Hello there!

I am a casual XWing player that started a few months ago (just before wave 4) and I have mostly been playing home games with friends (which are also new to the game).

I loved this game at first because all the ships feel different and I like to try new squads all the time. However lately I have been going to store games and tournaments a bit and coming here to the forums only to be disapointed by the "meta" game and what it forces you to do to win.

First of all, I do not expect to EVER win a game outside of my home games. Why? Everybody at my store seems to use the same "best" ships (you almost only see YT-1300s, B-Wings and X-Wings) and "best" upgrades (C3PO, push the limit etc) and "exotic" choices like mine (I love to play interceptors) are "cute" to them. When I prepared my squad of interceptors at the store a few weeks ago a player looked very surprised to see them and told me they were too expensive to use. I lost all of my games.

That got me thinking; if I keep playing, can I still hope to win games by being just a better flyer? I learn to stay in formation and I am getting good at predicting movement. I keep seeing rock/paper/scissors posts here involving swarms/falcons/phantoms; can one hope to have fun and win some games without flying one of those three standard squads? If you gave a champion a squad of interceptors, would they still perform well in tournaments?

I really don't feel like playing tie swarms and falcons but I'd like to win once in a while at my store... Can flying skills alone make any squad competitive?

In my opinion and from what I experienced:

Flying skill > squad building skill. By FAR.

But note that those who fly well tend to build well too.

A good player will beat an average player most of the time. (dare I say always? Nope. I did not. )

But a good player with a good squad sure has an advantage over a good player with a poorly designed squad.

I could not agree more. This game is not like 40K for example, which has some severe game balancing issue, and that not all armies/forces are created equal. In that game, some armies are just better due to poorly designed rules and a company who couldn't care less about game balance.

In X-Wing, FFG has done an amazing job at balancing their game and I truly believe that it strongly favors the more experienced and skilled players. Sure, we have some ships that are 'less optimal' like the poor TIE Advanced or the HWK-290, but FFG clearly has plans to send some love to those lesser used ships to bring them up to snuff with the rest of the field.

In my experience, the list can't save you, and nothing is better then player skill. You can take a Championship list but without the skill used to make that a Championship list, it is just that, a list.

So what you are saying is that you believe that a national championship winner could still win with a squad of interceptors or another less used list? Then why are the championship lists all similar?

It's am unfortunate aspect of any game where collecting something and official competition merges. You can't get away from it.

The meta lists are so overwhelmingly better then your everyday experimental list that skill at flying becomes almost irrelevant since competitive lists are numbered crunched.

Part of the problem to is that almost all meta lists have a very specific flight pattern and, do this if that flow.

I think the key to having varied and

Dynamic games is simply to absolutely never play standard dog fights. It's all about scenarios and really to be honest I think the game socks pretty hard as a dog fighting mini game pretty much since they introduced 360 shooting.

Well, that boils down to meta... you start getting into muddy waters when you mix player skill, lists, and meta. It is sort of a combination of the three. But the question here was not about the meta, it was about list building vs. Player skill.

I could not agree more. This game is not like 40K for example, which has some severe game balancing issue, and that not all armies/forces are created equal. In that game, some armies are just better due to poorly designed rules and a company who couldn't care less about game balance.

In X-Wing, FFG has done an amazing job at balancing their game and I truly believe that it strongly favors the more experienced and skilled players. Sure, we have some ships that are 'less optimal' like the poor TIE Advanced or the HWK-290, but FFG clearly has plans to send some love to those lesser used ships to bring them up to snuff with the rest of the field.

In my experience, the list can't save you, and nothing is better then player skill. You can take a Championship list but without the skill used to make that a Championship list, it is just that, a list.

My reply is to ditto Evil Ed.

You can have toys but what good are they if you are not able to use them...

I like to think of it on a scale of 1-10. With the list you have adding or subtracting points.

A good pilot a 6 with a good list may play like a 7, but a good pilot again a 6 with a bad list may play like a 5 or even a 4. A great pilot 8 with a great list, is always going to be hard to beat play like a 10

But a poor player with a great list isn't going to get as huge of a boost. Because part of what makes a great list, great is how you fly it.

a national championship winner could still win with a squad of interceptors or another less used list?

Could, depending on who that person is playing. Take Doug Kinney vs Paul Heaver, the 2 world chaps, and give one a 4 Tie Interceptor list vs a Fat Han... And Han will win most every time. Because it's a better list, played by two people of fairly equal skill.

Now pair either one of them up against someone who isn't that good, and sure they could win with a interceptor list.

That said there are bad lists, 6 naked HWK's is not a good list no matter who's flying it.

I am thinking about ditching the interceptors for a few store games and trying my hand at one of those falcon lists. Since I think of myself as a decent player (not good or great yet) I imagine I will win a few games I wouldn't have won otherwise if there are other newbies around.

I will try this. However I feel this is making the game less interesting for me since I love playing interceptors (and bombers) and don't feel interested that much in the falcon (and rebels in general)...

Since we will toss the meta into the mix in this conversation I like to think of it like this: Lists and the pulse of the meta is something that any player of any level can keep track of. Its easy! Hop on these forums here, check out MajorJuggler's threads, listen to NOVA Squadron Radio (shameless plug). There is no skill involved in that. My 9 year old son knows that Fat Falcons are good, and that Phantoms and TIE Swarm are the direction the game has gone post wave 4. No skill there at all.

So if we agree that knowledge of the meta is on an equal playing field for the great skilled player versus the lesser skilled player, then list construction toward that meta is also, for the most part, on an equal playing field. Yes, certain ships are perceived as better then others. Certain ships see more play at the competitive level then other. However, placing those more popular ships in the hands of a lesser skilled player doesn't instantly make that player a championship caliber player. Quite the opposite. It usually exposes their lesser honed skills and leads to a poor performances at an event. Simply taking a Fat Falcon or Phantom doesn't equal an auto win button.

That leaves player skill as being the MAJOR factor to determining victory. In the end, it is a combinations of one part good list construction, one part knowledge of the current meta and eight parts player skill to determine a Championship caliber player.

In my opinion, list construction is just a smaller part of the game in comparison to player skill.

I get your point, EvilEd. My opinion though is that analysing the meta to build squads make the game less interesting, since as I said in my first post, creating different squads is a big part of the appeal for me.

What happened in my town is this: you have casual players who enjoy the game without any knowledge of the meta (like me) who clash against store players that spend a lot of time in forums (like my fellow local players) and the fun is slowly drained away because now to stay competitive everyone has to build specific squads to hope to win a few games.

I don't care about winning tournaments at all; I'd just like not to be trashed over and over by the same squads. I know a nice guy at the store who is about just as good as me (played a similar amount of games) but he will NEVER play anything else than his falcon and C3PO list. He always beats me. My interceptors and bombers don't seem to stand a chance.

Everybody at my store seems to use the same "best" ships (you almost only see YT-1300s, B-Wings and X-Wings) and "best" upgrades (C3PO, push the limit etc) and "exotic" choices like mine (I love to play interceptors) are "cute" to them.

I hate to say anyone is having fun incorrectly, but I'm close here. Casual play is where there's the most room for innovation, for trying new things and looking for underused combos; netdecking or just playing your strongest couple of lists over and over again, particularly in a space that ought to foster relationships and creativity, seems like a mistake to me.

When I prepared my squad of interceptors at the store a few weeks ago a player looked very surprised to see them and told me they were too expensive to use.

And here your opponent is simply wrong. The idea that Interceptors are too expensive to use is outdated at best; Interceptors are an important tool for Imperial lists (and the way you can tell is that the new national champ flew one). I'm not personally a fan of all-Interceptor lists, but that's largely because I'm not a fan of "monoculture" lists in general: you have a single set of strengths but also a single set of weaknesses, and that tends to make your list inconsistent in a metagame sense.

When I prepared my squad of interceptors That got me thinking; if I keep playing, can I still hope to win games by being just a better flyer? I learn to stay in formation and I am getting good at predicting movement. I keep seeing rock/paper/scissors posts here involving swarms/falcons/phantoms; can one hope to have fun and win some games without flying one of those three standard squads? If you gave a champion a squad of interceptors, would they still perform well in tournaments?

So I'm going to give a nuanced answer: what you're doing right now is building fundamental skills in the game that will transfer to every list. I don't know how good you are because I've never played you or even seen you play, but it is definitely true that those fundamental skills (predicting opponent's choices, visualizing available moves, making good tactical decisions with respect to actions) will stand you in good stead regardless of what you're playing.

However, as others have said, a list with three Interceptors will (at least until the next Wave of releases) struggle in most matches against a Millennium Falcon or a VT-49 Decimator, because Large ships with turret primary attacks neutralize a lot of your advantages.

But keep in mind that what your opponents are doing is playing what they think is best, and what you're doing is playing what you think is fun. In your position, I'd continue to think about the game the way you do now; continue to try new things and figure out how to make that stuff work, rather than giving up and saying "well, I guess swarms and Falcons are what works, so I'll start running the same lists everyone else does."

EDIT:

What happened in my town is this: you have casual players who enjoy the game without any knowledge of the meta (like me) who clash against store players that spend a lot of time in forums (like my fellow local players) and the fun is slowly drained away because now to stay competitive everyone has to build specific squads to hope to win a few games.

See, that's the idea of which you need to divest yourself: there are a lot of ways to beat Falcons, particularly if you know you're not going to have to face Vader/Soontir/Whisper with the same squad.

I don't care about winning tournaments at all; I'd just like not to be trashed over and over by the same squads. I know a nice guy at the store who is about just as good as me (played a similar amount of games) but he will NEVER play anything else than his falcon and C3PO list. He always beats me. My interceptors and bombers don't seem to stand a chance.

Here's one of my tournament lists. In Wave 3, it went about 15-5 against a wide variety of lists, including a pretty healthy run in the most recent Vassal tournament, and most of the losses were close. I'm not presenting it as a panacea, and I don't necessarily think you should take it directly from here and beat your Falcon-and-Threepio-flogging acquaintance--in fact it's at least moderately out of date now, and there are some things I'd do differently with it in the current metagame.

But it's a Bomber/Interceptor list, and it nukes both Falcons and TIE swarms, and it's an example of what you might find if you stick to your guns--something not many people are doing that nevertheless works for you.

Captain Jonus (22)

Squad Leader (2)

Homing Missiles (5)

Gamma Squadron Pilot (18)

Proton Torpedoes (4)

Cluster Missiles (4)

Gamma Squadron Pilot (18)

Proton Torpedoes (4)

Cluster Missiles (4)

Alpha Squadron Pilot (18)

Total: 99

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

It's not only the "flying skill" and the list. A major part is also how you set up the asteroids and your starting position. Often you can be at a major diasadvantage after the first one or two rounds because you misjudged your opening. Know when it is favorable to attack straight ahead, and when to flank.

You need a list that fits your style of play, and that has a theme and a defined purpose. I've seen several time talented people who won with exotic lists - that were later not so exotic any more. For example take the shuttle, and how it is more often now. I think people in tournaments stick mostly to meta lists because they don't dare to try something else and want to play it safe.

I don't think you necessarily have to build certain squads, yoi just have to include something in your list that handles the squad archetypes you expect to see. That is where using the forums becomes useful and we begin to use our squad building skills to better our chances of winning.

You don't need to fly a Falcon to beat the Phantom, but you better consider including R3A2 on Wes + VI instead of a hull upgrade, little things like that.

Also, you have to come into the tourneys with at least some semblance of an asteroid and ship setup strategy that you will use to fight the popular lists. Again, another reason that people discussing meta and following can be good, cuz you can prepare for it.

Though, to build a good squad, you DO have to have some idea of how effective each ship is at what and whether it is effective with your current strategy. This knowledge is what experienced players have already learned, by trial and error and some math analysis. To some effect, this has establishes the "meta", since you cant always ignore the math and cost effectiveness of ships.

Moral of the story, you SHOULD field the ships you want, just have some sort of upgrade or pilot or plan to deal with lists you think will cause problems.

Also, stick to Interceptors if you like them. Ive seen plenty of events won with them, they reward good choices, and are monsters if you get down to the last couple ships on thr board. Do you run Push The Limit on them? They become much more cost effective when you DO arc dodge with Boost + Barrel roll, or when you turtle up with Evade + Focus.

I get your point, EvilEd. My opinion though is that analysing the meta to build squads make the game less interesting, since as I said in my first post, creating different squads is a big part of the appeal for me.

What happened in my town is this: you have casual players who enjoy the game without any knowledge of the meta (like me) who clash against store players that spend a lot of time in forums (like my fellow local players) and the fun is slowly drained away because now to stay competitive everyone has to build specific squads to hope to win a few games.

I don't care about winning tournaments at all; I'd just like not to be trashed over and over by the same squads. I know a nice guy at the store who is about just as good as me (played a similar amount of games) but he will NEVER play anything else than his falcon and C3PO list. He always beats me. My interceptors and bombers don't seem to stand a chance.

Well the problem there is obvious, you need to talk to the players in your local area and set up 'just for fun squads' that aren't necessarily competitive, but just for fun. When I roll into my local game store on a Tuesday night, I usually bring two lists with me. Whatever list I plan to play-test and practice with (or play a League Game, I don't pull any punches in League games), and a fun list. If I am playing someone I know is new to the game, my default is the fun list, flat out. It is not a test of my list or my skill to club baby seals. Now, before I play a more experienced player, I will ask, 'Do you want to play my competitive list, or my fun list' and give them the option of which list I play.

This helps situations like this. What happens is that people don't like to loose constantly at anything. This drives players away from the game and that is not good for anybody in the community. If the players in your area want to nurture their community, I recommend bringing two tiers of lists so that EVERYBODY has fun playing the game. Now, that is a two way street as well, because those competitive players may ask you the same and to step up your lists and playing time to sharpen those skills. And that is fine too.

I hope this helps. And worse case, find me on Vassal and I'll play some 'just for fun' games with ya!

Flying skill is critical. A good squad can't win a game for you, but a bad squad can make it really difficult to win. As was posted above, I don't think anyone has much of a chance with a 6 naked HWK list.

When new players are getting into the game, I tell them the key to getting good is simply playing. Play play play, then play some more. Lots of rounds. Have fun with it, and don't worry so much about doing super well early on, that will come with time. It takes practice.

Flying skill definitely. The beauty of X-Wing is that the majority of the game is balanced. While you have certain A-class choices out there, this isn't to say your B-class choices don't stand a chance like in other games, in fact that difference is often minimal. The recent GenCon winning list is a good example, as the Cow and 'Ceptor are apparently not top ships (though I disagree entirely on the Interceptor).

Up to a certain level, player skill is obviously the most important factor. Maneuverability, action decisions, focus fire choices, and asteroid placement (to name a few) are all 100% skill based. However, once you get past a certain point, players are fairly well-versed in all of these aspects, so the low-hanging fruit on gaining a competitive advantage becomes fielding the most powerful ships, upgrades, and combos.

The simple fact is that the game balance, while good, could still be much better. More experienced players know to stay away from the less efficient ships and upgrades, whereas newer players are more excited to just get lots of different kinds of ships on the table.

When I prepared my squad of interceptors at the store a few weeks ago a player looked very surprised to see them and told me they were too expensive to use.

And here your opponent is simply wrong. The idea that Interceptors are too expensive to use is outdated at best; Interceptors are an important tool for Imperial lists (and the way you can tell is that the new national champ flew one). I'm not personally a fan of all-Interceptor lists, but that's largely because I'm not a fan of "monoculture" lists in general: you have a single set of strengths but also a single set of weaknesses, and that tends to make your list inconsistent in a metagame sense.

I'll actually take this one as an example to show how there is a slight imbalance (1 point) on several pilots, and that alone is nearly sufficient to completely kill their use in Regional / National play.

I think in this case you glossed over an important point, and that is that an Alpha Squadron Pilot flies completely differently than Soontir Fel.

• Both ships have a jousting efficiency of around 89.5%
• Both ships are glass cannons

However, Fel's ability, PS, and mandatory PtL upgrade allow him to get 3 actions after everyone else moves, which mitigates the problems above. The Alpha Squadron Pilot has no such recourse. At PS1 he can't arc dodge, so his effectiveness is largely reduced to his jousting value, which is poor. Opponents will try to focus fire him down first, so it is not uncommon for him to explode before even firing, which completely wastes the +6 points spent on an Alpha instead of an Academy Pilot.

2014 Regionals results bore this out.

In wave 3, we saw several successful 6 TIE Swarm builds that used 2 Alpha Squadron Pilots, and were built around keeping these ships alive (Stealth Device and flying in the rear) and/or making sure they get their shots off first (Swarm Tactics from Howlrunner and Mauler Mithel). In this context generic Interceptors were actually very effective when they were played, because they happened to place so well.

However wave 4 told a different story. With the near doubling of turret prevalence, generic Interceptors have completely gone back into hibernation. Overall interceptor usage more than cut in half, with generic usage dropping by almost a factor of 3. And when generics did get brought, they performed extremely poorly. Soontir Fel has done fine, but as mentioned earlier he flies completely differently and fills a different role.

It is my personal opinion that The PS1, 3, and 4 Interceptor pilots are slightly overcosted. For house rules I prefer costs of 17, 19, and 20 for the PS1, 3, 4. A 17 point Alpha Squadron pilot has a jousting efficiency of 94% - 95%, which is now playable but not overpowered since the advantage of Boost is largely lost on the PS1 and PS3. For reference this is still lower than the TIE Bomber's jousting value. The Saber is an interesting case because it is now completely overshadowed by the Royal Guard Pilot. I would be fine with a 20 point Saber, especially if there is a wave 6 anti-turret modification (as has been suggested by the developers) that would compete for the modification slot, allowing the RGP to take both this and another upgrade (Hull / Stealth), while the Saber would have to choose. Incidentally 4x Saber + PtL + Targeting Computer is actually viable, but not overpowered.

Anyway, that's a long rabbit trail for just one example, and it is just intended to illustrate the point that even a minor 1 point balance issue can have a huge impact on the meta game. I don't even need to get into how the TIE Advanced is 4 points overcosted, the generic E-wings are 3 points overcosted, and basic missiles / torpedoes are almost never worth taking.

This is actually why I prefer to implement house rules for casual house play, especially when playing with friends that don't even own the game and just come over to play once every couple of months. I already have an advantage from being familiar with the game, knowing the best "netdecks" from compiling Regional statistics, and performing extensive MathWing analysis. I don't need to be at a further advantage simply because my friends want to fly 5 Y-wings or 4 TIE Advanced.

Mostly fly skill. but swarms/phantoms/fat falcons/kenkirk really punish some builds.

didn't Rick S. just win Nationals with a list that included an interceptor? kind of a quirky list at first glance really. interceptor, phantom, and a shuttle. lots of YT's at that party but he won. list building is an important part of competitive play but without player skill the list doesn't matter. i could take 2 YT's and still lose a tournament handily if you're just in it for the fun don't worry about the outcome focus on the process. if you want to win you'll have to put some thought into list building to start but then a whole lot of practice into running the list.

ditto on 40K EvilEd. I quite playing almost a year ago because manuever didn't matter one darn bit in that game.

"Flying skills and squad building are a player's left and right arms; in lacking one, you lack both."

didn't Rick S. just win Nationals with a list that included an interceptor?

The OP was talking about running an entire squad of Interceptors, probably generics. Rick won with Soontir. Highlighted below for emphasis.

I am a casual XWing player that started a few months ago (just before wave 4) and I have mostly been playing home games with friends (which are also new to the game).

When I prepared my squad of interceptors at the store a few weeks ago a player looked very surprised to see them and told me they were too expensive to use. I lost all of my games.

an Alpha Squadron Pilot flies completely differently than Soontir Fel.

However wave 4 told a different story. With the near doubling of turret prevalence, generic Interceptors have completely gone back into hibernation. Overall interceptor usage more than cut in half, with generic usage dropping by almost a factor of 3. And when generics did get brought, they performed extremely poorly. Soontir Fel has done fine, but as mentioned earlier he flies completely differently and fills a different role.

Flying skill definitely. The beauty of X-Wing is that the majority of the game is balanced. While you have certain A-class choices out there, this isn't to say your B-class choices don't stand a chance like in other games, in fact that difference is often minimal. The recent GenCon winning list is a good example, as the Cow and 'Ceptor are apparently not top ships (though I disagree entirely on the Interceptor).

(And I disagree on the cow )

So what you are saying is that you believe that a national championship winner could still win with a squad of interceptors or another less used list? Then why are the championship lists all similar?

They aren't always. The winners are pretty variable: the Top 8 has so many Falcons because a lot of players like to netdeck.

You don't see many TIE interceptor champions because they're slave to the fickle green dice and struggle against Falcons. Come Autothr- they might make a little comeback.