I don't get a lot of time to play, so I try to learn basic principles of what to do in different situations. Formation flying, focused fire, blocking and avoiding blocks.... basic stuff I know but very fundamental.

I was wondering about a couple other things though, that are more specific:

1) When and how do you use a flanker? My list is Norra, Miranda, and Rex and I was thinking of using Rex as a flanker.

2) Is it ever good to internationally split fire? Case in point: Biggs next to a Stresshog. With my list I really hate the Stresshog - do I spend the missile on the Hog and then let Norra pound on Biggs? Or should I focus Biggs down first?

If you have a tactical question I love to see it and learn from other people's answers here. Thanks.

1) If you have 2 scary parts of a list (such as Soontir Fel + TIE Swarm) you can split them up, send one straight at the enemy and the other one round the side to protect them. It creates difficult decisions for the opponent. Dash is another example of a flanker, because he wants to run around the edges and fire from a distance.

2) Not unless you can kill it. For example, if you have 2 torpedo shots at the Stresshog, take them, because you might kill it and if not it'll be limping. However, if you can't be nearly sure of killing it outright don't - Biggs will give you issues and the stresshog is less resilient. In your list, kill Biggs. You can spend a turn or 2 running from a stresshog, and when Biggs is dead the rest of the list is weakened.

1) You have to be very careful if using a single action ship like Rex as a flanker. He can easily be caught out and killed while the rest of your ships are not in a position to capitalize.

2)I typically go with focus down Biggs unless you have enough ordnance to kill the stresshog in one turn. Dealing 4 damage to the hog while Biggs lives won't really gain you much because the next turn you are going to have to shoot Biggs anyway while the hog double stresses like normal.

The problem I see with Rex as a flanker is his low pilot skill. It will be easy for the opponent to see where you place him and just focus down on him right away.

Agree with the posts above. Kill Biggs first. Or if you have enough of an ordinance alpha strike that you can focus down on another ship and kill it in 1 round.

I used flanking quite a bit back in Wave 1. I can probably talk about it in those terms and see if it makes more sense. My list was:

Vader

Backstabber

Dark Curse

3 x Academy Pilots

I used Dark Curse in the front with 3 Tie Fighters around him. They were the anvil. They usually started in the middle of my deployment. They were to attract the attention of my opponent. I then used Vader and Backstabber as flankers. Vader usually went last on the table and I sometimes put him near Backstabber and sometimes not. The "anvil" boldly went into the middle to attract attention and to also ensure it could move wherever it needed. The flankers often went a little fast, but not too much. You had to see where the enemy committed themselves first. Did your opponent go after the flanking force? Or after the main force?

If they went for the main force, then the anvil slows down while the flankers rush in to get side shots. Delay the combat with the anvil as much as possible as your flankers get as many free shots as possible. If the enemy peels off after the flankers at this point, then you can rush in with your anvil. The flankers spin away and the 4 Tie Fighters move in to attack whomever they can. This should go in their favor as your opponent should have split his attention. If your opponent still moves against the anvil, you try to set it up so that Dark Curse is the only person for your opponent to fire at. This way it's the best situation for Dark Curse to stay alive at R3 and no modifiers for them. After the first round, you can use your Academy Pilots to cause some bumps to the enemy while one or two slow down. So...you end up with some enemy that are bumped and out of actions with enemy in their front and in their flanks....all with actions.

If your opponent goes against the flankers, you slow them down and speed up the middle. You try to catch the bulk of their fighters facing towards the flankers. Keep the flankers out of firing range or they will melt. Use the flankers as bait, but make sure they bug out before the firing starts. It's best if you can keep them around a bit in case your opponent turns back towards your anvil. That way the flankers still can turn in to flank attack.

Does that help at all?

Actually remarkably little on this forum about how to fly, I'll think of some questions too!

A flanker really needs to be high threat. It needs to cause your opponent to have a difficult decision to make as to whether to go for the flanker and be hit by the rest of your list, or go for the rest of your list and be hit by the flanker.

Ideally it also needs to have the mobility and defensiveness to be able to bait the enemy and run, or bait the enemy and survive, or both, in order to weather them when they DO go for it.

Fenn is the current ideal flanker really. He has the PS, he has the threat, he has the mobility and durability.

Rex really isn't. He's a very easy target.

Alpha Strikers also make good flankers. Missiles and Torpedoes are good for it.

10 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

Alpha Strikers also make good flankers. Missiles and Torpedoes are good for it.

I do not personnally like alpha strike flanker. It makes the decision too easy because your opponent can just turtle up for one round and focus on the target in front of them. The flanker needs to be a consistent threat to force the targeting decision.

2 hours ago, balindamood said:

I do not personnally like alpha strike flanker. It makes the decision too easy because your opponent can just turtle up for one round and focus on the target in front of them. The flanker needs to be a consistent threat to force the targeting decision.

Not all ships can turtle, but I do hear your point. I've used them successfully in the past. Vader w/ a Homing/Concussion Missile is actually pretty brutal as he can TL and Focus.

Dont split fire with Biggs. As a biggs flyer, that is what I try to get my opponent to do by flying certain ships out of range 1 of biggs and then back in for protection. Proton torps are biggs worse nightmare because of the crits. If you get biggs out in one or two rounds the advantage is now yours. If Biggs survives 4+ rounds, things are probably going badly for you. Just take biggs out asap.

Flankers want to be dangerous and fast. Epsilon Ace is not a good flanker. He can be ignored and not a big threat. VI Pure Sabacc on the other hand cannot be ignored, and can get around the board fast. This creates a difficult decision for your opponent. Turn his back on your entire squad and kill sabacc, or let sabacc just do his thing.

I have been trying to come up with a way to put my thoughts about flanking into words, and it hasn't worked yet, but I'm going to give it another try. Take these two comments together:

23 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

A flanker really needs to be high threat. It needs to cause your opponent to have a difficult decision to make as to whether to go for the flanker and be hit by the rest of your list, or go for the rest of your list and be hit by the flanker.

18 hours ago, wurms said:

Flankers want to be dangerous and fast. Epsilon Ace is not a good flanker. He can be ignored and not a big threat. VI Pure Sabacc on the other hand cannot be ignored, and can get around the board fast. This creates a difficult decision for your opponent. Turn his back on your entire squad and kill sabacc, or let sabacc just do his thing.

First round of combat rolls around, and I have turned my whole squad to face the flanker. This leaves me "open" to attack by the rest of his squads. But wouldn't they shoot anyway? I mean, if there was no flanker, and we engaged in typical fashion, we'd all get shot by the main squad anyway. Right? Although the decision is tough, it's not enough. There's no real penalty for attacking one versus the other, except in a few cases, as noted above by @wurms .

1. Flanker = closer . If the flanker is going to clean my clock in the end game, it behooves me to tackle that threat early while I still have the firepower. "Omega Leader" is a good example. This is almost always the right call, unless....
2. Flanker = hypermobile . Sometimes you can fall for the old bait-and-switch. "Echo" in particular is really good at this, but so are numerous other ships, like elite TIE interceptors, SLAM-enabled ships, and large ships with boost. You turn to engage, but then they do some crazy maneuver and post-maneuver shenanigans to dodge all arcs, and you're left with no shots while your opponent's forces have unanswered shots on your squad. Bad situation. Now, if you anticipate the switch, and turn towards the main force, you've now turned the tables, because they are down one ship for the opening engagement. If that ship is a heavy hitter, like a TIE phantom, or "Pure Sabacc," that could really set them back. Regardless, "hypermobile" and "closer" are almost always synonymous, so you have to weigh yours and your opponent's options very carefully.
3. Flanker = bonus . If the opposing flanker is "Backstabber" or is equipped with Outmaneuver, you must decide whether that ability is devastating enough to draw fire. Problem is, many of these ships cost relatively few squad points, and aren't worth it to take out with your whole squad. There are probably bigger threats that need to be addressed, allowing your opponent to leverage the power of their cheap flanker. As @thespaceinvader suggested, the flanker has higher-than-normal attack due to his approach, making for a tempting target. If you do turn to face the flanker, you could be faced with another problem...
4. Excessive firepower . If I turn my TIE swarm to kill Soontir on the flank, and he's dead after only 4 shots (lucky me!), leaving 3 of my ships without shots, I'm happy. That's a decent trade. But if we pull that same stunt against "Backstabber," who only costs half as many points, suddenly it's not so great. This is part of why "Backstabber" is so good as a flanker (imo): he can blow up spectacularly, and it can still fall right into your plans. Granted, this one is kind of an edge case. But that's why it's number 4 on the list

I hope that wasn't too long-winded. Let me know if you disagree, or if you have something you'd like to add. Maybe you can employ some of these thoughts in your own squad building to try to flank better.

The penatly in this case is that the flanker can break off any deny you shots, or token up and absorb them, and you end up without doing any damage to the flanker OR doing any damage to the main force.

Or, int he case of Fenn, he shoots for range one, kills something AND tokens up to tank everything else.

But flanking only really works when you can time the arrival of the flanker and the main squad to hit the enemy in the middle at the same time. If the enemy hits your anvil before your hammer hits them, you're in trouble, and vice versa.

Why flank, at all?

If we think about keeping the flanker with the main squad, what changes?
The opponent can choose his target while facing all of your forces, or basically "gets his will".Flanking forces him to do something else as he can face only one.

But can't you "outflank" with all of your ships, by flying better?
Of course this depends on the specific lists. A TLT or PWT is never really outflanked, and most others are not that much slower.

So who can be outflanked?
Turrets can't be unless their arc is important (Rey).
Fast aces often can't be unless you really outmaneuver them. But calling this outflanking is probably not the best choice of words.
That leaves traditional jousters, swarms or others, that want to fly in formation. I think that these lists that can be outflanked are not seen very often anymore. And the concept of flanking lost its importance along with the decline of these lists.

Thoughts?

Turrets are why your flanker really wants Autothrusters...

4 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Turrets are why your flanker really wants Autothrusters...

Absolutely. But that limits the possible choice for flanker to 8 ships: Interceptor, TAP, AWing, Brobots, Fangfighter, T70, Starviper, and Punisher.

Now I agree that Jake is a great flanker. But the others?
TAP is Inquisitor, and he stays at range 3 anyway, so autothrusters is not the difference for him. Interceptors are dead. Fangfighter wants to go head on. T70, Starviper and Punisher either don't see play, or are not used as flankers. E.g. Jess usually wants to stay with the others. Poe and Snap can be flankers, but they are not exactly the prime example.

So I'm still not so sure.

Fang is a fantastic flanker. It has a lot of punch, and it can handle getting caught ina joust if you misjudge your flank. Fenn especially. Brobots are basically a list where you use them both as flankers if necessary. A Wings are great, Quiz is great, Poe is great. StarVipers and Squints are the only ones in that list that don't have at least one strong flanker, and Soontir and Carnor are still up there if you're lucky enough to play in a meta without many K Wings.

2 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Fang is a fantastic flanker....A Wings are great, Quiz is great, Poe is great, and Soontir and Carnor are still up there if you're lucky enough to play in a meta without many K Wings.

Agreed.

I have also had good luck messing with my friend's head using Crack Bren with Homers...and Aces up the middle, it's quite elegant, but those K-Wings just don't care....much....about....me.

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

StarVipers and Squints are the only ones in that list that don't have at least one strong flanker, and

Guri might flank to get in close and not get focus fired down.

Prince Xizor isn't a flanker. He's a straight up jouster. I think a lot of people don't rate him as they try to fly him as a flanker. He doesn't need reposition most of the time. He just jousts with his buddies.

The point I tried to make is that access to autothrusters can't be the determining factor for a flanker.

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

Fang is a fantastic flanker. It has a lot of punch, and it can handle getting caught ina joust if you misjudge your flank. Fenn especially. Brobots are basically a list where you use them both as flankers if necessary. A Wings are great, Quiz is great, Poe is great. StarVipers and Squints are the only ones in that list that don't have at least one strong flanker, and Soontir and Carnor are still up there if you're lucky enough to play in a meta without many K Wings.

Fangfighter: Overwhelmingly it's Fenn (75/83) and while he prefers range 1 above all else, he's also fine with being in arc - if at range 1. So that's not the best example of a flanker that relies on autothrusters to work as a flanker.
A-Wings: I also said they are great. But a low PS flanker is less effective, so we can limit it to Jake for most intents and purposes
Inquisitor: he stays at range 3, so flanking or not won't matter with respect to autothrusters - he profit either way.
Poe: he's not "great"... He barely suffices in any role.
Brobots: I have only every played once against them and still do not own one. And apparently they don't get played very often, too. But I concede that they seem to be good flankers
Interceptors: they just die too quickly in a meta with bombs and Kylo and modified TLT shots without Palp. I don't think you actually see them as "still up there".

So again: I don't think we can set "Flankers" equal to "ships with autothrusters", because most (5/8) of them suck or don't rely on autothrusters to work.

To get back again to the point before that one: What kind of ships do get flanked?
Turrets apparently in some fringe cases where the flanker is equipped with autothrusters, I concede that much. What else?

sabaac with VI, title, and LWF is an excellent flanker. High firepower, dodgy, and high PS. Also works well in the late game. Usually fly him with Quickdraw who demannds immediate attention, or a late game ace like OL.

3 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

Why flank, at all?

If we think about keeping the flanker with the main squad, what changes?
The opponent can choose his target while facing all of your forces, or basically "gets his will".Flanking forces him to do something else as he can face only one.

But can't you "outflank" with all of your ships, by flying better?
Of course this depends on the specific lists. A TLT or PWT is never really outflanked, and most others are not that much slower.

So who can be outflanked?
Turrets can't be unless their arc is important (Rey).
Fast aces often can't be unless you really outmaneuver them. But calling this outflanking is probably not the best choice of words.
That leaves traditional jousters, swarms or others, that want to fly in formation. I think that these lists that can be outflanked are not seen very often anymore. And the concept of flanking lost its importance along with the decline of these lists.

Thoughts?

There is a number 5 that I completely forgot to mention, and that's maneuver options. When I fly 5+ ships, I rarely group them together any more. Having a flanker or two allows me to react better to the changing conditions of the battlefield, and make sure I have overlapping arcs on tough-to-pin-down targets. If I am spread out at low PS, it also makes it more difficult for my opponent to see where that first round of combat is going to take place, granting me a measure of unpredictability. It also helps me navigate obstacles better with so many ships.

But there's an important distinction here: I don't have a designated flanker. Any ship can get into flanking position, and then pursue the target without a K-turn or S-loop, so he retains an action while closer to the enemy than my token-less flipped ships.

At the moment, this is the only other reason I can think of to flank. But you're right to question whether flanking is at all reasonable in today's environment. It's an interesting question.

5 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

But there's an important distinction here: I don't have a designated flanker. Any ship can get into flanking position, and then pursue the target without a K-turn or S-loop, so he retains an action while closer to the enemy than my token-less flipped ships.

To me that's a key point you make. When I said "why flank at all?", I should have added "with a designated flanker". To me that was implicit, and I just realized that because you emphasized it. Hammer and anvil. Only flying hammers to me means that you are not using "hammer and anvil" as tactic anymore.

And applied to flanking: if you have no "stationary" main front, then there is no flanking. Instead you can outmaneuver with all. It's what I meant here:

3 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

But can't you "outflank" with all of your ships, by flying better?

This is a great topic, with excellent discussion. Nice work, all, and thanks to @Boba Rick for getting this conversation started! I think the next step is to gather examples of flanking, both good and bad, from battle reports, and examine why it did/didn't work. I'm going to look through the logs of the current Vassal League, and see what I can come up with, but it may be a couple days before I have anything to share.

For #2, its rare but there are sometimes reasons to splitfire.

Case in point i had a game yesterday against Ryad/Vessery/Tomax Shuttle. I focused the shuttle first, got it down to 1hp and it had Console Fire crit, so my last ship to fire opted to fire at Vessery (tie/d so no evade) since he had FCS to bank for later anyway. I was 100% positive there was no way that shuttle wasnt going to die the next time i shot it anyway - which it blew up to console fire anyway, but i had a 3die Juking attack ready to smack it anyway.

Generally, its a bad idea. People like to flaunt that Biggs is nerfed because Attack [Target Lock] can flatout ignore him now, but unless you are running a solid ordnance list (not that common at all), something still has to hit him. So you might as well fire those ordnance on him too anyway just to get rid of him faster.

And i agree, Sabaac is a crazy good flanker. Love that little finkrat.