Rules questions

I am not going to dig through the news articles. But what defines line of sight? and can fighter squadrons block it?

Just trying to think of ways to protect ships from long range fire from the VSD

You can attack a ship from a specific arc if it is within the arc chosen. Your attack must be declared against a valid facing (Front, Read, Right, Left). Determination of a valid facing is done by drawing a line (imaginary or with string, dealers choice between the yellow dot on the attackers chosen arc and the defenders facing. If that line passes through either ships firing arc lines then it cannot make that attack, it does not have line of sight. Else it can.

If that imaginary line between the two dots passes through: a ship, an asteroid, a space station; then deduct 1 dice from the attacker (attacker's choice). Squadrons do not block line of sight.

Running a CR90 in front of a Neb-B can make the Vic lose a dice if it attacks the CR90. It also makes the Neb lose a dice against the Vic (LoS works both ways, friendly and enemy ships block it).

And squadrons do not block Line of Sight

well this makes tactics in this game rather simple and pointless. Only real tactics is to try and get two arcs in LOS, i don't really know how rare that is going to be, but it seems like it would

Well, there are plenty of tactics, don't see how using fighters as a screen for capital ship weapons fire was ever going to be in any game of this scale. Bit like trying to use a fly to stop someone shooting a barn with a rifle.

You can look at manouvering at long range to keep all your ships in one of the VSD's arcs then it can only shoot one ship. Otherwise, try out flanking manouvers as the VSD is weak in the aft section. You have to bear in mind the play area is actually quite large for the size of the ships so there is plenty of manouvres space.

Also the game is objective driven, you can probably win without taking out the majority of the othersides ships if you complete the objectives of the game. Seems to me there are going to be lots of tactics and quite compliacted gambits being played.

Well, there are plenty of tactics, don't see how using fighters as a screen for capital ship weapons fire was ever going to be in any game of this scale. Bit like trying to use a fly to stop someone shooting a barn with a rifle.

You can look at manouvering at long range to keep all your ships in one of the VSD's arcs then it can only shoot one ship. Otherwise, try out flanking manouvers as the VSD is weak in the aft section. You have to bear in mind the play area is actually quite large for the size of the ships so there is plenty of manouvres space.

Also the game is objective driven, you can probably win without taking out the majority of the othersides ships if you complete the objectives of the game. Seems to me there are going to be lots of tactics and quite compliacted gambits being played.

This. I suspect that maneuvering and position will be more important than simply wiping out the enemy forces. After all, fighters are plentiful and expendable, while fewer big ships will be lost. This isn't to say that there won't be massacres, only that they will be rarer than in X-Wing.

Also keep in mind that the VSD's long range firepower is the same as a Neb-b's or a Cr-90a with concentrate fire. It's the brutal short range firepower coming off the front you have to worry about.

Or Medium Range, from a Vic 2.

Also the game is objective driven, you can probably win without taking out the majority of the othersides ships if you complete the objectives of the game. Seems to me there are going to be lots of tactics and quite compliacted gambits being played.

I cannot like this post enough.

Objectives can turn things upside down. It forces players to ask whether losing a ship is bad -- if losing that ship allows an Objective to be met...

Objectives also have a beautiful tendency to utterly stop "Hi-diddle-diddle, right up the middle," forcing us players to think about what we need to achieve, and economically allocate our limited resources to get the job done.

I'll need to play a few (dozen?) games to be sure. But what I have seen of the objective cards makes me think FFG is own the right tack.