I'm talking about players who win at flagship events, or who regularly win at smaller events.

I love this game but I am average at it, at best. Some of that is down to other commitments that limit play time, but that's not the whole of it. I've been beaten by players who are relatively new to the game but old hands at Wargames.

There must be some behaviours that can be learned to improve the average players' game. What are the most successful players doing, or doing better , that wins tournaments for them?

Is it in the planning stage: list building and concocting a solid plan to deal with different archetypes?

Is it in the deployment: using the obstacles and misleading the opponent to gain advantage?

Is it in the execution: understanding fundamental tactics such as forking, keeping a cool head and adapting the plan on the fly, being able to visualise the flow of the battle several turns ahead?

It's probably all of the above, but let's break it down so that it's possible to identify unique elements and learn from them.

I'm calling on a few names here that I know are higher tier players, but I can't remember most of them so please free to tag others or chip in yourself if you feel qualified to.

@Tokra , @Ardaedhel @JJs Juggernaut @noggin @RikkiP are some guys I know. There are others locally (London) but have no idea who they are on the forums.

What behaviours or techniques or strategy do you attribute your successes to and what can other players learn from that?

Practice. Lots and lots of practice with your list in multiple situations, practice thinking about how you play, and in all honesty, there's a bit of luck in the dice roll and damage cards. But I've gotten better with lots of practice.

5 minutes ago, geek19 said:

Practice. Lots and lots of practice with your list in multiple situations, practice thinking about how you play, and in all honesty, there's a bit of luck in the dice roll and damage cards. But I've gotten better with lots of practice.

I'm aware that luck can be a swing a game from a crushing victory to a resounding defeat (too many times I've witnessed the last die of the game swing fortunes dramatically).

Practice is something that everyone can do at least. Though, I was once told "practice doesn't make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect". I think there's truth in that that applies to Armada.

After a friendly game, I always have a discussion with my opponent about what he or I could have done differently, or would have done in each others' place. If we're practicing, how do we get the most out of that practice to avoid making the same mistakes and to make best use of our practice time?

Honestly it’s just what Geek19 said, it’s mostly just hours put in. The more variety of fleets and opponents you face the more you will understand what you need to do in order to be successful vs different archetypes.

Min/Maxing helps to a point (I’m constantly list building and refining), but you also need practice with that fleet.

Also, being able to see multiple turns ahead and understands the “flow” of where the game will go on the board really helps with positioning.

Again though, just playing a lot will be of most benifit. My two friends that got me into this game regularly attend worlds/regionals and place highly/win, and they CRUSHED me regularly. However, I just kept at it and kept experimenting and figuring out lists and ships, and now it’s few and far between when I actually lose a game.

Ha, i got lucky and i can fly terrible at times but what i do know my lists, i know all upgrades cards and ships. The best combos and what works very well together.

practicing and refining your list against other very good players. I have to regularly face off against the euro champion so its get good or get crushed lol.

10 minutes ago, ManInTheBox said:

A fter a friendly game, I always have a discussion with my opponent about what he or I could have done differently, or would have done in each others' place. If we're practicing, how do we get the most out of that practice to avoid making the same mistakes and to make best use of our practice time?

Much like weight lifting, keep going against tougher goals and players. Don't just play the "bad" players in your meta to get easy wins, play the "good" players and ask them why they did what they did.

Relatedly, don't be afraid to experiment some in those practice games within reason. Like, maybe rapid reload actually has a use in your build and playstyle! But when it comes down to it, your mc30 wants ordnance experts (most likely) as opposed to flight controllers. Experiment and try things within reason.

It's an older blog post but it's exactly what you're looking for: https://intelsweep.wordpress.com/2017/01/23/pick-your-battles-a-thought-system-for-star-wars-armada/

12 minutes ago, ManInTheBox said:

After a friendly game, I always have a discussion with my opponent about what he or I could have done differently, or would have done in each others' place. If we're practicing, how do we get the most out of that practice to avoid making the same mistakes and to make best use of our practice time?

This is also always good

1 minute ago, RikkiP said:

Ha, i got lucky and i can fly terrible at times but what i do know my lists, i know all upgrades cards and ships. The best combos and what works very well together.

practicing and refining your list against other very good players. I have to regularly face off against the euro champion so its get good or get crushed lol.

I couldn't remember Ben's name on here so couldn't tag him.

You crushed me at Euros and I learned an important lesson about FCT Sensor Net (I knew it was good, I just hadn't seen it be quite so brutal before!)

2 minutes ago, Norboats said:

It's an older blog post but it's exactly what you're looking for: https://intelsweep.wordpress.com/2017/01/23/pick-your-battles-a-thought-system-for-star-wars-armada/

Thanks! Remember reading this before but had no idea who wrote it or where it was.

I Think best players try to be ahead of the wave, read the local meta well, and prepare accordingly, constantly working on surprising opponents. Rest happens during games: you got to analise your opponents fleet(sort of SWOT), calculate what you need to kill to reach the desired mow, and come up with a battleplan that can achieve your set goal focusing on your strenghts and exploiting your opponents weaknesses. The last step is the execution, the ability to force your will on your opponent.

Then you need to sacrifice a goat or several chickens to ensure the goodwill of the god of dice;)

Practice counts, but some of it comes down to raw starting talent. Now, I'm not out to put anyone down with that, and I'll be the very first person to encourage everyone to be absolutely all they can be, because raw starting talent can be difficult to measure, but there is such a thing and it does determine where your ceiling in ability is going to be.

Practice is a good thought, but what I find is that people have a hard time knowing what exactly they should be practicing at, and some of the advice above assumes that one is dealing with a high ceiling player. One of the reasons central Texas has done well is that we've had a very large pool of players who enjoy a lot of different fleet archetypes. That gives the better players a chance to play a lot of different match-ups and get better at their lists through them. It is common at a national or worlds level event to find players who have won a regional that are suddenly struck by a list that they'd not previously encountered. Another thing that helps is to surround yourself with other good players and play them a bunch. That's really a major portion of the success of the Toronto crew. They are capable of putting aside personal ego and fear of loss and just playing the game. The most recent Worlds victory was a direct result of that level of preparation.

A case in point on practice. I'm presently in the 94.6th percentile rank in blitz chess, out of a pool of almost 4 million, and measured across 3000 games. I'm in reasonably good form at the moment, though I think I can still go higher. When I haven't played in months, I fall out of form pretty quickly and I can drop into the 70s percentile rank pretty quickly. That is to say that the current me would beat the out-of-shape me almost entirely regularly. For example, the 95th percentile wins about 7 out of 10 against the 90th, and probably closer to 9 out of 10 on the 70th. So we're actually talking about a pretty wide performance gap. That's the difference between winning a 1st/2nd place finish in a 20 person regional, and coming in 6th or 7th. In short, one's natural talent is still showing up in the performance, but the level of preparation is telling most of the story on the end result.

2 minutes ago, Coldhands said:

I Think best players try to be ahead of the wave, read the local meta well, and prepare accordingly, constantly working on surprising opponents. Rest happens during games: you got to analise your opponents fleet(sort of SWOT), calculate what you need to kill to reach the desired mow, and come up with a battleplan that can achieve your set goal focusing on your strenghts and exploiting your opponents weaknesses. The last step is the execution, the ability to force your will on your opponent.

Then you need to sacrifice a goat or several chickens to ensure the goodwill of the god of dice;)

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. There are specific thought steps you can follow to try to make the best of the current situation that you face. I usually start from "I need to kill THAT" or "I'm not even going to bother trying to sell that", but that SWOT process is not well refined for me.

34 minutes ago, Coldhands said:

I Think best players.... prepare accordingly, constantly working on surprising opponents.

I'll agree with this and add that while good players may come together on an idea (Team Canada), the truly greats don't netlist. DO netlist for a start if you're curious about how something works, but knowing yourself and how YOU play should preclude you from taking something built around how SOMEONE ELSE plays.

Topics like this really get me down.

I meab, they're great topics, and AWESOME to have... Seriously... Because it does provide inspiration to most!

But its mostly because it just forms reinforcement that I'll never join those leagues...

2 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Topics like this really get me down.

I meab, they're great topics, and AWESOME to have... Seriously... Because it does provide inspiration to most!

But its mostly because it just forms reinforcement that I'll never join those leagues...

I’ve got a good feeling about The Nose Punch for your regionals this year

Simple answer:

Pikachu

1 hour ago, Drasnighta said:

Topics like this really get me down.

I meab, they're great topics, and AWESOME to have... Seriously... Because it does provide inspiration to most!

But its mostly because it just forms reinforcement that I'll never join those leagues...

I'm not aspiring to be a world class player.

I would just like to get something other than a participation Prize .

There must be plenty others in a similar position.

Just now, ManInTheBox said:

I'm not aspiring to be a world class player.

I would just like to get something other than a participation Prize .

There must be plenty others in a similar position.

You get participation Prizes?!

(The joke here being that although most of the kits do set aside a card for the Judge/TO to use at their discretion, it usually ends up in the prize pool when I am running events )

10% power 15% skill 5% pure determination and will 20% pain 3% pleasure 100% reason to remember the rhyme

Has anyone noticed that the repetitive winners are usually regular opponents of another regular winner?

58 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Has anyone noticed that the repetitive winners are usually regular opponents of another regular winner?

I once read a book about Marion Tinsley , the world's best checkers player. I seem to remember that the world's second best checkers player was Mr. Tinsley's next-door neighbor and good friend.

40 minutes ago, stonestokes said:

I once read a book about Marion Tinsley , the world's best checkers player. I seem to remember that the world's second best checkers player was Mr. Tinsley's next-door neighbor and good friend.

I experienced that with STAW. We had a group of four people who all hit about 50/50 win/loss against each other. We had no idea what our skill level was. The first Gencon tourney, every heat that one of us four played in we won. The local house league in Indianapolis was apparently absolutely nuts.

Back to topic. Every game, look at who lost and figure out WHY. Then work out what changes needed to be made to win. A different deployment? Better command choice? Different maneuver? There is always a way to win and you do that by learning.

I was was reminded of this recently when I got my teeth kicked in by an AvengerBT Fleet. I had a bit of a “woe is me” attitude and my significant other told me off for not having my usual “I know how to beat them next time” mentality.

Passion

Not fielding VSDs