That's a terrible idea.

Fortressing is fine. If you want to do it, it's not a jerk move, it's a legitimate, if generally bad, tactic, for a range of reasons enumerated above.

I've frequently maintained bump trains in the mid game to keep my ships static in a furball whilst enemies fly past me, or to avoid block other of my manoeuvres.

To the opening post. Because fortressing gives you bad karma?

Eh, if I saw it at a tournament I would just k-turn my defenders indefinitely till either they made a move or it came to time and I had the final salvo advantage.

I think the most glaring flaw is that by staying put you give your opponent the full range control. All he has to do is to approach from the side and slow roll. If he plans it well, one of your slavers will get hit by his entire list while your other ships are still out of range. The next turn he'll come in range of all of your ships, but by the time you get to shoot, your first slaver will already have been gunned down. If you can trade it for one of his ships the very same turn, you might still be fine, but if not.. His numerical advantage coupled with PS superiority will probably guarantee him a win.

Every single time somebody mentions a fortress there's people who start some snooty whining how it should be forbidden, exploits the rules or whatever. It's a tactic and nothing else. Did somebody notice the lack of comments from FFG about fortress lists in the FAQs or elsewhere?
I remember when there where people in wave 2 times whining about weapons with a 360° arc and how they would exploit the rules or how that was no gaming at all. A while back it was the TLT-lists and now it's Dengaroo. You don't like people playing any of that? Fine, just don't play against them. Personally I don't like players too much who always play the same list, the strongest meta lists or who always only play to win but can we try to act like grown-ups here and be good sports ourselves? I fail to see how contemptuousness and disdain are good sportsmanship? Try to see it as a challenge or don't play against it but why act offended by it?
I should probably grab some popcorn now and watch the shitstorm coming down on me. Let's hear it

It's a game about skillfull dog fighting running a fortress is counter to every intention of the game, you think the devs will sit back and let it be a thing your mistaken.

It's a game about skillfull dog fighting running a fortress is counter to every intention of the game, you think the devs will sit back and let it be a thing your mistaken.

Yet here we sit at 4 years almost and not a single FAQ on the subject since the first incident of people using the falcons for this. Nor over the past year were palp shuttles stalled in the corner for 1/2 the game. It's a terrible tactic and only works on people that are relatively new to the game.

Every single time somebody mentions a fortress there's people who start some snooty whining how it should be forbidden, exploits the rules or whatever. It's a tactic and nothing else... I fail to see how contemptuousness and disdain are good sportsmanship? ... Let's hear it

Because the fortress is not good sportsmanship. Is it legal? Sure, but many things that are legal are not good sportsmanship. Taking your time to properly consider and decide your actions or maneuvers is not illegal, but stalling for time to run the clock down will eventually get a TO called on you.

Using the bumping rules to avoid the fact that your ship has to set a maneuver every round and advance forward and keeping your arcs in a position that no ship can reach it due to the design of the battlefield is not illegal, but it is poor sportsmanship and an exploitation of the bumping rules and edge of the game area in a game about dogfighting spaceships.

It deserves contempt and disdain.

It's a game about skillfull dog fighting running a fortress is counter to every intention of the game, you think the devs will sit back and let it be a thing your mistaken.

Exceot that they have sat back and let it happen because it's not a problem because it's a bad tactic which makes you lose.

I apologize for being so blunt.

I could be mistaken but I seem to recall Alex Davies commenting that this was not in the spirit of the game and that they would monitor how much it gets utilized before making any changes.

If I am correct and he did say this, then at the very least we have a play style which is not in the spirit of the game. Bad sportsmanship? Perhaps. Illegal move? No. But it appears that if people use this often enough it may have some sort of ruling.

Personally I agree that it isn't in the spirit of the game. It is a space fighter combat game and the intent of blocking was to remove an advantage or cause a disadvantage to doing so. Usually at the cost of your action or being able to attack the ship you attacked. This quickly became a part of the game with blockers and not with fortressing.

But the intent, even stated in this years worlds by Alex, is to represent ships getting close and rather than taking actions, they spend what actions they might have gotten or attacking by concentrating on not colliding. Again, to beat this horse, if that is the intent then it is being used in a way that does not benefit the game style and, in my opinion, does not benefit game play at all. To answer a post a few up. I play a casual game and yes if someone used that I would not play with that person. No offense intended but it just isn't something I would enjoy and I do play for fun.

I'm sorry but, in my humble (I hope I don't come off sounding like a jerk) opinion, it is exploiting the rules in an unintended way to gain an unfair advantage that is not in the spirit of the game.

[Edited only or spell'in an grammar]

It is exploiting the rules in an unintended way to gain an unfair advantage that is not in the spirit of the game.

As noted several times, it's not, because it's not gaining an advantage at all. It doesn't work. If it did people would use it more.

Also the opponent might just opt to not approach your fortress at all. Happened to me once and the guy seemed fully willing to just fly from left to right for 75 minutes to get a draw.

Since then I found it better not to hold up the fortress throughout the whole game. If the opponent approaches I start coming towards him after 2 or 3 rounds which always startles them. I pair the partybus with 2 TLT-Y-Wings to make use of the 360° firing arcs for this. It gives you more options in general and especially helps with Dengar. You could drop the Hotty Bus and use Drea Renthal with R4-B11 which is pretty nasty and I also like Kavil with Wired and have him stressed throughout the whole game to get tons of rerolls.

Wow, what? You kept up a fortress for 75 minutes while your opponent took a leisuire cruise on his side of the map? That must have been the most exciting match in the history of X-Wing.

What did you guys talk about during the whole game? Why did you not just take the intentional draw (hiss, booo) then and go eat some cookies during that time?

It is exploiting the rules in an unintended way to gain an unfair advantage that is not in the spirit of the game.

As noted several times, it's not, because it's not gaining an advantage at all. It doesn't work. If it did people would use it more.

I apologize, I wasn't very clear.

I didn't mean to imply that it gained an advantage. But people use it in an attempt to gain one. Whether or not it works depends on the build, both player's patience, the game state when the formation breaks, the total points of both squads and who has initiative. I believe it does work sometimes, but not often enough because there should be an easy counter which can be built.

@ Ken at Sunrise:
Thank you for a good and understandable explanation of what there is to criticize about a fortress and for staying respectful. Actually I can't argue with that. I also remembered that in fact there has been something in the FAQs about intentional bumping. I think it said that the opponent can tell you to actually execute your bump maneuvers if you do that.

Personally I also wouldn't have any fun keeping up a fortress for a whole match. It's probably also true that it's hard to win a game that way but I still think it needs be to differentiated between that (full-match fortress) and a fortress only used as a setup tactic or over the duration of a couple of rounds. I think the latter is a valid tactic in the game. Also self-bumping has always been a tactic from Wave 1 times on e.g. to keep something in your firing arc so it's probably very difficult to create a rule against it. I'm of the opinion that such a rule would actually take something away from the game. I'd say there are other things that are a much more blatant exploitation of the rules like measuring to see if a far away ship is in target lock range just to determine in which range nearer ships are or abusing the new 2-straight maneuver rule for selecting a red maneuver while stressed.

It is exploiting the rules in an unintended way to gain an unfair advantage that is not in the spirit of the game.

As noted several times, it's not, because it's not gaining an advantage at all. It doesn't work. If it did people would use it more.

I apologize, I wasn't very clear.

I didn't mean to imply that it gained an advantage. But people use it in an attempt to gain one. Whether or not it works depends on the build, both player's patience, the game state when the formation breaks, the total points of both squads and who has initiative. I believe it does work sometimes, but not often enough because there should be an easy counter which can be built.

And if people use things that are bad in an attempt to get an advantage... why do you care? Just smile to yourself, approach patiently and set up to nuke a ship in a round before it can fire on you, secure in the knowledge that you're better at the game than they are.

The easy counter is to take your time build up for a single round of shooting that removes a ship before it can fire, then you know, doing that.

If your list isn't capable of doing that, then your list might not be very good.

@ Ken at Sunrise:

Thank you for a good and understandable explanation of what there is to criticize about a fortress and for staying respectful. Actually I can't argue with that. I also remembered that in fact there has been something in the FAQs about intentional bumping. I think it said that the opponent can tell you to actually execute your bump maneuvers if you do that.

Personally I also wouldn't have any fun keeping up a fortress for a whole match. It's probably also true that it's hard to win a game that way but I still think it needs be to differentiated between that (full-match fortress) and a fortress only used as a setup tactic or over the duration of a couple of rounds. I think the latter is a valid tactic in the game. Also self-bumping has always been a tactic from Wave 1 times on e.g. to keep something in your firing arc so it's probably very difficult to create a rule against it. I'm of the opinion that such a rule would actually take something away from the game. I'd say there are other things that are a much more blatant exploitation of the rules like measuring to see if a far away ship is in target lock range just to determine in which range nearer ships are or abusing the new 2-straight maneuver rule for selecting a red maneuver while stressed.

Neither of these is an abuse of the rules, any more than using your opponent's ability to set a non-red on the dial was an abuse on the Lambda when clever players used to use it to force their opponents to drive the shuttle out of difficult situations.

Fortressing and self bumping is fine. There's already a penalty in the rules for it - you don't get actions. There are ways to obviate that penalty, as there are literally every other penalty in the game. The fortress listed here is probably one of the best I've seen, but it's still not even close to unbeatable.