In my most successful tournament of my x wing career, I brought wedge, wes Jansen (1.0), and poe. Instead of flying them defensively, I went against my instinct to throw full health wedge at range 1 of a party bus, with two hull wes (without IA to spend) at range three with focus. He ended up dying to bossk, but it gave wedge a range one, double modded shot for four damage. I continued to play like this, and it got me to the top table.

What I want to know is whether you guys think this is a good Idea. Should you use a damaged ship as a deterrent to shooting others? Should you do what I also did during that tournament and throw it right at the enemy for hail-mary damage? Or should you try to conserve your ships (and points) for as long as possible?

Just wanted to know what the forum thinks about handling ships on the brink of disaster.

This is such a game state dependent question. Are you ahead or behind, how much time is left, how many ships total did you bring, what's the state of your opponents list, will it create a worthwhile trade of dmg, etc. But as your example states, it worked out for you. So its certainly the right call at times.

It's a loaded question:

- If you lose an expensive ship because you were too reckless, that can be a huge chunk of points that will make you lose the game

- If you play too defensively with an expensive ship and don't get an attack, you basically remove your ship's worth of points from the table for several rounds, which can be just as bad

You need to find the right middle ground and that will depend entirely on what you fly. Fenn is a good example:

- Charging at range 2 on the first round of combat and being the target of many enemies is suicide and will likely result in a loss of points

- Charging at range 1 on the first round of combat, after your zealous recruit caused all enemies to bump and lose their actions, actually makes a lot of sense (but it can backfire through dum luck)

So whether its strategy, damage mitigation and another tactic, find something that you like and go with it. Just make sure that it's not random luck though. That usually what makes the difference between reaching the top 16 by chance and consistently getting there and climbing even further up.

I think this also really depends on if you can ps kill something to increase your chance of surviving. For example, if you're using wedge, you'll most definitely always get to shoot, and even without the initiative, if you know you'll die, you can keep your focus, get to 0 hull, then still cripple an enemy ship.

But if you're playing a ps1 blocker and putting him range 1 of the same Wedge down to 1 hull, your chance of accomplishing anything are slim, even if you are diverting firepower from your other ships.

It’s the classic trick of offering your opponent bad choices. Want my one hull points fortress? Go for it, but you’ll end up with my list in your tail. Leave him and he is taking flanking shots at you for the rest of the game.