I hated my dice once too. Then I tracked (in casual games) every single die roll. Yes, I had 6 of each die, and didn't track them individually. I just tracked what I rolled each time I rolled dice: Hits/Crits/Focus/Blanks and Evade/Focus/Blanks. The crazy thing I found: Over the course of 20 games or so... my dice were pretty close to average. But then I looked at the number of green dice I rolled to red dice rolled. And I adjusted my flying so I threw more red dice than green dice. I'd suggest tracking your dice. Not only will you find they are probably pretty average (and if not, buy a new pack!), but you will probably see the same results I did.

And try HotAC. Its wicked fun!

11 minutes ago, Alekzanter said:

The Officers' Club

Major Striden (43), w/ Accuracy Corrector (3), Rebel Captive (3), Systems Officer (2), and Counter-measures (3), and...

Captain Oicunn (57), w/ Marksmanship (3), Weapons Engineer (3), Gunner (5), Mercenary Copilot (2), and Anti-pursuit Lasers (2).

100/100

This does not look very strong to me. You've sort of jumped the shark in terms of 'mitigate dice' and made some pretty questionable choices I think. If you're going to sink 43 points (almost half your list!!) into a ship you should make sure it's going to pull half the weight. I love the upsilon but it really has a hard time staying consistently relevant, especially when you're only going to have a decimator to 'punish' someone for focus firing it. That issue aside, I feel like you're wasting points on ineffectual choices.

Major Striden: Accuracy correcter is a pretty weak choice on a ship with 4 reds. Sure you'll always have 2 hits but statistically you get 2 hits every time you throw those dice and with fire control systems you should be hitting very hard consistently, and it's 1 point less. Rebel captive is a fine choice. Systems officer is interesting with Striden but tying yourself to green maneuvers just to give Oicunn rerolls is kind of weird I think. I believe these points could be better spent elsewhere but it's not a horrible choice. Counter measures is ok but not particularly exciting. It's the sort of upgrade I take to fill points if I have no better options. I'd rather spend 2 points on pattern analyzer and 3 points on recon specialist here since they up your overall power across the board.

Captain Oicunn: Marksmanship has always been a pretty poor upgrade and expertise has made it entirely useless. There is no significant difference between a hit and a crit, so getting a crit for 'free' from marksmanship is no real benefit. Expertise works every time you would get an action anyway and really only is 'worse' on some corner cases of getting stressed between perform action and combat (thanks, Assaj). Weapons engineer is pretty weak and should usually be taken only if you have some crazy target lock synergy (like Shara bae or something). Gunner is generally fine. Mercenary Copilot doesn't actually do anything. There's a pretty common misconception that crits matter when in reality they should not be seen as something worth spending extra effort on. Sure they are fun and occasionally you do get a crit which wins you the game but overall they are rarely/never worth spending points or resources to get over normal hits. Because of this there's no point to spending valuable points and slots on a crew which just makes success results into other success results which on average don't matter. Anti-persuit lasers is fine.

I think if you're looking for something hard hitting and fairly consistent you could look at adopting one of the Decimator+Aces configurations. Sure they usually involve some reliance on dice luck but they also come chock to the brim with mitigation for that luck.

Try something like:

Rear Admiral Chiraneau - Veteran Instincts, Engine Upgrade, Gunner, Hotshot Copilot, Rebel Captive (63)

Darth Vader - Predator, Engine Upgrade, TIE X/1, Advanced Targeting Computer (37)

There are only 2 ships and they move at PS 9 and 10 with re-positioning. They are not particularly hard to fly in interesting and tricky ways to manipulate the shots you will both get and receive, and the extra maneuvering from actions will help you with that even more. They both have good modification built right in, Vader gets an automatic crit, and actionless reroll, and can take 2 actions to gather valuable tokens to shore up iffy dice. RAC has an automatic "focus" effect for free at range 1-2 and gets to shoot again if you miss the first shot (which would be ideal given the Hotshot Copilot). After you hopefully miss your first shot with him the defender will have spent their focus token (they have to) and then you can shoot with full modification on their ship which should now be fairly bereft of action economy. Vader can also focus fire this weakened ship for some explosive results. RAC's default action should be target lock so you have rerolls for your 'focus' ability. You also shouldn't use that reroll on your first attack against a target unless a) you are going to never trigger gunner against them or b) they don't have focus to strip with Hotshot so you have no good reason to miss.

Practice that list and practice the crap out of it, work on never being tokenless on Vader if you can help it, work on dodging arcs with both ships when you can, and just practice until it feels good. They should hit like trucks and be tanky enough to shrug off a reasonable amount of fire before going down so it's a fairly forgiving list too, from what I've experienced.

I don't know the quality of your opponents or the size of your collection, but the above is my recommendation for if you want something fairly powerful with a good amount of shelf life and solid matches against a strong variety of lists. I don't know if it's the sort of thing that wins worlds but it's not too shabby either.

49 minutes ago, Alekzanter said:

The Officers' Club

Major Striden (43), w/ Accuracy Corrector (3), Rebel Captive (3), Systems Officer (2), and Counter-measures (3), and...

Captain Oicunn (57), w/ Marksmanship (3), Weapons Engineer (3), Gunner (5), Mercenary Copilot (2), and Anti-pursuit Lasers (2).

100/100

Assuming your are committed to Deci+Shuttle, then:

For Stridan: REMOVE Accuracy Corrector, Countermeasures, Systems Officer, UPGRADE to Kylo Ren, ADD A Score to Settle, Fire-Control System & Engine Upgrade.

Accuracy Corrector is just planning for failure and will not allow you to get full value out of your 4-dice primary. FCS will enable you to turn already average or above average rolls into better ones, and costs a point less which allows you to swap the entirely useless Countermeasures for Engine Upgrade so your shuttle can stay in the fight and push for range 1 assaults. Systems Officer will not be as useful with the changes to Oicunn below, allowing you to change to the more combat-oriented Kylo and give him something to help proc IWSYTDS.

For Oicunn: REMOVE Marksmanship, Weapons Engineer, Mercenary Copilot, Anti-Pursuit Lasers, ADD Predator, Darth Vader, Ysanne Isard/Engine Upgrade.

Predator is going to be far better than Marksmanship for you here. Not only for the natural Gunner synergy but because Oicunn plans to bump and sacrifice his action, preventing Marksmanship's use. For the same reason, Weapons Engineer is wasted points, and Mercenary Copilot is unplayably awful. Vader will allow you to deal with aces that might prove difficult to ram, and then your choice of Isard for added durability or Engine Upgrade to help position for rams.

But just switching to Deci+Ace as nigeltastic recommends above would be stronger overall.

A Score to Settle is an EPT, which Striden does not have in his upgrade bar. What Striden does have is Coordinate, which allows Oicunn to use Marksmanship, even if he bumps, and without taking stress. Upgrading to Kylo Ren? I'll give it serious consideration.

In my (personal) experience, FCS is crap. Dice don't remember what results they produced, and are just as likely to produce the exact same results on a reroll, which they do, quite often, when I spend target locks. And, it limits the target of the lock; the Upsilon has a "support" vehicle dial, and won't be chasing arc dodgers, or Shadowcasters, or Jumpmasters, or Phantoms, even if it does have Engine Upgrade. Personally speaking, the only good target lock is the one acquired by "Omega Leader" and that's me being generous. Yes, Accuracy Corrector is planning for failure, and I don't see that as a bad thing. I fail, a lot, so I've guaranteed against failure.

Honestly, I don't plan to ram with Oicunn. Just the threat of ramming is enough to muck up planning. I'm known for the occasional unconventional risk taking...I flew Ryad and The Inquisitor into the face of an eight-TIE swarm, sniped "Howlrunner" and "Scourge" at r1, and fouled the swarm's formation for the remainder of the game. Just the threat of ramming will make people balk.

I'll look again at Mercenary Copilot. A hit is a hit, after all, but, based on the local players, I think it'll have significant impact, especially during the end game.

Please don't misunderstand my observations, they're based on the local meta proclivities, and I appreciate the input, and welcome more, but...isn't Predator just a "mini" target lock? With Marksmanship I (supposedly) bump my chances of getting multiple hits by 25% before spending a target lock, and back that up with Gunner. Yeah, its a lot of points, but I think its cost-result ratio is better than a one-die reroll, even when you take my previous response about rerolls into consideration. And Yssane is also "planning for failure", except she's asleep until her conditions are met, and I really don't want to roll any more greens than I have to; blanking on defense dice really has reached the point of infuriation.

Also, in one breath, nigeltastic says "Woah! Your Striden is clocking in at nearly half you list!", and follows up with a version of him, what, 3, 4 points more expensive. Wha...? And Vader? I've flown him dozens of times, he's an arc dodger, and those suck, suck bad against JM5Ks and Shadowcasters, Dengar/revenge shot/Expertise yadda yadda net lists. 5 shields/hull, really? No. Nope. "...focus fire..." 2 reds? Your dice must burn through the table, dude, but mine chill my drinks, and 2 dice, even with ATC is weak. Not trying to be smarmy, but goddamnit my dice are ****, and (almost) everyone tells me to throw more reds, so I'm gonna. Look, I know how to "token up", but it rarely makes a difference, because dice, like I said. If a have a target lock, an evade and a focus, I'll roll 1 focus and two blanks, reroll two blanks, then my opponent rolls a natural evade, then retaliates with two hits and a crit, and I roll nothing but blank. Every time. No ****.

I have a mountain of small-base ships, and as far as I'm concerned they're all useless until something significantly changes the competitive meta. At least I'm willing to keep trying. Doesn't that count? I'm not poo-pooing these suggestions out-of-hand, but if you knew just how goddamned bad it's been...

41 minutes ago, Alekzanter said:

In my (personal) experience, FCS is crap. Dice don't remember what results they produced, and are just as likely to produce the exact same results on a reroll, which they do, quite often, when I spend target locks.

That is nothing more than confirmation bias, and you need to get over it because I can tell you right now it is crippling your ability to play this game. It's why you've overcorrected on bad dice mods that aren't actually helping you fully exploit the capabilities of your ships.

FCS has been the most used system upgrade in the game for years, because it is one of the best cards in the game. It gives you action efficiency, easy access to dice mods (a target lock increases your odds of hitting with any given dice from 50% to 75%), and makes it easier to combine Focus & Target Lock (which ups your dice to a 94% chance to hit).

I don't care if you think otherwise, your dice will act just like everyone else's - they're not cursed, and neither are you - and they will give you better results with a consistent source of rerolls behind them.

2 hours ago, Alekzanter said:

And Yssane is also "planning for failure", except she's asleep until her conditions are met, and I really don't want to roll any more greens than I have to; blanking on defense dice really has reached the point of infuriation. (1)

Also, in one breath, nigeltastic says "Woah! Your Striden is clocking in at nearly half you list!", and follows up with a version of him, what, 3, 4 points more expensive. Wha...? And Vader? I've flown him dozens of times, he's an arc dodger, and those suck, suck bad against JM5Ks and Shadowcasters, Dengar/revenge shot/Expertise yadda yadda net lists. 5 shields/hull, really? No. Nope. "...focus fire..." 2 reds? Your dice must burn through the table, dude, but mine chill my drinks, and 2 dice, even with ATC is weak. Not trying to be smarmy, but goddamnit my dice are ****, and (almost) everyone tells me to throw more reds, so I'm gonna. Look, I know how to "token up", but it rarely makes a difference, because dice, like I said. If a have a target lock, an evade and a focus, I'll roll 1 focus and two blanks, reroll two blanks, then my opponent rolls a natural evade, then retaliates with two hits and a crit, and I roll nothing but blank. Every time. No ****. (2)

I have a mountain of small-base ships, and as far as I'm concerned they're all useless until something significantly changes the competitive meta. At least I'm willing to keep trying. Doesn't that count? I'm not poo-pooing these suggestions out-of-hand, but if you knew just how goddamned bad it's been... (3)

I wanted to deal with this section separately, so forgive me the double post here.

1) Rules quibble: you don't roll defence dice with Isard. She gives you an Evade token: that's a guaranteed, dice-free evade every turn that often ends up adding (at a guess) 3-4 health to your Deci. That's a whole extra attack your opponent has to throw at it, which usually means a whole extra attack it gets to make. And that's often enough to swing a game.

2) More confirmation bias. You are obsessing on the worst result and assuming it will happen every time, which is preventing you from analysing the game objectively.

Here's a little mantra I want you to learn: the dice are never at fault.

It's not always easy to keep to that, and I will admit that it's not always entirely true, but the important thing is the mindset that it puts you in. It allows you to look past the dice and spot your mistakes so that you don't repeat them.

To indulge in some anecdotal evidence: I played at a tournament yesterday, and in the first game I lost in the second round of combat after my Old Teroch got one-shotted by a Bossk Cluster Missile. Now I could focus on the fact that said Bossk rolled 6 out of 6 natural hits & crits on otherwise unmodified dice and Terry blanked out on the second shot, but that would prevent me from seeing that I was too defensive in my approach. My opponent admitted after the game that he would have sent Bossk after Manaroo if I'd given him the chance, which would have opened a flank and allowed me to isolate and kill Dengar - and with a little bit of fancy flying, I might have even been able to get Mana past Bossk in one piece. Instead I allowed my opponent the easy choice to focus on my Fangs and I was punished for it.

3) If this is true and you are really willing to keep trying, see point 2. Put your assumptions about the dice and your luck aside and look more objectively at your results.

.Here's how I've built my version of the Oicunn/Stridan list. I'm currently 5-3 with it, but I had a bad tournament where I went 1-2, partly because I miscalculated and flew a full-heath Oicunn off the board. Major Stridan is mostly support to maximize Oicunn's potential. I do everything I can to get him to ram into an enemy ship each turn. Ideally, I ram twice with Oicunn, then use BoShek to put them in a bad position between my ships. Weapons Engineer allows Oicunn to shoot wherever he wants.

Upsilon-class Shuttle: · Major Stridan (32)
Fire Control System (2)
Systems officer (2)
Operations Specialist (3)
· Kylo Ren's Shuttle (2)
Pattern Analyzer (2)
VT-49 Decimator: · Captain Oicunn (42)
Daredevil (3)
Engine Upgrade (4)
· BoShek (2)
Inspiring Recruit (1)
Weapons Engineer (3)
· Dauntless (2)
-- TOTAL ------- 100/100p. --

6 hours ago, Alekzanter said:

A Score to Settle is an EPT, which Striden does not have in his upgrade bar. What Striden does have is Coordinate, which allows Oicunn to use Marksmanship, even if he bumps, and without taking stress. Upgrading to Kylo Ren? I'll give it serious consideration.

In my (personal) experience, FCS is crap. Dice don't remember what results they produced, and are just as likely to produce the exact same results on a reroll, which they do, quite often, when I spend target locks. And, it limits the target of the lock; the Upsilon has a "support" vehicle dial, and won't be chasing arc dodgers, or Shadowcasters, or Jumpmasters, or Phantoms, even if it does have Engine Upgrade. Personally speaking, the only good target lock is the one acquired by "Omega Leader" and that's me being generous. Yes, Accuracy Corrector is planning for failure, and I don't see that as a bad thing. I fail, a lot, so I've guaranteed against failure.

Honestly, I don't plan to ram with Oicunn. Just the threat of ramming is enough to muck up planning. I'm known for the occasional unconventional risk taking...I flew Ryad and The Inquisitor into the face of an eight-TIE swarm, sniped "Howlrunner" and "Scourge" at r1, and fouled the swarm's formation for the remainder of the game. Just the threat of ramming will make people balk.

I'll look again at Mercenary Copilot. A hit is a hit, after all, but, based on the local players, I think it'll have significant impact, especially during the end game.

Please don't misunderstand my observations, they're based on the local meta proclivities, and I appreciate the input, and welcome more, but...isn't Predator just a "mini" target lock? With Marksmanship I (supposedly) bump my chances of getting multiple hits by 25% before spending a target lock, and back that up with Gunner. Yeah, its a lot of points, but I think its cost-result ratio is better than a one-die reroll, even when you take my previous response about rerolls into consideration. And Yssane is also "planning for failure", except she's asleep until her conditions are met, and I really don't want to roll any more greens than I have to; blanking on defense dice really has reached the point of infuriation.

I have a mountain of small-base ships, and as far as I'm concerned they're all useless until something significantly changes the competitive meta. At least I'm willing to keep trying. Doesn't that count? I'm not poo-pooing these suggestions out-of-hand, but if you knew just how goddamned bad it's been...

http://xwingcalculator.x10host.com/diceuip.html

Here is a good site that will help you evaluate dice modifications more accurately. For example on your Stridan with AC, you have an expected damage of roughly 3 with a hard cut at 2 damage. With FCS allowing you to combine TL and focus your expected damage is 3.75 with a very low likelyhood of 2 or less hits. This is descriptivew statistics, no bs about it. It is much better to maximize your damage than to minimize your failiure.

What you need to understand about rerolls is that any die you can potentialy reroll is about as strong as a die you can potentialy focus. On 3 dice, TL and Focus have virtually the same effect. On lower numbers focus becomes a tiny bit better, on higher numbers TL becomes a tiny bit better. Nevermind, they are virtually identical in all circumstances except for when observing crit chance. Sure, dice don't remember, but you keeping the ones that came up successful on the first roll is much better.

Predator as a mini-TL that can stack with any focus you have is preferable to Marksmanship. 3 dice with Focus and one Predator reroll have 2.68 expected damage. 3 dice with Marksmanship 2.25.

Mercenary Copilot is bad, because it costs 2 points and a highly valuably crew slot that could be Miss guaranteed evade Isard, my favourite Rebel Captive, Lord I damage my ship to remove yours Vader and others, while doing absolutely nothing to increase your hit chance. Sure, a crit can be nice, but a crit that bounces off green dice is worthless.

So yeah, when you build a list, play around with the probability calculator a bit (just enter 0 green dice as defending to find out your expected raw damage) to see wether your upgrades actually do something.

11 hours ago, mkevans80 said:

Nobody understands your frustration more than I do. I recently had a string of luck over two games that I'm fairly sure should happen about one time in 14 million.

Alekzanter and mkevans80, I feel yas. I just had 3 games at store champs today that were so many standard deviations off the mean that it made me want to quit playing competitively altogether. The worst is when your RED variance goes into the septic tank. I had Jess Pava (while focused) roll blank into blank 11 consecutive times (many of which would have been kill shots). Declaring "75 percent!" each time did not help at all LOL. The worst is when you start tallying the odds. I've never hit 14 million to 1 against (is that exaggeration?), but I have hit 7 figures before. I've had a total of 3 runs that I've tracked into deep 6 digits. I do this to make sure that I'm not just falling victim to recency, confirmation, or other kind of bias, but it truly scorches the soul when actual math mocks you.

I'm with J Wilder. You do have to build AND fly better. And also roll better. You gotta be good and lucky at the same time to win.

And I'm not superstitious cerebrally, but I'm totally superstitious viscerally. I was using some prize dice that were just awful to me for months on end, to the point where my X-Wing bestie asked me why I kept using them. I replied, "If I love them hard enough, eventually they will love me back." Then they went on a magical run into cut at the first Hoth Open, then a Regional win. And now I'm mediocre again.

Wilder's right. Before I went on those runs, I strategized and played non-stop. Now, I play maybe 2 games a week. You make most of your own luck. You gotta shake off bad dice, and focus on the aspects that you can improve. And if you list build AND fly flawlessly, and STILL get dumped a loss, you have to just accept fate. The dice don't lie.

Whoops, sorry double post.

4 hours ago, Alekzanter said:

A Score to Settle is an EPT, which Striden does not have in his upgrade bar. What Striden does have is Coordinate, which allows Oicunn to use Marksmanship, even if he bumps, and without taking stress. Upgrading to Kylo Ren? I'll give it serious consideration.

In my (personal) experience, FCS is crap. Dice don't remember what results they produced, and are just as likely to produce the exact same results on a reroll, which they do, quite often, when I spend target locks. And, it limits the target of the lock; the Upsilon has a "support" vehicle dial, and won't be chasing arc dodgers, or Shadowcasters, or Jumpmasters, or Phantoms, even if it does have Engine Upgrade. Personally speaking, the only good target lock is the one acquired by "Omega Leader" and that's me being generous. Yes, Accuracy Corrector is planning for failure, and I don't see that as a bad thing. I fail, a lot, so I've guaranteed against failure.

Honestly, I don't plan to ram with Oicunn. Just the threat of ramming is enough to muck up planning. I'm known for the occasional unconventional risk taking...I flew Ryad and The Inquisitor into the face of an eight-TIE swarm, sniped "Howlrunner" and "Scourge" at r1, and fouled the swarm's formation for the remainder of the game. Just the threat of ramming will make people balk.

I'll look again at Mercenary Copilot. A hit is a hit, after all, but, based on the local players, I think it'll have significant impact, especially during the end game.

Please don't misunderstand my observations, they're based on the local meta proclivities, and I appreciate the input, and welcome more, but...isn't Predator just a "mini" target lock? With Marksmanship I (supposedly) bump my chances of getting multiple hits by 25% before spending a target lock, and back that up with Gunner. Yeah, its a lot of points, but I think its cost-result ratio is better than a one-die reroll, even when you take my previous response about rerolls into consideration. And Yssane is also "planning for failure", except she's asleep until her conditions are met, and I really don't want to roll any more greens than I have to; blanking on defense dice really has reached the point of infuriation.

Also, in one breath, nigeltastic says "Woah! Your Striden is clocking in at nearly half you list!", and follows up with a version of him, what, 3, 4 points more expensive. Wha...? And Vader? I've flown him dozens of times, he's an arc dodger, and those suck, suck bad against JM5Ks and Shadowcasters, Dengar/revenge shot/Expertise yadda yadda net lists. 5 shields/hull, really? No. Nope. "...focus fire..." 2 reds? Your dice must burn through the table, dude, but mine chill my drinks, and 2 dice, even with ATC is weak. Not trying to be smarmy, but goddamnit my dice are ****, and (almost) everyone tells me to throw more reds, so I'm gonna. Look, I know how to "token up", but it rarely makes a difference, because dice, like I said. If a have a target lock, an evade and a focus, I'll roll 1 focus and two blanks, reroll two blanks, then my opponent rolls a natural evade, then retaliates with two hits and a crit, and I roll nothing but blank. Every time. No ****.

I have a mountain of small-base ships, and as far as I'm concerned they're all useless until something significantly changes the competitive meta. At least I'm willing to keep trying. Doesn't that count? I'm not poo-pooing these suggestions out-of-hand, but if you knew just how goddamned bad it's been...

I'm going to try & address these 1 by 1, purely from a statistical standpoint.

1. "A Score to Settle is an EPT, which Striden does not have in his upgrade bar." His suggestion was swap Stridan for Kylo Ren in the shuttle. He's got an EPT.

2. "In my (personal) experience, FCS is crap." Not true. Remember, the only reason you'll use the target lock is if the dice fail the first time. The probability of rolling a blank/eye twice in a row is (4/8)^2 = 16/64 = 0.25. So if you have a reroll, you've only got a 25% chance of rolling a blank on any given dice. Yes, the dice don't remember anything, but you're a lot more likely to roll more hits with FCS on 4 dice than AC. The probability of rolling 3 or 4 hits with a TL is ~0.737, and the probability of rolling 2, 3 or 4 hits is ~0.948. So 19 out of 20 times, FCS is better than AC for less cost.

3. "Marksmanship I (supposedly) bump my chances of getting multiple hits by 25%" It's not worth the cost of an action. Why spend 3 points on an action when you could spend that on 2 actions (PTL) or add a point for free focus on every attack + another action (expertise).

4. " 2 dice, even with ATC is weak" 2 dice with a 1pt ATC is better than 3 dice, as you've got a 100% chance of getting the 1st crit from ATC.

5. " but it rarely makes a difference, because dice, like I said." That's confirmation bias, pure and simple. You need to forget that, or you'll fail at the game. Seriously, not tokening up because "what difference can it make?" is the difference between winning and losing sometimes. You'll get outliers, but its better to be safe than sorry & blaming your dice anyway.

3 hours ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

What you need to understand about rerolls is that any die you can potentialy reroll is about as strong as a die you can potentialy focus. On 3 dice, TL and Focus have virtually the same effect. On lower numbers focus becomes a tiny bit better, on higher numbers TL becomes a tiny bit better. Sure, dice don't remember, but you keeping the ones that came up successful on the first roll is much better.

Predator as a mini-TL that can stack with any focus you have is preferable to Marksmanship. 3 dice with Focus and one Predator reroll have 2.68 expected damage. 3 dice with Marksmanship 2.25.

Could you please elaborate why a focus becomes better on lower dice numbers and worse on higher numbers?

Because statistics say it is exactly (and exactly exactly) the same thing regardless of number of dice, because there is no relationship between each of the attack dice. You could also roll every die after another and the focus/target lock effects for 1 die will not effect other dice. So it is exactly the same chance. If anything I'd give a slight edge to the target lock, simply because a crit is better than a hit and

for example for 1 die with focus: 1/8 crit, 5/8 hit (which adds to the 6/8 hit/crit cumulated chance), 2/8 blank,

with target lock instead: 1/8 + 4/8 * 1/8 = 3/16 crit, 3/8 + 4/8 * 3/8 = 9/16 hit (which adds to the 6/8 hit/crit cumulated chance), 4/8 * 2/8 = 1/8 focus, 4/8 * 2/8 = 1/8 blank.

So taking a target lock instead of the focus will yield a higher crit chance on the dice but the overall hits will stay the same, 6/8 or 75%.

Also what makes you think that keeping the ones that came up successful on the first roll is much better.?

@Alekzanter

Try to do what people here said on the first page. Whenever you roll your dice, count how many you rolled, which color your rolled, and count how many hit/crit/focus/blank or evade/focus/blank results you got. For every reroll do exactly the same. Collect that data for several matches until you have at least something like 200 throws on each attack and defense dice. Either you really have skewed dice and can present data that will have extraordinary peaks on the blanks or it is just the usual human condition:

You remember all the times the dice failed you, but you don't remember the times when they were heavily in your favor. It's human. You take your superb rolls as granted because "you were flying so well" when in fact it has nothing to do with your expert barrel roll when you put down 4 hit hit hit crit on a roll with no modifications and it cost your enemy his ship. But of course you remember the one time where you blanked all out on 3 defense dice because it cost you your ship. Observation bias it is.

And regarding to the predator/marksmanship issue: The problem is that marksmanship will cost you the action, predator does not, which in turn nets you another focus, and as Admiral Deathrain said above, the actual expected damage for predator+focus is considerably higher.

Just now, JayDestroyaC said:

Could you please elaborate why a focus becomes better on lower dice numbers and worse on higher numbers?

Because statistics say it is exactly (and exactly exactly) the same thing regardless of number of dice, because there is no relationship between each of the attack dice. You could also roll every die after another and the focus/target lock effects for 1 die will not effect other dice. So it is exactly the same chance. If anything I'd give a slight edge to the target lock, simply because a crit is better than a hit and

for example for 1 die with focus: 1/8 crit, 5/8 hit (which adds to the 6/8 hit/crit cumulated chance), 2/8 blank,

with target lock instead: 1/8 + 4/8 * 1/8 = 3/16 crit, 3/8 + 4/8 * 3/8 = 9/16 hit (which adds to the 6/8 hit/crit cumulated chance), 4/8 * 2/8 = 1/8 focus, 4/8 * 2/8 = 1/8 blank.

So taking a target lock instead of the focus will yield a higher crit chance on the dice but the overall hits will stay the same, 6/8 or 75%.

Also what makes you think that keeping the ones that came up successful on the first roll is much better.?

That was bs, I had that in mind from someplace but didn't actually check. Focus and TL are indeed equivalent to each other. The only thing that might make a tiny difference is crit chance on rerolls.

The last bit was a bit of a tongue in cheek way to answer to his "dice don't remember" argument against TLs.

18 hours ago, nigeltastic said:

So here's the thing I've learned myself and observed over the years. When people complain about consistently *** dice (over more than just a single set of games) it's because they're not flying well.

This can manifest in not taking enough dice modification (focus tokens are king), a lack of focus fire, or poor engagements which lead to a weaker weight of fire at crucial times. It's impossible for someone to be 'cursed' and their dice to 'always crap out' and it's incredibly more likely that they are not following good principles around engagement, focus fire, and dice modification. I was playing a guy recently who after some bad rolls with his greens would put them in 'time out' and kept switching off sets until his ships were all dead. He had a few bad defense rolls certainly but he also did not take a focus token a single time that I can remember, and many of his rolls had multiple focus symbols crying out for him to love them. Dice modification would have saved him but he instead decided to blame the 'cursed dice'.

Sure you can have a game that truly was lost because of the dice, that happens, but there's almost always something you could have done better to help make those dice have a better chance. At the end of the day this game does come down to hinging on dice fairly often but you have a lot of power to enable your dice to have the opportunity to perform.

Yep.

In a casual league this week I am flying Wedge and Luke with Vectored thrusters and Tarn with M9. My first game, I lost Luke on the first shot of the game to Fenn but Tarns forced re-rolls stopped about 5 of 8 potential damage and Wedge pulled it out in the end. Next game I had Tarn force a re-roll on 5 hit results. Those re-rolls resulted in 3 hits and 2 crits instead. Now I could blame the dice on the loss, or I could blame the fact that in a 7 round game, Wedge shot twice, Luke once and Tarn 3 times against triple x7/ Defenders. I was completely out flanked turn after turn and was tabled having only knocked off a single shield against my opponent.

1 minute ago, pickirk01 said:

Yep.

In a casual league this week I am flying Wedge and Luke with Vectored thrusters and Tarn with M9. My first game, I lost Luke on the first shot of the game to Fenn but Tarns forced re-rolls stopped about 5 of 8 potential damage and Wedge pulled it out in the end. Next game I had Tarn force a re-roll on 5 hit results. Those re-rolls resulted in 3 hits and 2 crits instead. Now I could blame the dice on the loss, or I could blame the fact that in a 7 round game, Wedge shot twice, Luke once and Tarn 3 times against triple x7/ Defenders. I was completely out flanked turn after turn and was tabled having only knocked off a single shield against my opponent.

What is best in X-Wing?

Roll red dice out of your enemies' firing arcs, see them stressed and unable to k-turn before you, and hear the lamentations of their green dice.

i once ha a d&d gm who was harsh on critical failures, rolled a bard who managed to smash every weapon he touched by the second battle he took them to, including several magical ones.......

Sounds like someone needs to pull out 4 advanced with title, AC cluster missiles and guidance chips for some confidence.

19 hours ago, Alekzanter said:

E, Y, K, and two Xs for five turns,

http://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Rebel Alliance&d=v4!s!72:-1,-1,-1:-1:-1:;9:-1,-1,-1,-1:-1:-1:;3:-1,-1:-1:-1:;3:-1,-1:-1:-1:;142:-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1:-1:-1:&sn=Unnamed Squadron&obs= 110 points minimum without upgrades.

Answer: Don't play epic. °_^

Try missions or even just netlist something and do standard games.

1 hour ago, JayDestroyaC said:

Could you please elaborate why a focus becomes better on lower dice numbers and worse on higher numbers?

Because statistics say it is exactly (and exactly exactly) the same thing regardless of number of dice, because there is no relationship between each of the attack dice. You could also roll every die after another and the focus/target lock effects for 1 die will not effect other dice. So it is exactly the same chance. If anything I'd give a slight edge to the target lock, simply because a crit is better than a hit and

for example for 1 die with focus: 1/8 crit, 5/8 hit (which adds to the 6/8 hit/crit cumulated chance), 2/8 blank,

with target lock instead: 1/8 + 4/8 * 1/8 = 3/16 crit, 3/8 + 4/8 * 3/8 = 9/16 hit (which adds to the 6/8 hit/crit cumulated chance), 4/8 * 2/8 = 1/8 focus, 4/8 * 2/8 = 1/8 blank.

So taking a target lock instead of the focus will yield a higher crit chance on the dice but the overall hits will stay the same, 6/8 or 75%.

Also what makes you think that keeping the ones that came up successful on the first roll is much better.?

@Alekzanter

Try to do what people here said on the first page. Whenever you roll your dice, count how many you rolled, which color your rolled, and count how many hit/crit/focus/blank or evade/focus/blank results you got. For every reroll do exactly the same. Collect that data for several matches until you have at least something like 200 throws on each attack and defense dice. Either you really have skewed dice and can present data that will have extraordinary peaks on the blanks or it is just the usual human condition:

You remember all the times the dice failed you, but you don't remember the times when they were heavily in your favor. It's human. You take your superb rolls as granted because "you were flying so well" when in fact it has nothing to do with your expert barrel roll when you put down 4 hit hit hit crit on a roll with no modifications and it cost your enemy his ship. But of course you remember the one time where you blanked all out on 3 defense dice because it cost you your ship. Observation bias it is.

And regarding to the predator/marksmanship issue: The problem is that marksmanship will cost you the action, predator does not, which in turn nets you another focus, and as Admiral Deathrain said above, the actual expected damage for predator+focus is considerably higher.

1 hour ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

That was bs, I had that in mind from someplace but didn't actually check. Focus and TL are indeed equivalent to each other. The only thing that might make a tiny difference is crit chance on rerolls.

The last bit was a bit of a tongue in cheek way to answer to his "dice don't remember" argument against TLs.

I think he's referring to the focus/evade choice on green dice. There are 2 focus results on a green die, which means P(F)=0.25. The expected number of focus results is n*P(F) where n dice are rolled. For n<4, there are less than 1 expected focus, so evade is better. At n=4, there is an expected 1 focus so focus & evade are equally useful. At n>4, there are more than 1 expected focus so focus is better.

TLDR, evade if you have 0-3 green dice, focus if you have 4+ green dice.

9 hours ago, Alekzanter said:

Also, in one breath, nigeltastic says "Woah! Your Striden is clocking in at nearly half you list!", and follows up with a version of him, what, 3, 4 points more expensive. Wha...? And Vader? I've flown him dozens of times, he's an arc dodger, and those suck, suck bad against JM5Ks and Shadowcasters, Dengar/revenge shot/Expertise yadda yadda net lists. 5 shields/hull, really? No. Nope. "...focus fire..." 2 reds? Your dice must burn through the table, dude, but mine chill my drinks, and 2 dice, even with ATC is weak. Not trying to be smarmy, but goddamnit my dice are ****, and (almost) everyone tells me to throw more reds, so I'm gonna. Look, I know how to "token up", but it rarely makes a difference, because dice, like I said. If a have a target lock, an evade and a focus, I'll roll 1 focus and two blanks, reroll two blanks, then my opponent rolls a natural evade, then retaliates with two hits and a crit, and I roll nothing but blank. Every time. No ****.

I have a mountain of small-base ships, and as far as I'm concerned they're all useless until something significantly changes the competitive meta. At least I'm willing to keep trying. Doesn't that count? I'm not poo-pooing these suggestions out-of-hand, but if you knew just how goddamned bad it's been...

Yeah, I said I don't think Striden + Oicunn is a good list and that spending half of your list on an Upsilon is a bad idea. I then made recommendations on how to change the upgrades you've chosen if you were sold on taking that list pairing. I still don't think that it would be a good list even with the different selection of upgrades I gave.

As for the rest, it's just sort of incoherent ranting about your 'luck' ignoring the strengths of the ships listed. Yes it's 'technically' fewer red dice than the Striden + Oicunn list but they're much better quality and they will be thrown much more consistently. Vader not getting shots is much more rare than Striden not getting shots. I've made 2 posts which were well thought out and fairly verbose but you seem to be stuck in this 'rant against dice' mode which I don't think anyone here can help you with. You can either change your view of how the game works and what the issues are or you can continue to suffer 'terrible luck' completely outside your control and quit the hobby in a few months. I don't really care either way and I tried to help you but you've just continued to be irrational so good luck and have fun.

22 hours ago, Alekzanter said:

Seriously thinking about chucking it all in the trash.

Sounds like a good plan. Please put it gently in the trash bin outside my house the day before trash day and let me know you've done it.

22 hours ago, nigeltastic said:

So here's the thing I've learned myself and observed over the years. When people complain about consistently *** dice (over more than just a single set of games) it's because they're not flying well.

This can manifest in not taking enough dice modification (focus tokens are king), a lack of focus fire, or poor engagements which lead to a weaker weight of fire at crucial times. It's impossible for someone to be 'cursed' and their dice to 'always crap out' and it's incredibly more likely that they are not following good principles around engagement, focus fire, and dice modification. I was playing a guy recently who after some bad rolls with his greens would put them in 'time out' and kept switching off sets until his ships were all dead. He had a few bad defense rolls certainly but he also did not take a focus token a single time that I can remember, and many of his rolls had multiple focus symbols crying out for him to love them. Dice modification would have saved him but he instead decided to blame the 'cursed dice'.

Sure you can have a game that truly was lost because of the dice, that happens, but there's almost always something you could have done better to help make those dice have a better chance. At the end of the day this game does come down to hinging on dice fairly often but you have a lot of power to enable your dice to have the opportunity to perform.

This guy is my new best friend

22 hours ago, nigeltastic said:

So here's the thing I've learned myself and observed over the years. When people complain about consistently *** dice (over more than just a single set of games) it's because they're not flying well.

This can manifest in not taking enough dice modification (focus tokens are king), a lack of focus fire, or poor engagements which lead to a weaker weight of fire at crucial times. It's impossible for someone to be 'cursed' and their dice to 'always crap out' and it's incredibly more likely that they are not following good principles around engagement, focus fire, and dice modification. I was playing a guy recently who after some bad rolls with his greens would put them in 'time out' and kept switching off sets until his ships were all dead. He had a few bad defense rolls certainly but he also did not take a focus token a single time that I can remember, and many of his rolls had multiple focus symbols crying out for him to love them. Dice modification would have saved him but he instead decided to blame the 'cursed dice'.

Sure you can have a game that truly was lost because of the dice, that happens, but there's almost always something you could have done better to help make those dice have a better chance. At the end of the day this game does come down to hinging on dice fairly often but you have a lot of power to enable your dice to have the opportunity to perform.

I'm quoting this to add some awareness of my own I have found over the past 20+ years of playing various games

You have to be objective about your dice (and your opponents)

Examples, I played a game a while ago against someone who claimed that they had shockingly bad green dice. I had to correct him and point out that Omega Leaders green dice were shocking (Seriously they were, they were blank bar 1/2 focus results) the other 2 ships in his list did well with their green dice.

I've had games where at first glance my dice were awful, but at further analysis I realised that a had some very exceptionally positive results, but on rolls where I didn't needed them (4+ natural evades against a single incoming hit would be one such example) but we as humans fail to register these events.

Of cause I've had bad results as well (Expertise Dash, HLC for 2 turns at a Decimator netting a total of 2 hits, when that should be the number of misses on 8 dice) - But then in another game I used to play my dice got a rep for throwing away the game on the door step of victory by the players in my area that my wife brought me precision backgammon style gaming dice to "cure" this reputation.

On 5/28/2017 at 2:30 PM, Jeff Wilder said:

Dice luck is real. It happens. Don't listen to people who tell you that X-Wing is 99-percent (or even 85-percent) skill. X-Wing (at this point) is 35-percent lists (including list-building) and match-ups, 45-percent tactical skill, and 20-percent luck.

I'd love to see how you came to those percentages.

Of course dice luck is real, but so are statistics - on average, the dice are average. That's why so many of us say the game is about tactics (let's not forget the game sees an awful lot of repeat players make the top cut at major tournaments).

On 5/28/2017 at 2:30 PM, Jeff Wilder said:

When my dice are terrible, I get frustrated. When I get frustrated, I fly worse. When I fly worse, I have to rely more on dice. And it snowballs.

This happens a lot to a lot of players. I don't really have advice here except one needs to just try and let this slide more often.

Dice happen, but if one is playing this game thinking it's just a dice game, they shouldn't be surprised, and shouldn't be frustrated.

If one is playing under the assumption dice aren't as major of a factor, then they know it sometimes happen, and move one adjusting their strategy as they go forward.

I'm not saying it's easy - I've been there, but man have I enjoyed the game more sense I've just internalized that I love most games because of my choices, and when bad dice happen, but I feel did everything right, I shrug and toss it to 'it happens,' and move forward to the next game (playing rau Whisper for months will help you ease into 'it happens' - RAC sometimes gets PS 0, and Whisper sometimes blanks out. I fly Whisper in such a way as to minimize her chance of dying EVEN IF she blanks out).

As Picard once said:

"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose.

That is not a weakness. That is life."

Also - FCS isddisturbingly good at its price point. If you're not taking it because you think your dice are bad, you've internalized the wrong message.

Ahh my sweet summer child. You have yet to feel the fun of missing 3 focus + TL shots in a row in a game.