For newer players coming from other game systems I've noticed a preference for them to always target the closest ship even if there are better targets in arc and range band.

Younger players seem to have a tendency to run away instead of fighting when things aren't going their way. This goes for other games besides X-Wing, but for some reason they seem convinced that self-preservation is a good plan in a game that's literally fought until one side is completely destroyed. Haven't figured out why.

The most common tactical error I see among newer players is trying to chase for R1 shots against enemy ships with double-reposition capability.

I suppose in broad terms, new players tend not to really understand opponents' lists and how to play against what they're trying to do.

1 minute ago, Panzeh said:

The most common tactical error I see among newer players is trying to chase for R1 shots against enemy ships with double-reposition capability.

I suppose in broad terms, new players tend not to really understand opponents' lists and how to play against what they're trying to do.

This is why when I'm flying complex combo lists (and I'm usually flying complex combo lists) against new players I always take 5 minutes or so to explain the interactions rather than just running through the components. I usually even do this BEFORE the game, unless it's a tournament XD

1 minute ago, thespaceinvader said:

This is why when I'm flying complex combo lists (and I'm usually flying complex combo lists) against new players I always take 5 minutes or so to explain the interactions rather than just running through the components. I usually even do this BEFORE the game, unless it's a tournament XD

I explain my list as well, but I think when you're new to the game you're mostly focused on what you can do.

1 - they don't have a clear strategy of how to fly their list and what to do against other lists

2 - they don't take obstacle selection and placement seriously enough - this is also part of strategy

3 - they reposition way too much even if their ships fly first(barrel rolls and boosts for no apparent reason)

4 - not defensive enough - they focus only on their attacks and don't factor in defense so they spend tokens when they shouldn't

5 - rather than learn to fly a list properly or work on better strategy, they keep changing their lists thinking this is why they lose

6 - have an unrealistic expectation that they are going to be great even against folks that have been playing for years

7 - ask for advice from an experienced player and then don't bother acting on it

8 - don't take any time to learn the visual part of the game - when my son started the game I made him grab a bunch of bases and put them at either end of the templates so he could see how the starting position relates to the ending position - this allows you to make better decisions for maneuvers and takes a bit of guesswork out of it since you can visually see these in your head when planning

Right now?

Playing a squad that cannot take Attani Mindlink.

I'd say a common mistake is players that forget PS matters in turn order for movement which leads to self bumps. I see lots of players forget the order their ships will activate and just assume they'll be able to do what they need them to do.

Also, just lining up on the other side of the table where there are no obstacles with any list the play and joust even though their ships aren't meant to do that. Take the time and learn from the mistakes and get maneuvering around obstacles.

Bad decisions caused by the need to clear a stress or recover a shield immediately. Leads to poor positioning. Also not disengaging to get a better tactical position.

1 - The ability to evaluate the distinction between opposing lists and figuring out whether its a good idea to joust or not. Example: Sending a fully equipped Ghost jousting against a swarm is a bad idea (it only works in the TV show).

2- Excessive use of barrel roll in a defensive fashion, but which does not actually get the ship out of arc. With no focus, this just destroys offensive potential and can be a questionnable boost in defense.

3 - Trusting unmodified dices. There's a reason why the guy with 3 dice, predator and focus generally hits harder than naked HLC.

4 - Putting upgrades on every slot on a ship; it just hurts a lot more when a ship blow up and it did not manage to spend half its missiles / torpedoes / bombs.

5 - Not understanding the odds: Soontir with a focus, evade and active autothruster is very hard for a 3 dice attack to hit. In many instances, it is better to bank the target lock and wait for a better shot than to spend it.

6 - Splitting firepower / hitting the wrong target.

15 hours ago, Lobokai said:

1) Self bumps

2) Asteroid bumps

3) opponent with higher PS who will move away bumps

4) other bumps

And the resultant loss of your actions. Big time issue for me early on.

12 hours ago, Lobokai said:

Look up the Flying Cirus. Focus firing is very accurate. In almost every pre missile era of dogfights, and in the Star Wars movies, 1v1 isn't how dogfights work... "wingmen" are a thing for a reason. Just ask Werner Voss.

The USN learned this the hard way in WWII vs. the Zero. Finally, someone figured out that with a wingman, one US pilot could be the decoy, and his wingman could slide in behind the Zero and take him out. Otherwise, the Zeke was just to maneuverable to handle 1 on 1.

This would be an awesome EPT: If an enemy ship has a friendly ship in arc, but you are out of arc and targeting that ship, add 1 attack die.

I don't have the 1000 yard stare of a seasoned veteran, but I'd like to say I have some experience not to be considered a total noob. Having said that I still see myself falling into these noob mistakes from time to time.

My biggest mistakes arise from not sticking to a list long enough and because of that, not knowing my list as well as I could. Thankfully, the unintended self bumps, dialing in the wrong direction maneuver and overloading the ship with upgrades has stopped.

Mistakes I see from people greener than me:

- Not knowing when to disengage in order to re-position in a more advantageous location.
- Not knowing their dials well enough.
- Not knowing the art of asteroid placement

12 hours ago, Lobokai said:

Look up the Flying Cirus. Focus firing is very accurate. In almost every pre missile era of dogfights, and in the Star Wars movies, 1v1 isn't how dogfights work... "wingmen" are a thing for a reason. Just ask Werner Voss.

The flying Circus, nor any other WW1/WW2 squadron, would not focus fire. The wingman concept isn't about shooting at the same guy, it's about keeping your leader's tail clear. In RL, when shooting at a target, you have almost no ability to evade, so your wingman makes sure nobody is shooting at you. In X-Wing, that doesn't matter - you get your full evade dice (barring EPTs and such) whether you are shooting or not. Trying to focus fire would also result in friendly aircraft getting in each others' way.
But X-Wing isn't real world WW1/2 dogfighting, so focus fire is needed.

@FlyingToaster, now that would be interesting if they added a mechanic where when you fire you decrease your agility by one to a minimum of zero. It would make combat much more deadly.

I think a lot of stuff here is focused on maneuvering, but that is fully expected to take a little while to catch on, unless the new player has absolutely ridiculous (like real life fighter pilot levels) spatial awareness. As for stuff beyond that, I can think of a few:

1) ABF. Always Be Focusing. This works for focus firing the enemy and what action to take. I drill it into the heads of anyone I teach. If you don't know what action to take, focus. If you think you are well out of range and don't have to worry about it, focus. Always. Be. Focusing. Learning the ins and outs of multiple actions and repositioning and when target lock is better will all come in due time, but new players don't get the amazingness of focus as a default.

2) Upgrades with the Action header. Almost every single new player I have gone up against doesn't realize that these upgrades require an action, and without some means of getting extra actions, that's it.

3) Push the Limit doesn't have to go on EVERYTHING. This usually comes up as players are in between brand new and comfortably experienced. At least in my area, they love PtL on everything. That may be partially my fault, since I'm kind of addicted to PtL, especially on a-wings, lancers, Poe, Dash, etc. But then they put PtL on IA Wedge. I then point out that he only has 2 actions, and you don't want to necessarily focus/target lock every single round. I point out stuff like predator, lone wolf, or even VI.

4) Stressed ships still have white maneuvers. You don't HAVE to do a green maneuver, and sometimes a white maneuver that gets you out of range or arc is better than a green that sheds your stress and lets you take an action. Plus it can really screw up an opponent's plans if they expect corran to pull a 2 bank and suddenly you pull a hard 3 or a 5 straight instead.

5) And this is the big one (also an issue in Armada). Upgrade slots do not need to be filled. They are options for flexible loadouts. But if you load up a bomber with EM, a torp, two missiles and a bomb, you have more munitions than you can actually use in a game.

Edit: I forgot (echoing another poster);

6) Know your dials. It really helps to have at least a working knowledge of all the dials, but that isn't feasible for a new player. At least know your dials. Know where you can move at least one turn ahead. It's not a firm plan, since the game is always fluid, but know your options. This also isn't uniquely a new player thing. I was so used to flying dash that when I took the shadow caster out for a spin, lacking that hard 1 really threw me for a loop.

11 minutes ago, FlyingToaster said:

The flying Circus, nor any other WW1/WW2 squadron, would not focus fire. The wingman concept isn't about shooting at the same guy, it's about keeping your leader's tail clear. In RL, when shooting at a target, you have almost no ability to evade, so your wingman makes sure nobody is shooting at you. In X-Wing, that doesn't matter - you get your full evade dice (barring EPTs and such) whether you are shooting or not. Trying to focus fire would also result in friendly aircraft getting in each others' way.
But X-Wing isn't real world WW1/2 dogfighting, so focus fire is needed.

I think the point is more about mass fire. Werner Voss was engaged by seven enemies and while he managed to last for ten minutes was still killed.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/german-pilot-werner-voss-shot-down-over-western-front

Voss was The Red Baron's wingman.

I do the Pilot Skill order mistake, crashing into my own ship because I assume they'll be moving off.

I've just learned about not clearing stress immediately every time, that's a big one too.

I wouldn't say not knowing lists is a tactical mistake, nobody can be expected to pick up this game and know those things. I'm still at the stage where I'm worrying about getting better at flying and being in the right positions to kill things, I'll worry about which upgrade combos my opponent has later.

For a new player it's very easy to think that this is a game about combining cards and not about flying spaceships. My practical experience is that it hasn't been like that, but it can seem that way in discussions.

2 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

And the resultant loss of your actions. Big time issue for me early on.

The USN learned this the hard way in WWII vs. the Zero. Finally, someone figured out that with a wingman, one US pilot could be the decoy, and his wingman could slide in behind the Zero and take him out. Otherwise, the Zeke was just to maneuverable to handle 1 on 1.

This would be an awesome EPT: If an enemy ship has a friendly ship in arc, but you are out of arc and targeting that ship, add 1 attack die.

I've always thought (and said) that this would make a good generic title:

Title: Squadron Training

if two ships with this title and that use the same dial have an enemy ship in arc, one of them may roll an extra attack die.

If a ship with this title and the same dial as a friendly ship being targeted by an attacker, has that attacker in arc, the attacker must spend a green token for no effect to make the attack. If they cannot, reduce their attack by 1

Im sure there's a better way to briefly word that, but I think it would bring back swarms. Probably good to limit it to 4+ ship lists too.

2 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

This would be an awesome EPT: If an enemy ship has a friendly ship in arc, but you are out of arc and targeting that ship, add 1 attack die.

To keep it from being either too expensive or too good, maybe have the ship in the enemy's arc lose their attack. I'm not sure of the best way to word it so that it will work right with ships at all relative pilot skills.

16 hours ago, flyboymb said:

Biggest thing my friends and I ran into when learning the ropes was creating a traffic jam in our squadron. A slight miscalculation in turning resulted in fighter 2 bumping fighter 1 which caused fighter 3 to bump 2 and so on down the line. You then had a huge cluster of fighters unable to take actions in what could be a very vulnerable position depending on how your enemy moved.

The use of VASSAL helped a great deal as it was a bit of a pain to practice formation flying with the actual models and templates.

Why is it a pain to practice formation flying with actual models and templates? I would say thats much better practice than VASSAL. Throw some asteroids out and fly around!

3 minutes ago, TBot said:

Why is it a pain to practice formation flying with actual models and templates? I would say thats much better practice than VASSAL. Throw some asteroids out and fly around!

I don't use it much but if I remember correctly Vassal allows you to undo moves and save particular setups which would make it much easier to run multiple iterations. You can also much more easily fire up Vassal during lunch at work or something.

5 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

I don't use it much but if I remember correctly Vassal allows you to undo moves and save particular setups which would make it much easier to run multiple iterations. You can also much more easily fire up Vassal during lunch at work or something.

True, I shouldn't discount VASSAL as a good practice tool, every bit helps.

2 hours ago, FatherTurin said:

I think a lot of stuff here is focused on maneuvering, but that is fully expected to take a little while to catch on, unless the new player has absolutely ridiculous (like real life fighter pilot levels) spatial awareness. As for stuff beyond that, I can think of a few:

1) ABF. Always Be Focusing. This works for focus firing the enemy and what action to take. I drill it into the heads of anyone I teach. If you don't know what action to take, focus. If you think you are well out of range and don't have to worry about it, focus. Always. Be. Focusing. Learning the ins and outs of multiple actions and repositioning and when target lock is better will all come in due time, but new players don't get the amazingness of focus as a default.

2) Upgrades with the Action header. Almost every single new player I have gone up against doesn't realize that these upgrades require an action, and without some means of getting extra actions, that's it.

3) Push the Limit doesn't have to go on EVERYTHING. This usually comes up as players are in between brand new and comfortably experienced. At least in my area, they love PtL on everything. That may be partially my fault, since I'm kind of addicted to PtL, especially on a-wings, lancers, Poe, Dash, etc. But then they put PtL on IA Wedge. I then point out that he only has 2 actions, and you don't want to necessarily focus/target lock every single round. I point out stuff like predator, lone wolf, or even VI.

4) Stressed ships still have white maneuvers. You don't HAVE to do a green maneuver, and sometimes a white maneuver that gets you out of range or arc is better than a green that sheds your stress and lets you take an action. Plus it can really screw up an opponent's plans if they expect corran to pull a 2 bank and suddenly you pull a hard 3 or a 5 straight instead.

5) And this is the big one (also an issue in Armada). Upgrade slots do not need to be filled. They are options for flexible loadouts. But if you load up a bomber with EM, a torp, two missiles and a bomb, you have more munitions than you can actually use in a game.

Edit: I forgot (echoing another poster);

6) Know your dials. It really helps to have at least a working knowledge of all the dials, but that isn't feasible for a new player. At least know your dials. Know where you can move at least one turn ahead. It's not a firm plan, since the game is always fluid, but know your options. This also isn't uniquely a new player thing. I was so used to flying dash that when I took the shadow caster out for a spin, lacking that hard 1 really threw me for a loop.

With regard to:

1) I have struggled with why you would every do ANYTHING but Focus due to the versatility. To me, Evade is only useful if you guaranteed can't attack, and even then ships with 3 AGI could roll 2 eyeballs.

2) I almost never use these kind of upgrades because I hate losing my action to a "skill."

5) Used to do this a lot, especially with ordnance carriers. But if they die with everything in the tubes, it is a heck of a waste of points.

20 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

To keep it from being either too expensive or too good, maybe have the ship in the enemy's arc lose their attack. I'm not sure of the best way to word it so that it will work right with ships at all relative pilot skills.

Or have the enemy's attack reduced by 1 die. If you are trying not to get shot, you are not shooting as well as you could. It would be a great mechanic to encourage formation flying. I liked the idea above that the ships needed to have the same dials. . .again encouraging squadron-style building.

2 hours ago, FlyingToaster said:

But X-Wing isn't real world WW1/2 dogfighting, so focus fire is needed.

Lucas based his space fight choreography on old WWII films. . .so any comparison is apt.

I was aware of this from the get go, but after watching a friend who had played for quite a while struggle with templates I had to point out that the banks are essentially a 45 degree shift in direction and a hard turn is a 90 degree shift in direction.

Essentially, if you are pointed directly at the board edge(12 o clock) and you do a hard right turn you will be facing the adjacent board edge(3 o clock)

I was suprised greenies don't know this.

I'm not sure if anything has been written about this, but I'm struggling with Action upgrades too due to the need to sacrifice your existing actions.

I guess this is one of the reasons getting focus from somewhere else can be useful. Maybe.