I don't tell this story to belittle my opponent, or to make myself look good:

Over the past few months, I've been playing with a guy at a local game store (Aero games, in Santa Monica. Holla!) He's pretty new, and trying to learn. As a result, he's been flying the same list, trying to really learn the Squints and Eyeballs. Knowing that he's newish let's me know that I can fly suboptimal lists myself.

Today, he got his butt kicked, hard. It wasn't even like I did it on purpose, but I flew a pair of Buzzsaw Daggers, and I took full advantage of positioning. After the game, he and a friend of his were analyzing my list, trying to figure out how to drop its HP quickly. The question kept circling back to what other ships my opponent should bring next time.

After about half an hour of this discussion, I told him, point blank, that his list was capable of beating mine, but you can't ever let a Tie Interceptor get into arc of a Buzzsaw!

Again: I don't tell this story to belittle my opponent, or to make myself look good, but I do want to ask for community feedback on this question: how does X-Wing, as a game design, communicate why a player failed? How can I tell the difference between bad flying, bad luck, and bad list design? How can I tell which part of my list is bad?

How do I- how do any of us- learn the right lessons from failure?

Take his list against yours (ie swap lists)

You can tell the dice by counting hits and evades if you really want to. Luck happened to me the other day I had a fat dash and friends face off against triple bounty hunters. Long story short, dash was smoking, only one bounty Hunter left, moderate health, and nothing else on the table. The last BH maneuvered perfectly, had dash dead to rights in the donut hole. I didn't even need to roll, his four red dice came up blank. Next turn I moved and rolled and blew him to bits. By all rights that game should have been his.

Flight skill you can count how often you had them in arc and how often they had you in arc. If you are predicting their moves and exploiting then you are flying with skill.

Bad list! look at the synergy. I had an opponent take Lando and never once activated his ability. He didn't have a list built to make it work. We still had a close game, but he lost.

Basically talk about the game, be open and honest, if they do the same you should be able to figure out what happened, odds are a combination of the above.

This is a difficult question. Me, personally, I like being able to discuss WHY my opponent does various things. To me, getting at the reasons for behavior is paramount. Why did you barrel roll that way? Why do the bank instead of a turn there. Such questions can lead to a dialog back and forth about how to predict your opponent, optimal target selection, maneuvering options. Unfortunately, most people don't want to explain their strategy in the middle of a game, and by the time the game is over no one can remember all the moves that were taken, much less the board state that prompted them or the reasoning behind them.

Oh, and instead of counting how often you have them in arc, I think I would measure flying skill by how many times you hit an asteroid (accidentally).

Game Tape, Battle Reports, Self vs Self Scrimmages?

Game Tape either video or photo can help a person understand their mistakes and highlight areas of opportunity that were taken or missed. It is also a good source for mimicry in learning how other buildings function.

Although video recording should only be done when agreed upon by both players.

Photos are less intrusive as it doesn't pick up ambient noises, but should still be agreed upon.

Battle Reports can be taken without video or photos but requires descriptive notes documenting setup, actions, movement, and why you took that route and actions.

Self Scrimmages takes a build you know well and pits it against the one you're trying to learn. Or to lists you're learning or trying to understand and figuring out their strengths and weaknesses.

Solo "Furballs" are a good way to learn and practice approaches on certain targets.

And finally there's "ask and 'expert'" where you "shadow" a "master" and ask questions about the particulars in movement, actions, ect.

Basically take notes and write a battle report / log for some matches and use them and their answers to improve your game.

And of course "Ask the Forum" where the majority of use will chime in with our personal know-how.

Yeah, I wouldn't talk strategy in game, just because my focus is usually on what our next moves are going to be.

But post match, I'm all about discussing what I did, what you did, why I approached your list the way I did, how you could have approached my list that would have messed with my plans, etc.

well, forumites like juggler have already put "jousting efficiency" out in the open, and pilots such as Blue Squadrons obviously lend themselves better to head-on confrontation than the expensive 150% of a Tie Fighter alpha.

If we assume that everything is more or less balanced, the ints lost because they're not efficiently priced to trade dice like b-wings are, they're priced to be flighty buggers. If they're not being flighty buggers, the B-wings should smash them by playing to their own strength.

So the squad of his may be wrong, but only from a playstyle perspective (unless there's some really silly **** like elusiveness on thur). I know I would never touch more than one interceptor regardless of how awesome they were (guess why)

Just gently remind him that ships are suited for different roles and the Imperial craft tend to favour flanking rather than going in guns blazing.

I also think that there are certain ships new people don't have any business flying until they understand the game better, at a more intuitive level. On the flip side, people should have fun and fly the ships they love. Hopefully, the ships they love can also be ships that are good for a new guy to fly.

My point being: interceptors and other arc dodgers are not very forgiving. You have to know what you're doing to fly an arc dodger well. New people are probably better flying turrets or jousters - to use Paul Heaver's 'pillars'

There are ways of noticing - I'd say Sudden shifts in power balance in the game can indicate something - usually a lucky roll, or a misplayed maneuver... For example, two players are fighting fairly evenly and then after parking luke on a rock, he gets shot to pieces - vs luke being in only one arc, and then rolling all blanks to hit hit crit crit from a range 1 interceptor, that was luck - watch the swings.

Skill differences and list imbalances usually lead to a slower slide - where the game continuously goes in one direction, slowly sliding more and more in favor of one player - and this is easier to see with bigger lists - say BBBAA vs Tie Swarm.

Lists and Player skill are often intertwined, but a good postmortem of the game played should help - look for critical turns, and look at action economy - how often were you firing with an action, how often without one. fewer actions, means a more luck dependant list. Also look for hard counters between the lists - Heavy Laser Cannons 4 attack die, is a pretty good counter to low HP high Agility ships....

New players flow in along the casual type of play, mostly.

First; When presenting squads to each other, when you notice a bad combo, you can just tell them.

Second; An advice I got on this forum for which I am very grateful; start with the basics first. Don´t go into Phantom and turrets at once. Go for the basic of the game: TIE vs X-wing

- Start with the academy pilot, it has this name for a reason.

- When improving mix one or more named pilots to learn PS difference, maybe even an Elite Pilot Upgrade on a Black Squadron Pilot.

- When comfortable you get promoted to rookie status and join the rebels, same recipe but with X-wings. Add an astromech or torpedo´s to get the feel.

- After that you can expand to other types and upgrades of small ships.

- I would seriously keep the large based ships for last. Nothing destroys the learning curve better than flying circles with Han Solo....

Mind you, this doesn´t have to take long. An explanatory match of 31 points. Then two of 60 points and you are probably already at Rookie-Phase-completion.

Your fourth game can already be a standard 100 point game, just don´t be a nasty b*****d and bring Fat Han or a Phantom to the table

Yeah, we had a new guy at the FLGS this last Monday. He had just a few minis (mostly rebels). I had him fly 80 points (Luke, Biggs+R2-D2, and a Gold Squadron with Ion Turret. I took Vader and two academies for a little over 50 points. It was a fun match which I lost, giving him the taste of victory.

But, I don't think this OP is about brand-spankin' newdies of that freshness.

Switch lists a few times. Point out how you fly it, why you take the actions and moves you do. Don't hammer in that he's bad. Encourage him. Get super excited when he rolls amazing.

--

Also, think of whackier and whackier lists. Challenge yourself. 5 Alphas with Autothrusters...

Mass tie Bomber swarm no howlrunner.

heck! 4 Shuttles with APL.

Major Rhymer kitted to the gills.

3 Defenders

2 Decimators

Ten Numb! Ibtisam with Sensor Jammer and Elusiveness!

Eaden Vrill! Leebo! Wild Space Fringer!!!

Etahn

Nera

Arvel Gemmer

Garvin Porkins Hobbie Red Squadron with Predator and EPT droid!

I don't tell this story to belittle my opponent, or to make myself look good:

Over the past few months, I've been playing with a guy at a local game store (Aero games, in Santa Monica. Holla!) He's pretty new, and trying to learn. As a result, he's been flying the same list, trying to really learn the Squints and Eyeballs. Knowing that he's newish let's me know that I can fly suboptimal lists myself.

Today, he got his butt kicked, hard. It wasn't even like I did it on purpose, but I flew a pair of Buzzsaw Daggers, and I took full advantage of positioning. After the game, he and a friend of his were analyzing my list, trying to figure out how to drop its HP quickly. The question kept circling back to what other ships my opponent should bring next time.

After about half an hour of this discussion, I told him, point blank, that his list was capable of beating mine, but you can't ever let a Tie Interceptor get into arc of a Buzzsaw!

Again: I don't tell this story to belittle my opponent, or to make myself look good, but I do want to ask for community feedback on this question: how does X-Wing, as a game design, communicate why a player failed? How can I tell the difference between bad flying, bad luck, and bad list design? How can I tell which part of my list is bad?

How do I- how do any of us- learn the right lessons from failure?

If he's incorrectly and overly focused on lists, offer to swap lists with him to show him how you'd attack you own list with his.

I think I'll echo the list switching. It's the best way to see if the issue is with the list or with the player.

If you beat someone bad with your list, then turn around and beat them with theirs, then unless there was a major amount of luck good or bad, then it's not the list it's the player.

Then it becomes a matter of explaining what you did differently to allow you to win.

I've played against someone who when he has Int's with PtL never uses it, rarely boots or barrel rolls, and so naturally he thinks Int's are weak. But the truth is, you can't fly an Int like you do a X.

It sounds like the general advice is that the game itself teaches you what you're doing wrong- after you know the game fairly well. But most learning will be done by talking to other players about the game that was just played. That's about what I had thought, but I had sort of hoped for something built into the games systems.

Thanks for the feedback!

I think it's difficult to give general advice to players who understand the rules and know enough about maneuvering to avoid asteroids.

The problem with general advice is that this is a strategic game in addition to a tactical one. The more someone follows general advice, the more that becomes an Achilles heel which can be exploited.

OP, I think you pointed it out in your post. That you were able to out position your opponent. I think the biggest learning curve is not the list building, but how to maneuver and position yourself. Unfortunately, that comes with experience (usually, by losing a lot). Generally speaking, any list could beat any list in a given game. I bet if you switched lists, you'd probably destroy him again.

OP, I think you pointed it out in your post. That you were able to out position your opponent. I think the biggest learning curve is not the list building, but how to maneuver and position yourself. Unfortunately, that comes with experience (usually, by losing a lot). Generally speaking, any list could beat any list in a given game. I bet if you switched lists, you'd probably destroy him again.

Maybe!

I tend to play tanks in most games, so diving into the fray is in my nature. Learning when to arc dodge is a difficult skill- one I'm not sure how to learn or teach.

If we look at a ship like a StarViper, is it a jouster, or a flanker? It has the same amount of health as an X-Wing, but has the Boost action that is so important on Tie Interceptors. So: what is the best way to fly it? Is it the hammer, or the anvil? And: how do you know?

Major Juggler has done us all a solid by creating and maintaining the Jousting Values. I'm hoping some something within the game itself that can communicate those same ideas.

If we look at a ship like a StarViper, is it a jouster, or a flanker?

easy answer: both

I remember the good old days of diving head on at stuff, simpler times.

You obviously need to show him how to fly those interceptors take his list and fly it yourself, demonstrate the power of that boost and barrel roll.