Shooting first with equal pilot skills is only useful in the rare circumstance that you crit, or if you're flying Turr Phennir, thanks to them getting to shoot back before they blow.

Moving first, which is much more common, is only good if you're flying a blocker. Most of the time it inhibits your ability to react to your opponent, especially with TIE interceptors, that is to say, most of the time for me having Initiative has been such a bad thing that in our casual games we usually use the tournament dice rolls to determine it regardless of squad point cost.

It looks to me like unless your plan is to use the Lambda as an anti-pursuit laser crash magnet the benefits from Initiative are rare situational things that don't even begin to make up for not being able to see where your opponents moved. For pretty much everything else and especially for anything with Barrel Roll or Boost, Initiative seems like a bad, bad thing. Also, Anti-Pursuit lasers and large ship blocking are Wave 2 and 3, so FFG must have had another reason to put Initiative this way around back in Wave .

Can someone explain to me why it's this way around?

Shooting first with equal pilot skills is only useful in the rare circumstance that you crit, or if you're flying Turr Phennir, thanks to them getting to shoot back before they blow.

Personally, I love that initiative is a mix of "opposite" effects. I think it really helps with game balance. Initiative is not always desirable, depending on your build or piloting technique. It makes initiative bids far more interesting. Otherwise, you might have most folks always trying to get initiative because it is overwhelmingly a benefit, leading to crazy initiative bidding wars (blech).

Initiative is a specific case of moving first or moving second. If you want to move first, use low PS and undercut squad points. If you want to move second, bid for higher PS. Whether you move first or second is pretty much entirely within your control - if it comes down to the dice, that's your choice.

Whether it's good or bad depends largely on your situation. Moving first means the space you're aiming for is more likely to be clear - it's not just if you're operating as a blocker, it's avoiding being blocked. Firing first has a host of advantages beyond the crit potential - lower PS pilots both supported by Howlrunner, and a growing number of abilities that trigger off attacks. Airen Cracken, Whisper, Advanced Cloaking Device... and the list is growing.

Why did they decide to do it this way back in the beginning? No idea. I think a big part of the disconnect people have with "initiative" is that in most games, having initiative is an unmitigated good thing. In X-wing it's a far more situational element that can go either way, and is very neutral in how it affects the game. Some builds want it; some don't. If you don't want to have to deal with the risk of initiative, build accordingly.

If you don't want to have to deal with the risk of initiative, build accordingly.

It must be said though... for tournament play, you must be prepared to play your squad either with or without initiative, because there is no guarantee regarding initiative bids. If both players have the same squad cost initiative comes down to a coin flip. So practice your squad tactics with the opposite initiative condition too.

If you don't want to have to deal with the risk of initiative, build accordingly.

It must be said though... for tournament play, you must be prepared to play your squad either with or without initiative, because there is no guarantee regarding initiative bids. If both players have the same squad cost initiative comes down to a coin flip. So practice your squad tactics with the opposite initiative condition too.

A 99 point fleet will still lose initiative fairly often.

A 98 point fleet will lose initiative often enough to screw you, so practice.

97 or fewer should be a fairly safe bet for buying initiative, but you'd probably be better off with some upgrades filling the gap than with Initiative.

What Dracon said. If you want to go second, bid hard for PS. Vader, Turr, and Fel all with VI is almost certainly going to move last

If you want to go first, shave the points. My general feeling is that, as Dracon says, 99 is common, 98 is rare, and 97 is nearly unheard of - so if it's really that important to your build, do 95 points.

I'm not saying either of these are necessarily good ideas (I see Turr with VI bafflingly often, never understood that)... but the point is that if your squad needs to move first or last, you can do a whole lot to control that.

What Dracon said. If you want to go second, bid hard for PS. Vader, Turr, and Fel all with VI is almost certainly going to move last

If you want to go first, shave the points. My general feeling is that, as Dracon says, 99 is common, 98 is rare, and 97 is nearly unheard of - so if it's really that important to your build, do 95 points.

I'm not saying either of these are necessarily good ideas (I see Turr with VI bafflingly often, never understood that)... but the point is that if your squad needs to move first or last, you can do a whole lot to control that.