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?

it seems that flying away to regroup is tough to do. In theroy it sounds great but the enemy can chase you down and keep shooting you in the back. Has anyone done this with succsess?

As I mentioned, I tried it once, but I still died. But it almost worked because they thought I was going to turn right, and instead I blasted off at speed 5 and left them all either facing the wrong direction or out of range. It was sweet, but when we came back around they tricked me and I missed several good opportunities for a range 1 shot because they went in an unexpected direction (yes, Strombole, I see what you mean about how the Rebels have to fly).

So if regrouping doesn't work, I guess the only option is to have everybody turn individually and hope they line up shots on the same target at the same time.

Suppose I have 3 or more TIEs, I'd try to have them cover a few different possible points the enemy could end up in, eg. one to cover if he were to do a forward 1, one for his reverse 4, and one to try and catch him from the sides. Once one TIE has managed to catch him, I'd try to maneuver 1 other TIE to chase him where he is currently, and another to where he might be going. As for your current TIE, it most likely would need to pull off a reverse to get itself into position again for the next few turns.

flying away to regroup is only a good idea if you are very sure he cannot catch up to you due to map distance, or if you have enough punch left eg. 2 TIEs with full hp or 3-4 TIEs with very low hp. This is because they will try to catch up to you, and you will have to eventually do a U-turn and face them head on, which will result in a lot of damage exchanges.

In addition, your opponent has R2D2, so you should constantly keep the pressure on him. fly away, and he's free to recover back 2 shields

Duraham said:

Well, I guess that's the answer: unload your missiles on R2-D2 in the first couple of rounds or else you fight a losing battle.

Parakitor said:

well, not necessarily true either, especially if you have Y-wings to deal with, which can be potentially more dangerous. If your opponent has R2D2 and is low on hp, he will be itching to do green maneuvers, so it becomes very very easy to catch him. The only problem comes when you have 2 or less TIEs and he has any X-wing with R2D2, and you will find yourself not having enough firepower to take him down easily., so do take note of your fleet health/status/whatever you like to call it, and you may have to switch targets from whatever you were aiming to the guy with the R2D2

Duraham! write a tactica blog on this, yours was a really informative post…in one paragraph almost; I have been thinking about this problem all week.

thanks.