Your opponent is running Whisper (I5, Juke, Vader) / Redline (I5, Adv. Sensors, P. Torps) / Soontir Fel (I6, Predator) with a strong bid.

You're running three Blue Squadron X-wings (I2) and Luke with (I5) with Proton Torpedoes and a plain R2. You get forced to have Initiative.

This is the asteroid field. (Your edge is the bottom.) How do you deploy?

On the left, all ships facing right. It gives you all the time you need for them to close and gives you a couple options for where the engage actually happens.

I'm afraid your post needs more information.

1: Which side of the board are you deploying on?
2: Why did you choose to deploy the rocks the way you did? The question of how to deploy really begins at the rock placement phase
3: What sort of ships are in your list? This heavily influences the way you place rocks and deploy your ships.

Once you've answered those questions, you can plan your deployment. To do so, you need to work backwards. First, decide who you want to target (redline?). Then, think about how you want to engage that target: what angle are you approaching at, will it be in rocks or in the open, and which side of the board will it be on. This will help you decide where to put the rocks and where to deploy once the rocks are down.

In this case, I think I want to hit redline first, and I don't want him to have an easy time lining up the joust, so I'll clump rocks at my opponent's end of the table to harass redline. I want to keep most of the board fairly open because my ships will have more trouble in the rocks than my opponent (this is very list dependent, if I'm flying deadman Zs and nym I want rocks right in the middle). If my ships are fast enough to run, I'll deploy split so that redline has to choose a group (I really don't want to joust him).

On the board above, I want to be on the top so I have the most choice for how to engage and my opponent will have a harder time than me turning past the rocks.

Assuming that the bottom is supposed to be my table edge, I wake up and go get my head examined. That asteroid set up is just screaming for a traj simmed Redline seismic into my squad for basically free damage for the opponent, atleast twice. No thanks.

4 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

Assuming that the bottom is supposed to be my table edge, I wake up and go get my head examined.

You only get to place three obstacles. How do you stop your opponent from putting their three on your side?

6 minutes ago, Quarrel said:

You only get to place three obstacles. How do you stop your opponent from putting their three on your side?

And why would you place your obstacles, you being the player on the lower section, to benefit an opposing list with Soontir and Whisper giving them a huge open area to play in, while your opponent sets up a wall of asteroids just outside your deployment? Perhaps if you included more information on the force disposition than a generic "Soontir, Redline and Whisper with bid = enemy, you have an init 5 and 3 init 2s" I might have had something more positive to contribute. As is, with the info at hand, it is very difficult to see a positive outcome from any first placement. What are the upgrades on the opposition? What ships do we have and their upgrades? Present a puzzle with sufficient information please...

5 hours ago, gadwag said:

I'm afraid your post needs more information.

1: Which side of the board are you deploying on?

The bottom. Sorry about that.

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2: Why did you choose to deploy the rocks the way you did?

The diagonal stripe was yours, to form a division so your opponent either jousts you with everything or has a harder time bringing flankers in. The wall at your end was theirs, to force you to either approach from one corner in an easily-arc-dodged block or split from both so you isolate half your forces for them to pick off.

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3: What sort of ships are in your list?

Something like 3 Blue Squadron X-wings and Luke w/Proton Torpedoes. Nothing fancy, just basic 3-attack unturreted snub fighters.

33 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

And why would you place your obstacles, you being the player on the lower section, to benefit an opposing list with Soontir and Whisper giving them a huge open area to play in, while your opponent sets up a wall of asteroids just outside your deployment?

There is only so much filling you can do with three asteroids. I presume you'd prefer putting your three in a slightly larger "V" shifted closer to the opponent's edge than a central "/"?

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What are the upgrades on the opposition? What ships do we have and their upgrades? Present a puzzle with sufficient information please...

I don't want to get so specific that the answer is useless in all other games, though.

3 minutes ago, Quarrel said:

Something like 3 Blue Squadron X-wings and Luke w/Proton Torpedoes. Nothing fancy, just basic 3-attack unturreted snub fighters.

That right there is 100 times more info than we were given. You're list is a strong joust list with decent reposition options. Are there any other upgrades on the 7 ships we should take into account? Servo motor S-foils, Astromechs, Soontir having Predator, Swarm Tactics or a Stealth Device?

11 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

That right there is 100 times more info than we were given. You're list is a strong joust list with decent reposition options. Are there any other upgrades on the 7 ships we should take into account? Servo motor S-foils, Astromechs, Soontir having Predator, Swarm Tactics or a Stealth Device?

For the sake of argument:

S foils on all X-wings (of course). Nothing else on the generics.

Redline has Advanced Sensors and Proton Torpedoes.

Whisper has Vader and Juke.

Fel has Predator.

11 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

That right there is 100 times more info than we were given. You're list is a strong joust list with decent reposition options. Are there any other upgrades on the 7 ships we should take into account? Servo motor S-foils, Astromechs, Soontir having Predator, Swarm Tactics or a Stealth Device?

Isn't it pretty much assumed that when someone has an X-Wing, S-foils are included? I'm pretty sure the only reason they didn't actually print it on the ship card is because it needs to flip.

1 minute ago, Quarrel said:

There is only so much filling you can do with three asteroids. I presume you'd prefer putting your three in a slightly larger "V" shifted closer to the opponent's edge than a central "/"?

I don't want to get so specific that the answer is useless in all other games, though.

Depending on what I'm running yes. As for upgrades, if you don't at least take them, both what your foe has and what you have, into account partially when you set up, you are already stacking the dice against you. Every situation is different, every list has its quirks. Redline can turn that map into a nightmare depending on his loadout. Soontir and Whisper can end up harassing or jousting or both intermittently depending on what you have taken and what mods they have. With what is presented, IF Redline has Traj Sim and Seismics, Left and burn hard past the point (you've locked yourself into that). If he doesn't, Mid then hook right and loop the rocks. Use the Asteroids to your advantage, they can hurt your opponent allot easier than they can hurt you.

3 minutes ago, Quarrel said:

For the sake of argument:

S foils on all X-wings (of course). Nothing else on the generics.

Redline has Advanced Sensors and Proton Torpedoes.

Whisper has Vader and Juke.

Fel has Predator.

Set up mid and hook right or set up mid facing right and slow boat till they cross into the asteroids.

51 minutes ago, Quarrel said:

The diagonal stripe was yours, to form a division so your opponent either jousts you with everything or has a harder time bringing flankers in. The wall at your end was theirs, to force you to either approach from one corner in an easily-arc-dodged block or split from both so you isolate half your forces for them to pick off.

There's no way I want to be on the bottom, no matter what my squad is. My opponent can set up in the top left corner for an easy path through the rocks, and I'm going to have an awful time crossing through them. If your opponent starts trapping you in a gross rock formation like this, don't let them!

You can avoid rock placements like this but putting rocks at range 3 of board edges or just further than range 3 but with not enough space between the range 2 band and the rock itself to force your opponent to place rocks elsewhere. If they bring smaller rocks just be more specific with the placement.

I use this all the time as I like to bunch rocks up in the middle of the board where my aces like to play. I always bring the biggest asteroids to get good coverage. Sometimes it doesn't work out perfectly because of small rocks but you just do your best to control rock placement especially if you're first to place.

1) I was expecting a post about Tractor Beams. Supremely disappointed. No dragging whatsoever...

2) Was not expecting a post on how not to set up your rocks during placement.

3) Small nitpick: Was that the only asteroid pic you could find?

POST RATING: 4/10

14 hours ago, eRADicator67 said:

You can avoid rock placements like this but putting rocks at range 3 of board edges or just further than range 3 but with not enough space between the range 2 band and the rock itself to force your opponent to place rocks elsewhere.

This doesn't look like it would help all that much. It's mathematically impossible to avoid having at least 3 obstacles within (roughly) Range 3 of your board edge if your opponent is keen on lining them up there. Best case scenario like you're talking about is something like this: