10 hours ago, Cubanboy said:

Can I ask the difference in Pure and Countdown? Is living longer better then the damage?

In my experience, Countdown gets smashed by TLT's. 2 rounds and he will probably be dead. I dont know what your Meta is, but he can take Ordinance to the face but TLT's make him have a bad day.

12 hours ago, Parakitor said:

I also need to re-learn how to make the obstacles work in my favor.

I've noticed two things in my experience regarding obstacles & placement:

1) If someone is placing rocks in the the "corners" (Range 2 from the edges) its a good indicator that they haven't explored/discovered the advantages of placing obstacles . And if you have, then you have the advantage. My preferred placement is on the opponent's side at Range 2.5 from the edge, or there about. If they're deploying from a corner, they're likely not used to having a rock there and are more prone to clip, overshoot or undershoot it. The third rock should be anywhere away from you, on their side (try and keep the rocks out of your half of the mat).

2) Setting up your ships in an uncommon way can really throw off your opponent. This typically works well if you've practiced enough to know where your ships to end up by the end of Round 2 without question.. You should have at least 3 openings practiced and memorized. My favorite is to line my ships up in one corner pointed at the other corner of my deployment zone. In other words, they're not going to fly forward towards the enemy as most people do, they're going to fly along your edge at speed 3 or 4. Next do a hard 1 or 2 towards the opponent's edge that should place you at about range 2 right in the middle. Sometimes you're in Range 3 of the opponent, if they were aggressive, but that's OK, you get the extra green die. Now you can carry on and take out whichever ship you've place target priority on.

Whilst I can appreciate the desire to improve yourself, your skills and your understanding of the game, my advise is to not stress over winning. Keep in mind that the Kallus thingy-mi-gidge is just that .. a thing. Do you need more 'things'? Consumerism within our culture pushes us to want more, better, newer, shinier things.

I maintain that our focus should be on enjoyment, on interacting with human beings and having fun with our time on this rock. If having things or winning a competition brings you joy, wonderful. But please be honest and true with yourself.

Regardless of your pursuits, all the best sir.

4 hours ago, Conandoodle said:

Whilst I can appreciate the desire to improve yourself, your skills and your understanding of the game, my advise is to not stress over winning. Keep in mind that the Kallus thingy-mi-gidge is just that .. a thing. Do you need more 'things'? Consumerism within our culture pushes us to want more, better, newer, shinier things.

I maintain that our focus should be on enjoyment, on interacting with human beings and having fun with our time on this rock. If having things or winning a competition brings you joy, wonderful. But please be honest and true with yourself.

Regardless of your pursuits, all the best sir.

I totally get this, I just love running Kallus, so it's a good goal personally to have. I normally go 2/2 (the last one I played was wave 5) in tornys and want to breakthrough that celling. I am really happy that I get to play once a week because for the last couple of years I have only gotten in a hand full of games and treasure each time I play.

Since you like imperials and flying defenders too, may I suggest you practice a bit using this list.

If you want to win run any x7 defender with Quickdraw or Backdraft and Ol or a striker. This to me works best.

I think there's space for Tie D now that X/7 has been nerfed.

Tractor beam is a great anti biggs weapon (just barrel roll him out of range one of what you want to shoot). Also Flechette gives you that stress causing every turn for fighting mindlinks.

On ‎5‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 0:54 AM, Biophysical said:

About 80% of my success with pre-title Defenders was due to reps put into games against myself on Vassal where I'd just test setups against power squads over and over to see what openings and setups led to favorable matchups.

I've played X-Wing regularly for a couple years now, but only in the last eight or nine months have I really felt like I am decent. It all comes back to me working out a list that isn't bad and sticking with it for months at a time. While everyone around me were trying new things every other week I got really good with what I was using and it paid dividends.

Playing a lot of different lists is good for general knowledge of how things work but at some point, if you want be competitive in a tournament, it is better to fly the same thing 20 times and when you are getting sick/bored of it, fly it 10 more times. Once you take it to a tournament all that effort will pay off.

On 5/8/2017 at 7:39 PM, FlyingAnchors said:

Learn how to fly around obstacles. It takes a lot of practice, but once you've got it, you've pretty much got it. (kind of goes back to the knowing how to gauge distances)

Or run debris clouds and learn how to deal with the stress. (Countess Ryad?)

This. I'm out of likes, so I'm quoting for truth.

I've set up a astroid fields on my kitchen table, taken 100 points of various ship classes, and flown them around trying not to hit things. This let's me get a good sense for what dials a ship has, what various maneuvers actually look like on the table, _and also_ what different movement actions allow for. An Advanced Sensors TIE S/F that Barrel Rolls before revealing its dial will end up in a very different spot from a TIE Interceptor that Boosts and then Barrel Rolls after performing a maneuver. To say nothing of TIE Strikers or TIE Phantoms.

The other thing that can help with planning- and I kind of hate saying this, because money, is the Dial Upgrade Kits. I thought they were gimmicky until I saw them in person. Now I can't play without them. They let you see the entire dial at once, so it's a lot easier to see what options you have and which you do not have.

Playing against other people is great! It's not always possible, however. So I've found that solo asteroid fields are a good way to get my practice on.

On 5/10/2017 at 6:15 PM, Force Majeure said:

I've noticed two things in my experience regarding obstacles & placement:

1) If someone is placing rocks in the the "corners" (Range 2 from the edges) its a good indicator that they haven't explored/discovered the advantages of placing obstacles . And if you have, then you have the advantage. My preferred placement is on the opponent's side at Range 2.5 from the edge, or there about. If they're deploying from a corner, they're likely not used to having a rock there and are more prone to clip, overshoot or undershoot it. The third rock should be anywhere away from you, on their side (try and keep the rocks out of your half of the mat).

Not necessarily true. Some squads don't want to deal with asteroids (i.e TIE Swarm wants to get rid of those asteroids) and some love loads of clustered rocks (Dash/interceptors).

It's not as simple as you make it sound.

Fair enough.

Can I ask if palp is worth running with two aces?

I might run Vader, QuickDraw and a palp shuttle. I know palp is not as strong but I feel like it can still work.

He is still fine, albeit a little bit over costed for what he does now.