Mastering Ship Placement
I like it. My last tournament I was having trouble getting my Shuttle into range the same turn as everything else. I think he ignores the benfits of hard turning a ship out in front and intentionally crashing other ships into it to stall engagement early on, and starting in the middle can be effective for Firesprays and turret ships. But for typical ships he's right. Also a pair of ties make excellent flankers.
I really enjoyed reading Paul's first two articles. For newer players, it's a great opportunity to learn the small facets of the game without learning the hardway. For experienced players, it's a good reminder to always have a game plan in mind, and use your asteroids and ship placements to dictate how you want your opponent to react. Good stuff Paul. Looking forward to reading your next article!
I really enjoyed reading Paul's first two articles. For newer players, it's a great opportunity to learn the small facets of the game without learning the hardway. For experienced players, it's a good reminder to always have a game plan in mind, and use your asteroids and ship placements to dictate how you want your opponent to react. Good stuff Paul. Looking forward to reading your next article!
I agree completely.
Honestly, his articles are the best of the strategy articles in my opinion. A good balance of "ok old timers know this, but maybe not new guys" and "oh you are experienced? well check this protip out, it might help". Well done Paul, I look forward to the next article.
The LCG ones have been way too obvious/dumbed down in my opinion. That's not to say they are bad, but not as helpful to more experienced players looking for tips on how to get to the next level as these have been.
These articles are great. They don't compare to a good instructional youtube vid (simply because those have time to cover more material), but reading these articles is a great way to start entering competitive X-Wing. It's impressive how many tips Paul enters into a short article.
Edited by Red GI didn't know you could start with your ship base off the mat.. interesting
I didn't know you could start with your ship base off the mat.. interesting
You can't!
The way you get a column that is three deep is that you have the ships in back turn to fall into position in the back.
Can I get a link to the other articles
How do you find this section of the page?
I know it sounds stupid but whenever I look for something I always find many other game articles
Another good article from Paul. Good diagrams, and short and sweet makes it easy to remember for folks newer to the game (and a clear picture of the pin-wheel formation is spot on).
Yogibaer13, I'm pretty sure the ref said to use the entire mat (including the white area) for the tables at Worlds. So the setup was fine in the picture in the article.
Can I get a link to the other articles
How do you find this section of the page?
I know it sounds stupid but whenever I look for something I always find many other game articles
Yogibaer13, I'm pretty sure the ref said to use the entire mat (including the white area) for the tables at Worlds. So the setup was fine in the picture in the article.
Ahh that makes sense. Thank you
Any one having trouble setting up in the pinwheel formation? This seems to be the closest I can pull off with the formation still able to turn/bank, but doing this would be a invalid set up. Seeing as the starting area is 2.5 bases wide and you set each at just slightly over half a base causing this to happen:
Now I have been able to get into the pin wheel after the first turn by doing a staggered column set up, IE turning into the rest of the formation. So am I missing something?
It works fine in real life.
You could scoot the front and left ships backwards a bit.
Edited by IntroverdantIt works fine in real life.
You could scoot the front and left ships backwards a bit.
I have tried it in both real life and in Vassal, both with enough room to do constant banks, if I scoot them closer, they bump after the first bank.
Look up the thread on starting position templates (which are now illegal).
http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/98916-starting-position-template/
This formation and the problem with initial setup are basically what the thread is about and yeah, you set up with the rear ship out of formation, but in a position where they can turn or bank into place on the first turn.
Look up the thread on starting position templates (which are now illegal).
http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/98916-starting-position-template/
This formation and the problem with initial setup are basically what the thread is about and yeah, you set up with the rear ship out of formation, but in a position where they can turn or bank into place on the first turn.
Which is basically what I said, but he says you can start it in the deployment area to do this. How he makes it sound, a newbie will try this then say it is possible to just set up like that since the world champ said so.
I'm also not fond of his sample tie formation in the first pictures being all base to base. Yeah, he kinda casually mentions later in the article the problems with maneuvering like that, but it is easy to miss and someone just skimming the article could see this'd first pics and think that is a good way to fly ties.
Then they hopefully also realize that skimming strategy articles doesn't always grant them the wisdom they need to get better at the game. Reading it thoroughly however, does.
In VASSAL, you can set up a pinwheel in your starting area, since people don't use nubs in Vassal play. You need to scoot that back ship all the way back, and then you can fit them all in. In real life, you really need to move into the pinwheel using a barrel roll or something on the first turn. Sorry I wasn't more clear in the text!
If you want to set it up in the starting area, you can push the front and left ship back a bit, but then you need to move them left a bit as well. Otherwise, as you note, they'll bump.
Thanks for the comments, everyone!
Paul
If you set the pinwheel up not facing the middle of the board, but facing left or right, you'll have enough room - then your first move can be a turn or bank - because the bases are longer than they are wide
I'll still call it aperture formation in my heart
