Fortressing. One of the MOST hated strategies in X-Wing by most. Usually it isn't the best way to approach a situation, but sometimes it is, and those times are the most frustrating for some.

Well, I for one love fortressing. Ships should be able to stand still. It's space, anything with controllable velocity should be able to stop. Star Wars is just weird because there is no difference between space and atmosphere apparently... By I digress.

I spend a good amount of time thinking about fortressing, and it probably makes me a bad person, but whatever. Here are my thoughts and a few lists to go along with them.

1. Biggs Fort

Biggs, the best (and only relevant) X-Wing pilot in the game. So many rebel lists are based around him. One in particular, Kanan/Biggs, always intrigued me. The ghost is essentially a giant wall in front of Biggs, but it doesn't really act like one in terms of blocking shots, unless of course you equip Tactical Jammers. But then you gotta spend all game trying to position your Ghost in between Biggs and the enemy and keep Biggs at range 3. Which is virtually impossible to do all game. Unless...

Biggs w/ IA, R4-D6

Kanan w/ Tac Jammers, Advanced Sensors, Recon Specialist, Rey

U-Wing w/ Tac Jammers, title, FCS, Hera, Chopper

I had a chart that explained the first few turns to set up the fort but I don't know what I did with it. I'm sure you could figure it out though. Essentially, U-Wing needs to get out in front, do stops forever, Kanan gets right behind it and bumps forever, Biggs chills in back. Shoot whatever is in front. Kanan will have 3 focus a turn (or at least that's the plan), Biggs will have 3 evade, and you got a good bit of reds going out. Alas, this list is kinda meh though. Not too many mods going around. 3 evade isn't that great with no focus. There are ways to change it up to get Biggs some mods, but I could never settle on an exact setup I liked. Feel free to toy with it if you want. Using to U-Wings also works, and gets you a good bit more points to play with.

2. Starkiller Base

Anyways, on to the next list, the Imperial Fortress! While the Empire doesn't exactly have a Biggs to set up behind your fort, it does have a few more ships that make for decent walls.

Epsilon Leader

Lt. Dormitz w/ FCS, Gunner, Pattern Analyzer, Hyper-Wave Comm Scanner

Starkiller Base Pilot w/ FCS, Inspiring Recruit, Gunner, Pattern Analyzer

Set up is pretty easy here, Dormitz places at PS1 diagonal and about range one from the edge of a board, the generic places parallel to Dormitz forming what looks like a dog-eared corner, Epsilon places directly behind them. The shuttles dial in stops every round, do whatever action they feel is necessary, the TIE does a 1 turn and clears the shuttles' stress, and all is good. Remember, the Empire moves for no man!

This set up gives you a nice field of fire compared to the rebel list, and 4 dice primaries with Gunner and target locks is quite intimidating. Just shred what gets too close and call it a day. Only sad thing is there is no Biggs, so your opponent can kinda just shoot at whatever. That's why you gotta kill them first! And if they refuse to engage, you have a hell of a final salvo.

And thus ends my long winded post about fortressing. I don't have a scum list to put here, but they don't really have any stand out options other than making a YV stop forever with some strange wingman combo. These lists are already janky enough without that...

Hope you enjoyed the read, and please don't take it too seriously. Both of these lists are probably terrible and they would probably implode in a tournament setting. So please don't shout to the heavens that fortressing will destroy the game.

I'm not an expert player or anything, but it seems like the bombers of today would wreck a fortress now that they are feasible again.

I'm paraphrasing here, but those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter.

Don't worry about fortressing. It's only effective against certain lists and in many circumstances is the best option when faced with super mobile ships that want to trick you into committing to the wrong direction or bombs or whatnot. In my view, players that use those kinds of shenanigan-based ships are more guilty than a fortressing player is of creating NPE.

I've only played against a fortress once, and it was so *** ****** annoying..
I play under the premise that as long as what you're doing is rule-legal, it's fine by me. Having said that, I found myself rolling my eyes the first three or four turns, eventually saying to my opponent, "Can you just tell me you're fortressing instead of flipping each dial individually and explaining what is happening every turn?" -- I get it - you're not moving.

It doesn't help that fortressing is actually a viable strategy for a lot of lists that enjoy advantages from jousting. Unless you're playing bombers (K-Wings, only, really #AdvancedSLAM) then, yeah, there's not much you can do aside from play their game and never go to their side of the map.. Sounds like a lot of fun.

Tried my first fortress a couple of weeks ago. I did what it was meant to do, just wasn't amazing...

Bossk (35) - HLC (7), APL (2), Wingman (2), Inspiring Recruit (1), K4 (3)

Moralo (34) - HLC (7), APL (2), Outlaw Tech (2)

Plus 5 points of your favourite crew.

Bossk sits at 45deg in one corner, Moralo at 22deg next to him. Bossk always 1 straights and Moralo always stops. APLs stop anyone sitting on your tail and shooting the other one.

It was different and I had fun trying it.

I feel like this list could make for an obnoxious fortress:

Captain Yorr (24)
Collision Detector (0)
Inspiring Recruit (1)

Starkiller Base Pilot (30)
Collision Detector (0)
Fleet Officer (3)

Omicron Group Pilot (21)
Collision Detector (0)

Omicron Group Pilot (21)
Collision Detector (0)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Get the Starkiller Pilot in position to block everyone else, and then just hard-stop every turn and pass out Focus tokens with Fleet Officer. Yorr sponges both stress tokens and clears them with a 1-straight.

As Yorr doesn't get triple-stressed, you can do this indefinitely.

As a bonus, you enter into a final salvo with 13 red dice.

On 4/28/2017 at 3:30 PM, Turbo Toker said:

I'm paraphrasing here, but those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter.

Don't worry about fortressing. It's only effective against certain lists and in many circumstances is the best option when faced with super mobile ships that want to trick you into committing to the wrong direction or bombs or whatnot. In my view, players that use those kinds of shenanigan-based ships are more guilty than a fortressing player is of creating NPE.

So your mad at someone for using a list that tries to outsmart you by getting you to commit on their terms through moving but not at one which tries to get you to commit on their terms by not moving? How does that even make any sense?

5 hours ago, CJKeys said:

So your mad at someone for using a list that tries to outsmart you by getting you to commit on their terms through moving but not at one which tries to get you to commit on their terms by not moving? How does that even make any sense?

Because, things like Dash are super mobile and can abuse movement to such an extreme that getting players to commit to wrong directions is trivial. B-Wings can't do that, TIE Fighters can't do that. Hence why fortressing wasn't really done before the game got stupid when the phantom came out. The first time I heard about fortressing was when someone at Worlds did it with 3 X-Wings against a Phantom player before the nerf.

It's almost as if the XXX player's best option was to not play his opponent's game of getting toyed around with all game and punished. If your opponent has the ability to easily and severely punish you for the very fact that your ships have to move, it's no wonder that it's often in a player's best interest to stop moving his ships entirely. Maybe if my opponent had something reasonable like BBBBZ I wouldn't gain much from fortressing.

If a taller kid decides to pick on another and takes a possession of a smaller kid and holds it out of reach, you can't blame the smaller kid when he doesn't want to play the game of "pointlessly jump and grasp and beg while someone laughs at you for being inferior".

Fortressing is just a response to this type of garbage.

TBH I don't really see why people should be mad at fortressing.

One of the deepest levels of x-wing strategy is making your opponent engage on your terms, as opposed to an even ground/his terms.

Fortressing is just a tool among many to help you achieve that.

Biggs is the only relevant X-wing? Wedge and Janson would like a word with you.

1 hour ago, GreenLantern1138 said:

Biggs is the only relevant X-wing? Wedge and Janson would like a word with you.

Given that, according to the MetaWing thread about 80% of played x-wings are Biggs (in the tournaments with List Juggler data), I think one can safely say Biggs is the only relevant X-wimg.

Tee hee ... here's a troll fortress list for you:

Chewbacca (46)
YT-1300 (42), Expertise (4), "Chopper" (0)

Lando Calrissian (54)
YT-1300 (44), Predator (3), Gunner (5), Captain Rex (2)

Run the YT's into each other, then do 1-straights each turn. Use Lando's ability to give Chewie a Target Lock, and Predator to reroll hits on his first shots to trigger Gunner so the second shot is fully modded -- both ships then have fully modded shots each round.

5 hours ago, Turbo Toker said:

Because, things like Dash are super mobile and can abuse movement to such an extreme that getting players to commit to wrong directions is trivial. B-Wings can't do that, TIE Fighters can't do that. Hence why fortressing wasn't really done before the game got stupid when the phantom came out. The first time I heard about fortressing was when someone at Worlds did it with 3 X-Wings against a Phantom player before the nerf.

It's almost as if the XXX player's best option was to not play his opponent's game of getting toyed around with all game and punished. If your opponent has the ability to easily and severely punish you for the very fact that your ships have to move, it's no wonder that it's often in a player's best interest to stop moving his ships entirely. Maybe if my opponent had something reasonable like BBBBZ I wouldn't gain much from fortressing.

If a taller kid decides to pick on another and takes a possession of a smaller kid and holds it out of reach, you can't blame the smaller kid when he doesn't want to play the game of "pointlessly jump and grasp and beg while someone laughs at you for being inferior".

Right, so you are vilifying those who chose maneuverable lists when compared to those who fortress. Both make you do the same thing; try to get you to make a bad choice. It is simply in how they do it that is different.

As for your analogy, a 6/100 game would be more like the smaller kid and bigger kid decide to fight and the taller kid "fortresses" and puts his hand on the smaller kids head to keep the small kid out of reach while the small kid tries to move around to avoid the tall kid's superior striking distance. They both chose to fight, how they each do that is up to them.

1 hour ago, CJKeys said:

Right, so you are vilifying those who chose maneuverable lists when compared to those who fortress. Both make you do the same thing; try to get you to make a bad choice. It is simply in how they do it that is different.

As for your analogy, a 6/100 game would be more like the smaller kid and bigger kid decide to fight and the taller kid "fortresses" and puts his hand on the smaller kids head to keep the small kid out of reach while the small kid tries to move around to avoid the tall kid's superior striking distance. They both chose to fight, how they each do that is up to them.

You don't understand my post. Fortressing does nothing when 2 normal lists face off against one another. It's only when one side has something that abuses maneuvering that it becomes beneficial to fortress against it. Like Dash or the Phantom before the nerf or K-Wing bombers. If a swarm player fortresses against a BBBBZ player, it doesn't accomplish much.

Your analogy describes what was like to play against the Phantom pre-nerf, or dash, not what it's like to play against an XXXZ player who fortresses against a Phantom. You're not toyed with all game against a fortressing player, you know exactly where they'll be all game and you have all game to figure out a solution, it's the exact opposite of facing a dash player. If you list is so fragile and one dimensional that it can't actually beat something in an actual fight, that's your fault, maybe your list shouldn't be entirely bomb based.

Like I've said, this wasn't necessary before the game got stupid.

19 minutes ago, Turbo Toker said:

You don't understand my post. Fortressing does nothing when 2 normal lists face off against one another. It's only when one side has something that abuses maneuvering that it becomes beneficial to fortress against it. Like Dash or the Phantom before the nerf or K-Wing bombers. If a swarm player fortresses against a BBBBZ player, it doesn't accomplish much.

Your analogy describes what was like to play against the Phantom pre-nerf, or dash, not what it's like to play against an XXXZ player who fortresses against a Phantom. You're not toyed with all game against a fortressing player, you know exactly where they'll be all game and you have all game to figure out a solution, it's the exact opposite of facing a dash player. If you list is so fragile and one dimensional that it can't actually beat something in an actual fight, that's your fault, maybe your list shouldn't be entirely bomb based.

Like I've said, this wasn't necessary before the game got stupid.

It's not necessary now either... Quite frankly I've been flying some variation of Dash/Corran or Dash/Poe since Dash came out and was awkwardly shocked when I went to my first event with it and ran into a few almost mirror matches.

I've played against fortresses since before Dash existed. Currently no matter how their set up you can pick away at them from r3 constantly and keep regenerating Corran or Poe's shields then repeat. If you chose not to move and die from a thousand paper cuts it's not my fault. If I chose to move into your optimal kill range and arcs then lose a ship for you it is my fault.

I'm not saying Foretressing isn't a valid tactic, it is just as valid as my 1st turn shot from Dash. But to say that the hyper maneuverable lists are somehow committing a more egregious act than a Fortress list is hypocritical. They do the same thing. Try to force you into a bad match-up. How they do it is completely different.

As for your bomb comment, bombers are a valid tactic. They way you are dismissive of anything other than the old jousters makes me think you are incapable of adapting to a fluid "combat environment" as it were and that inflexibility is probably the source of much of your NPE or whatever the acronym is for feeling like your not having fun.

43 minutes ago, Turbo Toker said:

You don't understand my post. Fortressing does nothing when 2 normal lists face off against one another. It's only when one side has something that abuses maneuvering that it becomes beneficial to fortress against it. Like Dash or the Phantom before the nerf or K-Wing bombers. If a swarm player fortresses against a BBBBZ player, it doesn't accomplish much.

Your analogy describes what was like to play against the Phantom pre-nerf, or dash, not what it's like to play against an XXXZ player who fortresses against a Phantom. You're not toyed with all game against a fortressing player, you know exactly where they'll be all game and you have all game to figure out a solution, it's the exact opposite of facing a dash player. If you list is so fragile and one dimensional that it can't actually beat something in an actual fight, that's your fault, maybe your list shouldn't be entirely bomb based.

Like I've said, this wasn't necessary before the game got stupid.

I wouldn't call the game stupid, but you have a point there.

Slowly, all viable lists are becoming those that inherently are NPE to as many other lists as possible.

• Arcdodgers and fat turrets are NPE to pure jousting lists, since they exploit their ability to negate arcs to their rivals, not letting them do what they are best at.
• Bombers are NPE to arcdodgers and glass cannons, since they can deal little but instant damage before they can even move, and exploiting their usually low health.
• Ultraeconomy lists (like Parattanni) are NPE to lists that base their gameplay on removing action economy to their rivals, like stress dealers, blocker swarms, etc.
• Mod hoarders (token stackers, or similar effects like old X7, old Palpatine, old Dengaroo) are NPE to those lists that are about just aiming and firing, since even in the case they manage to do what they are supposed to do, they get basically no results.

It's the old rock-paper-scissors gone extreme, since most of the time, facing a list that is NPE to your play style isn't just an uphill battle, but an unwinnable slog. Lists are becoming so optimal at what they do that they basically guarantee that if they meet a rival that is weak against their "trick", that poor guy isn't going to be able to, basically, play the game.

That is why we are getting more and more "X is NPE" and "Nerf Y", where the usual flow of comments is some people totally agreeing with the topic, and some others totally denying it, since it depends on which slice of the list population they usually play. For some people, K-Wing Bombers are absolutely unfun to play against, while for others they aren't a big deal. For some people Kylo Ren, or Dash Rendar, or Regen, are the boogieman, while for some others they aren't specially annoying.

The game is getting polarized, only that instead of only two poles, there are N. And somehow it's not leading to a "Balanced meta". But to one where a player is having fun (being either because they are clearly on the upper side of the match, or because it's just equal or balanced) for 20% of the games, and the other 80% of the games they feel like they cannot even play and the other lists is breaking all the rules in the game.

In my opinion, only way to solve this would be to make a lists that is balanced and good against most possible matches. But that is not possible at the moment because with the limit of 100 points, you can only bring so much, and probably it will be just a heavily sub-optimal mix of ships that will not have enough meat to counter the very things they should be able to counter.

15 minutes ago, Azrapse said:

I wouldn't call the game stupid, but you have a point there.

Slowly, all viable lists are becoming those that inherently are NPE to as many other lists as possible.

• Arcdodgers and fat turrets are NPE to pure jousting lists, since they exploit their ability to negate arcs to their rivals, not letting them do what they are best at.
• Bombers are NPE to arcdodgers and glass cannons, since they can deal little but instant damage before they can even move, and exploiting their usually low health.
• Ultraeconomy lists (like Parattanni) are NPE to lists that base their gameplay on removing action economy to their rivals, like stress dealers, blocker swarms, etc.
• Mod hoarders (token stackers, or similar effects like old X7, old Palpatine, old Dengaroo) are NPE to those lists that are about just aiming and firing, since even in the case they manage to do what they are supposed to do, they get basically no results.

It's the old rock-paper-scissors gone extreme, since most of the time, facing a list that is NPE to your play style isn't just an uphill battle, but an unwinnable slog. Lists are becoming so optimal at what they do that they basically guarantee that if they meet a rival that is weak against their "trick", that poor guy isn't going to be able to, basically, play the game.

That is why we are getting more and more "X is NPE" and "Nerf Y", where the usual flow of comments is some people totally agreeing with the topic, and some others totally denying it, since it depends on which slice of the list population they usually play. For some people, K-Wing Bombers are absolutely unfun to play against, while for others they aren't a big deal. For some people Kylo Ren, or Dash Rendar, or Regen, are the boogieman, while for some others they aren't specially annoying.

The game is getting polarized, only that instead of only two poles, there are N. And somehow it's not leading to a "Balanced meta". But to one where a player is having fun (being either because they are clearly on the upper side of the match, or because it's just equal or balanced) for 20% of the games, and the other 80% of the games they feel like they cannot even play and the other lists is breaking all the rules in the game.

In my opinion, only way to solve this would be to make a lists that is balanced and good against most possible matches. But that is not possible at the moment because with the limit of 100 points, you can only bring so much, and probably it will be just a heavily sub-optimal mix of ships that will not have enough meat to counter the very things they should be able to counter.

I'm not sure that "x beats y" implies that X is an NPE, its just that it's better than Y. And I'd say that there are no unwinnable matches in X wing - there are hard ones, and ones that you are probably going to lose, but nothing that's autolose.

Especially if you're talking about "ships with action economy beat those without"... well yeah, thats the entire point of the game.

3 minutes ago, ThalanirIII said:

I'm not sure that "x beats y" implies that X is an NPE, its just that it's better than Y. And I'd say that there are no unwinnable matches in X wing - there are hard ones, and ones that you are probably going to lose, but nothing that's autolose.

Especially if you're talking about "ships with action economy beat those without"... well yeah, thats the entire point of the game.

I don't mean "ships with action economy beat those without". That's not what I said. I meant ships that are built around the concept of having an action economy almost immune to external interference. Of course those are going to beat lists that are based on interfere with the action economy of their rivals.

But not just beat them. But basically negating them a chance to do the very thing they are supposed to do. That is the line between losing because being outflown and losing because of not being able to do what you came to do.

"X beats Y" doesn't imply NPE. It doesn't imply either that "X is better than Y". That is just like saying that Rock is better than Scissors.

The key here is if it is healthy for the game that player need to pick between Rock, Paper, and Scissors because of the point limit or the strenths of their faction of choice. And what happens when the designers now and then bring out something that reminds to a sharp edged sheet of paper made of asbestos.

You are going to have Rock people that wil complain that Paper is NPE because for them it just is. And that the new Sharp Asbestos Paper is broken, and has broken the game.

"Nerf Paper; Scissors is fine."

- Rock

Ok silly question here, what is Fortressing???

Just now, Ghostrider58 said:

Ok silly question here, what is Fortressing???

Clustering all your ships on a corner of the board, facing inwards, in a way that they can remain in place by bumping into each other. That formation discourages ships that excel at arcdodging or maneuvering from approaching, because they have no room to maneuver without going off the board or falling into multiple firing arcs.

Ahh ok have not run into that yet with my group...thanks...

1 minute ago, Ghostrider58 said:

Ahh ok have not run into that yet with my group...thanks...

It's a extremely out-of-immersion way of playing since it exploits the limitations of the game rules (that there is a limited combat space, that space ships bump with each other without suffering damage), and also is really monotone (every round is exactly the same for the player fortressing, since all ships need to do the same moves to stay in place, and most of them lose all actions because of it).
But its very existence is said to be a response to lists that abuse or ignore the game rules in a different way.

49 minutes ago, Azrapse said:

It's a extremely out-of-immersion way of playing since it exploits the limitations of the game rules (that there is a limited combat space, that space ships bump with each other without suffering damage), and also is really monotone (every round is exactly the same for the player fortressing, since all ships need to do the same moves to stay in place, and most of them lose all actions because of it).
But its very existence is said to be a response to lists that abuse or ignore the game rules in a different way.

The ships could just be docked together or something. Space in Star Wars isn't realistic, it's kind of identical to being in atmosphere with the ability to float around in zero G. WW2 in space, remember.

It would be feasible to stop what are essentially WW2 aircraft if they could float in zero G. It wouldn't be like stopping a real space craft traveling at real speeds where you'd have to spend half your journey accelerating and the last half decelerating.

32 minutes ago, GreenLantern1138 said:

Biggs is the only relevant X-wing? Wedge and Janson would like a word with you.

Wedge? I'd put M9-Tarn way ahead of him. In fact I might have found a neat space for him in a really janky rebel jank list (Stresshog, Biggs, M9-Tarn, TLT-HWK) where he gets to shine magnificently...

Wedge just doesn't do much other ships can't do, too.