So, one of the things I love about a game is the ability for the losing side to turn the tables and take the lead.

I often call this the TSN turning point. Many games have this and it's best not based solely on luck, but the ability to find alternative strategies or routes to victory.

I've playd a lot of X-Wing and it's not always the person who loses the first ship who loses. With good flying you can still create localized areas of superiority (or even not give your opponent a shot). Heroscape is also great for this by switching up the order markers.

I've played my first four games of skirmish and it seems like once you take the lead it just steamrolls. Once you hit that tipping point, there's not much the losing side can do to switch it up.

Is this my lack of experience? Have others found the same?

I've found that losing some pieces early is not a big deal, as long as you have put some decent damage on your opponent's pieces...that's because it's usually not terribly difficult to chase down those wounded pieces to even the score.

But yes, once a steam-roller gets rolling, it's hard to stop it. If you lose a couple of your key pieces, you're kinda screwed if you haven't done significant damage of your own.

I've been playing Imperial Assault Skirmish with my friends for about 6 months now at least.

At first it seemed like the side that got an early lead would be the one that wins. Now that we're all relatively experienced though, it definitely doesn't feel that way as often. List building is important. There are some lists that just aren't very competitive and will get mopped up easily. But when the lists are even, it can honestly go either way.

Most of the losses I've experienced come down to bad positioning or not thinking through what I'm doing. Even when things are bleak, we've had some amazing comeback games where we all thought one side was going to win, but careful activation and better positioning ended up swinging it around to the other side.

So to answer your question: yes, sometimes its a blowout. But often that's more do to careless positioning or a poorly designed skirmish list. If two players are playing strategically and not overcommiting their troops, you can end up with some pretty down to the wire battles.

I won a skirmish game against my brother with only Diala at only one health left. My brother had about half of his squad left. The mission was Sabacc Standoff and the table ended up being worth 33 points. Although it depends on the mission, I think objectives help to allow a losing player to come back fairly well.