5 hours ago, Biophysical said:

Article 2 is up!

http://starfightermafia.blogspot.com/2018/09/article-2-how-to-joust-less-badly.html?m=1

Good read again

Part of not jousting is identifying where the joust is going to happen.

The thing I sometimes like to think about before the game starts is where the first round of combat might take place vs where I might prefer that it take place.

As an example...maybe a bad one? Where would you want combat to happen?

• A
• B
• C
• D
• Somewhere else?

Assuming thats the starting position of the 6 Tie Swarm with Howl/Iden/Del/Seyn/Wampa/Acd.

Also assuming the starting spot of the Rebel ships is flexible.

Its never quite this simple and evolves during the game obviously, but I still find it helpful to at least have that thought through at the start.

Everything you described covers it much better, but for a new player sometimes just doing this can help vs making it up entirely as they go along.

3 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Good read again

Part of not jousting is identifying where the joust is going to happen.

The thing I sometimes like to think about before the game starts is where the first round of combat might take place vs where I might prefer that it take place.

As an example...maybe a bad one? Where would you want combat to happen?

• A
• B
• C
• D
• Somewhere else?

Assuming thats the starting position of the 6 Tie Swarm with Howl/Iden/Del/Seyn/Wampa/Acd.

Also assuming the starting spot of the Rebel ships is flexible.

I would start on the lower right and try to hug that line of steroids that leads to the swarm. If you can get them to commit to one side of that line or another, you should be able to keep an asteroid in the way of most of the swarm and the X-wings.

15 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

I would start on the lower right and try to hug that line of steroids that leads to the swarm. If you can get them to commit to one side of that line or another, you should be able to keep an asteroid in the way of most of the swarm and the X-wings.

Makes sense and to the point you made in the previous posts. It keeps more options open as to where you can engage, or react to after the first two rounds of movement.

Other really important thing to discuss is that sometimes your opponent will fortress or hang out in a spot.

When that happens alot of careful thought needs to go into that first engage, which could be a topic onto itself "How to approach a fortress?"

This kinda stuff is also where bombs become so incredibly valuable (not just against swarms) if you can use them to close a lane and force things to go where you want them to the damage is only a secondary benefit.

Rebel Nym's not so secret power in 1.0 was that he could hold bombs to control the board very easily to set up other bombs or shots.

Proximity Mines and Conner Nets and Rigged Cargo Shoots especially can have a similar if muted effect in 2.0 since they don't clear after activation.

The fortress option was what made me look at that diagonal line. If you approach from the right of that line, they have no good maneuvers to turn in on you. If they bank, a bunch of their ships will be behind a rock, and go over it next turn. If they turn in, it opens up opportunities to dodge a lot of arcs. It depend a a lot on specifics, of course.

Haha, just noticed the steroids.

Looking at it from the swarm's perspective, A is ideal - it has open space to K-Turn as well as a clear path to the swarm's left to turn into after the initial exchange. If Luke had deployed in his current position, it makes sense to rush forward and try to catch him before his allies can support him. He will be forced to either disengage, or have an exchange with the swarm before Wedge can effectively assist. Luke can shrug off a lot of shots at range 3, but if he gets caught at range 2 by most of the swarm, he's going to have a bad time.

C is probably the next preferred spot for the swarm - k-turn/pursuit options are less good, but the swarm is still largely able to keep shots on target following the initial engagement.

situation 4), sub point 3). Second sentence: "If find this heavily favors squads that have ships that move first..." I think that's supposed to be "I find."

Good stuff. I like how each article has one quote that can serve as a teaser for the concept.

Have to say that I'm loving the blog. I can't help but think that you are specifically talking about TIE striker squads when I'm reading it, which just goes to show how widely applicable your given scenarios can be. I'm going to have to re-read the joust one because I cannot seem to figure out how my TIE strikers prefer to joust, if at all.

7 hours ago, Parakitor said:

Have to say that I'm loving the blog. I can't help but think that you are specifically talking about TIE striker squads when I'm reading it, which just goes to show how widely applicable your given scenarios can be. I'm going to have to re-read the joust one because I cannot seem to figure out how my TIE strikers prefer to joust, if at all.

Thanks for the kind words. Regarding massed Strikers, I think you can basically do a whole spectrum of stuff between a split flanking sort of deployment or a faux open field joust. It's not really an open field joust, because you'll almost certainly be using Ailerons to bank one direction and then bank or turn the other direction to attack offset from your starting position. This is hugely powerful because you can attack from multiple positions from the same starting position, so the opposing squad has to pick a direction to counter if they're not too far away.

I think the only thing you don't want to do is attack head on, because a Striker's straight ahead window is pretty narrow, effectively just a 3, 4, or 5 straight. They'll basically know where you're going to be.

I don't have much experience running massed strikers, though, so this is pretty theoretical, mostly adapted from single striker experiences.

26 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

Thanks for the kind words. Regarding massed Strikers, I think you can basically do a whole spectrum of stuff between a split flanking sort of deployment or a faux open field joust. It's not really an open field joust, because you'll almost certainly be using Ailerons to bank one direction and then bank or turn the other direction to attack offset from your starting position. This is hugely powerful because you can attack from multiple positions from the same starting position, so the opposing squad has to pick a direction to counter if they're not too far away.

 I think the only thing you don't want to do is attack head on, because a Striker's straight ahead window is pretty narrow, effectively just a 3, 4, or 5 straight. They'll basically know where you're going to be.

 I don't have much experience running massed strikers, though, so this is pretty theoretical, mostly adapted from single striker experiences.

Its not to far off. Strikers are unique in that they can attack from so many different angles even at low initiative levels. If you have 4-5 of them 1 or 2 are probably "jousting" or the sacrifice but everything else is just forcing decisions on your opponent to decide which striker(s) to engage. Ideal scenario is to have which ever striker is the most vulnerable at least catch a block on something. Attacking from certain angles sets things up so the next round you dont have to sloop or 1 k and instead can AA hard 1 turn or bank which can make a huge difference in the race against the damage clock as you will tend to lose a striker per turn or so. Though the angles are typically a little goofy so those sloops and k turns very often end entirely out of arc. Because they can AA over rocks and still action the board is pretty open and you can really evaluate things a little differently than many other ships. Sloane opens things up even more.

19 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Its not to far off. Strikers are unique in that they can attack from so many different angles even at low initiative levels. If you have 4-5 of them 1 or 2 are probably "jousting" or the sacrifice but everything else is just forcing decisions on your opponent to decide which striker(s) to engage. Ideal scenario is to have which ever striker is the most vulnerable at least catch a block on something. Attacking from certain angles sets things up so the next round you dont have to sloop or 1 k and instead can AA hard 1 turn or bank which can make a huge difference in the race against the damage clock as you will tend to lose a striker per turn or so. Though the angles are typically a little goofy so those sloops and k turns very often end entirely out of arc. Because they can AA over rocks and still action the board is pretty open and you can really evaluate things a little differently than many other ships. Sloane opens things up even more.

Right. Wjen you have that many ships, someone is going to end up jousting, and that's okay. Strikers can at least make it a little hard on the opposing squad by not being in an obvious position, though.

The Mining Guild TIE is going to make jousting a bit more interesting it seems, depending on the obstacles the side using them has to deal with (asteroids are a non-issue for movement with the Mining Guild TIE).

21 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

The Mining Guild TIE is going to make jousting a bit more interesting it seems, depending on the obstacles the side using them has to deal with (asteroids are a non-issue for movement with the Mining Guild TIE).

Yeah, there's definitely something there that is going to make for interesting games.

Good article.

As a side note, I think it's important to keep in mind that the obstacles are in fact not an impassable terrain for the swarm.

A good swarm pilot will happily fly couple of his ships through the asteroid if that gives him a good position.

I found the article highly insightful. Honestly, I still struggle with deploying flankers. No matter how cheap I make them, they always seem to be the target for the intial attacks. It may be that the flankers I've used were too far away from the rest of the squad, or that I loaded them to be too deadly/disruptive.

On 9/8/2018 at 12:54 PM, baranidlo said:

Good article.

As a side note, I think it's important to keep in mind that the obstacles are in fact not an impassable terrain for the swarm.

A good swarm pilot will happily fly couple of his ships through the asteroid if that gives him a good position.

Definitely. The degree of constriction an obstacle places on a squad is very dependent on the squad makeup and what it is trying to accomplish in any given turn.

20 hours ago, BDrafty said:

I found the article highly insightful. Honestly, I still struggle with deploying flankers. No matter how cheap I make them, they always seem to be the target for the intial attacks. It may be that the flankers I've used were too far away from the rest of the squad, or that I loaded them to be too deadly/disruptive.

Thanks! If the flanker is targeted first all the time, it might be that the rest of your squad just isn't that threatening. Generally, though, it comes down to timing. Think about when you want the engagement to happen and aim for the flanker to arrive one turn later. Its not ideal, but if you find your opponents are still going for your flanker, they'll be doing it at a good time for the rest of your squad. This will only work if the flanker will actually do damage once it engages.

On 9/10/2018 at 6:15 PM, BDrafty said:

I found the article highly insightful. Honestly, I still struggle with deploying flankers. No matter how cheap I make them, they always seem to be the target for the intial attacks. It may be that the flankers I've used were too far away from the rest of the squad, or that I loaded them to be too deadly/disruptive.

A wise X-wing saying is that it's not your choice to make which part of your squadron is flanking, but rather your opponent's.

When you split your forces into two, you can present him the part which you would prefer him to engage, but you cannot force him to do that.

So you need to be always prepared for the situation when he engages your flanker instead.

If your flanker is some fragile small Ace, it should be ready to run and (hopefully) outrun your opponent's ships.

Your main force should be also ready to become the flankers and make your opponent pay for daring to take on your Ace..

And then you should be also ready to switch the roles again, once the opponent turns against your main forces.

Question bio, crackshot in 2.0 worth the point in lists? Or better to save the points for other upgrades/ bid etc?

http://starfightermafia.blogspot.com/2018/10/article-3-x-wing-basics-1-threat-maps.html

Shorter, and with pictures.

What an interesting blogpost with a new concept well presented!

Do you try to visualize anything like these arcs?

I wouldn‘t have the capacity to entirely rebuild every threatmap every turn for every ship and then overlap them.

One usage I could imagine is to think through threat maps for enemy ships before the game, use them as reference and then increase or decrease during a game according to the situation. Do you do anything like that?

2 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

One usage I could imagine is to think through threat maps for enemy ships before the game, use them as reference and then increase or decrease during a game according to the situation. Do you do anything like that?

This is pretty much what I do, but I typically imagine them all on the board as the game is played.

Fantastic new article!

On 9/15/2018 at 9:52 PM, battlestarbill said:

Question bio, crackshot in 2.0 worth the point in lists? Or better to save the points for other upgrades/ bid etc?

Sorry, I missed this when you posted it 3 weeks ago. I think it's worth a point, on some ships at least. Its going to depend on the desired bid and the ship, but I expect in the right scenarios it's going to be worth it, which is really all you can ask for on a 1 point talent.

1 hour ago, Old Sarge said:

Fantastic new article!

Thanks!

Great read! Really useful mental schematic. I'm going to try to start using it myself.

Instant bookmark. I love reading your stuff @Biophysical. It's always well thought out and very informative.