Moar Strikers!

Had the plan to try to aim for R2-3 for a week, see how it goes.
Had a rather bad experience with one test of the 2 Wings of 2 + Centre Striker.
Basically, against Kylo/Blackout again but this time I choked the turn before pushing for engagement (one landed on a rock in such a way that he would take a rock again when moving next turn), then failed miserably at catching Blackout, then everything cascaded from there.
In short, I needed to stop going so fast because I could and needed to start focusing on actually positioning properly in the first place and not trying to get the jump on the opponent.

So, to change it up, I got rid of Afterburners and played Predator Black Squadron Scouts. 40 points a pop, again, but this time I3 with a Bullseye re-roll.
At the moment, there are a lot of people testing ARCs and massed Droids. I1 Strikers Do Not Like. I3, on the other hand.... maybe?
Also bringing large Debris Fields so as to bring the game back to a sensible playing field. I need to have actual consequences otherwise I will get lax with my manoeuvres.

TLDR Report:
- Large Base Ships do not like Predator.
- If you can get in behind a Droid Swarm (or at least predict their K/Tallon moves), Strikers with Predator can do some solid work
- Darth Maul with Hate doesn't mind getting shot at... but that's not necessarily a bad thing for you if you have 3+ firing arcs against him.
- With Space Jam and many many ships on the board, double moving + re-positioning will significantly reduce the time of actual play....
- Loose Stabiliser is Terrible for Strikers
- 8 Energy Shell Droids.... one mistake, and you are losing a Huge chunk of whatever you are throwing against it. Be aware that it can definitely hold its own and might actually be a fairly forgiving way to play.
- Energy Shell Droids kind of want to be at R3 if you are only firing Primary Weapons.
- Droids individually do not like losing their Calculate action... but only if the others around them spend/do not use their calculate.
- Having a droid disengage but still have a Calculate is quite useful for the rest of the ships getting stuck in.
- Ailerons are Very Good when you start to get the hang of essentially setting two manoeuvres with the one move you have dialed in.
- Strikers still just disappear if you look at them funny. Try to dodge arcs and have Modifiers if possible.

***

Game One: 5 Energy Charge Droids with Darth Maul (Hate, Grievous, Heavy Laser and... something else?).
He brought gas clouds, I spend two debris clouds setting up at about R2.5 from his edge and 3 from the sides. If he wants to bring those droids up the middle, he is going to have to bottleneck.
He deploys exactly like that, so I set my Strikers on the side with most obstacles, corner box formation as with before, fully expecting him to place Maul in the open on the far side of the board.
Darth Maul says, "No. Joust."
Strikers say "...ok."
Turn two saw a block from one Striker whilst the others align themselves for a Bullseye. Maul dropped to three Hull and, due to favourable Dice Rolls, and a millimetre misjudgment from one droid over a gas cloud, I did not lose a Striker first turn.
Next Turn saw me with only one shot on Darth Maul and some horrendous space jam with Strikers and Droids colliding.... Losing me one Striker halved two others for no further benefit, though I did manage to get a precision arc-dodge by deliberate bumping Ailerons and 3 Straight Get Out. Next turn, literally every ship had stress on in some form, be it from Debris or Red Move. Lost another but started to carve through the Droids.
Final turn saw Maul drop and half pointed one other droid whilst having one full ship and two half ships.... and down enough droids for me to be ahead by 8 points.
Really tight, but this game also showed just how hard it is to spend time repositioning: We had 4 engagement rounds total. One turn we spent 20 minutes moving ships on and off the board to complete manoeuvres... It's just something to think about when flying Droids/Strikers/other massed crazy ships.

Next Match, 4 I1 Trade Fed Energy Shell Droids, 4 I3 Separatist Energy Shell Drones.
Well.. this does not look like fun. Looking at the lists, I think that my goal here is to Initiative kill the I1 droids.
Again, set the debris high on the board, just begging for a split deployment or massed in the middle.
Instead, he gave me First Player and set his I1 Drones in a gun line.
Not wanting to fly against that, I set up in box formation in the opposite corner.
After he added his I3 drones behind the first set, I decided to send up both of my corner edges.
This was a mistake, as it left the two on my board edge dangerously exposed and the lateral edge Strikers needed to pull some high speed moves and hope for my opponent to move a little more centrally than I would otherwise expect...
I was fortunate, in that my opponent decided to try for a wide net rather than pointing everyone in one direction. Favourable dice and token stripping when I shot meant that the dangerously exposed Strikers did not die... but I was still half pointed on three of them. Not Good.
The rest of this game was one of outmanoeuvreing/outthinking the opponent and trying to make the Strikers dial work for itself. Ailerons is Amazing at turning an average move into a great one and I am now starting to fully appreciate just how good Supernatural Reflexes was at its original points cost (I mean.... I didn't care with 4 Phantoms and a wide R2-3 net, but still....).
Even with Two Strikers down and one sucking on a Hull Breach/Loose Stabiliser, with some clever use of Ailerons and the 3 Bank (and a lucky Ionisation result against an otherwise untouched droid), I felt that I was in with a chance as some of the Droids were off reloading their Charge whilst I could still pounce.
Final turn had a 1 Hull Striker and an Untouched Striker having to try an take 3 I3s (two with one damage) and one I1 (one hull)... So I had to go for it. Unfortunately, the 1 Bank Aileron into a 1 Hard clipped a debris field by a millimetre and it turns out that shouting "Emperor Protects" still doesn't work on the dice rolls that matter. Furthermore, despite the clustering of opponent ships, the straight Aileron/1K from my remaining untouched Striker managed to keep my bullseye line directly in between the massed ships that all did Hard 2s or Tallons to keep firing arc.... then rolling mostly blanks in defense did not help.
Instead of a narrow MOV loss/potential unlikely win, I took a 200-112 loss.
Afterwards, my opponent and I both noted that neither of us positioned well in the opening... I did not get my focused attack on a corner of his line, but he was unable to capitalise on my poor positioning by opting to spread a massive net. However, with so many Calculating ships on the board, and being able to share them, the Energy Shell Droids appear to have a nice buffer to bad turns.
I am liking the look of the droids more and more (well... I am not, as I keep losing to them, but they seem like a forgiving list at times and seem to hold their own more often than not).
I also really need to work on my openings to coordinate my ships better if I do not have Afterburner Strikers.

Overall, I really liked this change from I1 Afterburners to I3 Predator.
There were more than a few times that I wished I had the Afterburners instead of Predator to get in/out of position.... I think that Predator definitely increases the potential of Massed Strikers, especially in an area that is currently baselining with low Initiative and/or large ships and/or ships in clumps.
Will definitely be flying some more of this (Massed Predator with generic pilots.... not necessarily limited to Strikers, though that may be the best generic pilot place for it at the moment).

***
I am considering toying with two Afterburner Strikers with three Predator Strikers.
In a corner box setup, the Afterburner Strikers can go up the board edges (one per side) and swing in harder and faster if need be. Alternatively, they can be set up so that they aim to get the blocks on lower initiative Action Dependent ships (like droids) and to make Bullseye easier for the Predators.

I also want to give a Reaper or two a go with some Strikers, maybe Predator or perhaps even Ruthless. 2 Reapers and 3 Ruthless Black Scouts fits..... Not sure if I have the Firepower, but I definitely have the blocking required. Fun thing about Ruthless is that your suffering ship does not need to be in the Ruthless firing arc... merely at Range 0-1 of the defender.... if you miss that block or your ships are not overlapping their fire, but can still draw a bead on the target, you can increase your output nicely if you are willing to suffer for it. You can potentially spread damage between the two Reapers and really nail the opponent into bad positions if you get some good blocks in. Seems like an interesting way to have a Super Predator effect.

On 4/3/2019 at 2:31 PM, Vespid1311 said:

Loose Stabiliser is Terrible for Strikers

Yeah, it really hurts.

On 4/3/2019 at 2:31 PM, Vespid1311 said:

Next Match, 4 I1 Trade Fed Energy Shell Droids, 4 I3 Separatist Energy Shell Drones.
Well.. this does not look like fun. Looking at the lists, I think that my goal here is to Initiative kill the I1 droids

It's a squad I'm concerned about facing. I think you did the right thing trying to pick on one end of the line.

On 4/3/2019 at 2:31 PM, Vespid1311 said:

There were more than a few times that I wished I had the Afterburners instead of Predator to get in/out of position.... I think that Predator definitely increases the potential of Massed Strikers, especially in an area that is currently baselining with low Initiative and/or large ships and/or ships in clumps.

Black Scouts with Predator is an interesting one. You will reallly feel the difference now a lot of I3 ships (Jedi and Seperatist Droids) seem to be showing up, since Strikers are a pain to predict.

Swapping a shield or afterburners for I3 and Predator seems like a solid option; I can see arguments either way.

On 4/3/2019 at 2:31 PM, Vespid1311 said:

I also want to give a Reaper or two a go with some Strikers, maybe Predator or perhaps even Ruthless. 2 Reapers and 3 Ruthless Black Scouts fits..... Not sure if I have the Firepower, but I definitely have the blocking required. Fun thing about Ruthless is that your suffering ship does not need to be in the Ruthless firing arc... merely at Range 0-1 of the defender.... if you miss that block or your ships are not overlapping their fire, but can still draw a bead on the target, you can increase your output nicely if you are willing to suffer for it. You can potentially spread damage between the two Reapers and really nail the opponent into bad positions if you get some good blocks in. Seems like an interesting way to have a Super Predator effect.

As someone who's used it a lot on TIE/ln I can only speak well of ruthless. People underestimate how scary an automatic blank-to-hit is on a ship which can natively do nothing with blank dice and does red moves a lot. And a reaper as a combination blocker/punching bag is a good call. Feroph and Black Squadron Scouts have the advantage of universal I3 - meaning chop-and-change activation order at will, and Feroph's ability means he should take less damage from the enemy so you can hurt him in good concience. Two clean scarif base pilots might work too, but reapers do take a lot of flying in numbers.

I'm sadly out of practice with Strikers - with anything - myself. I did get a game last week; a friend had just bought republic so wanted a Palpatine-off.

I took 4 Planetary Sentinels and Feroph (Elusive, Hull) with Emperor Palpatine

He took Obi-Wan, two Dedicated V-19s and a 104th Pilot with Chancellor Palpatine.

The game was interesting but largely flawed by two mistakes - he boosted Obi-wan ahead of his wingmen and fed him into the striker swarm without backup, and he parked the ARC too far back to support the other three ships so the fight was....not 'over' but at best 'heavily skewed' by the time the big brute lumbered into effective range.

Palpatine didn't really see too much use - because there weren't too many times a ship rolled a focus when it didn't have a focus token to begin with - but it was a nice-to-have nevertheless. I still suspect that simply bringing five strikers with shields would have gotten me the same durability, without a comparatively unwieldy reaper messing with movement on one end of my line.

One thing worth noting which I hadn't spotted: Ciena Rees is now Hyperspace Legal.

Feroph (for action-free defence) or Vizier (to save points relative to Feroph + Tactical Officer) plus Ciena gives strikers some serious ability to dance. Yes, using her locks your ailerons. But a free roll + 90' turn is way better than ailerons - and for that matter, if you're using her, I'd consider taking the striker elite; "Duchess", "Countdown" and "Pure Sabbac" - Duchess can still use her ailerons anyway, letting her essentially do a 180' turn and still have actions.

I have thought of the combination with Duchess....
I think that definitely bears looking in to.

I have not had much of a look at anything that can Coordinate effectively (tried Feroph & Maarek and Vermiel & Maarek in the first time I tried Reapers, to get Lock/Focus on Maarek in the initial engagement. Was unimpressed... but, that was probably more due to learning a new way of flying).
Duchess and Ciena Ree should go Well for someone who can coordinate effectively.
The sheer variety of moves you can put on there is utterly ridiculous.
As a base, that's 107 points (Scarif Base Pilot with Ciena, Duchess). You are probably going Predator on Duchess, and upgrading to a named Reaper... that's now only 101 points to play with (if Vizier).
You would want to hope that you get Duchess in to a ludicrous position that no one else in Hyperspace could legitimately get to... What else could you throw in there? Mini-swarm? Something with a bit more direct teeth? For Hyperspace, you can not fit 3 Barrage Bombers... though Jonus + other with Munitions Galore are options (I'm thinking Clusters or Proton Torps). Vader and a named TIE/ln fit. Both other Strikers fit, with reasonable change. Soontir Fel+Named Striker fits.... A few options.

Just another thing on the large list of things to try....

EDIT
Just realised that you can make a Striker stay in the one spot with a 90 shift in facing and still get their Focus or Evade, or get a 1 Soft to stay near-enough in the one spot with a 45 degree rotation + Action. I think that the only other TIE variant that can do that (stay in the one spot with a 90 degree rotation and take an action) is the TIE Bomber. That seems Nice.
Sabaac and Countdown can use that well to keep at a range they feel comfortable with.
Can even potentially use that to hang behind an obstacle for the extra defense (Trick Shot optional).
Tactical Stress is your friend.

19 hours ago, Vespid1311 said:

EDIT
Just realised that you can make a Striker stay in the one spot with a 90 shift in facing and still get their Focus or Evade, or get a 1 Soft to stay near-enough in the one spot with a 45 degree rotation + Action. I think that the only other TIE variant that can do that (stay in the one spot with a 90 degree rotation and take an action) is the TIE Bomber. That seems Nice.
Sabaac and Countdown can use that well to keep at a range they feel comfortable with.
Can even potentially use that to hang behind an obstacle for the extra defense (Trick Shot optional).
Tactical Stress is your friend. 

Yup. I think the three named strikers and a Reaper with Ciena sounds like an interesting option. I think Vizier is a cool option, since you're after getting reposition options, being able to co-ordinate prior to looping or rolling is very niece

Casual Tournament Story Time!

Over the weekend, I took part in a small casual multi-linked tournament.
"Multi-linked" because the XWing games would influence the Legion games, which would then influence the XWing games, which would then influence the Legion games (sadly, there was no Armada on the first day... but, if there was, there would have been an influence between all three).

Day One, I took the 5 Predatory Strikers, with Debris.

Game One vs a TIE Swarm (Howlrunner, Mauler Mithel, Iden Versio, Del Meeko, Night Beast and Wampa.... there was some Crack Shot in there somewhere too).
The Plan: Take on one corner and spread as much as possible, preferably Range 3. Try to wipe one in the first turn, preferably Howlrunner (but obviously accepting the best target possible at any time). Iden spends charge as early as feasible.

I started off in my box...

Coming out of my cage, and I was doing just fine as he went 5 Straight to try and dodge the Debris.
At this point, I lamented about not having Afterburners, thinking I was being too cautious from the get go (everyone had dialed in 1 moves, trying to see what he was going to do).... then realised that I probably didn't need them if he wanted to do a Soft 3, and probably still would catch the edge (Wampa) if he did a 2 Soft.... he graciously obliged with the 3 Soft.

I pushed most of my Strikers as hard as I could, and managed to be in Range 3 with three of them, whilst taking only two shots in return.
This forced Iden to spend the charge one turn earlier than planned, with Wampa down to 1 Hull, for the cost of one Striker taking a hit and Damaged Sensor Array.... That was unplanned at R3 of Two TIEs.
Therefore, next engagement, that one ship is to be my blocker.
In the image above, it is the ship second from left (focus token, in front of the Striker that narrowly bumped).
Guess where it ended up....
Before you do, the following is how not to move Striker 14 (second from right)...



...taking a Wounded Pilot for his failure to perform basic astronavigation....

...

.... but how to win the war.
Wampa jumped away as far as possible, aiming to either be out of arcs or block a slow-move.
Sensor Damage Striker 1 Aileron Left - 3 Soft Right into the middle of the pack, blocking Howlrunner.
Del Meeko (?) was narrowly blocked by the far left Striker, who barrel rolled into position (I initially thought that this was going to miss as I thought that he may have tried a 3 Soft towards the fight or, given that Iden did a 3 Straight, jump right over the top).
Mauler did stop short of the damaged Striker... but curiously did not attack it, going instead for the unfocused Barrel Rolling Striker, who rolled natural evades.
In return, Mauler and Howlrunner both were eliminated.
The remaining turns were me mopping up... though Time beat me to it.
134-40 up after losing one Striker and half on another.
From about the midpoint of the game onward, my dice were supernaturally hot. Attacks routinely threw up at least one Critical with two or more hits (or at least eyes that I could turn). Predator more than made up for itself, almost always re-rolling to a hit or crit.
Predator into blocks of units is good. 5 Predators into Blocks of Units is Fantastic .
Strikers as blockers against a block swarm is Pretty Good.

That was the start to my day that I wanted.

As a bonus for winning, I got to select a bonus for one of the Legion players. As the first person opted to help someone with some form of double attack (I don't know Legion, but apparently it was really good: I heard later that guy eliminated an AT-ST with a double bombardment or something), I opted to help his opponent with the same (the alternative was to give the play a Cancel/Nullify of an opponent's effect... but where is the fun in that?)

21 hours ago, Vespid1311 said:

.... but how to win the war.

there's always something very satisfying in watching a kill-box of strikers sweep in.

I know, right?

This one only took me 3-4 minutes to work out and 3-4 minutes of second guessing. I must be getting better.
I wasn't even planning on far left's barrel roll, but super glad I did. Predator really makes that a good option, rather than just an average one.

Anyhew, round two now.
This time, against a relatively new/casual player who has just picked up their Republican gear.
Anakin with Delta 7B, R2 Astromech, Obi Wan loaded with Stealth Device, Brilliant Evasion and R4 Astromech and a generic ARC with Tactical Scrambler.

The Plan:
Annihilate the ARC and/or Anakin. Obi Wan is a distraction that I may not hit if I don't have Bullseye... he also doesn't deal damage like Anakin.

He planted the ARC down with a nice tramline between a debris and gas cloud, so I plonked the Box down that corner. Anakin looked to swoop in behind the Big One whilst Obi Wan started on the opposite side of the board.
Turn Two saw this rather nice situation crop up at about R3 off his board edge:

And yet, for all that Predator and three dice attacks, I managed only to strip its shields.... In return, I lost the Front Focused one.
Clearly, I had used up my luck last game.
Lack of Focus did not help (spent actions Barrel Rolling to get Bullseye and further away from Obi Wan/behind debris from Anakin... which netted me only two of the 3 Bullseyes I was after.).

Next step was to block and isolate Anakin, doing something like this:

From the previous picture, Top one Ailerons Left, Hard 2 Right.
Next one down dialed in a 2, aiming to use Ailerons to get around in whatever direction seemed appropriate (as it stood, an Aileron left would have also bumped into the ARC, and then maybe set it into the Debris, but the 2 Straight probably would have enough angle to catch Anakin).
Bottom Striker Ailerons Right then Soft Ones the other direction.
Next Striker up Dialed in a Hard 1 Left, aiming for a bump if the Arc moved Straight, but instead seizing on a Right Aileron to point directly at Anakin.
Middle Striker was Sir Disappearinglastturn.

ObiWan is out of the picture, largely because he was out of the picture: my opponent thought I might try to swoop in and wipe him out, so he was launched out of the fight.
Unfortunately, only two shots from this block..... and I lose one of those Strikers. Apparently, the ARC shoots out of it's rear arc... dropping a Hit Hit Crit onto a tokenless Striker, which dutifully rolled double eyes... because, if you are going to die, die rolling your eyes in a hilarious pose.

From here, Anakin jumps out and regenerates twice whilst I can only manage to strip the shield each turn. The ARC stays out of the fight and Obi Wan tries to swing back in.

Final turn is me making a desperate attempt to half-point or outright eliminate Anakin whilst not losing half points on any of my remaining Strikers.
Half Succeeded the first, fail miserably on the second.
120 - 41 loss.
I felt that I had the right idea, and the right engagement.... but the statistically wrong outcome.

Afterwards, I made a point to tell him that I deliberately chose to not go for Obi Wan on account of I am not really afraid of him: he was way out of line and I can bully him at the end if my Strikers live long enough (which they didn't).
He agreed, then proceeded to show what a Stealth Device and Brilliant Evasion can do on a Delta 7 by not losing Obi Wan all day (I think). Shows what I know.

More to come.

1 hour ago, Vespid1311 said:

Predator really makes that a good option, rather than just an average one  .

Indeed. Predator Scouts is one of several options I've not tried - especially with the Initative 3 vultures swarming around it seems like a good idea.

1 hour ago, Vespid1311 said:

Afterwards, I made a point to tell him that I deliberately chose to not go for Obi Wan on account of I am not really afraid of him: he was way out of line and I can bully him at the end if my Strikers live long enough (which they didn't).

I dunno. On the one hand, Obi-Wan is a support unit giving other ships regenerating focus (always a bad idea to face if you're using a heavy swarm). On the other hand, he can use that ability himself (in fact with Briliant evasion he can basically do so even if he didn't start with a focus) and trying to kill an agility 4 target that probably has no inclination to get into the middle of the fight is more trouble than it's worth.

Killing the ARC-170 first is probably the right call. Anakin would have been a better first kill, but since he was snuggled in behind a tactical scrambler you'd be wasting your time. Ultimately, you might not have killed that ARC-170 in one volley, but you can feel justified that you made the right call - you should have hurt it far worse than you did.

I think barrel rolling to line up a bullseye is a neat trick but don't fall in love with it; a focus token with an off-axis shot is still better than a centreline one with no focus tokens. Even getting behind the debris in return for not having a focus token is arguably a so-so move - because 2 dice with focus is better defensively than three dice without.

22 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I think barrel rolling to line up a bullseye is a neat trick but don't fall in love with it; a focus token with an off-axis shot is still better than a centreline one with no focus tokens. Even getting behind the debris in return for not having a focus token is arguably a so-so move - because 2 dice with focus is better defensively than three dice without.

Oh, absolutely.
I relearned that the hard way in that game.
I don't think I got defensive bonuses for it as the ship targeted was not behind cover, it put me in a bit of an awkward spot for next turn. Was not my most intelligent set of decisions.

Game Three
Lando with Leia, Nien Nunb and Cluster Missiles
Wedge with R2D2.
Dutch with R4 Astromech, Dorsal Turret and Veteran Gunner.

Gameplan: Keep Wedge and/or Dutch out of it as much as possible to begin with. Kill box the first thing I can, preferably the Big One.

Oh, and Legion players finished their games and handed out their bonuses. Both my opponent and I received a Surface-to-Space bombardment: Declare at the End of the End phase. All enemy ships roll 3 Attack against, and may defend as normal.
After this game, that was revised to a maximum of 3 attacks total.... for possibly obvious reasons.

Gas Clouds and Debris litter down one side of the board, a significant opening on the other.

So I set up in a slight variation of the box formation on the mostly open side, having the Striker on my board edge nestle against the Diagonal Cornerpiece.
I chose the corner with the most open space, thinking that my opponent might choose the other corner and roll on through the gas clouds straight up for no consequence.
Nope.
Not even close.
Wedge and Dutch pointed towards me, Lando midboard.
Well... this is not going to end well.
Then the bombardment hit. One Striker took a Hit Crit (Stunned Pilot, I believe). 3 others took a damage. My return bombardment dropped two shields on Dutch.... who I was not gunning for anyway.
Face, meet Palm.

I lose a Striker before my engagement against Lando. Did manage to get him down to half, so that was something. Also Dutch to half in my final shots.

200-72 loss.
I did manage to keep Dutch out of the fight quite well - First engagement/attempt at target lock was out of range, second engagement I blocked him with a wounded Striker, third engagement at R3.
Wedge was a little trickier, in that he just managed to steal an R3 shot in the first engagement and didn't move as fast as I thought he would in the second.
I did manage to make a R2-3 box for Lando.... so those are all good take away points for this game.
No pics here (the forum appears to have a cute thing whereby you can only post half as much kB as the previous post, and they only allow 500kB in your initial post).
I should have set up on the Debris/Cloud side or even just a spread line across the middle. I feel as if I lost this game in the setup, and the bombardment just cemented that.

I had the bye next game, and the next day we were allowed to change lists (2 Wins 0 Losses with 4x Predator R2 Red Veteran T65s).

Was a good laugh
Looking forward to trying out some more Predator Strikers.... maybe that Ciena Ree/Duchess combination... That looks hilarious.

2 hours ago, Vespid1311 said:

I don't think I got defensive bonuses for it as the ship targeted was not behind cover

This. One thing I've learned is that unless you can apply a defensive benefit to every possible target your opponent will just shoot at the one ship which is in the open/bumped and lost its action/didn't evade. I think specifically trying to take defensive moves or actions is good mid-game; especially with shielded sentinels, but with an extra hull over a TIE/ln, even a predator scout has a decent chance of being left on one hull. Evading with that ship specifically is generally worthwhile and might even persuade weaker attackers (like a V-19 or something) to fire at someone else.

I agree completely.
I am still yet to work out when the best times are to use the Evade (most of the ships I have used in recent times do not have the Evade action or get it automagically) when you otherwise could Focus for Attack.

In other news, tonight I got a chance to test the following:
Vizier - Ciena Ree (55 points)
Pure Sabaac - Predator, Shield Upgrade (52)
Countdown - Predator (46)
Duchess - Predator (44)

I am not going to go through the games, but I will go through the general thoughts.
For starters, I am Not an ace style player at this point/ever, nor am I a co-ordinated co-ordinator, so I probably am not the best to judge this list.

Predator Duchess is something I have wanted to try for a while and she does Work. Well. Will keep trying things here.
Sabaac with Predator is nice. Going to keep a go with that.
Never flown Countdown before, but had it used against me in first edition. I like it a lot, though you probably want to be careful with the initial engagement.
I flew Countdown and Sabaac together. I think that this is a nice fit: Countdown goes up the front and dares you to waste a shot. Sabaac comes up behind Countdown and generally will have an additional defense die or one less attack die coming in (if enaging head on).

Ciena Ree is.... ok? It is really going to need someone with good Ace skills to use well. Works surprisingly well in probably second or third turn of combat.
I, on the other hand, was using it willy-nilly and so did not give myself the best opportunities to test it.
Though I suspect that it will work better with something like Soontir Fel, Duchess is a nice target for such shenanigans.
Did two interesting moves:
- Got Duchess to Barrel Roll and face 90 degrees in such a way that my opponent's fast move jumped right past her... forcing Anakin to double reposition to avoid arc at R1, leaving him out of range of shots. If I was unable to do that 90 degree turn, I would not have been able to get to that specific position with that specific arc to do such a thing.
- Managed to give Countdown a much needed bump when he had a Fuel Leak by turning 90 degrees, having the opponent overshoot and the now stressed Countdown forced to do the blue 1 Soft into the back of said opponent.

Honestly though, I did not utilise it well and basically did it just because I could.
I am still on a learning curve with Strikers (managed to choke my own lanes again, though to be fair that was also largely because I have also not gotten the time in with the Reaper), and the added Coordinate party tricks adds some serious time to the Planning Phase.
I get the feeling that the cost is only really worth it if, and only if, you get it off that one or two amazing turns per game whereby you turn a certain joust into a certain flank from the ship you coordinated.
Say a Duchess or Soontir running up the middle of the board with a rock directly in front/to their side where the opponent is coming from. Clear it by barrel roll/direction change to an impossible position, then Blue Move past it as the opponent floats directly into the trap.... or change direction so suddenly that it is impossible to really react to it.

I am not going to be using this again any time soon due to a Hyperspace Trial being announced here for the end of May. I am not going to get to speed with such a challenge in that period of time and need to start focusing in on what I want to do for that.

However, I am strongly considering ignoring Coordinate and going for a Feroph/Death Trooper variant. A long range Bump threat with the Reaper seems like Fun, and I enjoyed playing the named Strikers. Given that my past month or so has been flying the small winged ones, I think I can adapt to this. That leaves me 5 points... could give me Hull Upgrade, a bomb or I could drop 1-2 Predators somewhere for Crack Shot and give another Shield or Afterburners somewhere.

I finally got to try 5 Planetary Sentinels + Wampa tonight.

The first game was against Sear and 4 of the i3 Vultures. I won, but it was close. I had a great opening formation, but only 3 of my ships were in range of 3 of his ships. Since they shot first, that meant a dead striker (thanks, Direct Hit), and we couldn't kill his Vulture. Wampa never got to fire with 3 dice...actually I don't think I fired with him at all because he got arc dodged. I got a Loose Stabilizer on one of my strikers that had just 1 hull left. So I had to 1 straight Aileron, 3 straight over a gas cloud, which took my action, meaning I had to do the same straight maneuvers again next round, taking him way out of the fight. I hate Loose Stabilizer. We ended up winning, but I was drooling over his i3 Precise Hunters and their bullseye reroll. Final score was 151 me, 149 him. So close!

---

Game 2 was against 2 Gold Squadron Troopers supporting Anakin and Ahsoka in their Delta 7-B's equipped with R2 Astromechs. This one was tough. We both brought the biggest rocks, and clustered them diagonally on one half of the board. His V-19 Torrents banked in towards the asteroids so I sent Wampa up that edge to flank them. Unfortunately, I didn't barrel roll to block Ahsoka, and she one-shot him. Not having much luck with Wampa. But my strikers - oh boy, were they beautiful. His Torrents dealt three damage to my squad before we took them out (they both died to Direct Hits), and the Jedi were circling around looking for an approach that wouldn't get them killed.

The highest compliment was when one of my friends finished his game, and he looked over and asked, "Did you start a new game?" I told him, "No, we still have 23 minutes left. Why?" In disbelief he replied, "Really!? How are your strikers still in formation?!" I told him I guess I have an eye for their Ailerons. The praise felt good. But I added, "Now that I said that, I am going to hit a rock." Which I did. And that striker died. Pride cometh before a fall, and all that. But he's right - I have a knack for regrouping my strikers after they've split ways.

Anyway, long story short, I got a sweet block on Anakin and took him out, and on the last round I managed to hold onto all my points while taking Ahsoka to half, which felt really good. Oh, and I got another Loose Stabilizer this game - when my ship was pointed at an asteroid! That's the worst. Ending score was 165 me, 115 him.

---

I think i2 and i3 ships are common enough that I will feel more comfortable with the Black Sq. Scouts w/ Predator than keeping all six of my ships i1, including a TIE fighter. It's tough to say. My Hyperspace Trial is in June, so I need to get more practice in and make a decision.

So....had a couple of games (finally!) trying out the Predator Scouts.

• First game was against:
  • Vader (Hate, Fire Control System, Proton Rockets)
  • Del Meeko (Elusive)
  • Seyn Marana (Marksmanship)
  • Captain Feroph (Director Krennic, Tactical Officer)
• I lost, in no small part because I went after the Reaper. It's killable but not fast enough, and by the time it was down I didn't have enough punch left to chew through the TIE/ln. Del Meeko proved annoyingly tough but he will do that unless singled out and killed first.
• I'm not sure I got my money's worth from predator here, and Initiative 3 didn't really matter. By comparison, afterburners would have given me the speed to dictate the opening engagement geometry and (theoretically) let me bypass Feroph in favour of whomping Del before the squad got rolling, and then probably moving on to Vader (without Del Meeko's ability, Seyn Marana is nice but ultimately isn't that much more dangerous than a regular TIE to a fairly low-agility, unshielded striker).

• Second game was against:
  • Anakin Skywalker (R2 Astromech, Delta-7B)
  • Mace Windu (R2 Astromech, Delta-7B)
  • Gold Squadron Trooper x2
• Initiative 3 mattered here.
• I was lucky in that my opponent hadn't played strikers before, and whilst the V-19s were sensibly used as blockers, the strikers did their party piece of bank away, turn back in the activation phase before contact, turning a head-on joust into strikers coming in from an arc across three points of the compass. Mace Windu obligingly flew into said kill-box and even the force can't do anything with blank green dice.
• I did get a couple of predator shots, so I got some value. I'm not sure if I got enough - sentinels with afterburners would have let me engage a turn 'early' and not worry about the blockers (since I'd be activating first and her ships would be the ones getting blocked). Certainly I enjoyed the scouts in this game - I think when you're less worried about an opponent feeding you a specific bit of their squad 'first' their lack of straight-line speed is less of an issue.

I was wondering about predator. Good as it was, I'm unsure if I got multiple predator shots with any one striker. If not, dropping 4 predator talents to crack shot would leave me with relatively little reduction in firepower, but 4 points lets me promote one black squadron scout to Her Grace and have a quite respectable mini-ace.

I have not thought of the Crack Shot/Duchess version before.... could be interesting.

Recently I have been playing 2 Reaper/3 Ruthless Strikers.
It is interesting.... It is a non-trivial matter of getting the Reapers to jump in and block something. If they do, and you manage to wipe something on the first engagement without losing a ship, you are usually in a good spot.... especially if you are blocking an action dependent ace. You have to know when to start slow and when to gun it from the start.
If your first engagement goes wrong, you are Super Dead. If your opponent can Initiative Kill a Striker without it firing, you are Super Dead. The game can be clawed back if you lose one Reaper without losing any of the Strikers, particularly if the Reaper "helped" the Strikers, but it is an uphill battle.
Today, for example, I went 1W 4L (and a bye) at a Hyperspace Trial, with at least two games being decided on the initial engagement, and one being partially dice dependent (if I throw 12+ shots in a game and deal only one damage total to mostly Agility 2 ships, I think it is fair to say dice variance was a factor in that game)... but 4-4 in our monthly league (and felt that I should have gone much better, except that I choked in the last two games).
It is easy to risk a Reaper by overcommitting with Ruthless, but if you can keep them both alive for one turn, the opponent has to find a way to deal with it the next turn.
It is also something I am looking to not do ever again

On 5/25/2019 at 2:23 PM, Vespid1311 said:

I  t is easy to risk a Reaper by overcommitting with Ruthless, but if you can keep them both alive for one turn, the opponent has to find a way to deal with it the next turn.

I've flown a MAXIMUM RUTHLESSNESS black squadron TIE/ln list, so I understand what you mean about overcommitting to ruthlessness. Of course it's a lot easier with basic TIE fighters as they can turn tighter and fly slower than a striker, and like being at range 1 where it becomes something of an uncontrolled bump-fest with the ailerons squad.

So... I am questioning this on the basis of a different list I am trying (4 StarVipers with Predator OR Crack Shot), but it also really applies here (because Black Scouts are also massed ships with I3 and movement/positioning shenanigans)....
If so, does getting a bid/choose the match up help and, if so, what player order would you go? Basically, are you making any form of decision on what to take (Crack Shot/Predator) based on potential for a bid?

I am looking at some of the recent Hyperspace results/progress results of nearby, and I am seeing about a third to half of the lists in the top quarter-half of the events have at least one I3. Apart from a few edge cases (Tavson and Seevor), the vast majority of these are Rebel Beef 199+ point lists (so Cassian, but increasingly including Biggs).
Are you aiming to try to take First Player to go for blocks (so... probably go all the way up to 200 with Predator or taking First player if you should choose), or would you like to see what that Coordinate/Movement is before you do your Ailerons (so probably going for a bid of some description)?

Technically, Predator does a touch more damage to mid-high Agility ships (if you can catch the slippery things), has the longevity with multiple chances to assist you, and I feel better about being able to do something with a blank attack dice... but I am starting to come on board with the idea of Crack Shot on the Vipers (to be able to dodge arcs, gain a focus after repositioning, but can also rely a little better on the Shield and extra Agility) but not necessarily on the Strikers (because, with numbers on the table, I am happy to block with Aileron repositions and more massed firepower potential... and a Tokenless Striker is a Sad Striker, so moving first can be critical to getting that token).
Crack Shot Blacks will also get you Crack Shot Duchess at 199 points.... this also seems pretty good (if you don't want to run all generics.... Duchess is Very Good if she is not targeted early).
...
How often do you feel that you dial in a manoeuvre with the Striker with a specific Aileron in mind but choose a different one (based on earlier opponent movement or the end position of another Striker)?
It is something that I am going to have to pay more attention to. Maybe once a game, unless I am getting blocked (in which case, it can end up being all of them)?

I am possibly heading to a Hyperspace in a couple of weeks, and I am probably choosing between 5 Black Squadron Strikers and 4 Assassin Vipers.

Trick Shot is awesome.

It gives you firepower

It gives you cover

But most importantly

It makes strikers into sneaky flankers

21 hours ago, Vespid1311 said:

How often do you feel that you dial in a manoeuvre with the Striker with a specific Aileron in mind but choose a different one (based on earlier opponent movement or the end position of another Striker)?
It is something that I am going to have to pay more attention to. Maybe once a game, unless I am getting blocked (in which case, it can end up being all of them)?

First, I don't care about the bid at i3. Most i3 ships are not in a position to arc dodge a TIE striker, even one that moves first, especially if you have numbers. Maybe that's an incorrect conclusion, but that's my take on it.

However, in response to your question, I have had one game where I danced around my opponent because I took out his high-initiative ship early, and he was left with a bunch of initiative 2 ships. I had shots every round because I could adapt with my ailerons to where my opponent might be headed. Actually, I think that was in First Edition, and it was the first time I realized that these guys have the potential to be NPE at higher initiatives. But usually I change my Aileron less than once a game, so I guess they're not all that "adaptive."

As for Predator vs. Crack Shot...I agree that it feels good being able to do something with a blank red die. Because when you roll one hit and they blank out, Crack Shot can't do anything to help you push another damage through.

Statistically speaking, Crack Shot is better damage per attack against anything 2 green dice or more. Won't always break that way, and there are 1-agility ships out there, but it'll typically take two triggers of Predator to equal the value of one Crack Shot. I don't really trust my low-init ships to get bullseyes more than once, due to moving first and the potential of dying.

As to baby-bids in lower-init lists, I have a supposition that they can come in handy. I enjoy having the choice of ability to adjust position, or else to be able to move clearly without being blocked (Starvipers in particular seem like they'll rely on their actions, so being without Focus seems really scary). I don't think I'd give up upgrades that I think might make any difference, but Predator/Crack Shot is so close to equal on lower-init ships that I think I'd just give up on potential repeated value from Predator, and take the bid.

On ‎6‎/‎1‎/‎2019 at 3:47 PM, A Fistful of Dices said:

Trick Shot is awesome.

It gives you firepower

It gives you cover

But most importantly

It makes strikers into sneaky flankers

My concern with trick shot is that since strikers only have forward-arc weapons, have a high functional minimum speed, and have to start their move with a straight or bank not a turn, I'm very hesitant to have them pointed at an obstacle.

This might just be me being over-cautious. I know, for example, that both debris (with a blue move and a bit of luck) and gas clouds can be skin danced with ailerons, which is a trick people often overlook. Have you used trick shot much, and if so how did you deploy and move your force?

On ‎6‎/‎2‎/‎2019 at 6:14 AM, Parakitor said:

Actually, I think that was in First Edition, and it was the first time I realized that these guys have the potential to be NPE at higher initiatives. But usually I change my Aileron less than once a game, so I guess they're not all that "adaptive."

I think you really have to plan your aileron moves in; rarely will an 'adaptive' choice really improve matters. My main feel of the appeal to crack shot rather than predator is the ability to field Duchess, though, whose aileron move is very flexible, and even if you're not 'tweaking' her final position on the fly, she's squirrelly enough and high initiative enough that opponents will struggle to guess her final position in advance.

21 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

I don't think I'd give up upgrades that I think might make any difference, but Predator/Crack Shot is so close to equal on lower-init ships that I think I'd just give up on potential repeated value from Predator, and take the bid.

The thing which will really drive the value of predator over crack shot, as noted, is multiple-bullseye-shots-per-game and low agility targets.

To all intents and purposes, that can be boiled down to " how often are you seeing low manoeuvrability large based ships in enemy squads?" - in Hyperspace games, this is almost never - the only real exception is the latest silly variety of Han (that you'll struggle to bullseye once ), and occasionally some variety of Vennie in a resistance bomber (but shooting up Vennie first is almost always a mistake since he's mostly about durability)

On 6/2/2019 at 12:47 AM, A Fistful of Dices said:

Trick Shot is awesome.

It gives you firepower

It gives you cover

Whilst I agree with all of that, I agree much more with Magnus about the Adaptive Aileron movement. Unless you are running Gas Clouds (because Aileron YOLO), or maybe Debris (if Aileron YOLO is followed by a Blue move), I don't see Trick Shot being a good choice. In my experience, I am not getting all that many obstructed shots because the Strikers are so unusual in their movement, and that Obstructed shots are on things that can really dodge when they want (Force Users and Silencers, mainly).

On 6/2/2019 at 3:14 PM, Parakitor said:

I have had one game where I danced around my opponent because I took out his high-initiative ship early, and he was left with a bunch of initiative 2 ships. I had shots every round because I could adapt with my ailerons to where my opponent might be headed. Actually, I think that was in First Edition, and it was the first time I realized that these guys have the potential to be NPE at higher initiatives. But usually I change my Aileron less than once a game, so I guess they're not all that "adaptive."

I can see this. I have concerns the turn after Range One-close Two attacks if my attacks are head-on/near enough, due to potential of Space Jam... but if I am outside of that, the level of repositioning can be ridiculously good. Duchess can show this very well.
I think that I am only changing my Ailerons if an early moving opponent has turned more/less than expected or to possibly dodge a block from something somewhere.
I have also very occasionally dialed in a Straight/1 soft turn as a bit of a shotgun approach as the Aileron can vary those end positions so much.

21 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

The thing which will really drive the value of predator over crack shot, as noted, is multiple-bullseye-shots-per-game and low agility targets.

To all intents and purposes, that can be boiled down to " how often are you seeing low manoeuvrability large based ships in enemy squads?" - in Hyperspace games, this is almost never - the only real exception is the latest silly variety of Han (that you'll struggle to bullseye once ), and occasionally some variety of Vennie in a resistance bomber (but shooting up Vennie first is almost always a mistake since he's mostly about durability)

I somewhat disagree:
Whilst the presence/absence of large based ships definitely changes the equation, you also have to take in to account those lists that prefer close range, ships that work well close together, and medium bases.
I can comfortably Bullseye a medium ship on a semi-regular basis.
If I am flying against a Swarm of some description, it is easier than not to Bullesye something (whether or not that is your intended target is another matter...).

*****

Again, with Bullseyes on Crack Vipers (but relating it back to Strikers, due to some similarity in Crazy Movement, being token-dependent and having 3 Dice Attacks), I have started to tally my engagements again.
Last night I flew two games (Maul and Energy Shell Droids, and 2 Silencer Test Pilots with Quickdraw).
Forgot to tally my total attacks.... in the 20s over two games?
Managed at least 7 Bullseyes over the two games (think I might have missed one or two).
I calculated that I could have had 6-7 uses of Predator (4 times with a Focus... Predator does not count if I would otherwise have had all Hits/Crits, as well as Focus if available). This does not take in to account the number of times an opponent completely dodges after the attack dice are complete... probably need to track that too.
I had 4 uses of Crack Shot (I used 4 total, but think I had one instance when I was all out of Crack.... other instances when the target was eliminated or had no dodge/would dodge regardless of any Crack in play do not count).

I find this interesting. Obviously, I need more games... but this is loosely on par with how I remember the per-game results that I calculated Strikers and T70s to be: roughly 1 meaningful Bullseye per game per ship.
I think that, with Strikers, because of more bodies and a lower Initiative local meta at the time, it ended up a bit higher.... but I can not find my notes to back this up. I loosely remember something like 27% or 32% of the time an attack had Bullseye.
Of course, this does not mean that each ship will get that once-per-game Bullseye, it could be that one ship manages to consistently nail Bullseyes each turn whilst the others don't (perhaps I should also track this)....
In terms of Bullseye Talents... I am not sure where this leaves me. With more dice, I feel that Predator is probably a better choice... but the low chance of Bullseye does seem to favour Crack Shot for those one-off scenarios.
More numbers required.

27 minutes ago, Vespid1311 said:

Of course, this does not mean that each ship will get that once-per-game Bullseye, it could be that one ship manages to consistently nail Bullseyes each turn whilst the others don't (perhaps I should also track this)....

which would favour predator, and is a fair point.

27 minutes ago, Vespid1311 said:

Forgot to tally my total attacks.... in the 20s over two games?
Managed at least 7 Bullseyes over the two games (think I might have missed one or two).

27 minutes ago, Vespid1311 said:

I loosely remember something like 27% or 32% of the time an attack had Bullseye.

Getting bullseye shots about 1/3 of the time makes sense. Your bullseye arc against a standard base occupies about 2/3 of your arc at range 1 and maybe a touch under 1/3 of your arc at range 2. Range 3 it's a joke but range 3 primary shots tend to be pretty ineffectual anyway and you'll deliberately try to avoid engaging at range 3 in a striker most of the time so ignore it. I can picture ~ 1/3 of your attacks having bullseye unless your opponent is specifically investing repositioning actions to avoid them (which hurts their action economy and is a good thing in and of itself).

So.....after a week out from the strikers experimenting with TIE/fo, I find myself thinking about the old reliables again.

My big thought is afterburners - they are so much fun to use - and watching an opponent's brain melt when they try to figure out where you might be is ridiculous.

However, since you need to be moving at speed 3 to trigger them - which means effectively speed 5 for a striker - and that's too fast to use them on segnor's loops or koiogran turns, that very much pushes their value into 'strategic movement' - namely moving into position before the first shots are actually exchanged.

I understand that this phase is hugely important. I've lost enough games by engaging badly and being forced to shoot at the 'tough' or 'expendable' unit being trolled in front of me, so I get that controlling the initial engagement can probably win you the game.

That takes some planning, though, and that's where I'd like to pick the brains of the Imperial Aileron Society.

In my experience, most games where Strikers really excel, its where they engage in a 'firing arc', coming in on the main target from all points of the compass, rather than flying in a jousting 'brick' of 5 close-packed ships.

That means (1) it's hard to lob a proton bomb, or whatever, and clobber multiple targets, and (2) at least 2-3 ships can pursue without needing to do a red move . Lacking Pattern Analysers, or Leia Organa, or whatever, if strikers want to compete they need to shape the engagement such that they can continue after the first engagement phase with white and blue moves.

Have people had any experience with afterburner TIE/sk?

My first thought is trying to set up in a sort of 'wedge' in a corner.

Board centre

ééè

ì è

corner

For the sake of ease of description:

123

5 4

The 'outside' four (1,2,3,4) are in a grid separated by a movement template width, the angled one (5) is with its back right corner against the board edge and its front left midway between the two pointing at my opponent's board edge (1 & 2).

That should let me form a 'dragnet' with reasonably easy opening moves.

If your opponent is directly above you.

1 and 2 go straight aileron, speed 3 straight

3 goes bank aileron left, speed 3 straight, boost left

4 goes bank left, speed 3 bank left, boost straight

5 goes aileron straight, and then duplicates the moves of either 3 or 4 depending on whether there's an obstacle in the corner, and slots into the gap between 1/2 and 3/4.

This forms more or less a 'line abreast' heading north extending from my board edge to just shy of the midpoint. 4 and 5 will need to allow for obstacles:

• if there's a rock at 2/2 from your corner, then 5 needs to bank/boost straight
• if there's a rock at 3/3 from your corner, then 4 and 5 need to straight/boost bank. This puts 4 behind 3 instead of level with it, but moves it further towards the board centre.

The aim is to swing wide with 3, 4, and 5 whilst 1 and 2 slow and close head-on.

If your opponent is in the opposite corner.

1 goes straight aileron, speed 3 straight, boost right

2 goes straight aileron, speed 3 bank right

3 goes straight aileron, speed 3 bank left

4 goes straight aileron, speed 3 straight, boost left

5 goes straight aileron, speed 3 straight

This shakes the formation out into a 'line abreast' diagonally from the mid-point of your board edge to the mid-point of the neutral board edge. The aim is to slow and engage head-on with 1 and 2 or 3 and 4 (depending which way the enemy goes) whilst the others accelerate to try and flank

Not sure how well it'll work in practice.

One thing I can definitely recommend is using the afterburner charge on the turn you engage. A lot of people catastrophically underestimate how fast a boosting striker can shimmy through rocks by chaining bank moves together, and Initiative 1 means you're moving first, so moving up and engaging a turn before your opponent is expecting it can leave their flanking units too far away to help, or in extreme cases still going the wrong way.

On 6/26/2019 at 1:29 AM, Magnus Grendel said:

My first thought is trying to set up in a sort of 'wedge' in a corner.

Board centre

ééè

ì è

corner

For the sake of ease of description:

123

5 4

The 'outside' four (1,2,3,4) are in a grid separated by a movement template width, the angled one (5) is with its back right corner against the board edge and its front left midway between the two pointing at my opponent's board edge (1 & 2).

That should let me form a 'dragnet' with reasonably easy opening moves.

This is exactly how I set up when I was flying them.

I rarely tried to Afterburners on the First turn or two... but I can see why it would be useful and there are more than a few High Level players that utilise the Afterburners early (on such pieces as Vader) to set up positioning rather than the engagement itself.
It is messy to look at when setting up, but it can work really well.

The Strikers can joust from this position too, if viable.
I have had a game (mentioned somewhere here previously) whereby my opponent decided that it was a good idea to place a loaded Maul directly in front of my formation, after placing the Vultures in a box in the middle of the field. First turn is to reposition everyone in such a manner, such as with Barrel Rolls, that one can jump forward to force a block and the others are all pointing at the same target in the next turn.

I found the games that I lost had a tendency to be when I failed to create the net (such as getting caught chasing the incorrect target) or the net was too easy to dodge (such as too many gaps for a nimble Silencer to get through). Being initiative killed is also pretty bad, so Republic/Rebel Beef Matchups were really hard/nearly unwinnable.
The games I won were usually centred around the initial surprise net and pushing faster than the opponent was expecting.
My initial engagements were usually me Afterburning in to position. If an opponent is not sending in a flanker, you are probably trying to catch them where only one or two of their ships are in range (preferably against different Strikers). If they are sending a flanker, I was either trying to engage their non-flankers faster than their flanker can jump in OR do the sneak Aileron/3 Soft/Afterburners to catch the flanker off guard whilst the rest of their force did the slow move to nowhere-near-me. Crispy Wedge/Blackout never tastes as good as that.

In my experience, the less ships the opponent has, the more favourable your matchup:
Less guns against you, theoretically easier to isolate/killbox an opponent.

***
As an aside, a bit disappointed that the Black Scouts did not drop a point or two .
Also would have liked to have seen a single point dropped from the Sentinels... but can understand why they didn't.

54 minutes ago, Vespid1311 said:

I rarely tried to Afterburners on the First turn or two... but I can see why it would be useful and there are more than a few High Level players that utilise the Afterburners early (on such pieces as Vader) to set up positioning rather than the engagement itself.

It's just that to trigger the afterburners, you need to be moving at effectively speed 5, so it's hard to do that in a knife fight.

55 minutes ago, Vespid1311 said:

If they are sending a flanker, I was either trying to engage their non-flankers faster than their flanker can jump in OR do the sneak Aileron/3 Soft/Afterburners to catch the flanker off guard whilst the rest of their force did the slow move to nowhere-near-me. Crispy Wedge/Blackout never tastes as good as that.

Agreed. Big swoopy bank/bank/bank moves followed by a yell from across the table of " where the bloody heck did they come from!?!?!?!?!!?!!" and Blackout sailing calmly into a kill-box is one of the most satisfying experiences in X-wing I think I've had.

59 minutes ago, Vespid1311 said:

Being initiative killed is also pretty bad, so Republic/Rebel Beef Matchups were really hard/nearly unwinnable.

I think there it's needing - as you say - to engage part of the enemy formation. Which means coming in at speed from one side. I think enveloping a tightly-packed "rebel beef" list may be a mistake - they're not going to shimmy and shake when they have U-wings and Y-wings in their formation, and far more important is coming in from an angle where at least some ships are out of arc.

51 minutes ago, Vespid1311 said:

As an aside, a bit disappointed that the Black Scouts did not drop a point or two .
Also would have liked to have seen a single point dropped from the Sentinels... but can understand why they didn't.

Black Squadron Scouts dropping a point would probably have been more likely, with Sentinels right on the 5-ship/6-ship boundary.

Apparently they discussed in the stream making the suggestion they'd had of making Sentinels cheaper but also making them " Planetary Sentinel "

That implies they are more or less set on heavy swarms not using missiles, cannons, or whatever capping out at 5 ships for the foreseeable.