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 don't think you understand that the 'law of averages' is more an euphemism than an actual law. In a truly random world you can roll a dice 6 times and get 6 ones. Getting 1 of every result is actually far less likely than getting a cluster of >3 1s in a row simply because rolled results dont affect future results.

I'm in agreement with the "Don't blame the dice!" advocates. Once I stopped betting on my dice to save me, I had to rely on where I put my ships, who I put my ships closest to, and who I felt I could lose and still be effective.

Where I put my ships.
I pay much closer attention to my ships' positions, especially at the beginning of the game. I try to think at least two moves in advance; where I'm going now and how that sets me up for the next move. This helps me stay out of firing arcs, or at least maximize my potential defensive rolls if I have to fall back on dice rolls. Getting yourself a free shot opportunity is priority number one for me.

Who I put my ships closest to.

In this respect, I consider who I want to give Range 1 shots to. I'd rather go toe-to-toe against an A-Wing or Y-wing instead of a YT-1300 or B-Wing. I'll risk it if I feel I can knock out a 3-attack ship at Range 1 before it gets a chance to shoot back, but as I've stated earlier, this puts one's fate in the dice. If I'm focused, target locked, and firing with someone like Wedge, I'm more likely to take the risk than if I'm firing with a damaged X-Wing or shieldless B-Wing.

Who can I lose and still be effective?

Bait. I love using bait. Getting your opponent's attention and having them chase down Wedge or Vader is a great way to know when and where your opponent will be. I've used this to great effect, allowing a couple "weaker" ships to flank and then tail multiple targets. I'll gladly trade one ship for two or three. This is also a good time to consider who you want to throw into a blocking role. If you're going to block with a shuttle, and know it will most likely be destroyed, have a backup plan for when that ship pops. Don't go in thinking with its 3 attack dice and APL upgrade it's going to destroy anything. Plan on losing it, but plan on taking out those ships that are action denied and movement impaired with your other pilots.

I'm no pro, but keeping these things in mind has really helped relieve me of some of my dice frustration. Granted, it doesn't disappear entirely. I still roll blanks on offense and defense with focus and re-rolls. I just handle those hard whiffs a bit better these days by giving myself other options outside of the odds.

Apparently my force powers only work on chance cubes and not xwing die..

Apparently my force powers only work on chance cubes and not xwing die..

The dreaded 8-sided dice are notoriously immune to Force manipulation. Only the simplistic and feeble-minded 6-sided dice succumb to the Force.

I think I had a first in a game the other day. Rolled 4 focus/blank. Had a target lock and rerolled all to get 4 focus/blank AGAIN. not a single hit or crit after 8 dice rolled. Pathetic.