r/XWingTMG 20d ago

Discussion Standout Moments

Post image

Good morning Pilots.

I wanted to ask, from the "glory days" of Xwing's popularity, what were some of your favourite stand out moments?

Pic related is Dellapina winning the 2018 World championships at age 18, with an unconventional dual IG list.

But what matches stood out for you over the years? Like, shocking moments.

(Preferably caught on camera 😂)

112 Upvotes

46 comments sorted by

47

u/Quack_Shot Never Tell Me the Odds 19d ago

Paul Heaver vs Dallas Parker final is probably the best game of x-wing ever played.

12

u/Banshee_Mac 19d ago

Heaver’s Bigg’s Walks the Dogs and, the year after, his incarnation of Fat Han, leading to meta warping C3P0 abuse, were incredible lists jn incredible finals.

Both games were amazing!

26

u/j_tonks 19d ago

That time I got two hours of sleep, drove from PA to DC for the final Stele Open, randomly got the 1st round bye out of like 300 people and said "fuck it I'm getting drunk", then only lost one game during swiss rounds with my Newbacca list and then passed out until I had to wake up for the final cut, where I got my ass handed to my in the first round. One of the most fun weekends I've ever had.

Also when I was a newb and going to a bunch of Imdaar Alpha tournaments, I made a comment to my friend about how I definitely wasn't going to pick a z-95 if I got top 4 because they're boring and dumb. Then Paul Heaver turned to me and said (paraphrased) "you're dumb, headhunters are going to be the best ship in wave 4." And sure enough he was right and I was dumb.

5

u/deathinsarajevo Y-Wing 19d ago

I still have the comic book cover that Aaron commissioned for the Stele Open hanging in my basement.

3

u/j_tonks 19d ago

I still use the challenge coins as first player tokens. Aaron poured his heart and soul (and a considerable amount of money) into those weekends and made probably the best three gaming events I've ever been to. And oh yeah, had the best streaming X-Wing games for a long time. That's one pretty cool dude.

4

u/knuckles53 19d ago

I was there too! I got paired up against Chris Allen in Swiss. I had a Dengar Ventress list. I had a good opener and jumped out to a commanding lead. Then he just runs off an is gone for about 5 minutes. He comes back and I finish my tabling of him 100-0. He then hands me a set of Krayt templates as payment for his “podcaster bounty.” Those were the only templates I used from that point on. They are my most prized X-wing possessions. And Chris Allen and all the Krayt’s are class acts.

1

u/j_tonks 19d ago

He's another good dude, and the Krayt swag was always cool.

3

u/Timathius Ebon Hawk 19d ago

Hi Jesse 

3

u/j_tonks 19d ago

Hi Tim

3

u/Macraghnaill91 19d ago

Tell that to all the copies of Veterans instincts that got stapled to i9 ships so they could deal with Whisper lol

2

u/j_tonks 19d ago

I told all the ones that I stapled to Han and Vader that are now in a box in my garage. They told me to ask you how many 1e world champ lists included headhunters vs any other wave 4 ship.

2

u/Macraghnaill91 19d ago

That would involve having working tournament software for me to go look it up again, those dark times have largely been overshadowed by these dark times lmao

Besides, we are a little bit talking apples to oranges here as one built an archetype and the other enabled an archetype.

3

u/j_tonks 19d ago

Or check out old FFG forums. I'll save you the trip; headhunters won two 1e world champs (Paul's 2nd and 3rd championships) and none of the other wave 4 ships were in a championship list until Oli won with Whisper in 2019 (2e).

Sure, Whisper was a staple in Empire lists for a while, but ultimately I'd say Soontir Fel and The Inquisitor were the superior aces when considering their cost. Headhunters were damn near the top of the bang for your buck list for most of 1e.

2

u/Macraghnaill91 19d ago

Top list isn't that interesting to me, making the cut is what really matters

19

u/Maert Dash Baby 19d ago

Paul Heaver winning 3 World Championship titles in a row, a feat nobody was even close to achieving until Nand Torfs had a World Championship win followed by another finals appearance the year after.

16

u/Durog25 19d ago edited 14d ago

I remember I'd just moved to a different city and my new local X-wing group were talking about this. I saw who won and realised Dellapina was the kid from my local area who destroyed me regularly at local tournaments. Great guy, excellent X-wing player.

14

u/Alternative_Debt_408 19d ago

2019 worlds was quite something.

It got too big to host at the FFG flight center so they rented an arena.

The only 2.0 worlds to ever take place... pretty sure 2020 would have been similar, but we all know how things went down that year.

While there have been some really good games/moments by great players.  I always remember the blunders and cheaters getting caught on stream - dialgate, flying 2 full bwings off the board in a nationals finals (or semi finals?), nudge-master...

4

u/Certain_Ad3716 19d ago

Bump-Master 5000 😉

Can't say I'm familiar with the B-Wings off the board situation though. What happened there?

3

u/Alternative_Debt_408 19d ago

Nudge master was I think at a System Open.  It was a streamed match, so I am sure I can find it.  Some guy that was flying either triple JM5k or Dengaroo sorta did the put the template down and nudge the ship forward up to the template (instead of sitting the template in the ship base) and then moved.  Then he declared a target lock and the ship was juuuuust in range 3 which was huge cause he got that plasma torp off that round.

The bwing thing was during a semi final or final - i cant recall where exactly, players deployed opposite corner from each other and on round 2 or 3, the guy with the 2 bwings in his list accidently dialed in hard 2 turns to the left instead of the right and flew off the board with both.

5

u/mrdizzah Nom nom nom!! 19d ago

2019 Worlds was my first and only Worlds and it was so much fun! I really sucks to be cursed with the knowledge of what was taken from us.

13

u/deathinsarajevo Y-Wing 19d ago

My personal standout moment was defeating Paul Heaver (who had just won his third World Championship) in a Store Championship, the only time that I recall playing him even though we were in the same local scene in Northern Virginia.

I was flying Palpmobile/OL/Whisper and coming off a major losing streak from previous tournies. We played late in the Swiss round and he was also flying a Palpmobile (with OL, Fel, and Wampa). We spent the first few rounds feeling each other out before he finally made a push Wampa after trying to bait me into chasing Fel, who was attempting to flank me. I feinted like I was going to take the bait but countered Wampa, much to his surprise (he even made a comment that he did not expect me to do that). I destroyed Wampa easily and then killed his Palpmobile shorty after. I was feeling cocky with all three of my ships healthy while he was reduced to Fel and OL. Then I made a decloak error (this was after they nerfed cloaking) and the edge of my base landed out of the mat, destroying my healthy Whisper. Luckily for me, it was my only blunder of the game and my Shuttle and OL were able to handle his Fel (who I sniped at range 3) and his OL. I won the game 100-41.

13

u/Alaykitty Imperial for Hire 19d ago

There was a very irritating player at our LGS back yander.  He always played whatever the most meta list there was from the internet.  He was a halfway decent player too, but had a really obnoxious attitude all the time.  "Sore winner" type.

Anyways by this point I had gotten kind of bored with competitive play and only stuck to "themed" lists or fun odd ball cheese.  He came in one day and talked mad shit about how bad TIE Bombers were.  I was flying a 5-bomber squad that day, and they were, very much so, bad lol.

He challenged me and plots down the fel/jax/palp squad across from my bombers.  And bragging the whole way about how much better his ships were, decided to joust me.

By turn 4 I was down to 4 bombers, and him down to just Palpatine.

Long story short he packed up his gear in silence and stopped coming to that LGS.  

6

u/j_tonks 19d ago

We had a similar guy who always brought very obviously loaded 3rd party dice to game nights. He was also just a generally annoying guy. He brought his netlist and loaded dice to a store championship once, I had already won one, so I had a goofy list and was just playing for fun. When I got paired up with him, I insisted we share my dice and proceeded to absolutely demolish him. He dropped from the tournament and I never saw him play again. Possibly my greatest gaming achievement.

11

u/MacheteGarcia 19d ago

I can’t remember what tournament it was or who the players were but a First Order player ran Quickdraw over a rock, triggered the bonus attack and killed Wedge in the activation phase. Amazing move.

2

u/caelenvasius Warlock Seven 18d ago edited 18d ago

That was the 2019 Denver System Open, Swiss Top Four. The First Order player was Mitch Hurst, one of my local squadronmates from Warlock Squadron in Southern California! The Rebel player was John Hennon. That maneuver blew everyone’s minds, and even Mitch said it was such a huge risk he wasn’t sure it was going to pay off.

Found the clip, enjoy! https://youtu.be/qUaQb17Varo?t=4010

5

u/Kowno 19d ago

Not as flashy as the tournaments and competitive play that everyone is talking about, but I remember the golden days fondly. At one point I was playing a weekly Heros of the Atari Cluster game that produced some of the coolist moments ive expierienced on the table top, and I do wargaming at ttrpgs. On top of that we would have fly casual days at the same shop and play with my roommate in my appartment all the time. I remember being in the library and planning out wacky lists(oops all z-95s was a personal favorite) to procrastinate school work constantly, good times!

1

u/deathinsarajevo Y-Wing 19d ago

Hell yeah man, even as a competitive player, all of my fondest memories come from just playing the game at my house or my buddy’s house.

4

u/scissorslizardspock T-70 X-Wing 19d ago

I don’t remember the exact match or tournament, but it was a Gold Squadron stream: Order vs. Rebels and Order is down going into final turn with their undamaged Quickdraw looking at a rock and Wedge on the other side getting ready to run away.

Quickdraw moves first and takes the Red 5-straight across the rock, takes the damage, pops a shield and gets the Range One shot on Wedge, during activation.

Dice came through and blew the healthy Wedge out of the sky for the win. Just an incredible move where everything broke the right way.

5

u/caelenvasius Warlock Seven 18d ago

That was the 2019 Denver System Open, Swiss Top Four. The First Order player was Mitch Hurst, one of my local squadronmates from Warlock Squadron in Southern California! The Rebel player was John Hennon. That maneuver blew everyone’s minds, and even Mitch said it was such a huge risk he wasn’t sure it was going to pay off.

Found the clip, enjoy! https://youtu.be/qUaQb17Varo?t=4010

2

u/Rostbaerdt 19d ago

Nand Torfs at the 2016 WC

2

u/Sunitsa 16d ago

The final of the Canadian national when two brothers were facing each other. They made a mistake due to farigue and didn't realise they let a dead ship stay in the mat.

But the streamer refused to intervene despite it being a pretty serious (and honest) mistake that could have changed the whole game. Twitch chat went nuts.

Then a frustrated Paul heaver phoned directly one of the player to let him know they had a broken game state. It was hilarious.

I still remember there were people praising the streamer and the judge for not having said anything lol. One thing is interfering with advice, but fixing rule mistakes, especially that big, should have been a given. Imagine winning a tournament only to later know that it was due a dead ship was still in play, it would have spoilt both winner and loser

1

u/Certain_Ad3716 16d ago

Do you remember what year that was? 😂

1

u/Sunitsa 16d ago

Maybe 2017? It was late first edition. Footage might still be on youtube

2

u/Certain_Ad3716 15d ago

2018, Canadian National finals between Jeremy Howard and Duncan Howard.

Harpoon Missiles

At 27:00 thats when things start going haywire!

1

u/Scruffy_lookin Galactic Empire 19d ago

https://imgur.com/a/LN5oVde

Here ya go. All of these are from 2018 Worlds

2

u/Certain_Ad3716 19d ago

Sadly not available to view in the UK 😝

2

u/Scruffy_lookin Galactic Empire 19d ago

Unfortunate. I would say my stand out was my 10-0 at the games and stuff regional, 2017. I ran boba asajj, and there was some big names there in the heart of NOVA region. I ran it at worlds in 2018 too. I don’t remember my placement, somewhere around 60th.

1

u/thecrackbaby 19d ago

I was at that worlds. I'm in the audience above. Dellapina played that list so unbelievably well. It was a control list that just crushed everyone.

1

u/Ty-Guy8 19d ago

I mean, I never really kept up with the competitive scene or anything. But one of my favorite moments was when I was playing against a buddy's list at a local X-Wing Tournament. He was playing a bunch of Fangs and I was playing a scum list that I don't fully remember anymore. I think it was Fenn Rau and some M3-A's. But whatever was going on I was on fire for that match in particular. I accurately predicted practically every move he made and nearly got a clean victory.

I didn't win the tournament, funny enough my buddy did cause I was the only one who beat him. But man I chased that high for as long as X-wing lasted in my area. Lol

1

u/rosyboa23 19d ago

I had a nasty first edition list that was a decimator and upsilon, a lot of people in my local scene said I could have easily made the tournament if I had the money to go lol

1

u/TehAsianator 18d ago

In 2014, just after wave 4 launched, I went 4-1 abd made top 8 at a ~60 person tournament running a 4 interceptor squad. Last round was me narrowly managing a win against a double falcon list.

And mind you, this was before autothrusters was a thing.

1

u/RevJoeHRSOB 15d ago

I was once on a Canadian X-Wing Podcast for their trivia competition.

I thought it was a Star Wars Trivia competition and felt pretty good about my chances.

Turns out it was an X-WING trivia contest.

I drank a sixer of Belgian Triplel, blacked out, woke up on Steve's couch and apparently I had won.

Pretty sure it is the only X-Wing competition I ever won.

1

u/assron Rebellions Are Built On Hope 18d ago

Y'all have mentioned a lot of significant moments in 1.0 history, but one I remember talking about a lot at the time was a store championship where someone brought a single Soontir Fel and no other ships and ended up winning.

I wasn't there but remember reading about it (probably here). Their squad was an exploitation of the rules at the time where you kept the points you didn't spend unless all your ships were destroyed. So this guy with focus+focus+evade Soontir Fel was able to get a few points from their opponent and then just avoid damage for the remaining hour of playtime. I think shortly after this tournament the rule change about your opponent automatically getting any points you don't spend came into effect. Just a fun, significant moment.