10 hours ago, xanderf said:

You are familiar with Lady Luck for X-Wing Vassal , though, right? You upload your match log, and it spits out what your actual rolls were vs expected rolls. I have , in fact, lost several games where my 'hit' dice results were half the expected result (worst case, to date, a game with 48 expected 'hits' based on number of dice rolled that I actually got only 16) or my opponents evade results were crazy hot (think I've seen a match where they got 80% evades, which given evades only being 3/8 of a die's faces is...difficult to overcome).

Sometimes, it really is just the dice. That actually does happen, and it decides games, and if you are in an event where a single loss eliminates you from the final rounds...that burns.

Don't get me wrong, there are games in X-Wing where luck plays huge part, especially where there are equal opponents. Also I don't deny that there is rock-paper-scissor dynamic between lists and sometimes one single roll for initiative can ruin your whole gameplan. For example I know my favourite list, that I have the most success with is easily counterable by bombs and harpoons. But even taking those things into account it is better to search for own mistakes than blame luck - because as original poster pointed out it is the best way to overcome the plateau.

The ability to properly evaluate performance is absolutely key to getting better - at anything, not just X-Wing/games. I've played against a lot of people in various wargames who reach this plateau very quickly because they refuse to think about their games at all. They assume losses are always due to broken combos from their opponent or bad luck or not having access to the same options as their opponent. Sometimes those are true, but even when they are, there are often fundamental mistakes made that can be overcome if you just recognise and react to them.

Being honest about your own performances is vital. I don't agree that dice luck is never the overwhelming factor in deciding a game but I do agree that it's blamed far too often for poor performances. I've had people who literally never managed to get a fully modified shot at me all game complain that my evade dice were so, so lucky and I've had people who were getting pounded at range 1 by modified shots all game complain that their greens were so bad.

List choice is important too. If you really want to evaluate your skill against the best players you're going to need to be on a level playing field. That means flying those weird lists nobody else does, with ships everyone else says is bad, will ultimately stifle your progress. There's a reason meta lists become the meta. There's always a chance you'll stumble on the next Parattani but, in about 99% of cases your cool meta-busting list of awesomeness is just bad. I'm not saying everyone needs to fly the meta all the time but you do need to recognise that taking weaker lists can put a hard cap on how good your performances can be. Just like you need to be honest with yourself about how the game went in terms of dice and decisions, you also need to be honest about the power of your list. I've just gone through this with my Regionals preparations. I really wanted to fly Kylo and a pair of Gunboats. But I also want to do as well as possible and unfortunately, as cool as the list is, it's just not quite good enough against the sort of lists I'm likely to come up against. Maybe with more practice I'd be good enough, but I've had to admit to myself I'll need to take a list I'm better with if I want to do the best I can.

1 hour ago, LordBlades said:

So you never had a situation where you made the tactically and statistically correct choice only to have the dice not cooperate?

I've had an entire tournament go like this. Outflew every opponent and just had the coldest dice all ******* day.

It does happen.

Best way to get better is to play better opponents, or if you're already very good play the best people you can find - regularly. It applies to most games.

My life is way too busy these days, and will never be good at XWing (just cannot play enough), but I have been pretty good at other miniature games "back in the day". The key to getting better then was playing every week against a group of players any one of which could realistically win the biggest national tournaments. If you play these kind of opponents, listen, learn and pay attention (as well as formulating ideas of your own) you will get better.

Dice can (and will) play a factor... but never blame them for a loss. You learn nothing then. Instead focus on what you could have done better.

19 hours ago, xanderf said:

It's a good essay, and valid points - but also the reason I ended up preferring Armada over X-Wing. Too many tournaments when I really was outplaying my opponent, the dice decided to crap on me, and I lost half my list in a single round.

But, to the OP's essay, Armada is even more demanding of a plan. With only 6 turns, objectives that score so many points, and a 3x6 map, I've seen games won or loss without ships even really coming into combat just based on one player having an absolute superior understanding of the nature of the battle and how to control their victory conditions while denying the enemy theirs. (I mean, not often, naturally - generally, 'killing ships' is the easier way to win, but even how to do that when you only really get one or two "strong" combat passes is complex)

It's less of a problem with longer X-Wing tournaments, of course - if a single loss doesn't eliminate you from contention in the event, the odds playing out over time balance out well enough that better players do tend to rise to the top. But events short enough that one loss torpedoes your changes...*blech*. X-Wing really annoys me, that way. Best planning in the world can't hold a candle to the amount of damage dice swings can do in this game.

It's funny you'd mention Armada because, in my experience, that game presents a more significant problem in terms of evaluating your performance. In X-Wing, your performance feedback is typically immediate I.e. If you make a mistake, you'll typically know that turn that you messed up. Armada, because of the way the game is designed to have a more strategic feel (moving after shooting, finite turns, more limited movement, missions, etc.), you typically won't see the results of major errors for at least a turn and often more.

I've had multiple games of Armada where I looked at the mission, fleets and how my opponent had deployed and thought "this game is over", but my opponent seemed quite oblivious to how bad his position truly was. I've had at least 2x instances where I was almost certain I could win even if allowed my opponent to change his dice to whatever result he wanted.

It's also a game where someone will casually make a decision that loses them the game, but then agonize over the completely irrelevant (unless the dice gods punish me for my hubris, you're ship is dead, there's no need to make sure it dies in exactly the right spot) which is a strong indicator that the way they're viewing the game is flawed.

While this is one of the game's strengths I.e. once you get to matrix point of Armada where you see everything and could write a 90% accurate batrep just by seeing fleets, mission and deployment it's a great feeling. It does make the initial learning curve that much steeper and getting past the plateau can require rewinding games all the way back to the beginning to see a problem that sealed the deal on turn 4.

1 hour ago, MasterShake2 said:

While this is one of the game's strengths I.e. once you get to matrix point of Armada where you see everything and could write a 90% accurate batrep just by seeing fleets, mission and deployment it's a great feeling. It does make the initial learning curve that much steeper and getting past the plateau can require rewinding games all the way back to the beginning to see a problem that sealed the deal on turn 4.

Off topic, this is, to me, a really interesting aspect of game design, especially competitive game design. I love when games are heavily reliant on formulating a plan, but a super-steep learning curve also keeps people away and prevents building up a large competitive player base. There's this complicated interplay between accessibility and high level strategy.

9 hours ago, LordBlades said:

So you never had a situation where you made the tactically and statistically correct choice only to have the dice not cooperate?

I get where you're coming from,most of the time when you lose you can trace it to a mistake. Not always though; sometimes none of the opponents will make a significant enough mistake and the deadlock is broken by dice.

I play Vassal a lot, and that gives me the chance to pace through and analyze the game thoroughly. Most of the time I can trace the win/loss to skill, lists, mistakes, etc. Not always though.

To give you an example of the last Vassal game I feel was decided by dice:

Triple imperial alpha (me) vs. Attani triple Jumps. Pretty balanced game (some minor mistakes on both sides, but nothing really game altering), comes down to full HP Vader vs. 2 JM5s, one with 1 HP, the other with 3-4 HP, all torps spent. I manage to BR into range 1 if the 1 HP JM5k while putting a rock between me and the other one. I'm rolling 3 unmodded reds + the ATC Crit vs 2 greens and a Focus. If I roll 2 or 3 hits, he's dead. If I roll 1 hit, he needs no blanks on his greens to survive, so I feel the odds are pretty well stacked in my favor (plan was kill that JM then turtle while slowly eating away at the other). Not only did Vader fail fail to kill the JM, but he proceeded to take 4 damage from a 3v3 range 1 shot and a 5v2 range 3 shot through a rock (I rolled no evades on 8 greens). In hindsight, what I did still seems like the optimal choice, and it should have worked; it just didn't.

Nope. All combat has risk. Since each shot is a percentage chance, you have to take into account when you get the 1/1000 roll. I learned this from playing a very old game called Tactics Arena Online: In that game, some attacks were percentage, and some rarer ones were always-hit. I learned that the best players didn't simply take good percentage shots. They literally saved and planned ahead to use their always-hits on absolutely needed moments to secure removing an unit from the table. (While at the same time, being horribly powerfully efficient with their percentage shots.)

No. Never. I've never ever seen a single game decided on luck. Luck changes the game, from what you planned it to be. Its different from your expectation, because the uncertainty is difficult to address. But its always there.

No scenario ever counts, you can always win by even more of a margin. The type of gameplay you want to aspire to is not to ever "need" a shot or a roll. You have so many shields left over that your opponent had no chance of winning in the first place. Art of War: the outcome should be decided before you even put the pieces on the table.
When at my best, I will occasionally win games where I don't even lose a single shield/hull. and go 100-0. There never was any last pray-hurrah shot for my opponent. Everything was full 4 health with an evade and a focus token. Even if he did get that last random shot (which with 3 dice, he was enver going to be able to overcome 2 shields and a evade) he would literally just one shot a Seinar TAP.... Whoo, you got 22 points.

Just to chime in on Armada, as an Armada player. There's lots of awful aspects about Armada gameplay. And the heavy emphasis on planning, the inability to react are one of the worst aspects of that game. The worst problems about Armada are setting your list down at the table, seeing you're hard countered, being outplayed on deployment, and spending the next 2 hours losing. You see the problem immediately, you see it on the first move after a bad deployment. And very few things can help you at that point.

5 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

I've had multiple games of Armada where I looked at the mission, fleets and how my opponent had deployed and thought "this game is over", but my opponent seemed quite oblivious to how bad his position truly was. I've had at least 2x instances where I was almost certain I could win even if allowed my opponent to change his dice to whatever result he wanted.

18 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

You see the problem immediately, you see it on the first move after a bad deployment. And very few things can help you at that point.

Ah, see, that's the thing I really like about Armada over X-Wing. I've had those games, myself, where the match end point is clear based on the fleets, initial deployment, and initial dial setting - at least, clear in a 'who wins or who loses'. The extent of the win or loss will come down to how the players manage the game, but - especially compared to X-Wing - never the dice. In Armada, you win or lose based on your list selection, your plan , and your initial deployment to take advantage of those.

1 hour ago, Blail Blerg said:

The type of gameplay you want to aspire to is not to ever "need" a shot or a roll. You have so many shields left over that your opponent had no chance of winning in the first place. Art of War: the outcome should be decided before you even put the pieces on the table.

In real games however, especially when player skills are close, you will find yourself in situations where chance matters (you will trade some shots).

Absolutely theoretical example: can you win a fame where you only roll blanks and your opponent only rolls hits, crits or evades? If not, dice matter.

Armada is starting to sound like the kind of game I'd not enjoy.

1 hour ago, Blail Blerg said:

No. Never. I've never ever seen a single game decided on luck.

Final Salvo, equal amount of dice. Any Final Salvo really, but especially that scenario.

Even if one player made mistakes during the game, ultimately leading to Final Salvo... doesn't matter. The game wasn't decided before FS and it is decided after FS. That's the very definition of a deciding factor.

3 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

Nope. All combat has risk. Since each shot is a percentage chance, you have to take into account when you get the 1/1000 roll. I learned this from playing a very old game called Tactics Arena Online: In that game, some attacks were percentage, and some rarer ones were always-hit. I learned that the best players didn't simply take good percentage shots. They literally saved and planned ahead to use their always-hits on absolutely needed moments to secure removing an unit from the table. (While at the same time, being horribly powerfully efficient with their percentage shots.)

No. Never. I've never ever seen a single game decided on luck. Luck changes the game, from what you planned it to be. Its different from your expectation, because the uncertainty is difficult to address. But its always there.

No scenario ever counts, you can always win by even more of a margin. The type of gameplay you want to aspire to is not to ever "need" a shot or a roll. You have so many shields left over that your opponent had no chance of winning in the first place. Art of War: the outcome should be decided before you even put the pieces on the table.
When at my best, I will occasionally win games where I don't even lose a single shield/hull. and go 100-0. There never was any last pray-hurrah shot for my opponent. Everything was full 4 health with an evade and a focus token. Even if he did get that last random shot (which with 3 dice, he was enver going to be able to overcome 2 shields and a evade) he would literally just one shot a Seinar TAP.... Whoo, you got 22 points.

This is more or less pure nonsense.

Dice matter. Sometimes they matter a lot. There are points in any game against a skilled player where you will be forced to trade shots. You can set up the best statistical odds for yourself, but sometimes your 35 point ship gets one-shotted despite having 5 greens, 2 tokens, and autothrusters. Sometimes you take multiple unavoidable shots where a series of statistical anomalies turns a couple of expected shield scratches into a crippled ship.

Sometimes you set up two perfect range 1 shots outside of Rey's arc with double mods and do a whopping 2 damage with 8 dice, and since your game is timed, you never get another good shot.

It's important to be able to recognize when it's your fault and when it's the dice's fault, but sometimes your opponent just gets purely lucky, secures a small point lead, and slow-plays to drag the rounds out until time and your perfectly set up winning shots whiff.

7 minutes ago, RampancyTW said:

This is more or less pure nonsense.

Dice matter. Sometimes they matter a lot. There are points in any game against a skilled player where you will be forced to trade shots. You can set up the best statistical odds for yourself, but sometimes your 35 point ship gets one-shotted despite having 5 greens, 2 tokens, and autothrusters. Sometimes you take multiple unavoidable shots where a series of statistical anomalies turns a couple of expected shield scratches into a crippled ship.

Sometimes you set up two perfect range 1 shots outside of Rey's arc with double mods and do a whopping 2 damage with 8 dice, and since your game is timed, you never get another good shot.

It's important to be able to recognize when it's your fault and when it's the dice's fault, but sometimes your opponent just gets purely lucky, secures a small point lead, and slow-plays to drag the rounds out until time and your perfectly set up winning shots whiff.

Yeah, I agree. Of course you shouldn't use bad dice as an excuse, when you played poorly. But claiming that dice never decide a game... that's just going from one extreme to another, isn't it?

What you want is a healthy realistic view on luck. It matters, sometimes it's the difference between winning and losing, but it evens out over time and it shouldn't keep you from noticing your mistakes.

I agree with @Blail Blerg , at least I think we do.

Dice can and do change games. I did have my <2% chance Harpoon result in the worst of moments. The other 98% would have won me the game. That does not mean that I can tick that game off as "otherwise perfect". There is the odd situation where someone just rolls 3-4 evade results all day. It can happen, but it's so rare that you should not put any meaning into it.

Dice never matter when analyzing your game for trying to "git gud". Whatever the dice results were - it doesn't matter. What did you do wrong? Because you did not play perfectly.

I think its worth recognizing that the vast majority of X-Wing players completely misjudge when the dice mattered at all.

It happens, but very rarely.

I would argue that the vast majority of the time that you hear a player complain about "muh dice" or "ya dice" they are just directly admitting that they believe they have no control over the outcome of the game.

In hundreds of games of X-Wing and very many losses I cant point to a single game that I lost just because of dice.

There was always a way I could have made that dice less relevant.

32 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

I think its worth recognizing that the vast majority of X-Wing players completely misjudge when the dice mattered at all.

It happens, but very rarely.

I would argue that the vast majority of the time that you hear a player complain about "muh dice" or "ya dice" they are just directly admitting that they believe they have no control over the outcome of the game.

In hundreds of games of X-Wing and very many losses I cant point to a single game that I lost just because of dice.

There was always a way I could have made that dice less relevant.

Dice less relevant doesn't mean irrelevant.

If you roll zero evades in 20 green dice, you're bleeding points, losing the ability to set up favorable shots (ships too weak to trade), and losing the ability to crack through tanky ships. Every time a ship gets PS killed as a result of statistical anomaly, you not only lose a shot, but take at least one additional shot on one of your other ships that otherwise would have been fresh. Every time an expected 1 damage turns into a 4 damage kill, you lose MoV that you might need to leverage against an opponent.

Dice matter. Against an equally skilled opponent, you WILL have to take calculated risks. It's unavoidable. When the dice wildly defy those statistical calculations, you create massive (dis)advantages. Unless you're vastly better or worse than your opponent, dice swings will often have a large impact on the outcome of a given game.

8 minutes ago, RampancyTW said:

Dice less relevant doesn't mean irrelevant.

If you roll zero evades in 20 green dice, you're bleeding points, losing the ability to set up favorable shots (ships too weak to trade), and losing the ability to crack through tanky ships. Every time a ship gets PS killed as a result of statistical anomaly, you not only lose a shot, but take at least one additional shot on one of your other ships that otherwise would have been fresh. Every time an expected 1 damage turns into a 4 damage kill, you lose MoV that you might need to leverage against an opponent.

Dice matter. Against an equally skilled opponent, you WILL have to take calculated risks. It's unavoidable. When the dice wildly defy those statistical calculations, you create massive (dis)advantages. Unless you're vastly better or worse than your opponent, dice swings will often have a large impact on the outcome of a given game.

Yea your obviously the kind of player that gets it. I wont argue that dice are irrelevant. They are a part of the game for some lists more than others, some factions more than others for that matter.

Im just saying the vast majority of players simply talk about dice as a way to be passively disrespectful to their opponent or as a way to avoid self reflection.

Its hard to avoid in the heat of the moment, we all experience it...its just important to let it go and focus on what you can do vs what you can't

21 hours ago, Stoneface said:

I don't think you can avoid a plateau. The ultimate one is where your skill and ability peak. You get no better regardless of effort. Smaller plateaus could include being really bad at squad building and/or anticipating your opponent's next move. Better squad building can be taught to some extent. More importantly is to get the to think about what he's doing.

I don't think a true plateau can be reached in X-wing, much like chess. The experience gained from each game is always going to have some use further on down the line. The squad building plateau is also kind of moot since internet lists are a thing, but one's own lists can certainly hit a wall in casual play. There's definitely a levelling off of the learning curve over time, but at no point does it reach an asymptote.

I believe the greatest learning curve in X-wing is the ability to think several turns ahead in both movement, actions and targeting priority order. There's a guy in my local scene who is excellent with his movement planning - he'll have an arc with just about every ship every turn unless I'm flying arc dodgers. However, his action anticipation is quite poor - he'll focus when he doesn't have a shot and can't be shot, target lock a target at range 1 etc etc. And then he gets frustrated when his dice betray him.

I've been really focusing on my movement recently - setting up 3-4 turns of solid attacks with arc-based ships takes a lot of planning effort. I haven't hit any wall yet, and I don't think I will for a few years yet.

Just chiming on the dice luck. It totally is a factor in games. Now I'm a reasonable person, I "usually" try not to blame one or two off average rolls as costing me the game, and I also realize that if you're not helping your dice with modifications, you SHOULD be at the mercy of dice luck.

But even then I've had some doozies on vassal that I was able to verify with lady luck like others on here.

- One of my last vassal league games had my opponent roll like 14 or 15 more evades than expected. That's like having another ship or two in your list!

- Had another game not that long ago where I had every single reroll on offense be a blank or focus, and I rerolled at least 10 or 12 dice during the game, maybe a bit more.

- Had a game awhile back where my opponent was going to lose in the next couple rounds unless he rolled perfectly on reds without any modifiers (he was heavily stressed I think). He ended up getting 4/4 hits & crits in back to back rounds of shooting to win him the game.

- Going back to vassal league, either my first or 2nd season I added up all my dice results from all my league games, and for reds, instead of getting the expected 25% blanks (or 1 in 4), it was like 32% (closer to 1 in 3).

And that's just a few examples off the top of my head.

37 minutes ago, Astech said:

I don't think a true plateau can be reached in X-wing, much like chess. The experience gained from each game is always going to have some use further on down the line. The squad building plateau is also kind of moot since internet lists are a thing, but one's own lists can certainly hit a wall in casual play. There's definitely a levelling off of the learning curve over time, but at no point does it reach an asymptote.

This is where you and I disagree. Not everyone has the skill to win X-wing Worlds or become a Grand Master in chess. Regardless of the time and energy put into the game. Sure, practice and study will help you improve but eventually you hit a level that you can't get beyond.

As for net listing, I wondering how many players at worlds started with the winner's list and never made it out of swiss? Just because you have a winning list it doesn't mean you can win with it. Pulling a squad off the net and using it without knowing the how and why of its build is unproductive.

The comparison between X-wing and chess is good only to a point. Really the only thing they have in common is initiative. White always has it, there's no variation in builds or starting positions and there are no dice! No randomness. And thinking more than one move ahead.

22 minutes ago, markcsoul said:

Just chiming on the dice luck. It totally is a factor in games. Now I'm a reasonable person, I "usually" try not to blame one or two off average rolls as costing me the game, and I also realize that if you're not helping your dice with modifications, you SHOULD be at the mercy of dice luck.

But even then I've had some doozies on vassal that I was able to verify with lady luck like others on here.

- One of my last vassal league games had my opponent roll like 14 or 15 more evades than expected. That's like having another ship or two in your list!

- Had another game not that long ago where I had every single reroll on offense be a blank or focus, and I rerolled at least 10 or 12 dice during the game, maybe a bit more.

- Had a game awhile back where my opponent was going to lose in the next couple rounds unless he rolled perfectly on reds without any modifiers (he was heavily stressed I think). He ended up getting 4/4 hits & crits in back to back rounds of shooting to win him the game.

- Going back to vassal league, either my first or 2nd season I added up all my dice results from all my league games, and for reds, instead of getting the expected 25% blanks (or 1 in 4), it was like 32% (closer to 1 in 3).

And that's just a few examples off the top of my head.

That's the problem with randomness. It's always random. I've had a one health ship last three rounds by rolling perfect greens for multiple attacks per round and lost Vader in one round when he started the round throwing 6 greens! Sometimes no matter how well you plan and move it's not enough.

Paraphrasing a known quote: "You plan and the dice laugh".

19 minutes ago, Stoneface said:

This is where you and I disagree. Not everyone has the skill to win X-wing Worlds or become a Grand Master in chess. Regardless of the time and energy put into the game. Sure, practice and study will help you improve but eventually you hit a level that you can't get beyond.

As for net listing, I wondering how many players at worlds started with the winner's list and never made it out of swiss? Just because you have a winning list it doesn't mean you can win with it. Pulling a squad off the net and using it without knowing the how and why of its build is unproductive.

The comparison between X-wing and chess is good only to a point. Really the only thing they have in common is initiative. White always has it, there's no variation in builds or starting positions and there are no dice! No randomness. And thinking more than one move ahead.

That's certainly true, but that doesn't mean their skill doesn't keep increasing with the experience thy gain - it's just a dramatically slower improvement. The kind of players that win worlds play dozens of games a week, which is why they continue to improve, not because of extreme innate ability.

There was a time when building a list was pointless - if you wanted to win you ran triple JM5Ks. Netlists are the strongest lists of their time, so copying them and practicing until you're good with it removes the whole list building aspect of the game.

In both chess and X-wing the better players plan moves numerous turns ahead. Frankly, X-wing is a more difficult game than chess to predict due to the xtreme number of maneuvers and activation orders a list can put out on a given turn. Nevertheless, the whole concept of 'turn 0' exists because of the importance of anticipation.

The arguments over dice are fairly irrelevant to 'gitting gud'. Yes, they can and do affect games, but the focus of the last page or so on them is very similar to the ways players avoid analysing where they actually went wrong or could improve.

Here's an example: I flew a 7 ship Scum swarm against triple Wookiees.

Coming into the last round, with time about to be called, I'd lost one Z95 and would lose another this round. I'd got one Wookiee down to 2 health, and a shield off a 2nd, so I set up a lovely kill-box - which my opponent read and managed to avoid with the hurt one, whilst leaving his fully healthy one self-bumped in the middle of it.

I had focus and target locks - but on the ship I couldn't shoot. 10 red dice, 3 single greens.

The dice favoured me, I got 9 hits and he failed to evade any. 33-24 win.

But ignore the dice: why hadn't I won earlier or without needing lucky dice rolls?

Mostly because I took too long to formulate and enact my game plan. If I'd had more time, I'd have won easily. But I hadn't flown against multiple Wookiees before and had to work out what to do on the fly, wasting turns of ineffective offense costing me a ship, before realising that I needed to block rather than just chase - reinforce really neuters 2 dice attacks.

1 hour ago, Gilarius said:

The arguments over dice are fairly irrelevant to 'gitting gud'. Yes, they can and do affect games, but the focus of the last page or so on them is very similar to the ways players avoid analysing where they actually went wrong or could improve.

Here's an example: I flew a 7 ship Scum swarm against triple Wookiees.

Coming into the last round, with time about to be called, I'd lost one Z95 and would lose another this round. I'd got one Wookiee down to 2 health, and a shield off a 2nd, so I set up a lovely kill-box - which my opponent read and managed to avoid with the hurt one, whilst leaving his fully healthy one self-bumped in the middle of it.

I had focus and target locks - but on the ship I couldn't shoot. 10 red dice, 3 single greens.

The dice favoured me, I got 9 hits and he failed to evade any. 33-24 win.

But ignore the dice: why hadn't I won earlier or without needing lucky dice rolls?

Mostly because I took too long to formulate and enact my game plan. If I'd had more time, I'd have won easily. But I hadn't flown against multiple Wookiees before and had to work out what to do on the fly, wasting turns of ineffective offense costing me a ship, before realising that I needed to block rather than just chase - reinforce really neuters 2 dice attacks.

Can't agree more. Too often players complain about dice without looking at what gets them in that position in the first place. Too often they complain that their one crucial roll failed. I had a potentially salty experience during a fantastic Vassal game with Basic Muffin not three hours ago.

I lost Corran early game, trading him for Lowhrick and Jess while taking 3 shields off my Dash. I then faced a brutal endgame with a C-3P0 LRS Bomblet Miranda, who managed to get me to half points. My only goal was to get shots, but turn after turn Muffin evaded me, slowly plinking away. I pulled off a great turn onto a bomblet, taking two damage from the roll and sniping a weapons disabled Miranda who thought she could make range 3.

In the end we were down to 2 hull each in an incredibly fast-paced series of turns. I moved in for the kill - surrounded by debris with Miranda at R2 unobstructed, where her SLAm maneuver would take her through a debris and another one next turn. I had two focus tokens and Lone wolf, Miranda had focus/TL. Muffin risks it for the biscuit, opting to throw two 3-die attacks without regenerating shields. Her first attack is a natural 3 hits - 1 damage. her second shot is hit/focus/focus, spending the focus for the game win. My 'if it would have happened' retaliation shot rolled 3 hits and a crit for a win on my behalf.

I could have raged. I could have blamed my irksome double damage on the single bomblet I took all game. I could blame the OP-ness of Miranda. Instead I recalled an earlier moment in the game where a full health Corran was wiped off the board in a single turn because I did a white move while stressed and ended up at R1 of two enemy ships with full mods while I was tokenless. So I learned from the game - Don't joust with Corran unless you have a guaranteed exit on the next turn.

So don't blame the dice - blame the reason you needed dice to win.