ve frequently proclaimed my love of the TIE Whisper, and of Kylo and Wrath in particular.

This match played out the Firecast Focus stream so you can watch it if you jump to about 6 hours 5 minutes in, but unfortunately I can’t recommend it as one to watch.  The regular Firecast commentators were playing in the main event and mine and Kester’s audio doesn’t go out so it’s silent, then because I have no sense of showmanship we ended up driving a joust through the end of the table farthest from the camera so it's a hard watch too.  But if you enjoy squinting at some red pixels fighting agsainst some black and white pixels in the far distance then this may be the stream that you’ve been waiting for!

I also cheated in quite an important way.  I didn’t realise I’d cheated until I watched the stream back and caught what observers were saying into the chat.  I jousted Kester’s DT and Scorch down my left flank and hurled a chaff cloud into their face so that he came in jammed with no focus tokens and I could really do some damage.  Kester wound up sitting both of his TIEs actually on the chaff cloud instead of flying through it, and then I merrily target locked them with Ember and Malarus and went to town.  

This is cheating.

I’d read this part of the Electro-Chaff Cloud effects…

But I’d not read this part…

Usually when you don’t know what something does it hurts you as you plan for something to happen and get told it doesn’t work that way.  It’s unfortunate that this time it worked out in my favour because neither myself or Kester caught it and I merrily Cluster Missiled his ships with Malarus instead.

That said, this wasn’t the only mistake we made during the game and while it hurt Kester to eat those Cluster Missiles I think he managed to hurt himself even more when he dialled a k-turn for Kylo Ren that hit an asteroid he’d been sure wasn’t in the way.  Kylo lost two shields and my ships pounced on his sudden vulnerability to grab those victory points.  As a last act Kester managed to swing 6 hits from his Cluster Missile attacks into 6 blank green dice and kill two TIEs and make the score look pretty close.

WIN – 21-14

So much had gone wrong for Kester in this match, though.  He’d deployed quite spread out with Kylo way over on my far right side and the speed of my closing engagement seemed to catch him on the hop.  Then I cheated with Cluster Missiles.  Then he ran Kylo over a rock... End result was that for various reasons it wasn’t a clean game and I think if we met again the outcome could be very different.  I like his squad a lot and I think I was lucky to get away from it as easily as I did.

ROUND FIVE – Salvage Mission
Liam Baker – Jango, Durge, Volan Das, Phlacc-Arphocc

With both of us on 4-0 and sitting on a presumably healthy Strength of Schedule, the pressure was off for this final round of the first day as we were both guaranteed a spot in the Top-16.  Liam is a fellow Sith Taker and has been extolling the virtues of his Tri-Fighters in the team chat for a while.  I was pretty comfortable in my TIEs ability to throw lasers in their direction, but Volan Das in particular was a serious threat thanks to Outmaneuver.

This game turned out to be another where it was Grudge’s time to shine.  I deployed most of my ships on my right side and Grudge central, while Liam deployed centrally with everything apart from Volan Das, who was going to run down the opposite flank to my main force.  It was time for Grudge to switch into skirmish mode and he went out hunting for Volan Das in order to frustrate him with chaff and bombs.  Liam sensibly swung Durge and the other Tri-Fighter away from my incoming joust to chase the lone Grudge but the bomber managed to slip that net and I think Blazer Bomb disrupted the Tri-Fighters movement choices enough that they became quite predictable targets.  My TIEs fell on the Tri-Fighters and both exploded in one turn, while Jango nailed Ember in return.

Grudge evades Durge while the Tri-Fighters fly into bad spots to avoid Blazer Bomb

But that was just the shooting.  What I hadn’t identified in Turn 0 was that Liam’s was another list, just like Jannis Fritsch’ list in Round Three, that liked boosting too much to pick up crates.  Midgame I figured it out and leaned into that, so what had started with a 2-0 advantage in crate ownership became a 4-0 lead and I just protected those crates until the end of the game.  I won the objective scoring 15-0 while the actual shooting was a much closer 8-7 in my favour.

WIN 23-7

Well then!  I finished the first day as one of only two players on 5-0, alongside Dom Flannigan and his well-proven CIS squad, with a couple of undefeated Imperial lists (4 and a draw) sitting right behind us.

At this point I've already got everything I want from the Sith Taker Open.  My Worlds list is set.  Ember and Grudge have big ticks next to them, Blazer Bomb has a tick next to it.  I'm set.

I hadn't been expecting to do so well in a tough room so I gratefully accepted a friend's offer of a place to stay the night just around the corner from the tournament venue and we headed off into the night for dinner, drinks, board games and chat.  I think the staff of Mister Ali's curry house were a bit baffled by the fact an extra 30 people they hadn't been expecting all descended on them within a 20 minute window on Saturday evening.  And that they all arrived in little groups, but all seemed to know each other...

Actually, worth spending a moment on this.  I don't often extol the virtues of the X-Wing community the way so many people do and in part that's because this isn't my first time around the block: my version of that sense of community that so many have came 25 years ago in the mid/late-90s Magic; The Gathering scene, where I made a lot of lifelong friends.  So I always feel a bit removed from the X-Wing community: I'm older than most, and I'd rather sit back and let you all enjoy it than try too hard to artificially recreate something that's decades into my past.

But it was good to see everyone, good to chat to the people I got to chat to. It was good to see so many faces back and that the game is still clearly worth the candle after all the noisy naysayers have left.

There you go, that's about as soppy as I'm prepared to get in public.  Now back to your scheduled programming...

TOP-16 – Chance Encounter
Tom Reed – Boba, Rook, Kanan

My blogging journey to Worlds starting by explaining why I consider myself to be a Jack not an Ace and was quite prophetic in places….

"Even the times when I was having a good day and got within touching distance of a something important, like qualifiying for Worlds, there would always be a King or an Ace standing between me and the big prize, like a Jack Mooney, Stuart Blucke or Tom Reed.  Because they're better than me."

Hi, Tom.

Oh, is this going to be played out as a Chance Encounter, probably the single scenario I least want to face Tom’s list on?  Perfect.

• Plan A: kill Rook if I get the chance

Tom deploys his I3s before most of my list.  I set up to joust them in the face.  Boba Fett lines up a little inside them, facing lane in the middle of the table.  Turn 1 I race forward while Tom 0-stops with Kanan and Rook, while Boba moves up the lane between two asteroids.  I guess that’s Plan A gone.

• Plan B: kill Boba

If you’re going to try and kill something in this list you have to throw everything you can at it.  I chaff Boba’s approach and the rest of my squad swoops on to blast the Firespray out of the sky.  We do some damage but not enough.  I wanted to at least make Boba feel in danger and like he had to run away, but I’ve not succeeded in that.  Galek got pretty cooked but everything is still alive.

• Plan A: turn and kill Rook.  But the positioning just isn’t right, I can’t get enough guns onto him and Boba is still here.

• Plan B: hit Boba again.

We k-turn, we sloop, we hard-1, we throw everything we have at Boba again.  We get half points.  Tom got half of Galek on the second turn and he picks up half of Scorch this turn, but with half of the Firesprays points scored I’m 6-4 ahead.

• Plan A: can we hit Rook yet?  No.

• Plan B: can we hit Boba again?  Risky, he’s getting close to initiative-sweeping some of my TIEs off the board and I need to protect my guns.  I’ve spent too long in his range 1 bubble already.

• Plan C: disengage, play it safe, get ready for another pass

It’s a weak turn from me and Ember gives up half points.  It’s 7-7

• Plan A: kill Rook

FINALLY I can do what I came here to do.  With 4 hull remaining Tom cycles Boba out of the fight and suddenly Rook is caught in the killbox I’ve been patiently waiting to spring but GODDAMNIT that thing only rolls evades on its two green dice every time I shoot at it so it's not going down quickly.  And… OH FOR FUCKS SAKE writing this blog I just this second realised we never once decided who got Merciless Pursuit from The Child.  That would have been really important for DT & Scorch.  

So yeah, long story short: bad beats, blah blah, green dice blah blah, nobody cares own your target priority choices, blah blah, lost 16-17 with Rook on 2 hull blah blah Merciless Pursuit GOD FUCKING DAMNIT blah blah.

LOSS 16-17

I guess that was karma coming back round my way after I Cluster Missiled Kester’s TIEs on the first day.  My gosh, karma works fast these days.

For avoidance of doubt: I am 100% certain Tom did not deliberately ‘forget’ to give my ships Merciless Pursuit.  Tom is a good mate who doesn’t play much any more and has sold his collection so I’d loaned him his list for the weekend – ships, cards etc - and the only thing I couldn’t find for him was the Merciless Pursuit condition cards.  So if I don’t give the cards to Tom then Tom doesn’t have that reminder to hand them out!

Tom went on to beat Oliver Pocknell in the Top-8 and Liam Baker (my roung 5 opponent) in Top-4 before his run was finally ended by some newbie who I'm sure fluked their way to the win with beginners luck.

Congratulations to Faan Langelaan, who recovered from a massive first round drubbing (4-22!) to then not drop another game all weekend and claim the title!

Sith Taker Open 2023

So that's the Sith Taker Open boxed off and... it was great!

See Results from STO 2023 on Longshanks

• The organisation was pretty much flawless.  We used Longshanks and it all seemed to work very well.  We got underway on time and although there was one redraw it got handled quickly.  Massive props to debut Tournament Organisers Richard Polley, Sean Milligan and Jonathan Hall.  Usually Tim King is the steady hand at the tiller of Sith Taker events but Tim wanted to play ahead of Worlds and the other stepped in.  I know they were really nervous about hosting such a big event but it all went great.  Big tick.

• I played lots of games of X-Wing.  This is always a big tick.

• I enjoyed them all, win lose or draw they were all exciting games I was fully engaged with the entire time.  Big tick.

• I got to chat to people I don't usually get to chat to, maybe gradually rebuild some more bridges.  Big tick.

• Nobody once griped to me about Legacy or old X-Wing or scenarios or points or anything.  It seemed like everyone was enjoying themselves playing a great game.  Big tick.

• I'm set on my Worlds list.  Big tick.

Ticks all round!  And that's the last big gate passed on my Worlds journey - the next gate I need to hit is the Departure Gate at the airport!

In three weeks.

Jesus, Worlds is only three weeks away!!!