I need to work on assessing each individual player during each game. I find players seem to evolve there play style and general knowledge when I least expect it.

I also need to work on being less aggressive and trying to make the opponent come to me, especially if it means making them go through the asteroid field.

I need to approach the first engagement better. Too often one ship is lagging or out of position when firing starts.

Also, I'm too often kind of at a loss for what should happen next, and so I stop concentrating fire, etc.

Asteroid placement is where I rarely have a definite plan. I know that for some squad it is better to make them sparse, I know that for my opponent it will be better to put them close, but in the end, my opponent could just throw them on the board and I wouldn't see much of a difference, I'll improvise. But I know that it would be to my opponent advantage so I'll put mine on the board without a clear idea of where I'm going with all this, I'm just trying to mess with his plan.

I just really need to not hit myself as much.

I get impatiant and force myself into bad spots when flying very maneuverable ships.

1) I keep forgetting to activate Rebel Captive and Ysanne Isard. I'm doing a lot better now, but it still bites me at critical moments. This is only a tournament problem - my friends always remind me if I forget during game nights.

2) I need a better opening strategy. I actually stumble upon a lot of favorable first engagements, but I feel like a personification of the adage, "It's better to be lucky than good." After asteroids are out, I look at the board state and choose where to place my ships. I am getting better at making sure my opening move leaves me with lots of options so I don't paint myself into a corner. And now that I think about it, not having a set strategy is probably good because it makes me more flexible.

Mid game maneuvers, I'm ok early game, but as soon as the initial joust is over everything goes to hell in a hand-basket. I'm ok late game too, its just that mid game where I fall apart.

Basically this, especially in the Wave 5.

With my squad of antiquated arced ships, I feel that I sometimes just lose on the first pass despite setting up asteroids, deploying, and jockeying for position such that I can draw my entire squad on a target only to have the dice produce 2 damage.

I've had Biggs and a Bandit in range one of Corran Horn, only for Biggs to blank twice on the target-lock re-roll and Corran to fart out three evades against bandit despite having been blocked by another. I've also had a B-wing in range 1, a B-wing and airen in range 2 of Corran Horn only for the range 2 B-wing (Focus and target-lock) to produce 0 damage, Airen 1 (promptly 2 evaded), and the range 1 B-wing 1 (two more evades). Maybe I need to learn to stop playing against Corran horn because the motherfucker is charmed. Corran then went on to insta kill Wes with a double tap (3 hits to 2 blank evades, followed by 3 hits to 2 blank evades)

The game goes to hell from there.

I don't really know if that's me playing incorrectly or the dice just bending my ships over, but it's been a common theme. I'm trying out Ion mechanics, which are less prone to bull because they just need to punch through for any amount of damage and will let me keep the enemy in arc consistently. After my first few games with ion cannons, I've been kicking myself all night for not trying them sooner.

I don't often consider that people are going to guess what I will do.

My thought goes "He will go here, so I will fly here and block him."

Then when my opponent goes "Yeah, I thought you were going to block me" and flys completely somewhere else.

It's the 'I do so he does so I do so he does' thing and I often feel that I'm one step behind.

Sometimes I'm too cagey with flankers. Meaning I have all my ships racing across the board ready to get into position for the first round of shooting, then I suddenly fear that my enemy will turn his ships on my flanker at the last moment. Too often I turn my flanker away (especially if it is an expensive flanker like Fel or Whisper) to 'save' them. It just sets me up for a bad alpha strike.

Remembering to trigger abilities like Mara Jade, Rebel Captive, and fire control system

Rolling green dice

Also, I'm too often kind of at a loss for what should happen next, and so I stop concentrating fire, etc.

I always take the shot most likely to deal high damage, unless one of the targets is likely to escape (Soontir or a Phantom).

I need to remember that it's okay to wait for slow rolling swarms to enter the asteroids before I attack, even though it takes precious time..

Most original topic I've seen in a long gone. Well done sir. Will part an actual response later but this needs to be bumped.

I seem to have developed an annoying habit of predicting where my opponent will end up, setting dials accordingly, and not accounting for where my own ships will be. Embarrassing collisions ensue.

I don't often consider that people are going to guess what I will do.

My thought goes "He will go here, so I will fly here and block him."

Then when my opponent goes "Yeah, I thought you were going to block me" and flys completely somewhere else.

It's the 'I do so he does so I do so he does' thing and I often feel that I'm one step behind.

Last night I watched a game of Chess between a couple friends. It was probably the most exciting Chess has ever been to me. Partly because I wasn't playing it and could observe their moves from a purely spectator standpoint and partly because the game pieces looked like Super Mario characters.

Anyway, so I'm watching and remembered why I used to play Chess. I liked the idea of having to think multiple turns ahead, using the game pieces that make different moves. It was a challenging concept when, in most games, you're only thinking of your next turn.

In my head, I started relating the similarities of Chess moves to maneuvers in X-Wing and how thinking multiple turns ahead would work really well.

TL;DR I need to think beyond the next game round.

I can't fly rebels at all, I just can't conceive of what their overarching playstyle is, The imps make sense to me: maneuver to stack dice exchanges in your favor, great there are lots of ways of doing that. but what is the rebel equivalent?

I can't fly rebels at all, I just can't conceive of what their overarching playstyle is, The imps make sense to me: maneuver to stack dice exchanges in your favor, great there are lots of ways of doing that. but what is the rebel equivalent?

The playstyle will differ depending on the squad composition. The general difference would probably just go along with the design difference. Rebels can generally take more hits than Imperials, so you can somewhat ignore playing defensively and go on the offensive. A lot of Rebel Pilots have synergistic Abilities and Upgrade cards just increase those synergies. Maximize your attacks every round, sacrifice some shields for some strong attacks, keep friendlies in whatever range required to benefit from their Abilities, etc.

Asteroid placement is my major weakness, and not bumping large (4 ship) formations of TIEs. Sometimes I also mess up maneuvers with ships of differing or equal PS, but I think that by actively thinking about it during my games has helped.

I need to remember that Interceptors aren't B-wings.

Somehow improve my dice rolling luck, because I'm tired of a legendary reputation of bad rolling :\

As an Imperial pilot, I can't for the life of me figure out how to fly against B-Wings. Their bulk and firepower make me freeze up. I think I've only ever beat a B list once.

Flaws...there are so many of them. My hands shake. I get very nervous during tournaments(I think this contributes to the first problem I stated). I over think everything. The one thing I need to work on is minimizing my mistakes and remaining calm. I replay some of my tournament games over in my head and its always one or two small mistakes that end up costing me the game usually (If I had done X instead of Y type things). If I could eliminate those and remain calm and composed I think I could get better.

If it wasn't for the jerk who chooses the wrong maneuvers sometimes, my play style would be ok. But seriously sometimes I don't know what that guy was thinking.

There's something to this, actually. In a boxing match or a sparring bout in martial arts, the most difficult fights are against beginners--because their tactical thinking is straightforward rather than nuanced, because they tend to commit completely to either attack or defense, because theit techniques tend to be powerful but sloppy. It can be tough to gear down; you assume no one would do X because it leaves you open to a devastating counterattack, and then you're caught off-guard when they go ahead and do X anyway because they don't realize how vulnerable it will make them.

As for me, I think my biggest weakness is that I'm a sucker for a joust. It's almost always a bad idea, because if my opponent offers one he or she is probably prepared for it, and because it creates an opportunity for the game to be pushed around by the dice. But I can't seem to stop myself from thinking "Okay, yeah! Bring it on."

it could just have something to do with the squad you're flying

some squadrons just naturally lend themselves to jousting superiority against a larger number of lists, generally the more ships the better, while the more expensive, action dependent ships (phantoms, interceptors, fattie mc fattersons...) should not because their strength does not lie in raw stats per points spent (Though sometimes the dice say completely otherwise)

oftentimes, especially in the Wave 5 super-action 2 ship move last galore meta, you want to force your opponent into the joust yourself to minimize his strengths (so much stuff) and maximize yours (so much dice)

Sure, you have the chance to lose it all on some horrible and incredibly unlikely rolls, but the moment an opponent plops a fat turret onto the board the game has already become a dice off because you're sure as hell not dodging it. It's up to you to force it into a position where it would take more damage than it deals so you'll at least have an edge in probability (provided rngesus does not play savior too hard).

If, against other squads, you want to improve your chances at a joust and be more prepared than your opponent thinks he is, well nothing skews the odds quite like ion does

If it wasn't for the jerk who chooses the wrong maneuvers sometimes, my play style would be ok. But seriously sometimes I don't know what that guy was thinking.

There's something to this, actually. In a boxing match or a sparring bout in martial arts, the most difficult fights are against beginners--because their tactical thinking is straightforward rather than nuanced, because they tend to commit completely to either attack or defense, because theit techniques tend to be powerful but sloppy. It can be tough to gear down; you assume no one would do X because it leaves you open to a devastating counterattack, and then you're caught off-guard when they go ahead and do X anyway because they don't realize how vulnerable it will make them.

Well, I can't speak for boxing or other martial arts, but in saber fencing, if I go against a beginner, I'll eat him alive. He simply have no chance. Reflex kicks in and even if he do something you didn't expect, like attacking you when the priority is yours for exemple, you'll be able to either parry him or land your attack faster. Beginners are too sloppy in their move and doesn't know their distance so they're very easy to parry or dodge, as for the attack, they are too slow to parry you. This is not bragging, I'm far from being a great fencer, but there is a difference between mental sparring like chess and physical sparring like fencing, and fencing is considered to be the physical chess.

But there I get what you meant and it might be true to an extent. But the difference between a beginner and a good player is that even if the beginner did something the good player didn't expect and put him in a bad situation, the good player will still know what to do next while the beginner won't really know how to exploit the situation. A good exemple would be playing a beginner in poker. Since he doesn't know his outs and what he's doing, the beginner will always follow you to the river, you just can't bluff him, he'll follow you anyway. In the end, you'll still beat him, but you have no choice to play more the cards than the man.

Here's an experiment for us. Post the things you think you need to improve upon in your approach to playing X-Wing. They don't have to be things specific to the meta and/or tournament play, just anything you think you should try to be better at. It's not just for WAAC types, I've never been to a tournament and I've been making goals for myself to improve my skills.

I need to get better at accounting for unlikely manoeuvres. Two of my opponents consistently make unconventional decisions and I often run into trouble because I assumed they would make the same choice that I would have.

I also need to be less predictable. My formations are too consistent and my opening positions tend to make my strategy very obvious.

In my favour, I'm really good at flying the X-Wing itself. I'm also building up a good track record of only letting Doomshuttles shoot once before making them spend an entire game trying to get me back in their sights.

Far too drunk far too often.

It's the only way I can deal with the pressure, I'm sure force choking isn't to bad when steaming drunk.