A good friend who is an engineer/statistician at Grumman was looking over X-Wing yesterday as he loves figuring out things. Genius actually. He's not a Star Wars honk (only saw Empire as a small kid), but watched a few games as he studied cards and poked around Google looking at the game's details and history.

Post-games, we left and went to grab a bite; we were curious what he thought, as in what he'd play. He quickly and amazingly quipped, "I'd play the Mindlink Rau and two cheap torpedo boats with Fett and 4LOM. Easy." I asked, what's your second choice? He hesitated and said, "Um.. Rebels I guess.. with Regeneration ships." Third choice I asked. "Nothing really, everything else seems way to weak."

In three hours, he digested the game without even playing. I was amazed at his mind, as usual.

11 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

A good friend who is an engineer/statistician at Grumman was looking over X-Wing yesterday as he loves figuring out things. Genius actually. He's not a Star Wars honk (only saw Empire as a small kid), but watched a few games as he studied cards and poked around Google looking at the game's details and history.

Post-games, we left and went to grab a bite; we were curious what he thought, as in what he'd play. He quickly and amazingly quipped, "I'd play the Mindlink Rau and two cheap torpedo boats with Fett and 4LOM. Easy." I asked, what's your second choice? He hesitated and said, "Um.. Rebels I guess.. with Regeneration ships." Third choice I asked. "Nothing really, everything else seems way to weak."

In three hours, he digested the game without even playing. I was amazed at his mind, as usual.

It is also possible he went to the forum/reddit/juggler and just looked at some of the top posts, but I want to believe it!

God bless the "List Archetypes" feature of list juggler...

46 minutes ago, Timathius said:

It is also possible he went to the forum/reddit/juggler and just looked at some of the top posts, but I want to believe it!

I accused him of the same, he chuckled dismissively and sighed. Then stated (I'm trying to quote him, he'll never see this though), 'It's a rather complex game, but there are obvious outliers that can be flushed out with a little analysis. All games have them. It's simple to deduce.'

Not for me sadly, I rely on you guys ?

36 minutes ago, Ubul said:

God bless the "List Archetypes" feature of list juggler...

11 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

I accused him of the same, he chuckled dismissively and sighed. Then stated .... ?

Not to sound like a ****, but this guy sounds annoying as hell.

14 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

I accused him of the same, he chuckled dismissively and sighed. Then stated (I'm trying to quote him, he'll never see this though), 'It's a rather complex game, but there are obvious outliers that can be flushed out with a little analysis. All games have them. It's simple to deduce.'

Not for me sadly, I rely on you guys ?

I'd like to hear a detailed analysis to explain himself. Not questioning him, I just want to see how he came to his conclusion through his statistical analysis along with what numbers and stats that jumped out as "obvious outliers.'

Move over Mathwing, the Grumman Rainman has made you obsolete.

Seems a bit odd to list 2 specific crew for the first choice then "something regen" and "nothing else is good enough" after 'deep and complex' outlier analysis to me.

I just find it oustanding that he managed to not only guess the list, but also guess the term "torpedo boat" right off the bat!

1 hour ago, Ubul said:

God bless the "List Archetypes" feature of list juggler...

I laughed out loud. Thanks! I needed it.

Game theory 'intuition' that seems like snap analysis is oftentimes nothing more than years of judgment being applied to what an outsider is a new situation, but is in fact nearly identical to all the other situations.

I'm not saying that this is anything more than a "Cool story, bro" moment, it's far too pat and cutesy, but I found out over the last couple of days that my method of judging and using Malifaux minis (a game I've been playing for less than six months, and have played few enough actual games that I could count them on both hands) is better reasoned than the methods some players have been using for years. When I first started X-Wing, I was regularly beating people that had been playing it for a year or more - and in fact arrived at a RAC/EU/VI build independently of any netlisting in my first three or four games.

And it's amazing how fast you can pick up slang like torpedo boat when someone watches people play and comment on games.

1 minute ago, iamfanboy said:

Game theory 'intuition' that seems like snap analysis is oftentimes nothing more than years of judgment being applied to what an outsider is a new situation, but is in fact nearly identical to all the other situations.

I'm not saying that this is anything more than a "Cool story, bro" moment, it's far too pat and cutesy, but I found out over the last couple of days that my method of judging and using Malifaux minis (a game I've been playing for less than six months, and have played few enough actual games that I could count them on both hands) is better reasoned than the methods some players have been using for years. When I first started X-Wing, I was regularly beating people that had been playing it for a year or more - and in fact arrived at a RAC/EU/VI build independently of any netlisting in my first three or four games.

And it's amazing how fast you can pick up slang like torpedo boat when someone watches people play and comment on games.

Intuition, especially if you've played games of a similar nature before is certainly a thing but snapping off a list with specifics, a general archetype, and then calling everything else dead after ~ 3 hours of introduction to the system transcends intuition into something fairly unbelievable.

Just now, nigeltastic said:

Intuition, especially if you've played games of a similar nature before is certainly a thing but snapping off a list with specifics, a general archetype, and then calling everything else dead after ~ 3 hours of introduction to the system transcends intuition into something fairly unbelievable.

And it was mentioned that this guy used the Internet at some point, and the Hive Mind has decided that Mindlinked Rau is teh superior option. And that sort of thing does happen - I immediately spotted Palpatine's power in my first, oh, hour of playing the game when I was pawing through a friend's cards, and only missed the archetypical Soontir Fel build because I somehow didn't see Royal Guard TIE. I think my exact words were, "It's too bad you can't take Autothrusters AND Stealth Device together..." but that could be my mind making up a cool story.

But yeah, it really does feel like a "Cool story, bro" moment. Pics or GTFO.

I can't imagine how he would have looked at the internet and decided Rau+2boats and regen are not the best? It's fairly hive mindy around here. It's not a genius deduction, really.

2 hours ago, clanofwolves said:

A good friend who is an engineer/statistician at Grumman was looking over X-Wing yesterday as he loves figuring out things. Genius actually. He's not a Star Wars honk (only saw Empire as a small kid), but watched a few games as he studied cards and poked around Google looking at the game's details and history.

Post-games, we left and went to grab a bite; we were curious what he thought, as in what he'd play. He quickly and amazingly quipped, "I'd play the Mindlink Rau and two cheap torpedo boats with Fett and 4LOM. Easy." I asked, what's your second choice? He hesitated and said, "Um.. Rebels I guess.. with Regeneration ships." Third choice I asked. "Nothing really, everything else seems way to weak."

In three hours, he digested the game without even playing. I was amazed at his mind, as usual.

You cant make a post about a statistical genius analyzing Xwing and then not post any stats or reasoning behind his conclusions! More detail needed

1 hour ago, RStan said:

I'd like to hear a detailed analysis to explain himself. Not questioning him, I just want to see how he came to his conclusion through his statistical analysis along with what numbers and stats that jumped out as "obvious outliers.'

I've requested, he's not normal. Or, my friends and I are not; one of the two is obviously true.

1 hour ago, dotswarlock said:

I just find it oustanding that he managed to not only guess the list, but also guess the term "torpedo boat" right off the bat!

This was probably a misquote of mine as the term is drilled into my conscience from discussions on here and with friends. I think it was more like "these ships with torpedo ordinance..." Sorry.

47 minutes ago, nigeltastic said:

Intuition, especially if you've played games of a similar nature before is certainly a thing but snapping off a list with specifics, a general archetype, and then calling everything else dead after ~ 3 hours of introduction to the system transcends intuition into something fairly unbelievable.

I agree and yes, he's always been (since 10th grade) been accused of the unbelievable. His memory is so good, it's creepy. He's recalled phone numbers written on notepads after walking through a room days later even though it was never pointed out. Weird.

11 minutes ago, wurms said:

You cant make a post about a statistical genius analyzing Xwing and then not post any stats or reasoning behind his conclusions! More detail needed

I've texted him and requested a breakdown. And accused him again of looking at sites like this. ?

I'll get a response with a bit of pity one frustration I'm sure.

2 hours ago, clanofwolves said:

I accused him of the same, he chuckled dismissively and sighed. Then stated (I'm trying to quote him, he'll never see this though), 'It's a rather complex game, but there are obvious outliers that can be flushed out with a little analysis. All games have them. It's simple to deduce.'

Not for me sadly, I rely on you guys ?

If a new player watched some games for 2 hours, he wouldnt be able to tell you exactly what build, with specific upgrades, would be the best. No matter how "genius" he is, the guy clearly went online and searched for the best build(s). That or he described the builds of the 2 best players he saw.

There are way to many possible options for someone with 0 knowledge of the game to find one of the best possible build in just 2 hours.

3 hours ago, clanofwolves said:

but watched a few games as he studied cards and poked around Google looking at the game's details and history.

I think the highlighted part contributed to his insight. As you said it wasn't that he just watched a couple of games. He did his research too.

Lack of workings, the jumpmaster comment and the lack of mention of K-bombs kinda show that he looked up top lists.

It's not obvious why the Jumpmaster is so good until you look at the dial: the white sloop, general lack of reds.

It's also not immediately obvious why the Kwing with advanced slam and bombs are so good until you've played the game. And of course without appreciation of this, how can one appreciate how vicious Sabine with a bomb is?

35 minutes ago, Xerandar said:

It's also not immediately obvious why the Kwing with advanced slam and bombs are so good until you've played the game. And of course without appreciation of this, how can one appreciate how vicious Sabine with a bomb is?

The first normal reaction for someone new would be to think that bomb dmg seem low compare to ship dmg. He would also think they are expensive for a 1 time use upgrade. It's only when he realize that you cant defend against them + extra amo + sabine that he "might" start to think they are good.

Same thing for regen. You sacrifice a part of your attack to get only 1 shield back? Might not be obvious that it's a good thing. He would probably need to know that it only affects the first shot of your TLT.

Then he would need to understand how good TLTs are. My first reaction when i saw the upgrade (as a new player) was to immediately dismiss it... 6 points for a maximum of 2 dmg??

Finally, a bombing Kwing is not the best option for a new player. I would certainly not recommend it. It's already a challenge to learn to do regular maneuvers properly, i would not add SLAM to that right from the start. 4 TLT Ywings is IMO the safest (and easiest) solution for a beginner. Its also relatively cheap since you only need 6 Xpac + core set to be competitive.

Impressive conclusions but not impossible to come to at the moment. Likely he's quite good at modeling the combat engine and plugging in enough data to find the outliers. Both of these are really strong in terms of winning the damage race. The more challenging observation is understanding when intangibles like arc dodging are efficient enough to disrupt a linear slugfest, but even that requires the damage race to be fairly close for the strategy to not be overly risky.

His first text reply was, "What have you gotten into, I know only the obvious outliers of the game."

When I prodded, his text then: "I looked up first the mechanics, attack, defense, assists, movement of pieces. I created a quick sketch-up of the mechanics and how they interacted and where there was an outlier that could be exploited." Then he texted, "I liked the versatility of focus pieces as useful to both basic game winning mechanics of attack and defense. I then quickly surmised by game mechanics, the Scum and Villany faction had a very good force multiplier application for this. Simple."

next text: "Come on, all the movement templates can be found on line easily. Simply focusing on the chosen faction, I located the pieces with greatly varied movement possibilities and their corresponding informational cards which detailed the potential of best utilizing focus to the greatest degree. This clearly was the Jumpmaster 5000 variant."

Why the Fenn ship and not all the first chosen Jumpmaster? "Best red dice potential of the faction when placed properly" he stated. But he then admitted there may be a better, older game piece choice as he only "looked in detail" at the "game pieces issued for sale" over the "past year or so", assuming they "would be improved over initial offerings.....though I detest assuming, typically" he concluded with a " ? "

He again asked why I was "so interested?" He typed, "you should easily know all this, playing as long as you have." I said a friend was intrigued.

He was getting tired of typing and he called me a few minutes ago, I have the day off, obviously, haha. I then pressed on the general second squad being only Rebel "regeneration" ships? He admitted, "Seemed like a powerful ability in my cursory card review in a game like this, but I don't know the details beyond one ship and modification cards leading to this ability on others." (my paraphrase) He also told me, "you know I dislike second place, so analysis there seemed a bit useless in my quick review. By then," he continued, "I had seen so many cards, details and rules for the game, I didn't want to stray too far from my hypothesis. Though I recall most of the details of the best 25 ship cards in your game. Test me, the next time we're together. If I cannot recall the exact details, I'll buy the beer if I slip on just one detail." (my paraphrase). I'll hold him to it......he has to slip up just once. I hope.

It sounds like he put a fair amount of thought into it.

Ok, so that reasoning sort of adds up. However, it only provides the following hypothesis: Mindlink might be good. Jumpmaster might be good. Fenn can do some damage. Going from that to 2 torp scouts with specific upgrades and fenn is a stretch (even if genius level iq), at least without searching for list archetypes. Not stumblimg over one of the dominant archetypes in such a search might be hard.

My take, you probably have an intelligent friend. He is probably also twisting the story a bit to appear smarter than he is. But hey, don't we all..

Could he be the Arch-Nemesis of Major Juggler ?

5 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

Could he be the Arch-Nemesis of Major Juggler ?

Haha!!

...he's an old friend, but his abilities of photographic memory plus calculator mind make him tough to be around more than once in a while. Thankfully, Grumman is NE of Washington DC, whew!