You should try an intentional draw so you get to have the full "fair play experience" FFG wants.

Take your NaCl somewhere else, please. We're trying to have a discussion here.

I ran some numbers this afternoon to figure out how this can happen and if there's anything tactically that can be done about it.

As I previously posted, 2 red dice versus 3 green dice is about a 30% chance of landing damage at range 2. If the defender is holding a focus ("eyeball") for defense, the chance drops to a meager 10%.

So, if everyone is flying defensive, splitting into one-on-one duels, staying at arm's length (range 2+) and holding their focus for defense, nothing much is going to happen.

What to do? The old WWII pilot adage of being aggressive, getting in close, and bringing a wingman applies here.

1) Aggression: instead of holding onto the focus for defense. If the attacker uses it up for the attack, it somewhat negates the defender's focus, and "doubles" your chance from 10% to 20% at range 2. Sure it makes you vulnerable, but if you want to punch someone, you're gonna have to expect to get punched back.

2) Get in close (range 1), and that adds +1 red die to your to-hit, and that boosts your odds to 40%, when everyone is using a focus.

3) Have a wingman to concentrate fire -- if the defender already used their focus against a previous attack, then if you're in close, using your focus for attack, against a target that doesn't have one, your odds jump to 70% of landing at least one damage (25% of landing 2 damage).

The Advanced Tie and Rebel ships have one more trick: the lock on. Locking on can be done from any angle, and persist across turns. The lock on allows you to re-roll any attack dice of you choosing, so typically allows rerolls of the dice that missed. It also stacks with a focus eyeball. So if you lock-on when you don't have a good shot, and save it to shoot later when you are in close and can add a focus, then your odds are still 66% of landing at least one damage against a nimble 3-green die ship using their focus in defense. If your wingman's attack forced them to use it, then your chance screams to 90% (40% to land 2 damage).

The X-wing only has 2 green dice. So applying these principles will hurt even Poe. If you use your focus for attack, you get almost 50/50 odds of landing damage up close. The Advanced Tie piling a lock on on top of that can get up to 75% to cause damage. If you can get Poe to collide or stress out so he can't use his special, then you're looking at 80-90% odds of doing damage in close.

Of course using your focus for attack will make your vulnerable, so you will have to make the tactical decision to do damage or play it safe, depending on positioning. But the game will certainly start to get more interesting when you do since everything will start to take damage.

So just academically from the numbers, I suspect the thing that the OP is missing is getting inside range 1, and aggressively using the focus eyeballs for attack rather than holding them for defense. To advance the game requires taking a chance and being aggressive. The challenge then, is moving your ships so they can get those range 1 shots or acquire a lockon as often as possible while minimizing being shot at without having a focus eyeball available for defense.

All excellent points and points well taken. Our rebel aces/tie interceptor/tie phantom order arrives tomorrow from Amazon; we'll try it out then.

The Tie Phantom won't help your situation. It will only make it worse.

TIE Phantom is the king of glass cannon. Huge damage potential, not forgiving at all on mistakes. Instead of pilots and upgrades, I would suggest you guys make the biggest fleets you can for either side with all generic ships. (Even the phantom!)

You'll find with the generics that you can see what each ship is trying to do. How it moves. Then you can augment with upgrades and really start to flesh out strategies! With all the stuff you guys have coming in you should be close to 100 points on either side. More ships on the board will mean stuff dies a lot faster if you can focus fire, as well as flying 4ish ships on each side should be about right for 100 points.

Lastly on the phantom: Be sure you are using the current errata for Cloaking which says you decloak at the beginning of the turn before everyone moves, not right before IT activates and moves.

Tie Phantoms are the worst case of Rock/Paper/Scissors around. There are counters to it that are hard counters. If you can counter the Phantom, it just rolls over and dies. If you don't have the tools to defeat the Phantom, it can kill your whole list on it's own.

Worst. Ship. Ever.

When I was just getting into the game, and just scrimmaging against myself, I would pay no attention to points. Just randomly select a pilot card for each ship I wanted to play, usually just caring about having the same number of ships per side. Then I would load each one to the gills by filling every available upgrade slot. Yeah, some matches were way unbalanced. But it was fun and constantly allowed me to try different things. Learn what works by doing!

Tie Phantoms are the worst case of Rock/Paper/Scissors around. There are counters to it that are hard counters. If you can counter the Phantom, it just rolls over and dies. If you don't have the tools to defeat the Phantom, it can kill your whole list on it's own.

Worst. Ship. Ever.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, you decide), the views and opinions expressed in heychadwick's post do not reflect the views and opinions of the community as a whole. YMMV.

The phantom seems to me to be a great addition to what you have so far, and it will definitely solve your "Fly to a standstill" problem. It's a very powerful ship in some circumstances that can die very easily in other circumstances, so one way or another with a phantom on the table one player is probably going to lose a big chunk of his fleet relatively fast and then be fighting an uphill battle the rest of the game.

I'd think that the Phantom won't help in that regard. Well, it would be a one sided help. The Phantom would get to smash whatever it shoots at and then evade all shots incoming. It will push their games towards high PS turrets.

Or simply high PS.

Oh, wait! Like in the original meta! xD

I know what you need. A DECIMATOR. Oicunn DECIMATES.

Mara Jade and Rebel captive for extra crispy buttocks. Makes even Phantom cry.