So as I prepare for my first tournament, I wanted to get a sense of people set up for matches. In specific:

How do you factor asteroid placement? Solely based on your squad, or with your opponent's in mind as well?

How do you determine your initial layout (ie which ships are going where, angles, things like that)?

What lists do you find it hardest to set up against?

How do you overcome setting up first?

The one thing I've started doing mentally, is breaking the board up into quadrants. One is my right hand corner, Two is my left, then Three is my far left, and Four my far right. My thought is to create some guidelines for my setup based on where things are in different quadrants. Ex. If my opponent sets up in Three, I want to set the bulk of my force in One, and my flanker in Two.

How do you factor asteroid placement? Solely based on your squad, or with your opponent's in mind as well?

So that my squad can handle it better than theirs. Among other things, this means setting up a lane that's easy for me to navigate, and difficult for them to get into.

How do you determine your initial layout (ie which ships are going where, angles, things like that)?

Practice a few roll-outs (i.e. set-up to first shot fired), and decide which to use in the moment.

Folks usually prefer going down one side, to limit their opponent's Koiogran potential.

Counter to that, think of where on the board your fleet dominates, get there, and hold there.

What lists do you find it hardest to set up against?

Lists whose ships are higher PS than yours, or fleets that don't care about formation flight (3x BH, SableGryphon's APL list, et c).

How do you overcome setting up first?

Asteroid placement, natch!

Also, having those pre-determined roll-outs help you to make sure that, regardless of how you set up, you've done so very well.