A while back on the BGG X-Wing forum I read an Attack Wing player talk about how "120° deployment hasn't caught on to the X-Wing community yet" (very rough paraphrase). He just dropped that and I didn't ask him what he meant because that was way beyond the scope of the thread. I do kind of regret that, because I have grown curious over time. What would be the advantage of not lining up with the 90°? Can you plot better courses through obstacles? Is that even a thing in Attack Wing? I haven't touched that game, so I have no idea.

Google search didn't give me any hints towards this whole 120° thing even existing. Does someone here know what that guy was talking about?

Just in case this question is answered quickly, we could also discuss why there haven't been many innovations concerning deployment, manouvering and formations as of late that have gone public.

I ran into an angled deployment of a YV666 at a small tournament this past weekend. It worked really well for my opponent as the 180* firing arc at an angle really covers a lot of the board.

I think it makes a lot of sense, like if you see a good gap in the asteroids but it's not at a perfect 90* to your deployment area, then set up slightly offset of the gap and angle your ships to fly straight through it.

I suppose he means most X-Wing players line up their starting positions parallel to their side of the play surface and straight ahead of the opponent (see the example starting setups for most of the missions in the core set and expansions)

But I have (and have played against others that do this too) that stay within Range 1 of the map edge as prescribed by the rules, but orient the ships away from the opponent to some degree. This allows for a less direct 'jousting', '**** the torpedoes full steam ahead' kind of opening play. You can more easily navigate sideways across the board and take a couple of moves to determine your opponent's opening strategy

Doesn't Attack Wing have 4 banks and stuff?

The issue with angled deployment is it usually restricts how far you can move on the first turn. The exceptions are ships that can bank as far as their fastest straight, like a K-wing or an Unhinged Y (4 red), which actually get more distance angled.

Actually holy crap, TLT Unhinged Y's should deploy at a 45 in a corner.

Over the past 3 years I have seen pretty much almost every variant of deployment. Go watch some battle vids and you will see that people already do this. It just isn't the norm.

I have a friend that always deploys with his ships facing directly sideways, and he has them turn inwards once the same starts.

I have a theory (very tenuously, as I haven't got any statistics) that tiny deployment angles screw with your opponent.

I'm talking 5 to 10 degrees off of any 45-degree increment, not 30, though. Should make it slightly harder to predict, especially for banks, and it lets you get some really odd joust effects where a normal "on-grid" deployment would allow your opponent to perform non-colliding moves relatively easily.

I had posted that Attack Wing article on BGG up about 22.5 degrees, which allows a 3 bank to go about as far forward as a 4 straight had you lined up "normal". It also allows bobbing and weaving, while still leaving you in a semi-jousting orientation. The big advantage is when you add in barrel rolling, because small based ships can then potentially barrel roll into arc, leaving your straight ship without a shot. If you line up straight on, barrel rolling effectively is negated with a small ship to small ship combat, because you'll both be in or out of a shot. You may even find a better path through the asteroids/debris with any angle as opposed to straight on. I make sure to spread asteroids out to try and negate this effect.

It doesn't work very well with boosting turrets, as the lines they want down the side for maximum speed (to run) just doesn't happen if you're at an angle.

The article was shot down, but it still works surprising well for me. Just don't ever try it on Echo unless you want a melted brain!

Over the past 3 years I have seen pretty much almost every variant of deployment. Go watch some battle vids and you will see that people already do this. It just isn't the norm.

I haven't seen a youtube video yet where someone did not allign his ships so that they either were straight to the board edge or would be so after a bank manouver. I did try to deviate myself sometimes, but overall I haven't found enough of a benefit for it to be worth the effort. Situationaly to fit through asteroids part it is not a bad move, but I don't see a general advantage yet.

I had posted that Attack Wing article on BGG up about 22.5 degrees, which allows a 3 bank to go about as far forward as a 2 straight had you lined up "normal". It also allows bobbing and weaving, while still leaving you in a semi-jousting orientation. The big advantage is when you add in barrel rolling, because small based ships can then potentially barrel roll into arc, leaving your straight ship without a shot. If you line up straight on, barrel rolling effectively is negated with a small ship to small ship combat, because you'll both be in or out of a shot. You may even find a better path through the asteroids/debris with any angle as opposed to straight on. I make sure to spread asteroids out to try and negate this effect.

It doesn't work very well with boosting turrets, as the lines they want down the side for maximum speed (to run) just doesn't happen if you're at an angle.

The article was shot down, but it still works surprising well for me. Just don't ever try it on Echo unless you want a melted brain!

That are some really interesting points, now I have to get my ships and templates to try that out! 22.5° sounds so precise, did you do a lot of science to pinpoint that?

I ran into an angled deployment of a YV666 at a small tournament this past weekend. It worked really well for my opponent as the 180* firing arc at an angle really covers a lot of the board.

I think it makes a lot of sense, like if you see a good gap in the asteroids but it's not at a perfect 90* to your deployment area, then set up slightly offset of the gap and angle your ships to fly straight through it.

I've done this a number of times with large ships for precisely this reason. Makes it easier to shoot the gap with boats. But I've also been doing it lately with smaller ships to counter arc dodgers. I line them up off of center and barrel roll them towards the edge of the board as we come into range. They won't arc dodge towards the edge to get behind me and they're still in my arc when they waterbug the other direction.

There are some advantages to angled deployment. I like to deploy my interceptors slightly off-centre by about 10-15 degrees, but only if my opponent has deployed all of his ships in one corner. It allows easier arc-dodging via barrel roll (and still having a shot while your opponent does not). BUT! It only works in one direction. When turning the other way, you've actually made it harder for your ships to barrel roll and still get a shot (although boosting can fix that if you have room for both).

For example: if opponent deploys on his right (my left, looking across) and I deploy my ships on my right side with a slight rotation to the left, then as long as his ships stay to the left of mine, I have an easier time barrel rolling out of his arcs and still having a shot. As soon as I need to turn right to get an enemy ship in arc, then barrel rolling will likely take away my shot.

It can still be an advantage during the opening part of the game, but its not necessarily huge.

I've been seeing this from people for years.

Not all of the Attack wing templates are mirrors of the X-Wing templates. If they are on to something it may simply be due to having different templates.

I've been seeing this from people for years.

In what area? Never seen it in Germany. We are behind the curve on a lot of things, though. Last tournament were I have been people were shocked that I made a controll list work, when really it was just Panic Attack with Biggs subbed for one B-Wing because I only have two.

In all my many, monotonous games against them, I have seen an enemy PWT deploy directly facing me like three times

I'd also angle my TLTs, if K-wings didn't have SLAM for extra unpredictability and setting up approach vectors around obstacles

I've never played a game with a Lambda where it didn't start at 45 degrees in a corner, simply because it's the only time during the game when your opponent isn't going to know exactly where it's heading.

Maybe I should have been more specific in the title, angled deplyment at 45° is of course very common. Even the rule book does that! I was going for that very specific not template conforming angle jonnyd mentioned.

Depends on your squad. A swarm has trouble when its set up other than straight on or at 90 degrees, but agile ships do fine.

And yes, you can often find a clear channel at an angle that you won't straight on - which is good for turret ships.

Being able to slow roll into the fight is good as it means a less manouvrable opponent has to commit to his direction of attack, or mutually suppirting ships have time to stocj up on focus tokens (moldy crow), hand out locks (st-321) or whatever they do before the fight proper starts.

Quite a few people use 120 banked deployment in x wing. It's just that it benefits these arcs less than the AW arcs, which are a lot more diverse.

When I won the store tournament on Sunday, with TLT Y-Wings, I deployed in a wide-ish box formation in a corner 90 degrees from my edge, facing the far corner.

This allowed me to fly along my edge of the mat, without getting closer to the opponent and also making it easy to keep them at range 2-3. Some also got impatient and flew threw the rocks to try and catch up, leading to damage, lost actions and breaking up their formation.

I've seen this for years. It's not new. Just not as common as a straight on.

Some of the posts here make me wonder if some people even bother to read more than the title of the thread...

Its fine if you knew this was a thing. Good for you. That information alone is worth nothing to anyone else, though. If you have experiences then we benefit more from a discussion of advantages and disadvantages.

Just to be save here, I am not angry at anyone, I'm just promoting a forum with better content.

Players in our area have done it alot. What we figured out was that thanks to the less than 90° angle of the standard arc it could catch some of guard if you accounted for that in your deployment by shaving three degrees to one side. Fell out of fashion after awhile. I attribute the reversion to orthodox deployment on ease of seeing the board and the increasing number of large based ship's we were experiencing.

Some of the posts here make me wonder if some people even bother to read more than the title of the thread...

Its fine if you knew this was a thing. Good for you. That information alone is worth nothing to anyone else, though. If you have experiences then we benefit more from a discussion of advantages and disadvantages.

Just to be save here, I am not angry at anyone, I'm just promoting a forum with better content.

Sorry - not seeing the problem with the responses. It was a vague title to begin with - one that you even clarified yourself in the third or fourth post. Are you frustrated you aren't getting the answers you want? People both answered the title "yes, it's a thing" and have discussed some strategy and implications and even pointed to other resources. (shrug)

I've played around with 22.5 (or roughly half of 45 degree angle offsets) a little bit. There are probably other advantages, but the one that struck me from the outset is that you sort of get an extra set of moves. A straight on approach lets you do a hard-away, a bank-away, or straight. The slightly offset gives you an even harder turn away from your opponents, and more variation in your more directly approaching moves, which can be useful. You give up a hard-away set in one direction, but if you've got that direction blocked by a board edge or an asteroid field, you only gain maneuverability.

The above was pretty hard to understand, probably, so here's an example.

If my opponent deploys in a corner, I may want to deploy straight across from them in my corner on the same side of the board (the not-diagonal corner). If I set up straight at them, I really can't use my turns toward the board edge, and the banks are very limited. If I set up about 20 degrees rotated inward, I can pretty safely bank toward the board edge (while still being pointed at my opponent), and sometimes turn if I have short turns.