I'm cannot identify the best forum to post this as there are some brief reflections of a tournament, some ramblings about mechanics and meta along with a squad to critique. The thread name was inspired by my initial reaction to a perception of crap dice rolling.

It is easy to blame the luck of the dice rolls for a poor showing at a tournament and in some cases it is probably a fair accusation. However it is equally fair to say that some people will notice more of the negative luck and others the positive luck that they had.

Over the weekend I had the rare opportunity to play in a tournament and had 4 matches, of which I lost 3 of them. The first match was a close run thing and I can't be too harsh as we traded damage and were pretty even. The second match was against an inexperienced player so I took advantage of mistakes he made but also helped him through the game; I cannot feel good about thrashing a new player. The third had a massive swing in terms of dice rolling. My tie swarm took two rookie x-wings down to one damage each really quickly but after that I was unable to land the killing blow. Meanwhile Han Solo picked off my ties one by one, I couldn't get a break. The fourth game I feel I probably noticed everything that went wrong despite some good things that were happening too, I had become disillusioned with my squad by the end.

I do not think my flying is bad though I would be first to admit that there is room for improvement. I do struggle to deal with the fact that I landed 18 points of damage on an opponent's 4 tie bomber squad but only destroyed one ship. Two other bombers were down to their last hull point and again I could not land that telling hit, even at range 1. I was getting just the odd hit here and there but the bombers were evading for fun. This was a common thread through my games, I landed at least as many hits as my opponent did against me but while my squad shrank the opponent's hung around.

A game like this you have to ride the good and the bad and deal with both, the fact is things will go for and against you over the course of a tournament. The question is can your squad come out the other side in better shape than the opposition? Over the last two tournaments my swarm has not had the durability.

I'm stepping back from tie swarms for a while, my record in my last two tournaments is 2 wins to 6 defeats and analysing those defeats they mostly come down to not finishing off the damaged ships.

I'm now considering the following squad (or a variation thereof)

Boba Fett + Navigator + seismics + engine upgrade + expert handling.

Gamma Sqn pilot + seismics + cluster missiles.

2 * academy.

Variations will probably involve replacing the 2 academy pilots with something else: maybe even a tie advanced...

There is some firepower there but there are also a decent amount of hit points which was lacking from my swarm squads. I'm looking for a solution to the problem I seem to have of not being able to land that final blow. I have focused guns onto one target but in the end it has come down to the fragility of ties and their 3 hit points not being able to outlast 5 or more HP available to the opponents; each tie lost is 2 or 3 attack die less.

actions. try and find squads that lets you modify the dices multiple times in one go, eg. howlrunner + focus tokens on whomever = reroll 1 + focus, so the chance of hitting is much higher and a lot less luck based

I think focus firing is the solution, getting 2 bombers to 1 hull each really sounds harder to do than not, though dont take that the wrong way.

I think one of the most forgotten aspects of focus firing is to keep on target, learning to deliberately overlap your own ships to ensure you dont overshot the target is an essential skill to flying the swarm.

anticipation is key in this game

Mate, ur flying isnt bad, in fact its good. ive played u numerous times and i dont think u have every landed on an asteroid. that takes some skill. Dont be too hard on urself, like me u take defeats hard id say - i tend to dwell on them and focus on what went wrong over what went well. Might be time to change those unlucky dice!

I did some extra testing with my squad versus my brother b4 the tournament and that definitely helped us both brush up on tactics and formulate a solid plan of asteroid placement as well as flanking tactics. I discovered i was losing games by playing too aggressively and not using my support ships as support ships but instead was using them as battering rams - once this was pointed out to me i adapted my tactics esp early in the game and seemed to have more success as a result.

The point im making in a round about sort of way is try to look at the complete picture - asteroid placement, ship placement, opening tactics analysis helped my quite a bit to get sharper and then its a case of practice. This is a brutal game because u can get all of that preparation done and the dice Gods abandon you It might be a good time to have a change of scene from the tie swarm and give something else a go.

my tournament squad needed some extra punch as well - this was provided by Backstabber in a few games but when he didnt get in early damage i struggled a bit to finish off B-Wings which were a problem with their massive 5 shields. having an offensive ship that consistently does 3 hits is key i think - thats where a firespray will help as its a durable mobile tank that packs a punch.

Ultimately... sometimes the dice gods hate you.

Whilst this happens to everyone, I think this is very much an Imperial thing - because Imperials tend to rely on high defence dice whilst rebels have better shields and hull. There are exceptions, of course, and even shields and hull get eaten at a random rate, but I think it's games either with or against things like TIEs and Squints where the dice karma really gets stretched.

The store championship was a case in point. In one game, I had two stealth-equipped TIEs with evade tokens get one-shotted at long range - one of them through an asteroid (**** heavy laser cannons). Later on in the day, one of the same TIEs flew calmly through the combined fire of a Target-locked Ibitsam and a Y-wing's Ion turret and didn't even get winged.

Concentrated fire is fine in theory, and I'm sure you're fully aware of it, but there's often a limit to how long a TIE can stay on one target (that lack of a straight 1 can hurt)

I also think our summation of good or bad dice rolling has to do with the mind set we're in, going into the game. I played 2 games last night with a friend, and lost both. The first game didn't go well, and the dice felt cold. The next game felt even worse. I had 2 B's, against 3 TIES and over 4 turns only managed to finish off one TIE even though I had range 1 shots most of the time. It was ugly, and brutal. However - I'm not sure that stastically the dice were doing that poorly, or if I was just in such a bad mood, it felt worse than it was.

If you are playing Imperials you need to get into the mindset that whenever you are touching your green dice, you are losing.

Blaming the dice for statistical inevitability is really just the intellectual equivalent of shoving the problem under the mattress and hoping no one notices the smell. There's really only 2 explanations to why you lost in any game with dice. Either you played poorly or your opponent played well. If you played well it doesn't matter if your dice are 'cold', you would have maximized your opportunities so that when your dice turn 'hot' you swing the game. Similarly if you played poorly and allowed your opponent free shots against you, it doesnt matter if his dice were hot or cold you would have lost eventually.

Most of the time changing up a list can give you a greater perspective on how the game is played but you should also take into account the metagame. Swarms are one of the oldest tricks in the proverbial book and most people by now would at least have a general idea of what to do to dismantle them. In contrast Rebel lists are a lot more varied and difficult to predict if lacking in raw power. Change up your list, observe your opponents and win.

or take a knife and carve another hit on one of the blank sides of you attack dice.

The best way to deal with probabilities is changing them.

it's a hands on variant of "Never trust a statistic that haven't manipulated yourself"

2 agility ships causing problems for 2 red dice swarms is a common issue. I can attest most oflocal tourney losses and most of my modified wins to those 2 dice guns not being able to finish off some X Wings in the final rounds (of course, I could have flown differently or focus fired differently to negate this). This makes sense, however. Can't expect to deal much damage once focus fire isn't as great due to scattered swarm, less Ties alive, etc.

I've definitely started to change up my swarms and include one 3 dice gun specifically to more easily take down X Wings/Bombers (and Ties). I'd recommend trying something like that as well. I mean, sometimes you have to adapt the Squad to the lists that you think will you hold you back the most fron getting to first place!

Oops. Wrong topic.

If you are playing Imperials you need to get into the mindset that whenever you are touching your green dice, you are losing.

Blaming the dice for statistical inevitability is really just the intellectual equivalent of shoving the problem under the mattress and hoping no one notices the smell. There's really only 2 explanations to why you lost in any game with dice. Either you played poorly or your opponent played well. If you played well it doesn't matter if your dice are 'cold', you would have maximized your opportunities so that when your dice turn 'hot' you swing the game. Similarly if you played poorly and allowed your opponent free shots against you, it doesnt matter if his dice were hot or cold you would have lost eventually.

Most of the time changing up a list can give you a greater perspective on how the game is played but you should also take into account the metagame. Swarms are one of the oldest tricks in the proverbial book and most people by now would at least have a general idea of what to do to dismantle them. In contrast Rebel lists are a lot more varied and difficult to predict if lacking in raw power. Change up your list, observe your opponents and win.

Playing poorly or playing well has nothing to do with rolling dice. You can play well and still lose if the dice don't cooperate. You can play poorly and still win still win if your dice rolling is good (or your opponents dice rolling is poor). This is the nature of a game like X-Wing. Its part of the game. You will lose some games to bad luck and conversely - win some games because of good luck.

Playing well to me, means flying my squad optimally, not hitting any asteroids, not overlapping any ships bases (unless i planned to) and maximizing my shots on the enemy through flanking and getting 'free' shots where my opponent has no opportunity to return fire because i am outside their firing arc. Playing well also means good asteroid placement, having a solid tactical plan but being flexible with your tactics. You also must identify your enemies 'primary targets' and eliminate these threats quickly.

Dice are well......finicky. I have been around for quite a few years and I've seen all kinds of crazy things people do with dice. I've seen people float em in water to pick which ones they use. I've seen people roll 50 different D20s....hundereds of times to pick the 1 they are gonna use for a RPG campaign, and still roll 1s out the butt. I've seen people loose 4 Terminators in one go on 5 dice, for those that don't know only a 1 would do a Termy in.

What I am trying to say is....most people don't remember when their dice are hot and rolling well. We always remember when they turn on us and screw us over. The best way to avoid this is like Duraham said. Do what you can to take them out of the equation. Use upgrades that allow you to re-roll, modify, or even attack again if the first fails. Make them dice have to work hard if they are gonna screw you over.

Of course it never hurts to name each one, give them their own little apartment on a shelf, and feed them lobster and filet migon twice a week. They have a tendency of rolling better if they get all that.

In any games where there is dice rolling, you gotta accept that sometimes, a victory can be stolen by rotten luck. But you also got to admit that it can go both sides.

I just played a game this afternoon where my opponent didn't do any game changing mistakes and I hate to admit it but, overplayed me. He was always one step ahead. In the end, I was down to one GSP+Opportunist against Vader and Tetran+PtL. My A-Wing was untouchable and dodged some 3 hits attack with impunity. Meanwhile, my two dice attack did wonders against him. It felt bad, but it's part of the game.

Dice are well......finicky. I have been around for quite a few years and I've seen all kinds of crazy things people do with dice. I've seen people float em in water to pick which ones they use. I've seen people roll 50 different D20s....hundereds of times to pick the 1 they are gonna use for a RPG campaign, and still roll 1s out the butt. I've seen people loose 4 Terminators in one go on 5 dice, for those that don't know only a 1 would do a Termy in.

What I am trying to say is....most people don't remember when their dice are hot and rolling well. We always remember when they turn on us and screw us over. The best way to avoid this is like Duraham said. Do what you can to take them out of the equation. Use upgrades that allow you to re-roll, modify, or even attack again if the first fails. Make them dice have to work hard if they are gonna screw you over.

Of course it never hurts to name each one, give them their own little apartment on a shelf, and feed them lobster and filet migon twice a week. They have a tendency of rolling better if they get all that.

have you been around long enough to remember when terminators had a 3+ save on 2d6. because back then weapons had save modifiers and were not all or nothing like they are now?

Use my Guide

For attack

Focus on attack, makes each dice a 75% for a hit or crit, can also be used on defense. Is discarded if not used the round taken, and can be used against any ship.

Target Lock on attack, Makes each dice a 75% for a hit or crit (higher chance of a crit then a focus), can't be used for defense. Not discarded if unused, can only be used against locked ship.

The Math

On a attack dice you have 3 hits, 1 crit, 2 focus and 2 blanks

With a Focus you have a 5/8 chance for a hit (changing focuses to hits), 1/8 for a crit and a 1/4 (2/8) chance for a blank.

With a TL you re-roll half of the results (blanks and focuses), which half of those dice will result in hits or crits. Therefore you have a 3/16 (1.5/8) chance for a crit, 9/16 (4.5/8) chance for a hit, a 2/16 (1/8) for a focus, and a 2/16 (1/8) for a blank.

So there pretty even, but i would take focus (unless you have ordanance) unless a few things...

You can afford to get hit, you just need to land a good attack

If you know you will not be defending that round.

Now for defense...

The Math

Using a focus increases your chances of evading (and Hitting) by 25%. Evade give you 1 auto miss. Therefore when rolling 4 dice the odds are you will be rolling 1 focus, which would give you the same odds as a evade. BUT focus can be used on attack.

So if you NEED to evade a attack (or your not going shoot this round) so you only need defense here's the rule

1-3 Take a Evade

4 Take your pick (if you have a shot id take a focus)

5+ Focus

With these rules you should do a little better with dice.

Dice are well......finicky. I have been around for quite a few years and I've seen all kinds of crazy things people do with dice. I've seen people float em in water to pick which ones they use. I've seen people roll 50 different D20s....hundereds of times to pick the 1 they are gonna use for a RPG campaign, and still roll 1s out the butt. I've seen people loose 4 Terminators in one go on 5 dice, for those that don't know only a 1 would do a Termy in.

What I am trying to say is....most people don't remember when their dice are hot and rolling well. We always remember when they turn on us and screw us over. The best way to avoid this is like Duraham said. Do what you can to take them out of the equation. Use upgrades that allow you to re-roll, modify, or even attack again if the first fails. Make them dice have to work hard if they are gonna screw you over.

Of course it never hurts to name each one, give them their own little apartment on a shelf, and feed them lobster and filet migon twice a week. They have a tendency of rolling better if they get all that.

have you been around long enough to remember when terminators had a 3+ save on 2d6. because back then weapons had save modifiers and were not all or nothing like they are now?

I was a second edition player yes. I remember the 3+ on 2d6...main reason I had 10 Deathwing termies.

I totally remember when the dice are hot. Like when my plucky TIE Bomber does 5 damage on 3 range 3 primary shots to a Falcon and in the same game all three of my TIE Bombers' Concussion Missile shots which are TL+Focus don't use the Focus to get all hits + crits!

If you are playing Imperials you need to get into the mindset that whenever you are touching your green dice, you are losing.

Sounds about right. Frankly, anyone being required to roll green dice is losing, but the consequences are worse for imperials.

There are exceptions, of course, but certainly interceptors specialise in not letting you get a shot off in the first place by hooning around the stars like a fruitbat on nitrous oxide.

Sometimes Lady Luck can be a fickle old cow. I've had more than a few dice fail me too many times and been launched out the nearest window.

I destroyed 2 tie interceptors at range three by one shotting them with two a wings. Dice are a fickle friend sometimes.

Dice are well......finicky. I have been around for quite a few years and I've seen all kinds of crazy things people do with dice. I've seen people float em in water to pick which ones they use. I've seen people roll 50 different D20s....hundereds of times to pick the 1 they are gonna use for a RPG campaign, and still roll 1s out the butt. I've seen people loose 4 Terminators in one go on 5 dice, for those that don't know only a 1 would do a Termy in.

What I am trying to say is....most people don't remember when their dice are hot and rolling well. We always remember when they turn on us and screw us over. The best way to avoid this is like Duraham said. Do what you can to take them out of the equation. Use upgrades that allow you to re-roll, modify, or even attack again if the first fails. Make them dice have to work hard if they are gonna screw you over.

Of course it never hurts to name each one, give them their own little apartment on a shelf, and feed them lobster and filet migon twice a week. They have a tendency of rolling better if they get all that.

have you been around long enough to remember when terminators had a 3+ save on 2d6. because back then weapons had save modifiers and were not all or nothing like they are now?

I was a second edition player yes. I remember the 3+ on 2d6...main reason I had 10 Deathwing termies.

i ran squats and nurgle back then

Dice are well......finicky. I have been around for quite a few years and I've seen all kinds of crazy things people do with dice. I've seen people float em in water to pick which ones they use. I've seen people roll 50 different D20s....hundereds of times to pick the 1 they are gonna use for a RPG campaign, and still roll 1s out the butt. I've seen people loose 4 Terminators in one go on 5 dice, for those that don't know only a 1 would do a Termy in.

What I am trying to say is....most people don't remember when their dice are hot and rolling well. We always remember when they turn on us and screw us over. The best way to avoid this is like Duraham said. Do what you can to take them out of the equation. Use upgrades that allow you to re-roll, modify, or even attack again if the first fails. Make them dice have to work hard if they are gonna screw you over.

Of course it never hurts to name each one, give them their own little apartment on a shelf, and feed them lobster and filet migon twice a week. They have a tendency of rolling better if they get all that.

have you been around long enough to remember when terminators had a 3+ save on 2d6. because back then weapons had save modifiers and were not all or nothing like they are now?

I was a second edition player yes. I remember the 3+ on 2d6...main reason I had 10 Deathwing termies.

i ran squats and nurgle back then

Ah...space dorfs!

I've been playing wargames for 10 years now and the one rule my gaming group tell everyone is never blame the dice. The reason why we say this is because the second you blame the dice or get down on the dice you really prevent yourself from learning from what you could control, your own moves. You can't control what your opponent does and you can't the dice; worst of all when you start to roll poorly it stays with you and you notice all your poor rolls more and you start to play sloppy because you think it won't matter anymore since you roll poorly. I'm sure you've heard this before and please don't think I'm being condescending.

How exactly were you flying your swarm?

Have you tried approaching your opponent in 2 vertical lines with Howlrunner in the middle? It can let your bring a lot of firepower to bear one ship at a time and allows a wider variety of reaction moves, the trick being that you don't want the tail end be out of range when the shooting starts.

I've been playing wargames for 10 years now and the one rule my gaming group tell everyone is never blame the dice. The reason why we say this is because the second you blame the dice or get down on the dice you really prevent yourself from learning from what you could control, your own moves. You can't control what your opponent does and you can't the dice; worst of all when you start to roll poorly it stays with you and you notice all your poor rolls more and you start to play sloppy because you think it won't matter anymore since you roll poorly. I'm sure you've heard this before and please don't think I'm being condescending.

How exactly were you flying your swarm?

Have you tried approaching your opponent in 2 vertical lines with Howlrunner in the middle? It can let your bring a lot of firepower to bear one ship at a time and allows a wider variety of reaction moves, the trick being that you don't want the tail end be out of range when the shooting starts.

i disagree with this,

over the courde of 3 games, i failed 27 consecutive feel no pain rolls for my plague marines. 27 in a row. we kept a tally.

i threw my dice away after the third game.

feel no pain is a 5 or 6 on 1D6, thats a 1 in 3 shot. by law of averages i should have mad 9 of them.

so there are times the best strategy fails due to dice, not all the time, but it happens

I've been playing wargames for 10 years now and the one rule my gaming group tell everyone is never blame the dice. The reason why we say this is because the second you blame the dice or get down on the dice you really prevent yourself from learning from what you could control, your own moves. You can't control what your opponent does and you can't the dice; worst of all when you start to roll poorly it stays with you and you notice all your poor rolls more and you start to play sloppy because you think it won't matter anymore since you roll poorly. I'm sure you've heard this before and please don't think I'm being condescending.

How exactly were you flying your swarm?

Have you tried approaching your opponent in 2 vertical lines with Howlrunner in the middle? It can let your bring a lot of firepower to bear one ship at a time and allows a wider variety of reaction moves, the trick being that you don't want the tail end be out of range when the shooting starts.

i disagree with this,

over the courde of 3 games, i failed 27 consecutive feel no pain rolls for my plague marines. 27 in a row. we kept a tally.

i threw my dice away after the third game.

feel no pain is a 5 or 6 on 1D6, thats a 1 in 3 shot. by law of averages i should have mad 9 of them.

so there are times the best strategy fails due to dice, not all the time, but it happens

Sadly, I think we all have stories like this. I had a string of 10 games in a row where my Chapter Master got pulped by a powerfist on the first hit. I think my original point still stands because eventually once I got over rolling poorly and really thought about it, I figured out how to use the stupid guy correctly and picked my targets better instead of just relying on on the dice. Look beyond the dice when you can and put yourself in the best position possible where flubbing a dice roll won't matter. It's harder to look at what you could do differently when you think that it was just your dice that screwed up.

A lot of the best players figure out ways to minimize the impact of the dice. We actually see this already in X-Wing with players advocating high health ships like the B-Wing over the Tie Interceptor. Why worry about the dice when you can just take the hit. Or to use the Tie Interceptor as an example on its own, a lot of the advice revolves around why roll evade dice when you can get 100% success by barrel rolling or boosting out of arcs.