So... I have experience with Tie Swarm and some with Imperial Aces (Vader, Duchess and Grand Inquisitor were my last iteration). I ave recently moved to Rebels, flying the 4I4 with Dutch, Ten, Garven and Jake. So a solid Rebel Alphabet Salad. The list is extremely fun to play and I am enjoying it quite a lot. But I found myself lacking in the art of evaluating, who has the better joust potential. I have flown it a few times against other joust lists and it is either carnage on one side or the other. My most shameful display, was against a Obi, Plo, Ric and Wolfe list, where I barely plinked half of the Arc-170. My ships just disappeared. I admit Plo had godlike dice on the first engage but still...

So my question is... How do you approach other jousting lists? When do you avoid a straight joust and why? I was told to just compare dice, but it doesn't always work so easily. In the above mentioned example, the Aethersprites throw two Red each, ARC throws three and Ric throws two. So that's nine Red Dice in total. I was throwing three from X-wing, three from B-Wing and two from A- and Y-Wings. So ten in total... Still lost miserably. So I am here now... Asking for advice

There is a famous saying:

" When two people joust, one is wrong."

There are numerous factors when judging a joust:

1) Action Economy: Do your ships have ways to maximise or improve on the number of actions to improve your odds?

2) Number of guns: Quite straightforward. More guns, higher chance of inflicting more damage.

3) Rule of 11: Will you be able to have all or some of your ships involved in the initial engagement?

4) Who moves first: A player who has lower initiative ships has the flexibility of creating blocks and determining whether a K-turn is possible after the first engagement.

5) Rock placement: Whether your forces would have the space to move in the initial engagement and after.

Usually, if I feel my action economy is higher, and the number of ships do not differ greatly, then I will commit most of my forces to a joust, with a flanker providing support.

If an opponent outright has a greater number of ships, I would place my ace opposite their main force, and my main body diagonally across my opponent. On the first turn, I would have my ace turn away, and my main body execute fast moves and boosts. The idea for me to have all my forces engage the opponent in the middle of board at the same time, ideally, with several of guns trained on a single target.

36 minutes ago, makotosato said:

There is a famous saying:

" When two people joust, one is wrong."

(...)

1) I have quite decent action economy, I would say. I am exploiting the B-Foils to allow Ten Numb to have double mods and a potential second shot from his Autoblasters. I am using Dutch to share a Lock to Garven, so the X-Wing can take Focus and potentially share it to the Y-Wing. So far I have been flying the X- and Y-Wing moderately close to each other, as the pilot abilities have a 0-3 Range restriction. So not too close, but enough to trigger of each other. Ten is more free in his movement, as he is independent in giving himself double mods. I am experimenting with the A-Wing. So far I was flying with Jake and using either Daredevil, Outmaneuver, Concussion Missiles or most recently Mag-Pulse Warheads.

2) That is what I have been told, just look who can throw more red dice. But this has proven to fail me somewhat. Although maybe just a bad dice day? Need to fly more, I guess.

3) I never heard of the Rule of 11. Thank you for pointing it out to me. I need to do more research into that topic. I usually pick my engagements in such a way, that I can trigger all of my pilot abilities at once. Meaning each ship needs to drop in at least Range 3 of the enemy.

4) I am flying I4s, so I win the Initiative war against most I3 beef lists, but lose to anything from the Resistance, FO or Republic. So many cheap I5s in those factions...

5) I am attempting to spread them out a bit, as Ten needs place to perform his Roll > Red Lock and Y-Wing is a massive flying brick. Turning him around is a big nuisance.

So much to learn and keep track of

29 minutes ago, Schanez said:

...2) That is what I have been told, just look who can throw more red dice. But this has proven to fail me somewhat. Although maybe just a bad dice day? Need to fly more, I guess...

...So much to learn and keep track of

So, I’m also new to this X-Wing stuff, having recently started after a very long Armada career, but one thing that strikes me is that if you’re only looking at red dice, you’re only seeing half the story. Your opponent’s greens mean a lot! If he’s got a bunch of targets with very solid defense dice, or if he maneuvers his forces in such a way that a highly-evasive target is going to draw your shots (or if you’re just chucking all your dice at a horrendously tough damage sponge), then the opponent has bent the math in his favor.

For example, I was flying a very similar wing to yours just last night (Ten, Dutch, Perkins, Arvel), against an opponent’s Hound’s Tooth with Bossk, Slave 1 with Fett, and Sunny Bounder. As we came together in the initial joust, I prioritized my targets poorly, and wasted a bunch of dice trying to hit an evading Sunny, and wasted a bunch more dice sinking mostly meaningless shots into Bossk’s shields.

Just looking at red dice in a vacuum means nothing. If you can’t get through your opponent’s defenses, you’ll get the worst of an exchange even if you’re throwing many more dice.

Not sure why you are straight jousting anyways. Garven is 1-3 range, Dutch is 1-3 range. Only jake is range 1. Take Jake and Garven and flank, and bring Dutch and Ten towards enemies joust, maybe even spread dutch and ten apart a bit. You will then get a good read on who your opponent is targeting. Bring your list in at same time for engagement, and you are now attacking your opponent from multiple angles, which means less kturning for you. If opponent turns for garven and jake, dutch and ten one straight behind enemy launching torpedoes and such. If enemy continues to dutch and ten, garven is full modded (jakes focus and his lock) behind them. You wont have to turn your entire squad around on turn 3.

This was my strategy with Wedge Jake Luke Braylen last year. Jake and Wedge flank, Luke and Braylen "joust". You will see a pattern of all your opponents, as 4/5 opponents went for Wedge first, and knowing this, makes engagement easy. So you will start seeing that people will probably always target Dutch or Ten first, and that means you can get aggressive with Garven/Jake flanking.

Jousting is an overused term, but any time you trade shots, you open yourself up to variance.

It's not hard to roll 0 natural evades on 6 green dice, and it's also not hard to roll 6 modified hits on 6 red dice, and that can remove an X-Wing from the table and suddenly that trade became very bad for you. So, trading is a balance not of averages, but of distributions; and comparison of dice modifiers and acceptable (or unacceptable) risks.

It's also as much about the follow up turns as it is the damage race on the turn of engagement; which list benefits more from early game damage, how easily can it turn / turn around from its current position to take follow up shots, how able is it to get in position to focus on the ship its mosy likely to wound but not destroy this turn, etc.

Don’t forget to assess the post-joust turns also (Say 2-3) after. Sometimes like a tie swarm actually does less damage the turn of the hoist but then proceeds to murder any hint of an opposing plan because of blocking.

of course The other example is the tie defender post joust

So I've found Dutch really hard to work around without something making him more flexible, in the rebel 4×4 I've been running I traded him for naked Braylen.

Ten Numb (48) Stabilized S-Foils (2)

Ship total: 50 Half Points: 25 Threshold: 4

Garven Dreis (X-Wing) (47) Plasma Torpedoes (9) Servomotor S-Foils (0)

Ship total: 56 Half Points: 28 Threshold: 3

Jake Farrell (36) Outmaneuver (6)

Ship total: 42 Half Points: 21 Threshold: 2

Braylen Stramm (52) Ship total: 52 Half Points: 26 Threshold: 4

Total: 200 View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0: https://raithos.github.io/?f=Rebel Alliance&d=v8ZhZ200Z74XWWWWWW313Y6XW234WWW142Y50X126WWY73XWWWWWW&sn=Unnamed Squadron&obs=

The idea being that Garvin gets close and locks, jake stays close and passes him the focus, and the b-wings can be independent or part of the block as the enemy list demands. Everyone has double mod potential and 3 of them are good alone.

Doesn't dutch with a proton torp at 53 points fit into almost any rebel squad???

5 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

Doesn't dutch with a proton torp at 53 points fit into almost any rebel squad???

So I've heard

You can make "Dutch" Vander more flexible, if you slap him with a Ion Cannon Turret, R3 and Proton Bombs ( YASB 2.0 ). You lose the initial Oompf of the Proton Torpedoes, but you secure his back, which a lot of pilots like to hug and give him some added utility in the form of Ion. But that is not the main topic here

The list is quite potent at turning around, the biggest problem is the Y-Wing lacking a lot in maneuverability. Even his Had Turns leave a bit to be desired. It can be somewhat mitigated by equipping him with a Turret, but... What about other lists? Does it really boil down to controlling the engagement distance and pointing everyone at the same target? Just that simple?

6 hours ago, Schanez said:

You can make "Dutch" Vander more flexible, if you slap him with a Ion Cannon Turret, R3 and Proton Bombs ( YASB 2.0 ). You lose the initial Oompf of the Proton Torpedoes, but you secure his back, which a lot of pilots like to hug and give him some added utility in the form of Ion. But that is not the main topic here

The issue then becomes that he gets a lot less mileage from his own ability than he would if he had a torp, and the torp helps him with probably his best role-aiding a strong turn 1 strike with multiple double-mod and/or munitions shots.

Guys it’s a joke. 53 points doesn’t fit it any squad lmao.

I would also add one little piece of advice. Focus on the ships you can kill outright. I have lost a joust today I should have totally win because I picked the wrong target.

Go for the squishiest one or the closest one to your guns. The quick loss of ship can put your enemy under pressure and it’s one less ship you need to worry about in late game. I screwed up wonderfuly tonight.

On 4/2/2020 at 10:24 PM, Blail Blerg said:

Guys it’s a joke. 53 points doesn’t fit it any squad lmao.

Well, fits this particular sallad. Example with count to 200.

Ten Numb (48)
Crack Shot (1)
Fire-Control System (2)
Autoblasters (3)
Stabilized S-Foils (2)

Ship total: 56 Half Points: 28 Threshold: 4

Garven Dreis (X-Wing) (47)
Crack Shot (1)
R4 Astromech (2)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)

Ship total: 50 Half Points: 25 Threshold: 3

"Dutch" Vander (40)
Proton Torpedoes (13)
R4 Astromech (2)

Ship total: 55 Half Points: 28 Threshold: 4

Jake Farrell (36)
Crack Shot (1)
Predator (2)

Ship total: 39 Half Points: 20 Threshold: 2

Total: 200

Ok so I actually put an extra 2 points on him, but anyway.