Ravncat has put up two topics now talking about the importance of attack lines. Simply put, attack lines are the paths the ships in your squadron follow from their starting positions throughout the course of the game. They're the approach vectors you take to engage and disengage from the enemy.

Going beyond the definitions, Ravncat proposes that they are the most important part of the game. I'm not here to support or refute this argument. Instead, I've attempted to ask the question, "Starting from a game where you already know the results, what can you learn from the attack lines that were followed?"

YMMV. To many experienced players, I don't presume to say I'll be teaching you much. To many folks with good spatial imaginations, I don't suppose the following images will show you much you couldn't have thought through on your own.

But I do think that the following images have a lot of potential to be informative, and I do think that some of the conclusions drawn can be applicable in many cases.

What I have done to produce the images is take the Team Covenant Aces pheaver vs Sideslip match and tracked the positions of all the ships for the duration of their lifetime in the game. Then, I've 'connected the dots' from the centers of the bases of the ships at each point along the way to draw a coherent path, which corresponds to the attack line.

The lists flown were:

pheaver: 100 Points (Initiative)

Prototype Pilot (17)

Chardaan Refit (-2)

Autothrusters (2)

Blue Squadron Pilot (22)

Fire-Control System (2)

Gold Squadron Pilot (18)

Twin Laser Turret (6)

Miranda Doni (29)

Twin Laser Turret (6)

Sideslip: 100 Points

Maarek Stele (27)

Predator (3)

Advanced Targeting Computer (1)

TIE/x1 (0)

Juno Eclipse (28)

Veteran Instincts (1)

Cluster Missiles (4)

Accuracy Corrector (0)

Engine Upgrade (4)

TIE/x1 (0)

Omicron Group Pilot (21)

Enhanced Scopes (1)

Emperor Palpatine (8)

Anti-Pursuit Lasers (2)

Paul Heaver won this match in 11 rounds, the casualties were as follows:

Turn 3: B-Wing dead

Turn 6: Y-Wing dead

Turn 7: Maarek dead

Turn 9: Omicron dead

Turn 11: Juno dead

And now, the attack lines.

We begin with the start positions.

There's a few things that we can say from the get-go.

pheaver's setup takes one of the earliest articles I ever read about flying in formation and just does the opposite. It's hard to consider that he could use this initial setup to concentrate fire on a priority target (and that's actually true; in his own words post-game, "I spread the damage around like peanut butter"). It looks like Miranda's set to stick to the top edge and kite around the asteroids, while everyone else is looking to approach the enemy force through the thinnest region of the obstacles. That's partially true, but a big surprise for me was that the Y-Wing (furthest from Miranda!) decided to follow the K-Wing.

Sideslip's setup looks more standard, and-- with his mostly higher pilot skill plus post-maneuver abilities-- has several options for what it might do. He might run Juno fast up the bottom edge and close on the Y-Wing while baiting with Maarek and the Shuttle, or he might just as soon send Maarek up the right edge with a first round turn maneuver and let Juno and the Shuttle do some of the heavy lifting. It's also possible that the Shuttle will hang back and let both TIE/A's do the work (given its VIP crew), but in that case the APLs will not trigger as often, so he might also fly the Shuttle into the thick of it and try to park.

Well! Here's how things actually went:

And that is just a cluttered mess of lines, so I want to take it ship-by-ship, and for simplicity I'll go in order of death.

The B-Wing starts by banking towards the top edge, before doing a hard turn and heading straight for the three closest asteroids to the Imperial position. We'd have to ask pheaver whether this was a deliberate feint, or whether he was going to use the B to head off a possible right-side flanker and simply changed directions when it became clear that that wasn't a threat. But whatever the case, the B-Wing ultimately committed to the close-in engagement, approached the Imperials head-on, and got vaporized.

Next is the Y-Wing, who immediately turned towards Miranda and the top edge, deciding to skirt around the asteroids. This forces the TIE Advanceds to consider as many obstacles as possible if they want to close to its Range 1 blind spot. It played close to these obstacles, and, at time of death, had effectively forced the Imperials to choose between shots at itself or Miranda-- and the Imperials chose the Y.

Maarek fell next. He started the game with a 2 Forward, which didn't preclude the possibility of him turning towards the top edge; but on the next turn, he banked through the asteroids for a shot at the B-Wing. For the killing shot on the B-Wing, Sideslip used the OGP to block Maarek, securing a Range 1 attack. The rest of Maarek's life was an effort to get back into battle.

The Shuttle receives notoriety for being the least-maneuverable of all the ships in this game. A turn 1 move of 1 Forward still gives it options of avoiding the asteroids, either to the right or below, but by the second turn it has committed to its attack line by banking towards the nearest gap in the asteroids to start tracking the B-Wing. Once this target is out of the way, we see the lumbering beast make the tightest circle it can-- not even worrying about the obstacles in the way-- but to little avail: it does get into a pursuit vector on Miranda, but dies the death of a thousand paper cuts.

Juno is the last of the Imperial squad to bite the dust. She took the faster route, aiming for the second gap in the asteroids along the bottom edge. She turns in, and after the B-Wing has succumbed, flies along a route that lets her take out the Y-Wing, and then back along a route that's in pursuit of Miranda. Her barrel-roll in front of the largest asteroid was part of an arc-dodge here that forced her into a sub-optimal move. She makes a valiant effort, and puts in a 4 K-turn at the end, only to be dealt a killing blow.

Miranda flew the long way around the asteroid cluster. Avoiding the direct engagement, she was still often able to take Range 3 TLT shots. And, even without the alluring Adv.SLAM + mine combo, the SLAM action saw use at several points in the game. Perhaps the most notable was two turns from the end, where she made a 2 Turn and then SLAM'ed for the 2 Bank for a solid block on Juno. Miranda's pilot ability did not see any use until the late-game, where the dying Shuttle and Juno's Accuracy Corrected 2 dice weren't able to stick any lasting damage.

The Prototype Pilot flew a very interesting route. Except for opportunistic shots, the A-Wing was never considered the biggest threat, so it did a lot of harassment; this is reflected in the seemingly abrupt changes in direction, as it tries to close on the different Imperial targets. This proved effective enough; for instance, it was to avoid a Range 1 shot from the A-Wing that prompted Juno's arc dodge, sending her through the large asteroid a turn later. As maneuverable as it is, the A-Wing's attack line was ultimately constrained by the asteroids. But, given how nicely it frames the right-most asteroid, it's readily apparent that the route could have gone pretty much any other way without feeling particularly hampered.

Now, it's probably helpful to look at all of the routes of one side versus the other, and make some comments there.

Here are the Imperial routes superimposed. Until turn 3, all of the Imperial ships maintain the same facing. That's the round where the B-Wing dies, and after that target is eliminated, several things have to happen. First, the Shuttle has to turn around to deal with the Rebel turret ships coming around from the top to the right edge. Second, Juno-- who had boosted in an attempt to get arc on the B-Wing-- has to get through the thickest part of the obstacles that she's heading right towards. And then third, Maarek has to clear both of these guys with his next move, hopefully while also getting out of turret range. So it's clearing this traffic jam that causes the TIE/Adv.'s to split up. They can't stick closely with the Shuttle, and the way the blocks and boosts had gone really kept them from aligning their attack lines.

Here's the Rebel routes. On the first turn, it really looks like pheaver wanted to fly everybody over the top of the obstacles. Or maybe that was a feint. Either way, the K-Wing takes the longest route on two occasions-- once with the Y, and once with the A. This leads to the Y-Wing's death, which is a good result for Miranda, and this also leads to Juno having to chase the K, which lets the A-Wing approach from behind.

I think it's tempting, but unreasonable, to conclude that the Imperials lost their advantage as soon as they were forced to split their attack lines. I think that's a coincidental issue, and moreover I disagree with the idea that there's any single instance that causes a game to be won or lost.

What I think is more informative, and more valuable from the perspective of application to future games, is to consider how the various ships can move.

Look at the turrets, for instance. Yeah, we know that turrets like to kite, especially when they're protecting a Range 1 spot. But look at how they go about it. Look at what other routes would work. What if the Imperials went hard along the bottom edge. That makes Miranda truncate her drifting route if she wants to take shots; you can draw many other possible routes that she could go to get her attacks in. Now consider the Lambda's route. That turnaround circle can only be a little bit smaller than that. So ask yourself, "how can I move my ships with respect to the obstacles so that my opponent's choice is as limited as possible?" On this map, I mentioned that he could have turned toward the right edge, or followed along the bottom, instead of banking through the nearest gap in the asteroids. If he goes along the right edge, the best place for him to turn towards the board center becomes the gap between the large asteroid and the debris token. If he goes along the bottom, and aims for the second gap instead of the first, he opens up for ships to get behind him a little easier-- but only if they're in position to take advantage of that. Look at how comparatively angular ships who use their K-turns are. Given the rules behind setting obstacles, there's any number of accessible alleys for this sort of use. But rather than finding the nearest one, ask yourself which one works best for the attack path the rest of your ships are following. Consider what it could look like a couple rounds later. Consider how your opening moves can force your opponent to make different choices.

So that's my contribution the the thoughts surrounding attack lines. Again, I'm not here to say one way or the other what's really right. I'm here to give you at the very least a few pretty pictures and a summary of a good match between high-level players, and at the most some inspiring ways of thinking about the way you put your ships on the table.

Of all the games Paul and I have played, you had to showcase this one?

Interesting analysis.I haven't really thought about my games like this before.

Attack lines become less important with time - or in other words, they're most important in the opening stages of the game - where they have most influence on the later stages. By the endgame, the attack line is pretty much just reactionary dogfight. The idea being that they determine where opening combat takes place, and how ships move into mid game (they also tell us which ships are involved in opening combat.)

(This is why I only show the first few turns in the first post. I went a little further in the second post, to show more of where things get to in the midgame, based on the different initial positions.) I think we can also accept that often the opening exchanges of fire can set a slippery slope in motion - and an idea that I got from Doug Kinney "Damage now is better than Damage later" apply here too.

Notice how the turrets kite, and the b-wing and a-wing feint upwards, but come around - while the tempests and shuttle fly up into the bottleneck of asteroids, where Maarek doesn't really want to turn right through them though he can, and the rebels can exit into open space. The rebel lines look good. The early imperial lines look ok, but set up for trouble headed back northeast especially for Juno and the Shuttle, which the rebel player seemed to exploit, and given the early feint, likely did so intentionally, that's where the imperials broke up formation on the rocks too.

P.S. - This was written with just the pictures, before reading what you had to say - to let me see what I could predict from what I saw!

Interestingly, now that I'm looking at this as a reader, I can see it's a bit difficult to really see where ships are on the line at different turn stages (When did miranda use slam, or the A-wing boost straight...) especially without the turn by turn images, so next time I do this i'll try to make the turn positions noticeable. (Not a fault on you at all! - I'm still learning how to display and interpret all this information too : ) )

- It also makes me wonder if looking at firing arc / turret arc each turn would be a good idea - as that shows where the attacks are happening each turn - which are a direct result of approach. Finally - I'll claim that while I place strong value on the approach section of the attack line - and state that they are the most important in determining a victory - That doesn't say the amount of importance (eg is it 35% of the importance or 95%) - (so people shouldn't conclude that I dismiss the value of dice entirely)

Of all the games Paul and I have played, you had to showcase this one?

Interesting analysis.I haven't really thought about my games like this before.

A little while ago I grabbed a handful of VASSAL logs from the current TCA league postings. When I decided to make these pictures, I chose to do it for a match I hadn't watched yet.

Luck of the draw, that's all!

P.S. - This was written with just the pictures, before reading what you had to say - to let me see what I could predict from what I saw!Interestingly, now that I'm looking at this as a reader, I can see it's a bit difficult to really see where ships are on the line at different turn stages (When did miranda use slam, or the A-wing boost straight...) especially without the turn by turn images, so next time I do this i'll try to make the turn positions noticeable. (Not a fault on you at all! - I'm still learning how to display and interpret all this information too : ) )

- It also makes me wonder if looking at firing arc / turret arc each turn would be a good idea - as that shows where the attacks are happening each turn - which are a direct result of approach. Finally - I'll claim that while I place strong value on the approach section of the attack line - and state that they are the most important in determining a victory - That doesn't say the amount of importance (eg is it 35% of the importance or 95%) - (so people shouldn't conclude that I dismiss the value of dice entirely)

I briefly considered tracking actions, which would give a good turn number indicator (especially if I also distinguished when a bump occurred).

Then I thought, well, I should also track what attacks were declared and how much damage was dealt.

And by the time it gets that far, I'd do just as well to lay out the templates so that there's a maximum amount of information.

So I nixed those ideas, because it was going to be so much more work, and even with just this much stuff there was a lot of clutter!

Thanks for reading

There was a wire frame xwing program around like 2 years ago that I used to plot opening moves and such. A little less colorful than vassal and not nearly the ships but it was nice to see full tracking line.

Great point for discussion here. Love it.