Okay, this battle was a complete disaster for me with a score of 0 to 200. Yes I got completely tabled.

So my team was the same from last week, Wedge in his X-Wing with Swarm Tactics, R2 Astromech, Protons, & Shield Upgrade, Ten Numb in the B-Wing with Outmaneuver, Fire Control System, Jamming Beam (cause it's free, not 'cause it's useful), Protons, & Shield Upgrade. Arvel rounded out the team with an A-Wing with Intimidation, Juke, & Cluster Missiles.

Up against a fairly familiar team: Generic Tie Silencer, two sf's and 1 cheap fo. The design philosophy of my opponent was to eschew upgrades and just show up with as many platforms as he could.

Opfor set up his Ties in an even spread across the whole board. I think the tactical threat was to have him fly everything in in concentric arcs and eventually focus all four ships on my element, probably on the flank. I was set up in the lower left corner trying to fly down the left open column.

My fatal mistake came in turn two. His traditional TIE's were coming in slowly, through a thick asteroid field while the silencer zoomed in with surprising speed to fall on my right flank. My A-Wing was already into his column, but I was able to turn the X-Wing an B-Wing to face the lone silencer. I think I was hoping that the A-Wing could slip behind one of his Tie's (the fo was alone at the time) and rely on his high agility or maneuverability to avoid being outnumbered.

The TIE silencer then collided with my B-Wing and X-Wing element neutralizing that engagement. The A-Wing eventually found himself trying to evade three TIE fighters and died quickly.

X-Wing and B-Wing tried to turn in to save the A-Wing (the silencer disengaged) and the B-Wing got off one proton torpedo, and used Fire Control Systems to roll two crits & two hits. The opposing TIE rolled three evades and got one shield scratched.

I did subsequently maneuver the X-Wing and B-Wing in to take on the Three TIE's, but all subsequent attack rolls came up blank & focus (with no tokens). The Opfor was much luckier in his attack rolls and my team was wiped off the board with casual ease. In the end the ONLY damage that I scored was that one shield hit.

My opponents AAR councel was to strip off as much upgrades as possible and to just field another ship. Tempting counsel as Arvel has fired exaction zero Cluster Missiles in two battles and has died in an average of 1 turn each. At PS 3 he can't get any attacks in. But I'm also flying him as an interceptor and way ahead of the other two ships, in a vain hope of forcing a collision and capitalizing on his intimidation. But that plan ain't happening. So I'm messing up with my tactics (badly).

In retrospect, I've been flying Wedge and Ten as a team with the thought that Avril will need to fly as a separate element, well ahead of the other two ships. But after the last two games, I'm thinking that I should focus on flying Avril and Wedge as a pair with Ten flying as a Reserve or Trailing element.

For example, if that had been my plan for the last battle, that Silencer would have collided with Arvil, inducing the Intimidation and Arvil can attack opponents at range 0. Wedge would have been sitting pretty at range 1 and with Swarm Tactics, the X-Wing and A-Wing should have chewed into the Silencer badly, With Ten at range 3, ready to pop a Torpedo into the Silencer.

I'm also making some other changes for next week. Arvil is going to have Intimidation still, but I'm swapping the other two cards out for crackshot and proton rockets (1 shot). So no more pretense that Arvil will last long. And with Arvil and Wedge flying in close formation, Swarm Tactics should allow Arvil to get at least 1 shot in for the game before he gets wiped off the board.

Wedge is losing the R-2 unit and will be flying with an R-3. I've tried to make the R-2 series (including R2-D2) work but they don't. They are useless in this game. (I know. You're all shocked by that announcement . Call me a stubborn or slow learner. I do recall R2-D2 being the bomb in 1.0). R-4 is another good droid to consider too.

Why not just abandon this team outright? I'm glad you asked. (Okay you didn't). Part of my training philosophy is to stick with a team or set of ships for a full month. I'm still new to this game and even with a horrible team, if I keep using them, over and over, I do get better over time. I recall running a team of two Alpha Wings and that team was awful. But by employing them in four games in quick succession, I did find myself improving in my gameplay. (I never won, because they suck, but if I go back to using an Alpha wing, I will be all the better, because of my experience).