I can only play once a week, what can I do between plays to develop better flying skills?

I have only played for a few weeks so far.

I play casual.

I play both factions, but prefer Imperial.

I don't have any set squads yet, but I am sure consistent use of the same ships could be helpful.

Please share some practice tips with me.

Are there any isea for solo games?

Or how about some flying drills, or courses ect.

Try this for solo play, its a good way to get in games when you can't find others..

http://xwing.runbam.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/xwing_ai_1.7.0b2/index.htm

Play on Vassal.

I sometimes fly against myself to test lists. It works out ok. You just need to make the decisions that make the most sense for each side, although it does get a bit tricky with things like phantoms.

Play on Vassal.

+1

Hell +1000...

There are also some flying tutorials on youtube.. look for star wars x wing miniatures formation flying .. that should get you a run of good SWXM videos.. also the tourney vids are cool too..

Set some obstacles on the table and fly some ships around trying to get as close as possible to them while not colliding. Put some tokens around that you need to shoot in a certain range or pick up by flying over them. It should help you to learn your distances and maneuvers.

Set some obstacles on the table and fly some ships around trying to get as close as possible to them while not colliding. Put some tokens around that you need to shoot in a certain range or pick up by flying over them. It should help you to learn your distances and maneuvers.

Great idea

As otherrs have suggested ...

I did the following.

Watch videos on youtube , especially stuff like formation flying

read the articles on FFGs site about good builds or uses of ships.

play on vassal or just use it to try out manouvres , fire arcs etc.

Set up a mat and fill it with asteroids and try and 'slalom' through a course

etc etc.

The trick is to get good at judging where you will end up using any given template, thats the key IMO. List building is a useful skill but if you bang into an asteroid every move the best list in the world wont save you. Equally dont rely on dice, try and put yourself in positions where the worst possible thing that can happen is you will not roll any hits.. you wont get hit because you're not in arc and if you are you're at long range with an ateroid between you and them.

MANOUVRE skills are everything i feel.

Other than that try and get and train yourself to stay focussed, its easy to get distracted and split fire when you should be leathering one ship til its done. Every ship that cant fire back is a bonus.

I'd rather be facing one TIE/Ln on three hull points than three on 1 hull point each.

One thing that helps a lot with flying is to have a field set up with some asteroids place two or three ships, place your dials, then put drop a ship or empty ship base where you think your ships will be. Then flip your dials and compare how far off you where.

The reason I do this with the dial and reveal and turn order is it helps keep you in the pattern of playing the game, while the predicting helps you see how far off your mind is between the movement in your brain and the real movement of the ships. I started out 1-2 ship bases off, now I'm less then half a ship base. All in all it's pretty good practice for pure flying skills.

I'd recommend playing with yourself.

Let me rephrase that.

Play a game versus yourself with the focus on making the best move possible each time. It's hard because you know what "your opponent" is going to do, but it helps you learn the capabilities of each ship and how to counter them. Playing solo-wing is really helpful for highly maneuverable ships like Interceptors, A-wings, and Phantoms, because you learn how to arc dodge.

Another idea to to set out a bunch of asteroids and other random objects in your gaming room on the board and have an "asteroid field survival scenario". If you hit an asteroid, you go boom. It helps you visualize just how far a 3 turn or 2 bank takes you.

OMFG don't tell him to play with himself he'll go blind!!!