Some of you may not be familiar with the phrase 'the book,' which is more often used in things like chess and poker, when discussing possible moves to make - it's basically a metaphor for possible moves and countermoves as a game progress. As a result of limited options, some games have a much smaller 'book' than others.

The Book for Checkers would inherently be much smaller than the book for Chess (which based on an NPR piece I heard, would have something like 70,000+ pages. The basics of the book being ' if my opponent does A, I can do X or Y. If I do X, my opponent can do B, C, or D. If they do D, I can do....' and so on.

My question, or thought experiment is to see if anyone has 'book' moves they automatically go with? This could be as simple as 'if my opponent flies Howlrunner, I will do this...' or as complex as 'if my opponent fields a [insert squard type], I will attempt to fly....'

Now this game is far too complex to have a very solid book. There are just too many variables, the movement options for one ship grow exponetially as each turn progresses. However, I think there may be book basics, and I would be interested to see what people have mentally stored away as basic tenants for their strategies, as well as how to respond to opposing strategies.

For myself, I flew an Ion heavy list this weekend. As a result, my 'book' became 'Fly slowly, let my opponent come to me. Have asteroids set up on my half of the board and use my ions to fly my opponent into them.' With that as the basis, I was able to prioritze targets based on who was the most advantageous to run into asteroids, or off the board.

What's your 'book?'

the BOok changes each game. In a store tourney I was playing well (good for me) and got the joy of playing the same person, back to back (SoS + final 4) I changed up some of my playing from the previous game, as he saw how I could play him once, and now I have to change it due to him seeing in the previous game, what I was doing or planning. I messed up a couple moves, zigged instead of zagged, but also copied some, just to try and keep him guessing. I won, but I really didn't want to do that match up 2 times in a row.

Agreed. It's pretty much play it by ear, however:

With Black Squadron:

• Deploy in pairs. More than that allows the enemy to concentrate and face me (making it harder to flank) and makes me to vulnerable to assault missiles, less than that is not really a threat given a TIE l/n's low firepower.
• Try to speed up the flanks whilst advancing relatively slowly in the centre, then turn the flanks inwards and hit from three directions at once.
• Hug asteroids wherever possible. Firstly, extra evade dice are good, secondly, you are more agile and if a dogfight weaves around asteroids they are more likely to hit them than you.
• If you aren't sure, use the Evade action. TIE fighters represent a lot of durability for their points given lots of evade dice.
• Hit the most vulnerable firepower first. Normally (thinking rebel) this means X-wings, followed by B-wings. Y-wings haven't the firepower to be worth the huge effort required to destroy them, and A-wings are too hard to focus enough firepower on to destroy easily.

Agreed. It's pretty much play it by ear, however:

With Black Squadron:

• Deploy in pairs. More than that allows the enemy to concentrate and face me (making it harder to flank) and makes me to vulnerable to assault missiles, less than that is not really a threat given a TIE l/n's low firepower.
• Try to speed up the flanks whilst advancing relatively slowly in the centre, then turn the flanks inwards and hit from three directions at once.
• Hug asteroids wherever possible. Firstly, extra evade dice are good, secondly, you are more agile and if a dogfight weaves around asteroids they are more likely to hit them than you.
• If you aren't sure, use the Evade action. TIE fighters represent a lot of durability for their points given lots of evade dice.
• Hit the most vulnerable firepower first. Normally (thinking rebel) this means X-wings, followed by B-wings. Y-wings haven't the firepower to be worth the huge effort required to destroy them, and A-wings are too hard to focus enough firepower on to destroy easily.

Nice, detailed stuff!

iv been flying a firespray and shuttle together for quite some time - for me the Book Moves start with asteroid placement. i usually place one asteroid on each of the corners nearest me (2-3 range bands from each edge of the board) and then deploy my shuttle from the corner that has the easiest route to the centre of the board (this depends on where they place their asteroids and where i think most of their force will be deployed, but if guess wrong and the deploy ships directly in front of my shuttle i slow-roll up the flank to give my other ships time to get into flanking positions.

One thing I love about this game is that you don't react to what your opponent does, so much as you try to predict what they are going to do and then react to that.

I find this a great simulation of combat situation. And it is tons of fun.

There aren't a lot of things I do regularly but when flying my shuttle I nearly always stall on the 1st turn. Reason being is that you don't generally miss that action in the 1st turn and i like to bring the shuttle up slowly, letting the furball unfold in front of it and picking ships off from a distance. If my opponent decides to target the shuttle 1st then they have further to travel to get to it meaning my other ships can hit them in the flank/rear.

Throw the book away and fly interceptors! Doesn't matter what they do, you can outfly them...Phantoms are shaping up to be the same.

Asteroid placement and initial ship placement don't get enough discussion. It's really hard to discuss because, like most things in this game, it changes every game. Even your tried and true perfect formation goes out the door when asteroid placement goes awry or your opponent sets up completely differently than expected.

For some reason I can't post the image.

Kind of spoils the joke.

Ah well:

HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY

Because it has the words

DON'T PANIC

Written in large letters on the back

The book for me is as follows

1. Look at table and current situation

2. Open Lighter

3. Burn book

4. shoot all the imps

Thats my book lol, but seriously as has been stated, there really is no set "book" because every player is different, every scenario and list builds are unique, you just cant have "A+B=C" situations

X-wing unlike checkers, which I hate or Chess which I love are turn based games.( you move then I move) X-wing dials for each player are set at the same time making your moves more of a prediction than a reaction.......so the only "book" in my opinion is your Jedi Manual or the the one you were given when you got your Y-wing learners permit.

All the same, there is a degree of prediction or risk management you can apply to your opponent's manouvres. Before you reach for your dials, ask yourself the following questions:

• What do I want to achieve this turn?
• Am I more concerned about getting good shots or about avoiding being shot back at? - Essentially, will you accept "playing chicken" and getting shot at in order to fire back?
• Which ships do I want to kill first? Targets can be rated on three axes - how hard are they to kill, how many points do they net me if I kill them, and how much damage will they do to me if I don't kill them.
• Which ships can I predict the movement of? Either because it's a shoddy ship, or it's taken critical damage, or it's stressed, or it can't manouvre in a specific direction because of asteroids or ships that won't have moved away yet.

Once you've got answers to these questions, then start figuring out what you want to do.

Throw the book away and fly interceptors! Doesn't matter what they do, you can outfly them...Phantoms are shaping up to be the same.

Asteroid placement and initial ship placement don't get enough discussion. It's really hard to discuss because, like most things in this game, it changes every game. Even your tried and true perfect formation goes out the door when asteroid placement goes awry or your opponent sets up completely differently than expected.

What HE said.

Focus Fire

I think my playbook changes drastically, depending on if I'm on Vassal, or playing with someone in person.

On Vassal, I always use a squad-builder at the start of the match to reconstruct their squad and have all the pertinent information available as well. It's important to me to know how the opponent's list works, and what needs to be removed to stop it from working.

Then, it's recognizing which list is PS-Upper, and which is PS-Lower. The former has advantages in shooting and out-maneuvering, while the latter has much better blocking potential. Generally, if I'm flying Upper, I'll intentionally congest the center-board with asteroids to make my maneuvering/shooting even more efficient. And with a Lower, I try to open the board, so long as I have numerical advantage.

The final thing is knowing when to go for targets of opportunity, and when to stick to the plan. Do you take the Range-1 shot on the lowly Academy Pilot, or the Range-2 on Howl? This is a very large subject, but can generally be condensed to:

1) Do I have actions to modify my rolls? If, "yes," you can safely attack the Range-2/3 target.

2) How many guns can I concentrate on that target? If you can get over half your list pointed on one ship, go for that ship.

3) How much risk do my targets represent? If I deviate from the plan, will it have consequences in the next two turns? Will my targets be able to attack me in the next two turns?

That's all for now.

Throw the book away and fly interceptors! Doesn't matter what they do, you can outfly them...Phantoms are shaping up to be the same.

Asteroid placement and initial ship placement don't get enough discussion. It's really hard to discuss because, like most things in this game, it changes every game. Even your tried and true perfect formation goes out the door when asteroid placement goes awry or your opponent sets up completely differently than expected.

What HE said.

Yes!

I recently played the scenario with the imperial prototype that comes with the imperial aces pack.

Turr Phennir (it's probably spelled wrong, but I considered going with terfener because that's how it usually sounds when we say it) with veteran instincts is nearly impossible to hit with any ship, if you fly him defensively. He can even work to avoid some turrets, although that is much harder to do.

I love interceptors.

Throw the book away and fly interceptors! Doesn't matter what they do, you can outfly them...Phantoms are shaping up to be the same.

Asteroid placement and initial ship placement don't get enough discussion. It's really hard to discuss because, like most things in this game, it changes every game. Even your tried and true perfect formation goes out the door when asteroid placement goes awry or your opponent sets up completely differently than expected.

What HE said.

Further to this post, this article did not get discussed on these forums much but is a fantastic article to read for learning the basics about setup, particularly in reference to asteroids:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4709

Focus Fire

Battletech 101. Although keep in mind that there are times when an easy shot at a target of opportunity is more desirable than a hard shot at the primary target.

If R2-D2 is on the field, he is ALWAYS the primary target. He CANNOT be allowed to be the last enemy ship alive. I have never won a game against a lone X-Wing (usually Luke Skywalker) equipped with R2-D2.