Well, I have only ever been to a local game store once to play a game: Starship Battles. And it's no surprise that nobody was interested. Since then I've been afraid to go to a game store and say, "Hey, I want to play this game," and be rejected again. But when my wife bought me the Y-wing expansion for our anniversary she said that the owners told her they hadn't put the game away since they got it because people always come in to play it. So I got up the courage to go tonight. I found an opponent and had a good time, so I'll be going back, hopefully finding other fans in my area.
I decided to try something new, so I fielded Maarek Stele with Cluster Missiles and Marksmanship along with Mauler Mithel (Expert Handling) and Dark Curse. My opponent had Wedge (Proton Torpedoes, Marksmanship) and Luke (Proton Torpedoes, R2-D2).
On the 3rd turn when we would finally be in range Luke's dial was revealed to be a Koiogran turn that would throw him off the mat. Sweet! Obviously, my opponent was inexperienced, so I let him choose another maneuver, and he was so flustered that he sent Luke where Wedge was set to go. At this point I was fairly confident I could pull a win, and I didn't want to win by just having Luke run away crying like a baby. Wedge crashed and lost his action. Maarek fired his missiles at Antilles, taking out the shields with the first hit, and dealing a hit and a crit on the second: Direct Hit! With Wedge gone, I was certain I would win.
Long story short, I should have killed Luke. After that opening move I just couldn't get my fighters back into position to pummel Skywalker to oblivion. Several times I made Dark Curse turn the opposite way he was supposed to. Gak! The third time I did it my opponent let me change it to the maneuver I meant to execute, but it didn't save me. R2-D2 allowed Luke to end the game with full hull and shields.
Apparently I need practice. Any tips on how to regroup your fighters? My two biggest problems I think were 1) I moved the TIEs in close to try to get the Range 1 attack bonus, but I somehow fell short. At that point I couldn't Koiogran turn because the X-wings are where my TIEs needed to be, and we had the lower skill, so we moved before the Rebels got out of our way. So my best move was no longer an option. 2) I think I turn around to soon. The one game where I flew far away to regroup it took forever, and didn't really save me. Do you think fleeing to regroup is a tactic that is worth trying again?