Welcome back to day 2 of our Lambda Flight School. It you missed it, please check out Day 1 which serves as a larger overview of some of the basics of piloting this fine beast here:
http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/98438-flight-school-lambda-101/
Now it is time to look at one specific situation that every alabaster stellar capybara fears. After a hard battle, with every TIE escort destroyed, the last (damaged) X-Wing is on your tail. Your escort is gone. You are in a giant target, with a cargo of kittens. And Medicine. For orphans. You're doomed. Or are you?
In this scenario, the X-Wing has two hull left. You begin uninjured. The engagement area looks like this:
Immediately you lose 2 shields. You have an X-Wing chewing on your flank. If you don't do something, Lord Vader might start asking questions.
Now, you have a few options. You could stop and hope he flies passed you. However, that X behind you knows well this ploy and if they don't, they are going to hit you and nothing has changed except you are now stressed. You could try to turn, but if that X-Wing goes slow he will still be able to fire at you and he'll be able to quickly turn and you'll be in the same position. So, as we discussed, the whitewashed nebula giraffe is one of the fastest ships in this war. It is blindingly fast. So let's try that out and see what happens. We move forward 3, then boost upwards.
The X-Wing took the best maneuver he could and moved one forward. You are still in range, though at the extreme of range 3. Take 1 damage. Vader's egg thing is making noise. Maybe he's waking up. Or hatching. Either way, you need to do something.
You could try to turn hard. This would stress you. Or you can continue to move as far and fast as possible.
The X-Wing, seeing its prey, YOU, escaping moves as fast as he can with a 3 bank. So, as you can see, if you turn, you'll be stressed, in range, and entirely unable to turn before the blasted rebel gets behind you. But if you move three forward and boost banking in again, you are well out of range. At least the shields are still around. Somewhat.
But what do you do now? You still can't turn. If you do, you'll be chewing on red lasers in no time and still won't have a shot. And you're experience with Stormtroopers sells you that blasters go right to the thighs. So I guess keep running.
So, the X-Wing is redlining the engines in this chase, moving four forward. Still, he can't catch the wind. Especially when it has the most technologically advanced Sienar engines yet built. Sienar, Outfly The Wind. This message brought to you by Sienar Advanced Projects Laboratory.
But you are going to leave engagement range soon. You are going to have to turn. And that X-Wing is going to figure out real quick that you have a single way to go. So, we begin to turn.
We bank two followed by a bank 1. Unfortunately, we are in range again. Those blasted energy blasts strip away the rest of your shields. You don't have time for this. The X-Wing is catching up fast.
Now, now is when we spring the trap.
If the X-Wing does a hard 2, we have him dead in our sights. If he does a hard 3, he will collide and we have open space to run into to turn even more thoroughly. If he banks at any speed towards us, we have him. You take three hull damage from his shots, but there is nothing he can do as you warm unleash all 8 batteries at this scum.
As you can see, the boost capabilities of this craft are what allows you to catch small craft by surprise. Hotshot fighter pilots may not think highly of this beast, but it gets the job done and it does it well.
There are other possible ways this fight could have gone, but no single maneuver the X-Wing made would be considered a mistake here. Each turn, he did the exact right move for that turn. The only mistake he made was not thinking ahead and realizing the danger. Never assume your enemy is stupid and never plan on him making a mistake. But always plan on exploiting mistakes he may make.
Study this fight. Figure out why each turn was played the way it was. Try to spot flaws in the plan. Try to determine how you would have played it differently. This was not intended to show you a guaranteed set of maneuvers you can always use to shake pursuit. It's to illustrate the power of engines and to get you thinking about how to out-fly a more nimble opponent when you are alone. In the future, we will explore how to fly if a Lambda convoy gets caught without escorts.