We're teaching a friend to play. First game against him (his second) I notice he's uncannily good at estimating the range bands. At some point I commented, 'budding pro player here,' due to the good grasp of the game he was displaying. Second game (his third) last night I'm telling him my list -- Carnor, Tetran Cowall, two Epsilons -- and he says of Carnor, 'seems good.' I'm like, 'uh, good call; it's considered to be very good.' Afterwards we tell him about squad builders. This morning he texts me with a list he came up with:

Luke Skywalker (28)
Expertise (4)
R2-D2 (4)
Shield Upgrade (4)

Wedge Antilles (29)
Outmaneuver (3)
BB-8 (2)

Blue Squadron Novice (24)
Sensor Cluster (2)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Seriously?! I told him about Integrated Astromech, but -- shouldn't a novice's first list be filled with clashing upgrades and copies of Marksmanship? What, pray tell, is this mass of synergy?

The title is an exaggeration. I'm just surprised at how quickly my friend's catching on. Good for him!

Well, he put three X wings in a squad (and two of those are non-Biggs T-65s!)... I don't think you can give him TOO much credit. Plus the list has obvious short comings (even if you wanted to play with Luke/Wedge)... BB-8 should go hand in hand with PTL, plus Wedge's ability is semi-redundant with Outmaneuver (and they're not that flexible of ships to get much out of it). I suppose Luke is fine as is, but that just seems like a huge chunk of points - I'd much rather see Predator on him than Expertise. But he'd be even better off dropping 8 points from Luke (Expertise & SU) for a 36 point T-70. Perhaps Poe8 w/ R5-P9 & PA. Put Adaptability on both Luke and Poe8 and you have a triple threat of PS9 X Wings without changing the essence of the list. And obviously IA on all three.

Are you referring to the prophecy of the one who will bring balance to the force?

I mean, it's good and all, but hardly brilliant. Now, if he'd never played the game before & built Paratanni from your collection of upgrades & ships then beat you with it, then... that would be a prodigy.

Obviously ia on all 3, that trumps the shield upgrade on Luke and frees up a bunch of points...

(although an argument could be made for vectored thrusters since Luke will want some more actions to pad out his action bar now that he has no use for focus)

I'd second switching around the ept on wedge, but otoh if your new guy is operating from an "imps vs rebels" mindset (understandable for a new recruit) then that would explain the double stacking of the agility reduction.

It's certainly not a bad list overall and It'd be interesting to see what it develops into after he starts revising and tweaking it

Some proper curmudgeons replying so far.

Sounds like you're got a really good critical thinker on your hands, who has seen through to the mechanics underneath very quickly (make your dice good is 9/10th of the law) without getting distracted by a lot of the fluff. Is he a gamer of other games before he found X-Wing?

I'm picking up what you're putting down.

My first lists were pretty terrible. Expose? You betcha. Marksmanship? Sign me up. And Shield upgrades wherever I could get it.

His list although not going to set the world on fire shows a better understanding of the game than in my experience when first starting out.

Good for him, and you too for bringing in a new player.

54 minutes ago, TheHumanHydra said:

I'm just surprised at how quickly my friend's catching on. Good for him!

I agree. Already got a decent foundation, and rocky starts can be... discouraging. Sounds like a natural. Or...

35 minutes ago, SOTL said:

Is he a gamer of other games before he found X-Wing?

...this. I'm a long time wargamer, for me the Star Wars universe has nothing to do with my enjoyment of the game. I started off sprinting, as far as listbuilding was concerned, because though the specifics were different, the skills really aren't. Could explain your friends rangefinding prowess, as well.

Either way, nurture any budding new player. This one just seems like they will pull the whole "rise up against my master and destroy them" earlier than most.

1 hour ago, SOTL said:

Sounds like you're got a really good critical thinker on your hands, who has seen through to the mechanics underneath very quickly (make your dice good is 9/10th of the law) without getting distracted by a lot of the fluff. Is he a gamer of other games before he found X-Wing?

He's really into Chess; that's about it.

Thanks for the list advice to those who gave it. Yeah, you wouldn't want to take that to a tournament; I just meant that it was far and away better than what I'd expect someone's first design to be. Hopefully we can get him hooked!

If he brought that Fly What You Love(tm) list to an event, it would get ground into paste.

Often times new players make lists with Marksmanship because it's a core set card and they don't have anything better. If you were to instead give them a squad builder, they could come up with something better. It may still be trash or just okay, but at least it won't be utter trash.

But without much experience, it is hard to know what is good and what isn't. He seems to have a decent eye though for synergies.

I say you give him Heaver's Lunch or some other solid netlist. Let him work with a squad that's already proven to be top of the shelf, so he can work on just getting good at the game, and eventually with his good eye for upgrades he can tweak the squad or swap ships out to his taste.

You don't want him to get crushed with a bad squad and get discouraged from playing the game and squandering that potential.

That's one of the beauties of this game: if you are a critical thinker with any spatial recognition skills and love Star Wars, it's an easy sell and an easy game.

Both of those issues are concerns these days as we see combos that crest NPE and don't see x-wings, tie fighters, lambada, Slave 1, or Falcons on tables to show off. It's been a worry from xwingers for awhile now.

I think my first "newbie" squad was Vader with squad leader, Turr+PTL , alpha x2. Swap in FOs and swarm leader and make Turr Another ace and I think it's still a fun list.

8 minutes ago, Rakky Wistol said:

That's one of the beauties of this game: if you are a critical thinker with any spatial recognition skills and love Star Wars, it's an easy sell and an easy game.

Both of those issues are concerns these days as we see combos that crest NPE and don't see x-wings, tie fighters, lambada, Slave 1, or Falcons on tables to show off. It's been a worry from xwingers for awhile now.

I think my first "newbie" squad was Vader with squad leader, Turr+PTL , alpha x2. Swap in FOs and swarm leader and make Turr Another ace and I think it's still a fun list.

This is why new players need to be equipped with the best squads, so they can have a chance against all of the NPE's out there.

Setting them up to fail is not the answer.

I'd go about it the other way: don't play NPE squad VS. New players.

4 minutes ago, Rakky Wistol said:

I'd go about it the other way: don't play NPE squad VS. New players.

That's what I'm saying. You give them a power squadron.

The first upgrade pack I ever bought was a Defender, after playing a demo game (I'm a sucker for the ship, always have been, always will be).

I opened it up, gasped in awe at Predator, and was left troubled by Expose. An extra dice, instead of changing the values on the three dice you already had? And a penalty? And you pay points for this?

Critical thinking can be valuable even in the absence of extensive game experience. Good luck to him!

11 hours ago, SaltMaster 5000 said:

That's what I'm saying. You give them a power squadron.

Well, to avoid information overload I'd let them figure out the power squads at their own pace with only slight nudges, and pair the squads that get flown against them according to power level.

You don't just hand a new player a top squad and say "off you go". You need to work them up to it or else they'll get curbstomped regardless of how good their list is.

Throwing someone in at the deep end & hoping they can swim is never the answer, regardless of how good the tools are that you've given them.

Pleased to meet you.

1 minute ago, namdoolb said:

Throwing someone in at the deep end & hoping they can swim is never the answer, regardless of how good the tools are that you've given them.

Which is what intentionally not giving them good squads is doing.

Soldiers in basic training aren't given muzzle loading black powder rifles because, "They need to be worked up to" modern rifles. No, they're just trained on the best weapons available.

You know what, nevermind, it's fine. Continue with this nonsense of intentionally not giving new players the best tools for the job and giving them bad advice. I need my 3rd Store Championship plaque, it'll be easier for me if my opponents have been trained to be prey.

2 minutes ago, SaltMaster 5000 said:

Which is what intentionally not giving them good squads is doing.

Soldiers in basic training aren't given muzzle loading black powder rifles because, "They need to be worked up to" modern rifles. No, they're just trained on the best weapons available.

You know what, nevermind, it's fine. Continue with this nonsense of intentionally not giving new players the best tools for the job and giving them bad advice. I need my 3rd Store Championship plaque, it'll be easier for me if my opponents have been trained to be prey.

No, but these soldiers aren't given live ammo until their trainers are confident that they will be safe with it.

If you desire another analogy, you don't take a kid fresh off his driving test, regardless of how talented he seems, put him in an Indy 500 car and send him off to do a race.

And don't worry about your store championship. I'm sure that your opponents will still be there and they will still be flying the top squads (because we wouldn't be foolish enough to encourage them to attend such an event before they were ready).

If anything the slightly more extended training that they should have received will make them tougher opponents for you than the alternative of rushing them to a top squad without first fostering a more complete understanding of the game.

Faster, easier the dark side is. Not stronger.

6 minutes ago, namdoolb said:

No, but these soldiers aren't given live ammo until their trainers are confident that they will be safe with it.

If you desire another analogy, you don't take a kid fresh off his driving test, regardless of how talented he seems, put him in an Indy 500 car and send him off to do a race.

And don't worry about your store championship. I'm sure that your opponents will still be there and they will still be flying the top squads (because we wouldn't be foolish enough to encourage them to attend such an event before they were ready).

If anything the slightly more extended training that they should have received will make them tougher opponents for you than the alternative of rushing them to a top squad without first fostering a more complete understanding of the game.

Faster, easier the dark side is. Not stronger.

Anything beyond their third game should be with a power squad.

Agreed.

I understand what saltmaster is saying about not intentionally giving them a rolled-up newspaper and sending them into a battle royale against veteran swordsmen with Zweihanders in full plate.

But the problem here is not that you gave them an ineffective sword, it's that you sent them into that fight at all .

If someone is considering going to a store championship (or regional, or national, or whatever) for the first time ever, they should be doing it eyes-open, with the best squad their collection allows, and fully understanding that whatever squad they take, the experience is likely to be "did anyone get the licence plate number of the articulated lorry that just ran over me?"

Getting them to that point, though, is a matter for using less convoluted squads. Using something like 4 Blue Squadron Novices with R2 Astromechs and Integrated Astromech will not win game nights, but it's worth it for your first few games (far more than just 3, I suspect!) because squads like that, or TIE strikers, do far more for your ability to learn to fly squads in the formations you want to fly them in, learn to block and/or avoid collisions, and above all learn to eyeball ranges, estimate arcs of fire in your final position, and so on, without sparing a new player's mental effort for umpty-ump lesser issues like movement order, mutual interacting upgrades, and so on. That's precisely why Berto from Slingpaint started using them, and he's a far more dangerous player as a result for spending several months using lesser ships.

It's the same reason why I genuinely think the missions are a good way to introduce people to the game - they often include a fixed squad restriction, and add challenges (fly in formation with the squadmate, reliably land on top of the satellite, avoid range 1 of the mines) that hand over very useful skills but without feeding the new, easily discouraged player into the piranha pit.

By all means try a netlist build during early games, but whilst you may do better, you won't do a fraction as much better than you could if you have a solid grounding in playing the basic game. Any player can take a turreted ship and play "easy mode" (as is often claimed) but the player who'll actually win competitive games is the one who still manages to keep Rey or Dengar "this side towards enemy". Dash Rendar, for example, is a lethal pilot in the hands of a good player, but an awful tool for teaching the game with - because only one ship in your squad can have anything like his abilities, and if you get used to them you're in for a steep learning curve trying to cope with anything else.

I don't think we necessarily disagree - I just feel that 'three games' is nowhere near enough to feel really competent. Of course, that's for a player to judge for themselves.

And to continue the initial (somewhat shakey) analogy, wooden practice swords were always heavier than real battlefield weapons for precisely this reason; once you got handed a live blade and sent into a real fight you'd be even more dangerous with it than you otherwise would have been.

5 minutes ago, SaltMaster 5000 said:

Anything beyond their third game should be with a power squad.

Well by all means keep them ignorant of the wide spectrum of things that fall just below "power squads"

The last thing we'd ever want them to do is... innovate. I feel dirty even saying the word.

And with any luck they'll be completely unprepared for anything that falls outside the very narrow spectrum of their training. So when they come back to you bemoaning some unorthodox list that they had no idea how to approach (and thus lost to) you have only yourself to thank.

A vergence you say? Test the boy we shall.

He sent me another list today:

Darth Vader (29)
Expertise (4)
Proton Rockets (3)
Fire-Control System (0)
Munitions Failsafe (1)
TIE/x1 (0)

Soontir Fel (27)
Push the Limit (3)
Autothrusters (2)
Twin Ion Engine Mk. II (1)
Royal Guard TIE (0)

Royal Guard Pilot (22)
Push the Limit (3)
Autothrusters (2)
Stealth Device (3)
Royal Guard TIE (0)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

I told him to use Advanced Targeting Computer, no fears. Now, he has run against both squints and PRockets Vader (with FCS; not my doing) before, but he put PtL + TIE Mk. II and Royal Guard TIE + Stealth Device together on his own, and he seems to have realized the power of Expertise himself. He said he hasn't been looking online for ideas, either.

I don't know about new players in general, but I feel mine is ready for the meta lists, although I'd rather he try out his own creations unless he expresses interest in a tournament.

Does he instigate troublesome engagements in his games?

Do his squad lists illustrate danger?

Has he shown propensity toward rolling defense dice given the opportunity?

If so, he may be a twisted firestarter, i.e. prodigy.

Otherwise he sounds like an average new x-wing player. The player base as a whole is no slouch. Or most of us are prodigies. And who doesn't like fire, afterall.