The easiest way of manouvring in the game is pretty much to point yourself at your enemy, close to range 1-2, shoot them, overfly and koiogran, close again (with a green straight), and repeat those last three steps ad infinitum until one of you explodes.

Now, obviously, some ships are better at this than others. But the question is, if you get 'locked' into a joust, how do I break off? I don't see how to do it without either letting someone on my tail or else losing a game of chicken and letting someone shoot me in the flank as I turn away.

With something like a PTL Interceptor, I can get it. Instead of koiogran turning, hit a straight 5, bank/boost, and barrel roll, and you're some way to breaking contact, but I'm trying to lean to fly TIE advanced better, so all I've really got in my bag of tricks over an X-wing or E-wing is barrel roll and a 1-speed advantage on the straights.

It seems even worse with the B-wings which more than anything that I find myself facing. Yes, they're slow, but they also have a ludicrously tight koiogran loop.

"I don't know... Fly casual..."

seriously though, you could just not fly straight at your opponent. Come in from the side, or set yourself up so that you draw him into a joust with a part of your force, then hit him from the flank with the ships he didn't go for the joust with. Seeing some battle reports on video can help, check Youtube for regionals or world matches.

I'm not your orthodox player...

Mostly a lot of screaming and jostling of my sticks. If foes catch wind of my comms it definitely throws them for a loop.

I've been asked about why my screams sound like an angry aardvark.

Hav eyou played with a shuttle?

For learning purposes: do it.

Put the shuttle in one corner (L), the rest of your list in the other corner ®.

Slow fly the shuttle in.

You'll find that your opponent will go after one half of your list or split his list into O-L and O-R (opponent's list on your right and left).

Engage the halves as needed.

Then you'll find that your L side can simply keep moving forward and hit his R side. Do the same with your R side, hitting his L. You'll basically do a pass with yourself and delay your K-turn one turn. Try it. If things happen even beter, you might even find another turn where you can adjust and not K-turn.

--

Another options: 2 AP ties 2 Obsidian ties 2 RGP with PTL.

Set up in pairs L C R. Slow fly at him. As he decides on a group to target, turn them 1 hard turn to get towards the rest of your force. You can also 5straight boost the RGPs past him and turn in on a flank. Attempt to attack from multiple angles. This will confuse the hell out of him. Anyone he chooses to concentrate should break off and take an evade token. Try and bait him to attack the ties while the RGPs do the damage.

Warning: This build not intended to be competitive.

The simple answers would be:

Make your opponent split their forces up and/or turn. Flank them. Use asteroids/board edges to make a jousting strategy unfavourable for your opponent.

For a more in depth answer, you'd need too examine your squad. High PS ships can react to and/or potentially avoid the movement of low PS ships which deploy and move first.

Couple of options:

1. Obviously, don't fly head-on. Sounds simple, but it requires that you accept the risk of manouvering in such a way that your enemy gets you in his fire arc while he is to your side or rear. So, you'll have to suit up for that. Either, fly ships that can quickly disengage from that situation (A-wings, for instance), or, accept that you'll put one of your ships in harm's way, and fly the rest of your ships accordingly (that means in such a way that you can capitalize on your opponent going after part of your force).

2. Bring a bigger stick. Make the other guy worry about how to avoid the joust.

Well, that at least isn't an issue with my 'proper' list - Vader and Stele are both on the upper end of good, and if I can get my grubby mittens on some proton rockets cards, they'll be the big stick for a change.

However, the question came up because We've got a sort-of-escalation league going at my LGS, and are stuck using 100 points of basic (lowest PS) pilots aside from one 'squad leader', and in that game I found myself just jousting a lot.

A lot of the rebel players seem to be using E-wings, which are very nice but Knaves do have the weakness that they're PS1 not PS2, which puts them at a disadvantage against Bombers, Advanceds and Phantoms.

I guess I'll just have to try splitting up more. At the moment I've been deploying the advanceds I can fit in in two groups, fairly close together. I guess pushing them further apart forces the enemy to go after one or the other.

One thing you can do is try to block your opponent's k-turns with some of your ships. Also, as Oneway mentioned, try flanking with one or two ships, and don't just fly your main squad straight at you opponent. Try luring enemy ships into a better position, where the asteroids and edges favor you. Fake them out, before combat starts make it seem like you're headed one way, then go the other, once your opponent commits their ships to where they thought you'd be it can be difficult to adjust quickly, especially when obsticles are involved. Don't underestimate the importance of asteroid and ship placement at the begining, they can really determine the course of the whole match.

1) Split your deployment to converge on your opponent from multiple angles. Whichever side they decide to go after might be forced to joust, but the rest of your ships will be set up at an angle from your opponent's k-turn and in the wrong position to joust.

2) Offset your deployment and use early-game turns to approach from an angle instead of straight ahead. If they deploy in one corner then you deploy in the opposite corner with some asteroids in the way. Then fly away at an angle and come in with a 3-turn instead of a 4-straight. Ideally you set up a situation where if they k-turn after the initial exchange you can do a 90* turn to face them, giving you an action advantage and a huge maneuvering advantage as they have to clear stress next turn.

3) Use table edges/asteroids/blockers/etc to prevent your opponent from flying straight at you and k-turning with their entire formation. Some ships might be able to k-turn and joust, but the rest of them will have to be more creative.

4) Use fast ships to break off and circle around from the side. For example, do a long straight with an interceptor and then boost + barrel roll to get even more distance. Now you're out of range as they k-turn (or at least at range 3 with focus + evade stacked) and hopefully getting enough movement to the side that green maneuver (usually a bank or straight) to clear stress won't get them pointed straight at you. Keep doing this so that turning is the only way to get you into arc, a k-turn won't give them a shot.

5) Accept that sometimes you're just going to joust. If you're in a situation where the only good maneuver is to k-turn and accept the joust then don't get stuck on "I HATE JOUSTING", just maneuver to take the immediate shot and hope to set up something better in the future. This is especially true if the jousting math in that area of the table favors your ships, or if you've failed to use options 1-3 effectively and your x-wings/TIE advanceds/etc don't have the maneuverability to break out effectively.

Don't deploy in front of your opponent. If you deploy first Abbas he deploys in front of you, break for the opposite edge or turn into the rocks before you face him.

Your always want to engage on your terms, not his.

I fly defenders I don't have to avoid jousting in the first place and k turning ain't no thing.

Keep up the good posting and thinking folks!

Let's put more strategy thoughts on this forum and dilute the whine and useless threads!

1) Turrets. Nothing ruins a good joust like boosting behind your opponent then zapping them with an ion turret. Suckers.

2) Abnormal formations. Start 2 ships at the very base of your side, pointing away from each other, parallel to the bottom. Or everyone at 45 angles. Or just at the range limit for setup, facing you, then hard turn and loop around.

3) Fly one ship straight into the middle while everyone else comes in from various angles. Don't let your opponent concentrate fire, and enter the engagement at different ranges. This allows you consecutive turns to attack with different ships while setting up your turns and next engagements.

Honestly I find a lot of it is in the setup. Set up some flankers to come in after the charge, try to Kturn in behind them, flank, use turrets bombs and mines, or you know, obstacles.

the simplest way is engine upgrade, barrel roll, and setting up opposite corner of your enemy.

Don't hit them head-on if you can't joust better than them, for starters. If you do end up flying directly towards a formation of B-Wings, then depending on range you could try angling away a bit with a boost just as you hit range two or so. If you do it right you should still have shots on one of them but you won't end up trading k-turns back and forth. Another option might be to try taking 3 turns instead of the k-turn, and then racing away from them. Won't work against Defenders, because they're fast enough to keep up. The only really reliable method is to make sure you don't start jousting at all and to flank them with something so they can't afford to fly their brick of ships at you.

Rather than taking straight maneuvers out of the gate take a bank. Your arc will still be pointing mostly forward and if you take the opposite bank maneuver next turn you are facing front again. But say turn 1 or 2 you bank left, the right edge of your arc points straight at your opponent. Next turn, take a sharp turn. Now the left edge of your arc is pointing straight at your opponent while still approaching them from an odd angle. You can K-turn from that position and have a pretty good firing arc coverage of most of the action, OR you can keep sharp turning and find yourself having to take 1 less turn on average to catch up to your opponent and flank them if they decided to go with straight joust maneuvers. It may sound weird since all the distances of the maneuvers are premeasured but I've found it seems to give me more room to maneuver, less crowding of my own ships, and better firing positions. Playing on a square field, the diagonal measurement corner to corner is larger than any of the table edges so making that your 'axis' for maneuver reference opens the field up some and can make a 3x3 map surface feel like 4x4. A definite advantage if your opponent hasn't caught onto that.

The way you avoid jousting is......

Very carefully.

This has been another episode of Short Answers to Long Questions. (turrets people)

A pincer movement is good but only if you get the timing right. If you split your force, you opponent decides what to engage, you end up in a situation where half your force if facing all of his. that is a win for him. you need to set the pincer up so that whichever way he goes, you are hammering him from behind while he is jousting with the other side of your force. Then you can slow fly while he is forced to K turn or break things up. that gives you a "freebie" turn which you need to be ready to make the most of. When he does K-turn, he will have stress an no actions while hopefully you are focused up / TLed whatever. also, Bring a bomber with a prox mine to a joust some time. Drop it in their lap at range 1, that will break up the brick.

Yeah I've tried spilitting my forces before, a ABAB list, put the A's together and the B's together. All 4 interceptors went after the A's, and managed 3 R1 shots, which A-wings don't stand up to well...

Then it was 4 v 2 and he managed to arc dodge well enough that he picked apart the B's.

I am thinking this is more an issue of your player community than the game's mechanics. The people i play with rarely end up jousting back and forth and the game invariably starts with an initial joust but then breaks down in to a brawl with opportunity attacks and squad composition meaning that player skill and good die rolls matter more than ship dials.

This game that seems to be outlined by the OP seems incredibly dull and mechanical and not the X-Wing i am used to playing

I like bringing a buzzsaw shuttle in from the side while my main force slow rolls toward the joust. I try to time it so the shuttle and the main force get there at the same time, but 90 degrees apart and both facing the enemy. If they go for the shuttle early, it can take a round of abuse and still bring some pain. that's why I like it. I have had good success with this. You could also choose something fast and run it down the opposite edge of the board. interceptors or a wings work well for this.

If your local meta is all about jousting, then buid for that and profit. Assault missles, HLC, high hitpoint builds. (dual buzzsaw shuttles) Defenders are perfect, I also like bombers. One long range missle, one cluster or APT, and a bomb as you pass. They are passable dogfighters as well. Noone wants to joust APTs, beleive me. If nothing else, you will force hard core jousters to change their tactics.

with the dual shuttle build, you can hit the brakes at about range 2 and watch their mass K turn fail epically, of course they may block you, whihc is why Advanced sensors are good if you are planning this strategy.

Vader and Stele are both on the upper end of good

Say what now?!