You're double-arcing with front/side arc with Avenger. When do you take the front shot first, when do you take the side?

My general rules of thumb for order of attack would say take the small shot then the big shot to try and force them to spend defensive resources. There are a LOT of potential factors in this one, though: OP, ECM, XI7, redundant tokens, H9, ISD1 vs 2, likelihood of one-shotting out the front, can all have a significant bearing on it.

Side arc first with OLP and Screed

As an offhand rule of thumb, if I can't one-shot it with the forward battery (either too much shields and hull, defense tokens or both), or I CAN one-shot it with the side arc with reasonable odds (especially if defense tokens are already down), I take the side shot first to either force down defense tokens or to allow the forward battery to fire on another target. Otherwise I would take the front shot first, and use the side battery to fire on another target. The only major hiccup I can see is that Avenger I-2s really want SW-7s to pull damage to draw out tokens instead of effectively protecting them with accuracy results. For an I-1 Avenger at long or medium range, I may take the forward shot first, just to know that the side shot will have fewer defenses just to get through the one or two damage, instead of wasting my side shot on some tokens and having some tokens still up to deal with the forward battery.

I see no reason not to take side shot first unless you're expecting to one-shot the target from the front and have another potential target (Any damage mitigation that defence tokens can do on a side shot, they can do on a front shot at least as good if not better)

With non-Avenger ISD1 double arc the question becomes more interesting

Generally, side arc first.

Also assuming some squadron activations!

>Not using another ship or ships to pulsetap

I mean... side first right?

My Avenger build is sheer damage and I basically only use confire after round 3, presuming that condition is met, sw-7s, TRCs and screed will confirm a minimum of 5 damage out the side (depending on how much risk you're willing to take it could max out at 8). If they don't brace or redirect 5+ damage that's going to hurt, that'll land a hit most ships, likely a crit, their risk. My front deals 7 minimum with a max of 14. If they survive that, they're not going to defend against much of anything else.

That's why I like using two ships to Pulsetap... Sure, it's obvious and a bit harder to perform, but when successful it's LETHAL.

First...Squadron command to send 4-5 TIE bombers at the opponent. (So tough to handle when you know Avenger is coming.)

Next...side arc. They know that the front arc is coming, and tend to not spend any non-redundant tokens.

Finally end with the front shot and inflict more pain.

19 minutes ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

First...Squadron command to send 4-5 TIE bombers at the opponent. (So tough to handle when you know Avenger is coming.)

Next...side arc. They know that the front arc is coming, and tend to not spend any non-redundant tokens.

Finally end with the front shot and inflict more pain.

So much this.... My favorite avenger fleet right now is 134 points of fighters replayed through 3 gozantis and all polished off with an Avenger.... especially with the Jendon/stele combo. go ahead... don't use your braces or redirects.... that damage is ALL yours lol

Ideally, I have first / last activation advantage.

End of round, Avenger fires either 4 red, or 4 red/4 blue onto target ship, then moves into double arc position, side arc first, then full front. I usually have XX-9s on mine.

Best case scenario you nearly stripped or did strip all shields from 2 facings at the end of round, then the side arc usually deals with any shields left over, allowing you to pump 8 dice into an unshielded target.

I guess my normal answer here is that I don't bother with the side arc because the gunnery teams are usually too busy flakking the fighters.....

But its a good thought experiment!

It's interesting... if you are the opponent and you're trying to figure out whether to spend the brace or not which salvo would you want to see first, front or side... probably the front, since sides are going to be less damage by default... And if you get a weak frontal, you can save the brace for the occasional big side shot... Hence why people are saying shoot with side first... If you get a big shot from the side, they are unlikely to brace it fearing an even bigger front arc shot.... The thing is personally, for me, the outlier is the side shot... Is it going to be big or small... It's way more likely that the front shot will be brace worthy, so i want to know what that side arc is going to be up to... So if my opponent shoots and gets a typically side arc of around three, i can rest easy not bracing... That will happen a lot of the time... But if he rolls that side arc and gets 6, i know i can brace here and not feel bad about it a lot of the time since he is rolling an average front arc damage from the side... outs when the front arc rolls six and you brace, then the side rolls six and you get blindsided!! If he leads with a weak arc and reveals it to be indeed weak, you can plan better!

8 hours ago, SkyCake said:

It's interesting... if you are the opponent and you're trying to figure out whether to spend the brace or not which salvo would you want to see first, front or side... probably the front, since sides are going to be less damage by default... And if you get a weak frontal, you can save the brace for the occasional big side shot... Hence why people are saying shoot with side first... If you get a big shot from the side, they are unlikely to brace it fearing an even bigger front arc shot.... The thing is personally, for me, the outlier is the side shot... Is it going to be big or small... It's way more likely that the front shot will be brace worthy, so i want to know what that side arc is going to be up to... So if my opponent shoots and gets a typically side arc of around three, i can rest easy not bracing... That will happen a lot of the time... But if he rolls that side arc and gets 6, i know i can brace here and not feel bad about it a lot of the time since he is rolling an average front arc damage from the side... outs when the front arc rolls six and you brace, then the side rolls six and you get blindsided!! If he leads with a weak arc and reveals it to be indeed weak, you can plan better!

This kind of touches on my philosophy on order of operations: all wise being equal, do the more sure thing first, to deny your opponent as much information as possible when making hard decisions. For example, given two activations to attack a given ECM ship, one with H9 and one without, I'll usually go with the H9 shot first. Spend it now to brace and hope the next shot doesn't have an acc? Or spend it later even though you know there's an acc right now?

That's why I think all those circumstances I listed above make a difference... They all come down "how do I give the defender as little information for his decision-making as possible without losing efficiency on my part?"