When I play I am always working to cause my opponent to collide with me. If they hit me I'm getting actions, they aren't, and they lose the ability to focus fire my ships. Most people I play with don't seem to do this nearly as often. Is this psychological, people don't want to crash in either direction, or is it that engineering crashes isn't as strategically helpful as I think it is.
Either way, it's given me a pretty strong aversion to higher PS pilots. Anything over 6 is just too high.
Is this psychological, people don't want to crash in either direction, or is it that engineering crashes isn't as strategically helpful as I think it is.
I think it's the latter. Action denial is indeed valuable, and it's sometimes valuable to deny a shot by deliberately colliding, but your blocking ship can't attack the ship it blocks; that can act to deny you focus fire as well as denying it to your opponent (and is a sharp cost for small lists). When you add in the fact that blocking is at best likely rather than assured, and that in X-wing it's not always possible to obtain both your desired position and orientation simultaneously, the cost-benefit ratio drops even further.
There for awhile I was in love with having a Prototype A wing, who's sole purpose was to block. It was a rather effective strategy, but the Prototype had issues closing games out, so I upgraded to a Green w/ PTL. Now I'll use it to occasionally block when the opportunity arises, but I've gotten away from the "deliberately" blocking strategy. That said, if I know that I have no where that I WANT to be, I'll go where he wants to go to force subpar positioning on his behalf or force a collision. It can be a great way to keep a hurting ship alive another round.
Blocking opponents is situational, but it can be very useful at times.
Self blocking your own formations seems to be a growing tactic to over come dials that have no short moves; like ties, and to keep all of your ships focused down the same arc lines when collisions with the enemy may spread your formation out.
Some of it depends on the list, of course. It depends on what you gain from it in each situation. I think it's a viable strategy that makes more sense when you have more ships, and less sense when it means 1/4 of your force doesn't get to shoot at the same pilot.
The best form of blocking is causing someone to crash on a asteroid (or stay on a asteroid!).
Otherwise action denial can be nice, but like others said you might not have anyone to shoot then.
ANTI PURSUIT LASERS
APL sucks. I can never get a hit with it.
What I like to do if I can is ionize a ship then maneuver to block it and deny actions. It works wonders on Interceptors and helped me win against a Han and Wedge squad. Horribly mean strategy but hilarious at the same time!
I don't seek to block at all opportunities, but if I feel that I have suckered an opponent into thinking they know my next move, or if I feel I have good idea about their next move, I do like trying a block. I find that the disruption in their moves to be rather valuable because it usually takes them a couple of rounds to recover. The games where I pull this sort of unexpected block I often win or at least turn the tide in my favor.
I find one of the best ways to counter Biggs is to get a block on him and throw off my opponent's formation.
While I can appreciate the strategic value of denying movement and actions, I'm not a big blocking player as it doesn't 'feel' very Star Wars to me.
I guess I'm a bit of a WWII RAF gentleman pilot (yes I know most WWII pilots were working class, but the stereotype remains) and prefer to have Jerry in my sights and let my lasers worry about the strategy.
I don't think blocking is the be-all-end-all but it can definitely bail you out of a jam. I like to include at least one PS 1 or 2 pilot for that option, among others.
Once you block Howlrunner from getting back into range 1 of all the academy TIEs that just moved, it's hard not to want to include at least one decent blocker.
Jamming is situational but awesome when it pans out. Once I was flying against a Buzzsaw + an Elite TIE swarm. I had Moldy Kyle (turretless) two Rookies (1 w/PT), and a GSP + PtL + Assault Missiles. The swarm was on me before I could TL; there was no way I could move and still be at R 2–3 of them. I was going down. Then I decided to 5-straight + Boost + focus. Since I moved first, the entire elite swarm bumbled into me, leaving only Backstabber and Howlrunner to shoot at me. From that point on everything was easy, and we picked the Imperials apart ship by ship.
While I can appreciate the strategic value of denying movement and actions, I'm not a big blocking player as it doesn't 'feel' very Star Wars to me.
I guess I'm a bit of a WWII RAF gentleman pilot (yes I know most WWII pilots were working class, but the stereotype remains) and prefer to have Jerry in my sights and let my lasers worry about the strategy.
I always envision the blocking and overlap aspect representing the z-axis that's lacking in this 2d game. That when a ship "hits" another that they are really vieing for space outside the main plane of the engagement.
While I can appreciate the strategic value of denying movement and actions, I'm not a big blocking player as it doesn't 'feel' very Star Wars to me.
I guess I'm a bit of a WWII RAF gentleman pilot (yes I know most WWII pilots were working class, but the stereotype remains) and prefer to have Jerry in my sights and let my lasers worry about the strategy.
I always envision the blocking and overlap aspect representing the z-axis that's lacking in this 2d game. That when a ship "hits" another that they are really vieing for space outside the main plane of the engagement.
Yeah, I get that bumping actually represents the pilot realising he's about to collide and pulling back on the joystick, thereby not really being in a position to focus, target lock or prepare for evasive manoeuvres, but I'm still not keen on using the strategy of delibrately causing my opponent to 'bump' into my ships and it's 'un-Star Wars-like' to bump my own ships in order to limit their movement - that's just bad flying.
I guess it's about my wanting to feel that my games are recreations of the battles in the Star Wars universe, with strategies that involve manipulating the game rules just don't feel tangibly like something the heroes and villains of a galaxy far, far away would do ........... Apart from Jar Jar, but he was an abomination