I'm aiming to enter the competitive aspect of this game more than I have done so far and have attended a couple of tournaments. My success has been so-so with about as many wins as I have losses. I try to cram in as many games as possible and have tried out as many lists as time permits, but I have had the most luck with palp ace (Vader and Soontir), reb regen 3 x T-70 (Poe, Ello and novice) and my personal favourite 3 imp aces (Vader, Soontir, Turr).

While I have fun flying I have to admit that I fly more by the seat of my pants than by design and long-game planning. Thus I feel I need to improve my skills but don't rightly know where to begin apart from watching batreps online and reading blogs and posts.

Should I limit myself to just playing one list at every opportunity, should I play with myself (pun intended), should I memorize moment dials etc...etc...

What does the big guys in this "sport" do? What have you done and what worked for you?

Thanks for any inputs.

I don't.

Most people use Vassal.

one thing I've found is playing one general list or ship and just playing with it to get used to it.

also sometimes it's good to just set up an assault course by yourself and give yourself some rules for going through.

Also the attain cluster thingymajob as basic commands that enemy sips will use to fight I've found you can plug those into a normal game and use those to fly against and just practice too.

there are some great online visual aids for getting keep up with turning but all in all it's means doing something with the ships as much as possible.

I also use startactics app for android and there are others out there and keep building a list and making variations of the list to try and perfect it

I watch videos on Youtube

Vassal is great for practicing opening moves, special maneuvers ect.

Another simple exercise to help you estimate distances and maneuvers:

Grab a ship and matching dial, some obstacles (optional), your maneuver templates and a clear base of the same size as the ship. Set the dial, then place the clear base where you think the ship is going to end up. Then place the appropriate maneuver template and see where the ship would actually end up and how much your guess is off. Keep practicing until you can place the clear base almost perfect.

Also, this video has some good tips:

Like starrius said, set yourself up a play field and practice flying your competitive list through it. Limiting yourself to playing the one list will help you dial in your movement predictions and work out the list synergies prior to starting competitive play.

Take it one step further once you've got some practice under your belt and get a few non-competitive games in against different meta lists if you have the opportunity and an available opponent.

Watching high-end vassal games is good. Having someone else you can regularly discuss builds and strategies with also helps a lot.

Serious, no joke. If you want to get a better perspective of the game, train your mind and enhance your concentration...

PLAY GO!!!

It is an amazing game and enhances your "Perception"

chess is good for forward thinking

I did the same this year so I can give you my experience.

I entered as many store championships as I could. i had assumed I'd be working a lot more than I actually was and I wouldn't make all of them. In the end I made most of them. So Jan, Feb, mar I had a SC every weekend and twice 2. Playing so many games in a short period against excellent players really upd my game. Instead of facing something for the first time, it might be the second or third time I faced the list and the fear was gone or I had a plan in place

Afterwards, I tried to analyse and problem solve where the matches were lost. I read forum posts on placements, strategy ( which there are surprisingly few of), lists. I watched you tubes videos and listened to the podcasts. Pretty much full on xwing immersion. Playing vassal was excellent as the standard is very high on there and you'll see combos and play styles you never even imagined

The end result: 3 SC wins so it is doable from a relative newbie. What I've also learnt most recently is the benefit of playing all the ships/ current meta lists. I think that's a slight advantage the "older" players have. I tend to play one list to get really good at it which is really beneficial. However it's great when you know an opponents list because you've played it- you know the decisions he has to make because you know how the ship moves/ plays.

And realising that even the best players lose. Just have fun

Grab a ship and matching dial, some obstacles (optional), your maneuver templates and a clear base of the same size as the ship. Set the dial, then place the clear base where you think the ship is going to end up. Then place the appropriate maneuver template and see where the ship would actually end up and how much your guess is off. Keep practicing until you can place the clear base almost perfect.

That sound like a fun and enlightening exercise. I'll combine with what others have said about obstacle courses. Seems I also should get Vassal. Thanks for the tip.

I'm aiming to enter the competitive aspect of this game more than I have done so far and have attended a couple of tournaments. My success has been so-so with about as many wins as I have losses. I try to cram in as many games as possible and have tried out as many lists as time permits, but I have had the most luck with palp ace (Vader and Soontir), reb regen 3 x T-70 (Poe, Ello and novice) and my personal favourite 3 imp aces (Vader, Soontir, Turr).

Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.

obligatoryintentionaldrawsquip

And realising that even the best players lose. Just have fun

This is a great point for me. I tend to get all competitive in my mindset and expecting to do better than I do (even though I rationally know I'm an underdog), so when I loose it hits me harder than it should.

And realising that even the best players lose. Just have fun

This is a great point for me. I tend to get all competitive in my mindset and expecting to do better than I do (even though I rationally know I'm an underdog), so when I loose it hits me harder than it should.

This article is brilliant as well:

http://stayontheleader.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/in-my-experience-theres-no-such-thing.html

I'm taking psychic training at night school so i can read my opponents mind.

I think I will also work on Jedi mind trick e.g wave hand slowly and say "you want to fly your phantom off the side game field"

If you have an Android phone, you can get the X-wing Companion app that has almost all the details for every ship in such a great format. You can look stuff up all the time and just get to know all the cards out there.

There are podcasts to listen to.

YouTube videos to watch.

You can set up a table with asteroids and just fly through them all to get used to your ships.

Learn to estimate the maneauvers. Take the templates and a few bases and visualize where they get you and how much distance you covered.

We've done a trick where we put out our list, setup an asteroid field, and flip a marker onto it somewhere randomly. You have 1 turn to get shots on that marker. Flip marker again, 1 turn, 2 max. Etc etc. Bonus for range 1 shots. Just keep maneuvering around obstacles and reacting to the changing marker location.

Thinking ahead (play chess!) will also help greatly. Try not to get TOO far ahead of yourself, but I'm always thinking about 2 turns ahead. I'm trying to get faster at it but with so many ships and possibilities its pretty difficult. Strain your brain!

Also +1 to everything Higgo said. Can't like that post enough.

I'm taking psychic training at night school so i can read my opponents mind.

I think I will also work on Jedi mind trick e.g wave hand slowly and say "you want to fly your phantom off the side game field"

If your psychic training is worth the time, you should be able to manipulate enough die rolls that your opponent won't need to fly off the mat.

It seems there are two main skills:

- predict where your opponent will fly, and fly your ships in a way that denies him shots but gives you shots. (with more advanced players there is a certain battle of wills here because you could also predict how your opponent thinks you might fly and how he will fly his ships to counter that, so you just counter that instead)

- visual accuracy in estimating final placement of ships to choose proper maneuvers

My only strategy for dealing with turrets ships and shoot them often and hard.

And of course a squad build that capitalizes best on these aspects.

Oh, and asteroid placement. And beginning placement of ships. Gah!

Let's not forget the most important strategy: let the Wookiee win.

I watch youtube videos of matches. Specifically the lastest store champs and now regionals. That's going to be your best-not-actually-playing info, IMO.

I also use http://xws-bench.github.io/bench/#to play around with builds. I just can't get into Vassal. The AI for benchmark is, of course, no replacement for a human opponent, but it's easier than setting up solo games with the physical components.

Having said that, I also used to practice manuvers solo with the components. Not so much now, but when I was learning, it was pretty useful for practicing eyeballing manuvers.

For this year, I made a document with all my gameplay notes. I think I'll post it here after Regionals. I tried to work on stuff that is hard to qualify outside of "Practice!". For example, it's easy to say "Focus fire", but it's another to actually stick to it during a game, when ships are flying all around, and choosing between a damaged ship at range 3, and an undamaged ship at range 1.

I also use http://xws-bench.github.io/bench/#to play around with builds. I just can't get into Vassal. The AI for benchmark is, of course, no replacement for a human opponent, but it's easier than setting up solo games with the physical components.

Wow, that github thing seems like a nice alternative to vassal. Thanks for the tip.

NO! Try not! Do, or do not. There is no try.

Squad benchmark is a decent little tool to learn to fly without getting everything out of the box.