1 minute ago, Boom Owl said:

The biggest difference I see when playing against “good” players is that they force my list into awkward decisions. They might still take serious damage from my swarm of strikers but they trade more than just points in exchange. Uncontested doesnt always just mean trading key pieces or hit points or destroyed ships. Against higher level players “trading” often involves positioning advantage that effects the rest of the game in less obvious ways. Either forcing split fire over the next few turns via recycled targets or making the only option a K-turn or disengagement for a turn or two. Most embarrassingly it often involves me ending up in a bad partial joust I didnt even know I was signing up for the turn prior.

The games I have played against top tournament players always feel like they have a critical decision or two that I am forced to make which I didnt set up for myself. They operate inbetween aggressive and patient. Where the majority of Swiss is typically in one mode “all out offense gotta go fast gotta pew pew pew” or “gotta go slow wait things out then commit”. Both extremes are easier to react to and take advantage of than something in between.

Yeah, nothing is harder than an opponent who won't act the same way all game.

19 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

Lower Initiative massed firepower lists aren't necessarily hard to run, but a lot players don't see the full potential on either side of the list. This translates to opponents who tend to wander into your collection of arcs and just get ripped to bits. A lot of players at the casual/kitchen table level like paying for more expensive ships with lots of fun rules, but don't really make the most out of the abilities they pay for. If you like the efficiency squad I'd stick with it. The ships involved aren't likely to get more expensive, and it's a great way to learn the game without all the tricks available to squads that rely more heavily on upgrades. I'm biased, though.

As you encounter players that take tournament preparation more seriously, you'll notice that you get a lot fewer good shots, and a lot more good shots coming bsck at you, as they're much more competetent in moving to focus fire on one target and can protect their ships from high quality uncontested shots.

You may also find your locals are much better than you initially thought, as most people won't bring out their hardest squads for the new player earning the ropes. They may also be playing in a relaxed and carefree manner for the same reason. Usually the players that care super-hard about winning on casual game nights are not very good.

I don't/didn't go to local leagues, I had only gone to tournaments and played at a friend's house. If anything, playing vs. my friend is harder than going to tournaments and players fly straight at me more often in tournaments.

The only thing that i've been having problems with is Boba backed by an Escape craft. It coordinates a Reinforce, bumps into a ship, Han generates a focus (Sometimes), 0-0-0 generates a Calculate, and then he takes maybe a shield or 2.

Then he flies over me and drops a bomb, forcing me to disengage.

21 minutes ago, Alyx'sDog said:

I don't/didn't go to local leagues, I had only gone to tournaments and played at a friend's house. If anything, playing vs. my friend is harder than going to tournaments and players fly straight at me more often in tournaments.

The only thing that i've been having problems with is Boba backed by an Escape craft. It coordinates a Reinforce, bumps into a ship, Han generates a focus (Sometimes), 0-0-0 generates a Calculate, and then he takes maybe a shield or 2.

Then he flies over me and drops a bomb, forcing me to disengage.

If your local tournaments are like the ones around me (big caveat), there's still a generous portion of casual players just messing around mixed in with tryhards who are experimenting with something or taking something nasty to beat up on their tryhard friends (in a good natured way, I'm one of them). If you're doing well against that kind of competition, you're in pretty good shape for someone relatively new.

If you think you need more competition, you can look into getting Vassal. There's the 7th season (I think) of a league starting soon. It's set up like English Premeir League football, where winners of lower levels feed inti higher levels and losers of higher levels get relegated to lower levels. At the starting tier, competition is pretty spotty, but it's not hard to move up. If you want to skip all that, it's easy to find pickup games against some excellent players on Vassal, although it's not necessarily immediately obvious who the good players are.

You can also look at playing against yourself. When I started, my local scene wasn't well developed, and I would play against myself to prepare for larger tournaments. It's good for some things, not for others, but it gets you a good sense of what the opposing squad is capable of, and it helps you plan multiple turns ahead.

Edit: but yes, Boba is the hardest counter to your kind list right now. You might find playing both sides of that matchup a few games gives you some insight about how to minimize the problems he causes.

The thing with Boba is knowing what range to attack from (preferably Range 2 with nothing at R1), having a control element tractor/stress/crackshot, having more than 2 attack dice shots, knowing if your possible win condition is destroy boba first or destroy other stuff and half pt boba, and also not following Boba’s rear arc with multiple poor shots over consecutive turns.

1 hour ago, Biophysical said:

You can also look at playing against yourself. When I started, my local scene wasn't well developed, and I would play against myself to prepare for larger tournaments. It's good for some things, not for others, but it gets you a good sense of what the opposing squad is capable of, and it helps you plan multiple turns ahead.

I think that the best thing you can do to self practice are practicing your openings. Looking at the major tournaments I've attended this year (World's, US Nationals, PAX), nearly all of my losses were because either I didn't practice any openings (PAX) or didn't have a plan against a specific list (World's). Across those tournaments, I'm 15-8. 4 of those losses were purely because I didn't have a game plan or had a poor game plan for my opening. An additional loss would fall into that, but it was against controlbots and while I thought about that, I had no real idea how to approach it and I got outplayed. Being able to add 3 wins (because I probably still lose at least 1) without actually interacting with people and being able to do it on my own time is HUGE.

Also great content this episode - I don't really get why people complain about the podcast and the random content. For at least the last few months it has been pretty easy to figure if there is content even by looking at the show notes. I've been working on a Rebel list for hyperspace and it is nice to see some of my own opinions echoed. Means I am either on the right track or nothing makes sense.

@GreenDragoon I want to know how the 5 RZ2s went this weekend for you.

Just now, RStan said:

@GreenDragoon I want to know how the 5 RZ2s went this weekend for you.

Oh, not very good, but thanks for asking. I went 2-2, placed 8/16.

Game 1 was against our local powerhouse who tried Poe Rey. I started in the FingerFive, moved 2x2 and then 5k along my edge while he dabbled around on his side. However, Rey with white boost is very fast and I underestimated that. Error no1. I was too greedy and did a 2straight after the kturn (which is now furter, 5k instead of 3). So I was too far down, and Poe got a torpedo off on an Awing for no reason at all. Even worse, Rey as mentioned is fast. So she moved to the upper edge when I k-turned, and then along the edge when 2 did my 2 straight. It was just enough to get the same awing into arc by around 3mm, and the first popped. Then I messed up some more, had to take a risk and - again just with the tiniest bit of the corner -nudged an asteroid, rolled the hit I deserved and the second popped. Poe on 3 hull, Rey on 10 I believe. The third popped (Rey had some seriously hot dice. It was not the reason, by far not, but it made everything a bit quicker), and then somehow my two remaining Awings got Poe and half of Rey. 138-200.

Game 2 was against a guy I didn't really know with Fangs. He fanned out and beautifully circled around the diagonally arranged asteroids (with a clump on my far corner where I deployed). I started 2straight, another 2 straight, then the outer two did their 3 hard and the inner ones a 3 bank. The idea was to dodge arcs and shoot out the back. Little had I realized that I should of course have made sure to only shoot out the back due to the concordia face off. Got one Fang to 1hull, lost an awing. Then two and two, slowly got another two fangs to 1 hull because constantly flying out the rear while also dodging 3 arcs was harder than expected, so I took the shots I got instead of risking to take damage and focusing down the damaged ones. All in all this game was not a friendly one. Much complaining, rules discussions (no, crackshot is not applied before you spend a focus), I gave away half points on an awing in the second last round as the last one took over 9min and lost 122-140. I don't want to say he is not a friendly person, but we had clearly different expectations on the appropriate competitiveness.

Game 3 was against a guy who is pretty much exactly as good as me and he was also the TO. He tried something fun but misread Hux and learned in his first game that he can only coordinate the two FOs or SF, but not all 3. But he's a great sport and our games are always fun (and usually incredibly thrilling!). Important to note that I won the ini roll. I never shot QD, took out Longshot, then the shuttle. I didn't plan to, but again I focused on dodging his arcs, so Tavson only shot once all game. And somehow that led to me having more opportunities on shooting Tavson than the Omega, so he went first. In the end I almost blundered, got a bit cocky when it was still QD and nothing to scoff at. 125 - 80 (I think 80?)

Game 4 was against a swarm player. He's oldschool and knows how to fly them from back in the day. He brought just 8 TIEs now, and no Iden. I set up on the side again, but split early. Two through the middle, two from the top and one... well, I always played the finger four, so what to do with a fifth? Obviously "bait tactically". Or park him in front of 6 TIEs, however you call it. After that he had the coldest green dice you can imagine, and I got the 86% hits as promised, plus crackshots, and so on. It was quite quick, but Seyn Marna managed to destroy a full health awing in two shots, so that was cool. In the end it was 200-140 due to Seyn.

I think the squad is super fun. However, the burden of execution is a bit on it. Every focus spent at the wrong time will hurt; every bonus action spent on turning the arc when a boost would be better (or the other way around!) hurts. I never had another token but focus and stress. The flying needs to be crisp, and my way of doing teams of 2 is not as good anymore as it was with snapshot, so I should adjust that.

Heroic was strange. By coincidence it never procced in the first 3 games, but then several times in the last.
Advanced Optics is great, used it almost every attack if I had a focus - a bit too recklessly, especially against Fangs.
Crackshot was better than Trickshot would have been (3 shots at most were obstructed), but next I'll try the version with Tallie or L'ulo and cut the cracks.

Next Sunday is another one. I think I'll go down to 4 generics. Either with L'Ulo and Heroic and something (elusive? Lonewolf?) or Tallie.

@GreenDragoon I've looked at removing Heroic off all of them and upgrading 2 of the Green Experts to L'ulo and Talli keeping crack shot and adv optics on all of them.

You guys are getting me excited for my A-Wings to arrive. At the worst, I'll probably improve my skills while we wait for the points adjustment.

I just ran Lulo with Poe and Nien for league. Firing with the rear arc on the A-wings is definitely a skill that will take some getting used to.

16 minutes ago, pheaver said:

I just ran Lulo with Poe and Nien for league. Firing with the rear arc on the A-wings is definitely a skill that will take some getting used to.

But dayum, the amount of trickshot procs! The rebel A for sure will drop in points considering the efficiency of its brother.

12 hours ago, pheaver said:

I just ran Lulo with Poe and Nien for league. Firing with the rear arc on the A-wings is definitely a skill that will take some getting used to.

I have both win a game as tallie and lost against her due to forgetting about the **** rear arc.

6 hours ago, RStan said:

@GreenDragoon I've looked at removing Heroic off all of them and upgrading 2 of the Green Experts to L'ulo and Talli keeping crack shot and adv optics on all of them.

Me too, same idea. Four is easier to play for me because I'm so much more used to it. But I think I'll do 4+1 first and see how that works out. I think rather Tallie, but I would give an arm and a leg for Jake!

Oh, one more thing. Maybe it's just me, but I was stressed more often than not. The problem with the rear arc is that rolling can't end in a focus, so no dice mods*. I rather boosted to make sure I have arc (or just focus) and then the next turn switched to front again. It also happened quite often that I had a turn inbetween without shooting (eg 2 hard, focus +turn arc. Then after again 2 hard, focus +boost). Because a sloop leaves you defenseless and you also can't shoot (arc pointing back!), and I haven't figured out yet how to do it better. It happened a couple of times that I shot once front and then again had to switch arcs. But it also happened several times that I could simply let them chase me and continuously shoot out the back while dodging the arcs.

But yeah, it's not easy.

*edit: to clarify what I meant: rolling can adjust the arc nicely without changing the direction. But using boost to adjust arc usually turned me 45° and that changes the next turns much more. Ideally we'd have a free boost or roll, but of course that would be a tad too much. Sometimes a roll is the clear decision, and then you end up without tokens.

7 hours ago, Scott Pilgrim2 said:

You guys are getting me excited for my A-Wings to arrive. At the worst, I'll probably improve my skills while we wait for the points adjustment.

When is the points adjustment? I've got a tournie in mid Jan and I'm not sure if I can start practicing yet.

4 hours ago, SDCC said:

When is the points adjustment? I've got a tournie in mid Jan and I'm not sure if I can start practicing yet

January is all that we've been told, but I wouldn't hang my hat on it. You should be fine using the current points in mid January because planning on an event that *may* happen that also may not take effect immediately doesn't make sense.

5 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

Me too, same idea. Four is easier to play for me because I'm so much more used to it. But I think I'll do 4+1 first and see how that works out. I think rather Tallie, but I would give an arm and a leg for Jake!

Oh, one more thing. Maybe it's just me, but I was stressed more often than not. The problem with the rear arc is that rolling can't end in a focus, so no dice mods*. I rather boosted to make sure I have arc (or just focus) and then the next turn switched to front again. It also happened quite often that I had a turn inbetween without shooting (eg 2 hard, focus +turn arc. Then after again 2 hard, focus +boost). Because a sloop leaves you defenseless and you also can't shoot (arc pointing back!), and I haven't figured out yet how to do it better. It happened a couple of times that I shot once front and then again had to switch arcs. But it also happened several times that I could simply let them chase me and continuously shoot out the back while dodging the arcs.

But yeah, it's not easy.

*edit: to clarify what I meant: rolling can adjust the arc nicely without changing the direction. But using boost to adjust arc usually turned me 45° and that changes the next turns much more. Ideally we'd have a free boost or roll, but of course that would be a tad too much. Sometimes a roll is the clear decision, and then you end up without tokens.

Those "turn around" turns are what I'm still trying to figure out with A-Wings. I'm starting to get the feeling they should never really be pointing at anything which can point at them. Fly towards stuff, turn away if they point at you, kite as long as you can, turn back in if they let you. Maybe. I don't know.

13 minutes ago, gennataos said:

Those "turn around" turns are what I'm still trying to figure out with A-Wings. I'm starting to get the feeling they should never really be pointing at anything which can point at them. Fly towards stuff, turn away if they point at you, kite as long as you can, turn back in if they let you. Maybe. I don't know.

Yeah. Often dodging the arc meant no shots myself, or at least not on my intended target. Though I have to add that this is of course unusual in itself that the IN3 ships actually got to arc dodge with full information in two games!

39 minutes ago, gennataos said:

Those "turn around" turns are what I'm still trying to figure out with A-Wings. I'm starting to get the feeling they should never really be pointing at anything which can point at them. Fly towards stuff, turn away if they point at you, kite as long as you can, turn back in if they let you. Maybe. I don't know.

25 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Yeah. Often dodging the arc meant no shots myself, or at least not on my intended target. Though I have to add that this is of course unusual in itself that the IN3 ships actually got to arc dodge with full information in two games!

The caveat is that I am talking out of my *** with no table time, but my "head sim" strategy is make strafing runs: come at the enemy from a few angles, make my attack run, shoot out the butt as I go past, turn around and do it again. They have such a plethora of blues and move really fast that time to get back in the fight without a sloop/k-turn should be short. And if they are chasing one, he can run and shoot out of the butt.

10 minutes ago, Scott Pilgrim2 said:

The caveat is that I am talking out of my *** with no table time, but my "head sim" strategy is make strafing runs: come at the enemy from a few angles, make my attack run, shoot out the butt as I go past, turn around and do it again. They have such a plethora of blues and move really fast that time to get back in the fight without a sloop/k-turn should be short. And if they are chasing one, he can run and shoot out of the butt.

No, I think that's pretty accurate. The challenge, if you have a lot of A-Wings in your list, is getting enough damage done on those passes. If it's 5 A-Wings with a focus and Optics, assuming range 2 for all shots, it's barely enough to kill a TIE figher. You'll barely get into hull on a T-70. Of course Crackshot triggers, range differences, variance can change that, but...yeah. The more A-Wings in your list, the more of an attrition list it becomes. A slow, grind it out attrition list.

Having played with Poe + 3 named A-Wings a fair amount, I can say that, baring variance, you're not taking stuff off the table real quick.

2 minutes ago, gennataos said:

No, I think that's pretty accurate. The challenge, if you have a lot of A-Wings in your list, is getting enough damage done on those passes. If it's 5 A-Wings with a focus and Optics, assuming range 2 for all shots, it's barely enough to kill a TIE figher. You'll barely get into hull on a T-70. Of course Crackshot triggers, range differences, variance can change that, but...yeah. The more A-Wings in your list, the more of an attrition list it becomes. A slow, grind it out attrition list.

Having played with Poe + 3 named A-Wings a fair amount, I can say that, baring variance, you're not taking stuff off the table real quick.

Which is fair - it may end up being a good squad, but not a good tournament squad since you have time constraints. The only ship I would be really sad to see outright is Luke.

2 minutes ago, Scott Pilgrim2 said:

The caveat is that I am talking out of my *** with no table time, but my "head sim" strategy is make strafing runs: come at the enemy from a few angles, make my attack run, shoot out the butt as I go past, turn around and do it again. They have such a plethora of blues and move really fast that time to get back in the fight without a sloop/k-turn should be short. And if they are chasing one, he can run and shoot out of the butt.

I had the same idea. But imo the games are already slower, with fewer rounds played. If you spend half of it running away to start a new run then you won't get in many shots with ships that are already not exactly offensive powerhouses. Destroying 200points won't be very likely then, and it is usually what I naively aim for at the start of every game.

6 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

I had the same idea. But imo the games are already slower, with fewer rounds played. If you spend half of it running away to start a new run then you won't get in many shots with ships that are already not exactly offensive powerhouses. Destroying 200points won't be very likely then, and it is usually what I naively aim for at the start of every game.

I bet the real success with this squad will come from players who can set their dials quickly - if you already know what your next moves are, you can get more turns in. It might be a high skill floor in, but I bet it is a fun squad to see flown masterfully.

How practical is 4 "loaded" A-wings over 5 leaner ones? If everyone had Concussion or Cluster Missiles, for example, could you push damage through harder? Or would it be the inevitable "A-wings without Focus are dead"?

8 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

How practical is 4 "loaded" A-wings over 5 leaner ones? If everyone had Concussion or Cluster Missiles, for example, could you push damage through harder? Or would it be the inevitable "A-wings without Focus are dead"?

I mean, they can't all die in the opening exchange. With that being said, why pay 37 for a cluster missile A when you could pay 39 for a cluster missile SF?

8 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

How practical is 4 "loaded" A-wings over 5 leaner ones? If everyone had Concussion or Cluster Missiles, for example, could you push damage through harder? Or would it be the inevitable "A-wings without Focus are dead"?

Then you would need the two I5s, targeting synchronizer and probably swarm tactics on top, right? Unless you go with prockets.