There are more ways than just accept the tournament scene or quit the game. Casual X-wing is an utterly viable alternative.

I"m not saying he has to play in tournaments, use meta lists, or anything vaguely like that. He said he wanted to understand the game better, so I was trying to provide some advice on how to accomplish that.

Points 1, 3, and 4 can be skipped by netlisting. You'll be able to get a grasp on what upgrades combo well with certain other upgrades and pilot abilities, and you'll be able to focus on just playing the game well instead of being stuck with an awful squad for multiple rounds.

Well, to an extent. But you can run a net list better if you understand why it's put together that way than just copying the list and not knowing what to do with it.

Basically, I'm in the "teach a man to fish" camp. Giving him a list and a brief explanation of it will help him today, but it's not as good for the longer term.

i have to admit though i feel your pain on the locals not being very welcoming to newcomers.

My xwing locals were cool when i started. I faced aces a few times while learning but they atleast left palp out of the picture. And they were willing to help me remember the rules and figure out quirks here and there. Except one guy that ended up moving away recently because nobody liked him lol (friendly game? ok lemmie grab my triple uboat list... it isnt using R4 so its friendly)

The local Warmahordes guys on the other hand made me ragequit that game. I had a lot of trolls and i was liking the game (picked up someone else's army for 300, was around 700 new and all metal). Then i moved to this area and my attempt to join with the local warmahorde group was met with diehard tournament people that utterly refuse to not run netlists or give a lick of advice. The kind of people that "ok its your turn lemmie grab my phone" and be completely invisible while i move my stuff or think...unless i did something illegal of course. Not dumb, just illegal.

I had something like 10 games under my belt before moving here. Think i did like 20 around here before i said feth it and sold my trolls.

That being said though never sell your models unless you are tight on cash and need it now. Despite the locals pissing me off, i really wish i never sold my trolls. Mk3 came out recently and it sounds like the game got a lot better, but i just cant justify rebuying into it.

This is the reason i still hang onto something like 8000pts of Orks and 7000pts of Tau for Warhammer 40k, even though i havent touched that game in months. I could probably get close to 3000 between the two armies, but its worth more than that new....by a large margin. If i ever wanted back in the game, i would be shooting myself in the foot. Nope, not selling them (but man do they take up space....i have a doubledoor closet in my bedroom i cant use because its STUFFED with 40k gak lol)

i have literally never "ever" heard the term wolfpack or chihuahua for xwing lists. Either in person or on this forum. Dont ever give people crap because they havnt heard your local terms for specific lists, it makes you come off as a bit of an asshat. Though i think you already did that earlier anyway.

In fact, wolfpack makes me think thats a term for the 4Fang list.

Not local terms either, wolfpack is from this forum and chihuahua too. And I did not give him crap for not knowing one term, but all of them and not even being able to contextualize them.

Googling "wolfpack list x.wing" takes 10s flat and you already understand what the guy who tried to help you meant. To be honest, I don't even like chihuahua or wolfpack, because they are rather inefficient terms to describe tripple scout of a-wing crack swarm. ;-)

I hate to weigh in on this but I think you should know that your comments were just unfriendly, unwelcoming and honestly did seem hostile. You may have had good intent and purpose in responding but it surely did not come through. Not trying to offend but you should know since it seems that you were unaware of how your comments were understood by many.

Hope this helps,

It does help.

And just to make it clear. Making a hostile post was not my intent, even when I did care little about being friendly either. Usually I don't care about being an ******* either, so let me try to find right apology which is actually honest.

I apologize.

Hmmm, that was easier than I thought.

I feel like you've had a fairly bad experience with the game. Metaphorically speaking you wanted to dip your toes in the water, and you've just been dumped in the deep end & told to swim.

Netlisting is definitely an option, but I feel it's important if you can to go through the process of making lists. To have an understanding of why something is good or bad, as opposed to just being told "this is good" or "this is bad" does make you a better player.

The local tournament scene does sound somewhat like you're bringing a knife to a gunfight; but probably only because no-one in your local area seems to have the human decency to help you improve your game.

Post up which expansions you own, and what your preferred faction is.

I'm sure we can knock out something reasonably good from your collection and give you a few pointers for flying it.

Also, do check out Vassal, and the squadron benchmark site (I believe they'll be linked in one of the pinned topics at the top of the forum). They're not a perfect substitute for actual games by any means, but they'll help a bit.

Most importantly, please don't let a few {I really want to use an expletive here but I won't} bad examples sour you on this game... Contrary to what you have experienced, most players are decent human beings.

There are more ways than just accept the tournament scene or quit the game. Casual X-wing is an utterly viable alternative.

I"m not saying he has to play in tournaments, use meta lists, or anything vaguely like that. He said he wanted to understand the game better, so I was trying to provide some advice on how to accomplish that.

Points 1, 3, and 4 can be skipped by netlisting. You'll be able to get a grasp on what upgrades combo well with certain other upgrades and pilot abilities, and you'll be able to focus on just playing the game well instead of being stuck with an awful squad for multiple rounds.

Well, to an extent. But you can run a net list better if you understand why it's put together that way than just copying the list and not knowing what to do with it.

Basically, I'm in the "teach a man to fish" camp. Giving him a list and a brief explanation of it will help him today, but it's not as good for the longer term.

Yeah, and what better way to teach someone to run a net list than to just have them use that net list.

Yeah, I agree. This group sounds like a bunch of jerks. I just started the game recently myself but my experience has been totally different from yours.

Our game store was just starting a Padawan (beginner's) league so joined up. Everyone in the league has been friendly and casual. There are a couple guys that are semi-experienced and tending to win more often, but that's fine because they're still nice guys that are fun to play against and I've won a couple times against them. I do like *some* competitive pressure because it encourages me to improve my own play and I feel like I'm learning a lot.

One thing I do every game is take a pic of my opponents pilot & upgrade cards so I can go over their list later on and see how it works. Oh! So that's how they were getting that nasty combo! Next time I'll recognize it, or maybe I can use it myself, or read online and discover a weakness in it.

The Padawan league just ended so we're all about to join the bigger pool of players, although I expect we'll still seek out games against each other too. And there will probably be another Padawan league in a few months for the next batch of guys.

Wow, where the heck are you playing? I'm in Phoenix Squadron, and we have a large group of super great X-Wing players, but the group is also very open to new guys. Casual nights across several stores. Does your area have a Facebook group? I'd recommend finding other newer guys to play with and not just the uber competitive 5-6 guys. I play a lot of X-Wing and I am very competitive, but I will always have time to talk to or play with a new guy if they are there and needing a game when I am. I find most of my games through our Facebook group. A quick post about when I want to play usually finds someone who wants to join me at whatever stores I'm available to go to. I'd hope your area is the same, especially if the tourney scene is as competitive as it is. Find someone who learns the way you do (I like to talk after the game to analyze different moves - and if I'm actually preparing for a major tournament, during a match I will pause to discuss what we were thinking move-wise).

It is a great game, and I have encountered way less of the power-gamer types that you describe than I ever did when I was doing Warhammer.

Good luck... and I hope you find your enjoyment in the game.

Daniel

So, this is something of a rant and something of a plea for help.

I'm an experienced war-gamer. I've played a lot of different games, most of them historical, and done well. I feel like I have a solid grip on tactics and strategy. I went into X-Wing thinking this would be the case. A new medium to explore. Challenging in some ways, sure, but eventually my experience would win out and I would begin experiencing victories.

I was wrong.

The first, and most obvious, detriment to my game is that my local meta is a group of absolute cutthroat, hyper-competitive players. That's ok. I'm hyper-competitive and cutthroat too. BUT these guys have all been playing each other practically every weekend (there's almost always a store championship, etc. given the number of hobby stores within an hours drive of me) and these guys are always playing against each other. This year, it's been the same 5-6 people in the top 5 of almost every tournament.

They've all got large collections, a few years of experience (I've only been playing for about 8 months), and all know each others play styles very well. A lot of them won't even play me casually BECAUSE they don't know me, but they see my small collection and just aren't interested. I simply don't offer them a challenge.

I've tried getting out of the game and selling my collection but that has been a complete bust and I've been told by multiple people that I might as well just list the lot on eBay for $0.99 and be happy with anything that I get, since apparently everyone has this stuff. I've tried my hand at local tournaments and my record is abysmal. Out of some 25-26 games, I've won 4 in tournaments. I've won a few casual play games against a few friends, but they were against either other new players like myself or "experimental" lists.

So, since I can't get my money's worth out of it, I'm going to try to find a way to win. However, I work 40hrs a week, go to school, and have family responsibilities, so my free time is valuable and I can't always find a willing opponent in the local community.

That's why I'm here. Are there any ways you helpful people of the Internet can suggest to me to help improve my skills without having a flesh-and-blood opponent sitting in front of me?

Are there any articles or treatises worth reading? An online simulator that is reliable? I want to find a way to win, because as much as I love Star Wars, unless I can find a way to win, I'm not enjoying this game.

Thanks for listening to the rant. Now, my mind is clear. This padawan is ready to learn.

you can lose and still have fun as long as you didnt get utterly decimated and the opponent isnt a jerk.

Theres one guy at my flgs that plays me a lot (mentioned him in other threads). He likes to play against me even though he loses almost every game (he FINALLY beat me last week lol...) because i not only provide pointers but i beat him through flying not through lists. The nastiest thing i ever brought to him was a doublebomber + ryad list, and that was honestly only because vet release "i wanna run this nasty list i made!" and unfortunately he was the first one i ran into to play lol.

ive had a few losses where i wasnt very pleased though, it happens. Sometimes the dice just decide you should die (lost count how many times ive had a defender go poof in 2 volleys). Xwing is the least random game ive played though with dice involved, probably like 10% of my games were completely determined by dice gods saying no.

ive also lost numerous times where i still had a blast, usually running a really unorthodox list that was just hilarious to fly (Tomax with Shuttle, Tactician, Rebel Captive, Mk2 engines, and Lightning Reflexes is SO FREAKING HILARIOUS but wow it does no damage lol). Or it was a very tight game even though i lost.

Also... Iain Hamp of Phoenix squadron did these videos/seminars to help our guys, lots of great information for getting better.

I'm going to have to disagree with heychadwick here. His answer to this problem is "You're trying to play competitive? Stop that. Jousting and casual formats like Epic and Missions are where the fun is. You're not having fun because you're not playing casual!".

It's possible that you'd have more fun playing casual, but also that's kind of his answer for everything at all times. No offense intended to Chadwick. I get that those are the games that he prefers to play, and it's certainly a valid way to go, but it's not more or less valid than competitive X-Wing. I personally have had a ton of fun playing competitive X-Wing.

It sounds like you're not having fun because you're not playing the game with people who are fun. You're trying to play the game with ultra competitive people (which is fine), but those guys aren't exactly trying to embrace new players or spend the time helping them learn and grow. I personally think that ultra competitive games are a great time, but that's because all my local guys make it fun. They're fun guys. We have a great time discussing strategies and bringing a variety of different top tier lists and pitting them against each other. We also spend time trying to think outside the box to develop new competitive strategies for handling the meta favorites. It's a good time.

So even though it's been said over and over for the past 5 pages, I'm gonna go ahead and voice my opinion that the problem you're experiencing isn't with competitive X-Wing, but with your local players. You should try both the competitive and casual aspects of X-Wing to see which you prefer, but in the end, you'll never have fun if you're not flying against opponents who are fun to play X-Wing with.

Work on finding players who could be potential friends, and then try having fun together while you're moving your tiny plastic ships around a 2-D representation of space. The game type is definitely the secondary concern here.

Good times.

I'm going to have to disagree with heychadwick here. His answer to this problem is "You're trying to play competitive? Stop that. Jousting and casual formats like Epic and Missions are where the fun is. You're not having fun because you're not playing casual!".

It's possible that you'd have more fun playing casual, but also that's kind of his answer for everything at all times. No offense intended to Chadwick. I get that those are the games that he prefers to play, and it's certainly a valid way to go, but it's not more or less valid than competitive X-Wing. I personally have had a ton of fun playing competitive X-Wing.

Completely valid and I agree with everything.....except one point. I hate to say I don't play "competitively". I admit that I play competitive Candy Land, Uno, and Chutes and Ladders. If I'm playing missions, I am playing to win most of the time. It's not like I'm just randomly moving ships around. I don't play "tournament" X-wing.

Other than that, yeah.....maybe he would have more fun just getting better at tournament X-wing.

So at what point does a player become good enough or know their list well enough that they are not casual anymore? It's not an either/or situation.

There's how much fun a player is to play against, and there's how good that player is. Being good doesn't necessarily mean you're not fun, and being bad doesn't necessarily mean you are.

Personally, my approach has always been to play the sort of lists I like and then tune them and learn them well enough that they do well. Each person can decide whether that means I'm casual because I build my own stuff or I'm competitive because I play well with it. Doesn't matter to me, I'm just here to have fun killing little dudes on a table.

I think casual is in the intent, not the skill level. It's not saying you are casual...until you become good. You can be good and a casual player. Or bad and a tournament player.

Play against yourself. It helps with fundamentals, it helps design an opening, and it helps recognize good and bad tactical situations a turn or two in advance.

I would agree. Great practice. Set up different scenarios and ship placements to figure out the best way to use upgrades.

Edit: this game is really about fun. some people only want to win- this game's NOT for them.

I will also offer a recommendation of what could be an issue: banter before and after games. One of my posts used a bunch of slang terms that seemed a bit foreign to you. This actually could be somewhat impacting your ability to connect with the most competitive players. Using jargon and asking questions that way might help you fit in better. I play in the NOVA region. Tons of superb players. We talk about old lists and new lists. We use terms all the time and ask questions using those terms. I can ask real quick someone who just picked up A-wings with adaptability, crackshot, authothrusters how they have fair against whisper, omega leader, Yorr with Palpatine and Sontir, Inqusitor, Shuttle with Palpatine and Sensor Jammer by saying "You played Chihuahuas against the Mynock special or the Howard aces and win yet?" I just asked an extremely loaded question to engage a really competent X-wing player. Maybe they talk about asteroids deployment. Maybe they talk about target priority. Maybe they talk about blocking. All of those will be critical to that game.

By grabbing onto the language and slang, you might be able to start up conversations. The more you talk before and after the game, the more you learn, but the more they interact with you. Becoming friends with somebody who you talk to is much more likely. And talking to people who live and breath X-wing means knowing the lingo.

Find a great list build that stands against the best lists, play it a bunch to learn its specific weaknessess and strengths, talk to the best players you can as often as you can, and make an effort to understand what they are talking about. Hopefully you will learn a lot, and then remember if you do get to the top of the ladder, that you can reach down and help those who were just like you.

"You played Chihuahuas against the Mynock special or the Howard aces and win yet?"

I have not once heard any of these terms at my FLGS; and we've a few of the country's top-tier players. Don't assume area-specific terms are universal.

"You played Chihuahuas against the Mynock special or the Howard aces and win yet?"

I have not once heard any of these terms at my FLGS; and we've a few of the country's top-tier players. Don't assume area-specific terms are universal.

Those terms probably have more to do with "Do you listen to podcasts" than a specific area. I'm in Australia, and all those terms are familiar to me, not because we use them in the stores, but because they're used by many of the X-Wing podcasts.

"You played Chihuahuas against the Mynock special or the Howard aces and win yet?"

I have not once heard any of these terms at my FLGS; and we've a few of the country's top-tier players. Don't assume area-specific terms are universal.

This is a good point. If these terms are not familiar to you or used by the players in your neck of the woods, then learn terms from your area and use those.

Double post

I don't listen to the podcasts but have heard all those terms across the country. Doesn't mean you have to know the net lists to play well, but they are fairly common.

If you don't know, ask. Most of us love talking X-wing or we wouldn't be on the forums

"You played Chihuahuas against the Mynock special or the Howard aces and win yet?"

I have not once heard any of these terms at my FLGS; and we've a few of the country's top-tier players. Don't assume area-specific terms are universal.

This is a good point. If these terms are not familiar to you or used by the players in your neck of the woods, then learn terms from your area and use those.

I really appreciate the feedback. And y'all have given me a lot to think about.

So, "jousting" is what I usually do (from what I understand), and that's a hard habit to break. As much as I would like to walk away, and I was dead set on doing that this morning, I guess I can give it a few more go's. I dunno. I'll take everything into consideration and think on it for a while.

I really appreciate the feedback. And y'all have given me a lot to think about.

So, "jousting" is what I usually do (from what I understand), and that's a hard habit to break. As much as I would like to walk away, and I was dead set on doing that this morning, I guess I can give it a few more go's. I dunno. I'll take everything into consideration and think on it for a while.

Good luck and I hope you figure out a way to enjoy the game. Win or lose.

I really appreciate the feedback. And y'all have given me a lot to think about.

So, "jousting" is what I usually do (from what I understand), and that's a hard habit to break. As much as I would like to walk away, and I was dead set on doing that this morning, I guess I can give it a few more go's. I dunno. I'll take everything into consideration and think on it for a while.

This makes me happy.

I really appreciate the feedback. And y'all have given me a lot to think about.

So, "jousting" is what I usually do (from what I understand), and that's a hard habit to break. As much as I would like to walk away, and I was dead set on doing that this morning, I guess I can give it a few more go's. I dunno. I'll take everything into consideration and think on it for a while.

Some ships are excellent jousters, some ships will die in screaming fire if they try to joust. It would be like Hussars charging Cuirassiers front on...only going to end badly for the Hussars. You just need to learn what ships can do what, this can take time if you're playing them, or it could take time watching a few YouTube vids. Or simply coming here and ask a few questions, most of the forum is most excellent, after a bit of time here you will learn those to avoid reacting to.

What Faction do you like?

What ships you like to fly?

Do you have pilots you really want to include?

As ParaGoomaSlayer has said in his first post, any one of those lists he posted can do very well, but I also believe if you dont like flying them then you need to look elsewhere. I had to go to the Doctors recently because I accidentally opened up the Rebel tab in the Squadron Builder I use. It was pretty touch and go but I got through and I think I will be OK.

This is a game, games are fun. Enjoy yourself and dont take it too seriously.

I really appreciate the feedback. And y'all have given me a lot to think about.

So, "jousting" is what I usually do (from what I understand), and that's a hard habit to break. As much as I would like to walk away, and I was dead set on doing that this morning, I guess I can give it a few more go's. I dunno. I'll take everything into consideration and think on it for a while.

Jousting is (at the moment) one of the harder styles of play to make work effectively.

That's not to say that it can't be done; some of my most fun games (win or lose) have involved me trying to force the opponent to joust when they don't want to. And jousting can work (but like I said, it's not the easiest).

What faction do you prefer?

Any particular ships that you gravitate towards?

What do you already own?

If you can give us somewhere to start, I'm sure we can set you on the right path, in terms of the squad you're using and how you're flying it.