Regionals 2013- Why Did I Lose?

Those of y'all who are longtime readers may recall an article I wrote on here alll the way back on 11 February called, "Why Do You Lose?" Predictably, I meander around the point a bunch in there, but the long and the short of it is, it's very important if you want to be good at this game, to be able to go back and analyze why exactly you lost. 

If you recall, I mentioned last week I was going to be hitting a Regionals, the only Regionals I'd be able to attend this year, this past weekend. If you follow me on G+, you know how it turned out already, but for those of you who don't, I went 0-3. 

Now, let me say a couple of things right off the bat so we're on the same page. 

I don't think of myself as a great tournament X-Wing player. I don't think I'm a great X-Wing player, period to be honest. I think I have some insightful ideas about the game and stuff, sure, but to put it another way, I'm a lot better writing about X-Wing than I am playing it, because I just don't play it nearly enough to be as good as some of y'all. 

That said, I didn't think I'd go 0 and friggin' 3 at Regionals, either. Sheesh. I mean look- I didn't think I'd go in there and win the whole thing by any means, but I did think I'd at least win a couple of games. 

Speaking of which, my first game was against a guy named Russel who at least works at, if not manages or owns (I kinda got the vibe he's important there), Heroic Adventures in Edwardsville, Illinois. I'm not 100% sure. In any case, he had decided to participate at the last minute as some major storms and even tornadoes had gone through the St. Louis Metro-East on Friday evening and power was out in about half of Edwardsville- including of course, the store and the turnout was much lower than expected. Luckily for us, their gaming tables were right at the front of the store near the big windows, and it being a sunny day, was bright enough for us to play, no problem. 

Russell said he was just trying to bump up the player amount and to get the free stuff from the FFG Regionals kit, he didn't actually have enough ships to play. Originally, 10-12 people (besides Sean and I) had told the store they'd play in the Regionals, but the power being off had reduced this number to three- Sean, myself, and a guy named John. In between working the phone trying to get more people to show up, Russell was asking if anyone had a Falcon he could borrow, I let him have mine as I brought it but wasn't planning on using it. Nobody slow-clapped, not even Sean, and I was disappointed, but that's beside the point. 

My list- 
Wedge Antilles w/ Determination
Luke Skywalker
Rookie Pilot
Rookie Pilot 

Russel's list- 
Han Solo (can't remember all the upgrades, to be honest)
Luke Skywalker
Arvel Crynyd

My first game didn't go particularly badly, but I ended with an L. Russell had managed to shoot two of my X-Wings down (Luke and one of the Rooks), while I managed to kill only Arvel. Wedge had been eating up the Falcon, which very nearly drove off the map, but time was called and Russell won on points. 

Second, I played another guy who worked at the store named Alex. 

Alex's List- 

Kath Scarlet w/ Veteran Instincts
Howlrunner w/ Elusiveness and Stealth Device
Academy Pilot
Academy Pilot
Academy Pilot

On our third or fourth turn, Alex moved all three of his in-formation TIEs into a 1 Turn, hesitated, then gave them Actions. As the writer of the Maneuvering as a Formation articles 1-3, this immediately went red in my head, but I didn't call him on it. I still can't really tell you why I didn't call him on it, but I didn't. I guess I'm one of those people that feels like if you're going to cheat at games like this, well... whatever, y'know? I thought maybe I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and not come off like a total rules-guy, but as it turned out, he'd actually done the same exact thing to Sean in the first game, so after hearing that, I sorta felt like I should have called him out. 

In any case, I managed to shoot down Kath Scarlet, he got a couple of my X-Wings, but I forget which ones. Wedge and a Rookie I think it was, and like in my game with Russell, time expired with me behind on points for another L. 

The final game of the day, I squared off against Sean for what was the third time in two days since we'd played a couple of practice games the night before at the hotel. 

Sean's list (again- might be leaving something out here, but this is pretty close)- 
Boba Fett w/ Veteran Instincts
Kath Scarlett w/ Veteran Instincts
Mauler Mithel w/ Stealth Device

Same deal as the other two- I lost a couple of X-Wings, downed Fett, but then ran out of time, behind on points. 

Now, I was just kind of laughing it off, me- the guy with the popular, grass-roots, X-Wing site just went 0-3 at Regionals, yeah, I'm not only going to quit the game- I'm going to immediately quit writing too- ha, ha. The staff and everyone was cool, remarked a bunch of times about how awesome it was we came in from out of town and braved the storms, etc. etc. I did have a good time, it was fun to meet some new cats and talk about the game and stuff. And by stuff I mean mainly Sean and I making fun of Young Guns and Young Guns II on TV at the hotel Friday night, and a completely tangential, two-day long session making fun of Stephen Dorff's Blu E-Cigarette commerical in increasingly hilarious ways that eventually involved Jack Nicholson, the Lakeshow, the Los Angeles Clippers, Christian Slater, and skateboarders, as well as also leading us to Noah Wyle's own hilarious Dorff commerical parody. I was also super excited to hear that Matt, the guy who won, was actually planning on going to Worlds as well. Seems like every time I read about some dude that won Regionals isn't going, which frankly, I just dont' get that. 

After my three defeats, I was even more dejected to find out the "loser coin" I'd read some folks getting at other X-Wing Regionals for coming in dead-ass last was apparently nowhere to be found at the store, and in fact, they didn't even know about it, which kind of left me feeling like Chris Rock on Bigger and Blacker thinking "Damn, maybe I did steal this car" and the coin doesn't actually exist. Am I nuts or did they not give that away at some Regionals? 

So later, while Sean and I were eating dinner, I started trying to figure out where I'd lost the plot so badly. Like I mentioned in the "Why Do You Lose" article, I can usually see exactly where and why I come up short in games, but that's what was such a trip about these matches- I really didn't think I'd played that badly! 

I remarked on this fact to Sean, and I started going back through what I could remember of the matches. "The match against Russell, if it would have gone on another two or three rounds, I'd have gotten the Falcon off the board." I said, and accurately too- I may be a lot of things, but you can't say I'm a liar or a fibber when it comes to my own game, y'all. "Against Alex, kinda the same thing- I'd already destroyed Kath, the Academies were out of formation, it would have probably just been a matter of time- I mean, he only beat me by 10 anyway. Another turn or two, and I could have easily made up the difference." 

That's kind of when it hit me. 

The night before, at the hotel, in the practice game, Sean and I played a timed match. It took about 70 minutes. We observed that 70 minutes was well within the Tournament Rules, but that it was kinda trending towards the long end of things. We also noticed that neither of us ever really play within time limits because when we play over the net, we don't really worry about it and just play until the bitter end or until one of our kids wakes up- same thing really. 

This tournament used 50 minute time limits. 

I'd played too slowly. That's why I'd lost. Both those matches, had they gone on for another turn or two, would have ended differently, because that's how long it takes my particular play style to get going. I play conservatively. I break away from the action and do some turns rather than a K-Turn a lot of times. I take my time. I hedge bets flying one ship in front of the other, so that even if you do pull some crazy maneuver, I'm still going to get shots on you. 

That's where I screwed myself in this thing. I played too slowly. That's why even though I felt like everything in my game was working fine, even though I didn't make any just massively glaring mistakes (I did make a few- just nothing that had extraordinarily bad consequences), I still lost every time. 

50 minute time limit. 

Damn, man. 

I knew going in that 50 minutes was in effect- it said so on the sign they had in front of the store that morning. 

It just hadn't occured to me that I'd need to change the way that I not only approached, but the way I played the game- my tactics, my list, everything really, to support those tighter time limits. 

So there ya go. I'd brought the list I was most comfortable playing, but not a list geared to win with my playstyle of "Play to not lose" rather than "Play to win" in a 50-minute time limit setting. Dumb as it sounds, I'm almost considering for my next tournament/ Regionals/ whatever bringing several lists with me- one that will score points quickly to use in tight time limit matches, then one more like I'm used to playing for the longer time limits and just picking whichever one is more appropriate when I find out what's up at that particular location. 

This whole thing lead to a couple of other revelations about X-Wing, but as this article is already super long, I'll save those for another day. Yes, probably tomorrow. :) 

I hope this article doesn't come off as "The sun was in my eyes", with me trying to rationalize some horseshit reason why I lost. The truth is, I don't think most folks really look at why they lose games- they say stuff like "The other guy had hot dice" or "I rolled terrible" or "He guessed my every move." Now, sure, that stuff can happen, but it usually doesn't. The guy with hot dice probably rolled pretty average throughout the game, he just put himself in positions where the dice didn't matter as much. You probably rolled pretty normal too- you just left yourself relying on the dice too much to save you. As for the guessing, well, sometimes that does happen, yeah, but more often than not, if you pulled a K-Turn, you're probably doing a green for your next maneuver. I don't have to be a mind reader to know that if you're on the board edge, you're probably either going straight or turning inboard, y'know? 

So thanks again Heroic Adventures and congrats to Matt. Hope you tear 'em up at Worlds, man! 

Can somebody with a Facebook message those guys a link to this article, please? I don't have The Facebooks and don't really want to set one up just to give them a heads up. I'd really appreciate it! 

Tournament Lists- Multiple Firesprays

Standard X-Wing Miniatures List Discussion Disclaimer- The most important element you can bring with you to any X-Wing Tournament is your own experience with the game. You can take the nastiest, meanest, and most bestest internet list with you to a Tournament, but if you don't know how to manage Pilot Skill, Actions, and Maneuvers, you are going to get sent home with an donut for your W's. 

I can't stress this enough- this game is not 40k where you plop down the most points-optimized net list from the latest codex, push it forward the max amount, then win. Your list is important, but you need to be familiar with the game and you need to be familiar with playing the list you're using if you want to consistently compete at a high level. 

It seems crazy to think now, that in the weeks leading up to the release of the Wave 2 ships just three months ago the internets were alight with people talking about how terrible Slave I was. To none of those naysayers defense, the full (and accurate) ship stats along with all the pilot and upgrade cards had been revealed worldwide within days of the Kessel Run Tournaments, so it wasn't like folks had no idea what was coming, or that things somehow changed drastically, it really just boiled down to a lot of people getting it wrong. 

My how times have changed.

People want to look at stuff in this game in that same vacuum that they look at units from other miniatures games. Eventually I think those folks will finally realize there's more to a ship in X-Wing Miniatures than it's stats, but I digress. 

 Anyway, dual or multiple Firespray lists. Right. 

There's several different flavors making the rounds, but they vary, sometimes fairly significantly. I want to talk about a couple specifically because 1) They're the most common, and 2) I can't spend all night talking about every single build variation I can think up, no matter how viable and different they may be- I got my Regional to pack for, yo!

Sample 100 Points Dual/ Multiple Firespray Lists

Triple (B)H- actually 99 points
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter

It ain't pretty, it ain't particularly sexy, and it'd be kinda pricey in real money, but dig on that for a second. I've said before that Firesprays are sorta like big ship versions of X-Wings what with their three primary and 2 defense, but where the X-Wing has 5 HP (2 shields, 3 hull), the Firespray boasts 10 HP (4 shields and 6 hull). 

Nasty, right? And there's three of them. 

So what a Bounty Hunter can't take Elite Pilot Skills? So what they're Pilot Skill 3? If you can maneuver big ships, more specifically you can maneuver with the Firespray dial, this really is something you ought to consider in a tournament setting. 

Dig on the cold data- 

Triple (B)H
Total Attack Dice at Range 2: 9
Total Hull: 18
Total Shields: 12
Total HP: 30

I'm still not 100% sure if I'm engaging in my trademark hyperbole when I say this or not, but I think the Triple (B)H might be the most accessible Imperial list to date. I hesitate because it isn't cheap money-wise, but it's really not hard to fly, puts out a good amount of lead, has good survivability, doesn't rely on gimmicks, tricks, or synergy... it's kinda like the X-Wing Miniatures version of a NIN show- there's so much cool stuff going on, it's hard to really pick out the best part. 

Bear in mind too, it's possible a buddy or two from your local gaming club might not be taking his Firespray to Regionals, so maybe you can borrow his instead of having to buy. You can pay him back by loaning him the upgrade cards that came with yours- you won't be needing them anyway, right? 

All right, let's say you can't get three Firesprays, but you can get your hands on two. Hows about...

KKH
Krassis Trelix w/ Heavy Laser Cannon*
Kath Scarlet w/ Veteran Instincts
Howlrunner 

My buddy Sean summed up why exactly these kinda long-range oriented Firespray lists are so dangerous in an email to me yesterday. I'm paraphrasing a bit here, but it's Sean's opinion that they're the only ship in the game that can do good, consistent damage from afar and every other ship becomes easier to deal with the longer you can stay away from it. 

I talked about what a no-brainer Trelix with an Ion Cannon or Heavy Laser Cannon is in his article. It still applies. I like him with an HLC personally, but if you really want Ion functionality, well, that's why the little asterisk is there, innit? 

I think Veteran Instincts works on Kath because it bumps her up to a 9, and well, frankly, that's scary. It's only a point, so if you think another Elite Pilot Skill might better serve you in particular, or you're really sold on the Ion Cannon idea, you could remove the upgrades I have on Trelix and Scarlet and just give them both Ion Cannons for your version of this list. 

Howlrunner is there in case somebody gets too close. Not only is she PS 8, but her special ability works on Firesprays as well as standard TIEs, so the Firesprays can blast the ships that do manage to close on them while benefiting from her card text. Doesn't work on their secondaries remember, but they've got an Attack 3 primary, so it's not like you're wasting it by any stretch. 

Cold data for KKH- 


Total Attack Dice at Range 2: 8 (primary), 9 (secondary)
Total Hull: 15
Total Shields: 8
Total HP: 23


So what beats up on this list? 

A Falcon-centric list can probably get close enough without dying to at least disrupt some maneuvering plans, and the more nimble ships can try and exploit that huge blind spot on the sides of the Firespray.

Should you take out Howlrunner first? Second? Last? I don't know. Me personally, it would depend on if my opponent is relying on her card text. If both the Firesprays are shooting me up with secondary fire, I'd be more likely to try and get one of them off the board and kind of ignore Howlie. Of course, if Howlie were to blow a maneuver and lose her Perform Action step right in front of me at Range 1, you better believe I'd go after her. If not, I don't know if I'd worry about her. Both of those Firesprays are worth a modified win if you don't lose any of your own ships, where Howlrunner is not enough to trigger that win criteria by herself. 

Tournament Lists- Han Falcon and Chewie Falcon

Standard X-Wing Miniatures List Discussion Disclaimer- The most important element you can bring with you to any X-Wing Tournament is your own experience with the game. You can take the nastiest, meanest, and most bestest internet list with you to a Tournament, but if you don't know how to manage Pilot Skill, Actions, and Maneuvers, you are going to get sent home with an donut for your W's. 

I can't stress this enough- this game is not 40k where you plop down the most points-optimized net list from the latest codex, push it forward the max amount, then win. Your list is important, but you need to be familiar with the game and you need to be familiar with playing the list you're using if you want to consistently compete at a high level. 

Here's another pretty popular list making the rounds these days. Not a lot of variants to report other than upgrades, and even that is fairly set in at least quick-drying concrete if not stone. 

Sample 100 Points Han Falcon and Chewie Falcon List
Han Solo w/ Gunner
Chewbacca w/ Draw Their Fire, Gunner, Millennium Falcon

So, any time you see Solo with a Gunner Crew Member, instead of going with "Han Shoots First", you could just about call it "I Never Miss." Amirite? Hells yeah I'm right. And I talked about  pairing up Han with Gunner or Luke in the Han article, which I'll courteously paste below so you don't have to navigate away from this page to read it. 

More or less, it boils down to if you choose to use Han’s card text, then you have to re-roll all of your attack dice. You don’t get to keep hits/ crits (local parlance) or hits/ crits and eyeballs (also local parlance) like you would with a Target Lock- if you choose to activate the Han ability, then you have to pick all the dice up and re-roll them all.

This is generally going to leave you with a two option scenario-1) Attack isn’t great, so you decide to re-roll everything
2) Attack roll isn't great, but it's more beneficial to apply some other dice modifying mechanism, i.e. Focus, Marksmanship, etc. than re-roll everything. 

Now, all that being said, once you've activated Han's card text and re-rolled your dice, you can decide to apply Marksmanship, a Focus, etc. as per usual just as you would doing re-rolls with Target Lock. 

Makin' dollars to ya? Picking up what I'm laying down? Catchin' my drift? 

Cool. Now we'll talk about how Han's ability interacts with Gunner.

First, this would be as good as time as any to remind you that once a die has been re-rolled, it can't be re-rolled a second time. Says so in the rule book. However, Gunner doesn't really count as a re-roll from a rule book perspective.

Basically, if your attack doesn't hit (rule book sense of the word- see BBB- The Combat Phase Explained! for more detailed info), then the ability activates. So regardless of whether you went with option 1 or 2 above to try and improve a sub-standard Attack roll, if the target cancels all of your hits and crits (local parlance), Gunner kicks on, you pick up all those dice, and make a primary attack (again, distinction here only in case you initially fired Missiles of some sort- works perfectly fine if you made a primary attack as your first attack). This is important- it was clarified to not be considered a re-roll, so you're totally cool using Gunner and not violating that pesky "you can only re-roll a die once" rule- you're technically not re-rolling, you're making another primary attack.

Whew. Ok. So you roll your dice (all of them- no choosing a la Target Lock) as a primary weapon attack. What can you do with them now? Can you modify any of them?

Yes. If you kicked on Marksmanship (I know, I know- I didn't say Han took Marksmanship in the list I posted above, but somebody may modify this list slightly and find the points to buy it for him as that's a very common variant of this list, so I've left this paragraph in so I don't have to answer the question in the comments), again- it's on the entire attacking round, so it would affect these kinds of rolls just like it did the initial roll.

If you burned a Focus token on your initial roll, then no, it won't still be in effect. Now, if you've managed to get your hands on a second Focus token, you can of course, use it to modify this roll.  

Last, and perhaps your best option depending on what you actually rolled, Han's card text ability can re-roll these dice too. Recall his card text just stipulates "When attacking...", well you're still attacking, aren't you? So re-roll those dice. Ha. Wondered why I was making such a big deal about that back at the beginning weren't you? Foreshadowing FTW.

So that's why Han's important to the list- he's going to provide steady, consistent damage which of course, is massively important in a 2-ship list. What about Chewie though? What's that guy's story? 

First recall that Chewie's special ability is to not take crits. If that doesn't impress you, here's another way to put it- a Chewie Falcon is essentially a ship with 13 Shields and 0 Hull. Did that get your attention? Ok, good deal. Now, take a look at Draw Their Fire. It allows Chewie to take a crit from Han if they're within Range 1 of each other (remember that you're talking about big base ships here as well). So you can let Han take his own lumps until he loses his shields, then you can take any criticals on Chewie, and immediately flip them face down before they resolve. 

Long story long, neither of these ships are going to be subject to critical infliction meta until pretty late in the game, if ever.

Sticking Gunner on Chewie just helps him deal out his share of damage alongside his pal (again- important in this list especially), and the Falcon title of course, helps him stay on the table a bit longer for a measly point. 

Sounds pretty awesome, right? 

Well, sure it does. One caveat though- this isn't the list for a beginner. It's pretty forgiving compared to some lists, but at the end of the day you're still only flying two ships. They're two ships that are pretty tough to kill because of all that stuff I said above and the fact that they both have Attack 3 weapons with a 360 arc of fire, but they're still just two ships. 

Running the cold data, you get this- 

Dual Falcons (Solo and Chewie)
Total Attack Dice at Range 2: 6
Total Hull: 16*
Total Shields: 10*
Total HP: 26*
*- Again, this is a little misleading because of Chewbacca and Draw Their Fire

You're not going to do a ton of damage per round with this list, but you are pretty likely to hit with all 6 of those shots the majority of the time, and as mentioned before, it has survivability out the wazoo. Which is good, because even the worst focus-firer on the planet is going to to at least inadvertently correct target priority mistakes about half the time with this list. 

So how do you beat it? Focus fire on Chewbacca, no question. If at all possible, put Chewbacca between you and Han any time you can. Han will still fire on you, and he'll probably still hit, but you don't have to make it easy on him. You're going to need a lot of guns and a lot of hits to beat this list and there are some popular lists that would really struggle against this setup- namely just about any list that features three or less ships. They're going to have trouble putting enough lead in the air to get Chewie off the table, and as the points are so even between Han and Chewie, you can't really try to BS around for a modified win either the way you can against Han Shoots First. 

The fact that this list is out there and there are folks who are actually pretty good with it should be a pretty strong case for why you should take Missiles and/ or Torps on at least one of your ships. Trading fire with an Attack 3 turret is bad enough to start with. Having to close to Range 1 to try and whittle down those hit points faster against two Gunners? Not my idea of a fun time, frankly. If you can pull off some of those hit points at Range 3, so much the better. 

The natural predator for this kind of list is a Firespray with HLC-centric list. Maybe even two of them. As that's also a pretty popular list, I'll talk about that one tomorrow. 

Another possible ploy would be to sport a couple of Ion Weapons. I mentioned before that the rules say big ships need two Ion Tokens to feel the effects, but those rules also don't mention anything about a big ship getting rid of an Ion Token in the meantime. Do I think a couple of Y-Wings would work against this list? Hell naw. Would a couple of Firesprays with Ion Cannons? Oh fo sho. You don't even really have to ion both of them to get the advantage as they have to stay within Range 1 of each other for Draw Their Fire to work. If you're waiting for me to say something about Kath Scarlet, keep on waiting. Her special ability isn't going to do anything fancy against these guys and their crit mitigating shell game as if you read the cards closely, Draw Their Fire still applies a crit, and Chewie lets the crit happen, he just turns around and immediately flips the card back face down. 

Tournament Lists- TIE Swarm

Standard X-Wing Miniatures List Discussion Disclaimer- The most important element you can bring with you to any X-Wing Tournament is your own experience with the game. You can take the nastiest, meanest, and most bestest internet list with you to a Tournament, but if you don't know how to manage Pilot Skill, Actions, and Maneuvers, you are going to get sent home with an donut for your W's. 

I can't stress this enough- this game is not 40k where you plop down the most points-optimized net list from the latest codex, push it forward the max amount, then win. Your list is important, but you need to be familiar with the game and you need to be familiar with playing the list you're using if you want to consistently compete at a high level. 

Despite what the internets may have you believe, the TIE Swarm is still very much alive and kicking on the Tournament Scene. Don't believe me? The guy that won the FFG Regional ran a TIE Swarm. Yeah. And he beat a 2 Bounty Hunters and Howlrunner list. That was being run by the former World Champion. 

So.... that. 

Here's the thing about TIE Swarms now versus TIE Swarms six months ago, guys- the folks still rolling TIE Swarms likely never stopped running them. Sure, lots of Imperial players went and shelved all those TIEs when they got themselves some Interceptors as soon as Wave 2 dropped, messed around with builds, figured out that despite what the naysayers were, uh, nay saying, Slave I wasn't nearly as bad as everyone thought it would be and was in fact, as it turned out, nothin' to eff with. Found out that Turd Ferguson is in some ways, actually better than the more expensive Soontir Fel, though neither of them are exactly slouches in the pilot seat. 

Not some guys though. 

Some guys just kept on keepin' on, and by kept on, I mean they never stopped running those TIE Swarms and now, the build that a lot of people new to the game called broken and uncounterable (yeah- even me, remember?) before they learned how to really play, is still around and in many ways, much more dangerous than it ever was before. 

Why is that? 

Well, first, as I'm wont to say, this game is less about your list and more about your skill playing your list, your familiarity with the Pilot Skill mechanic, and the ability to think spatially. If you're taking a TIE Swarm to a tournament these days, it's for one of two reasons- one, you've been playing one for quite awhile and you're really, really good with it, or two, you're pretty new to the game and thought running a Swarm would be fun. 

(If you run into one of these guys from the first group you're probably in trouble.) 

Secondly, lots of folks, especially Rebel folks, are bringing a big ship to Regionals. Generally, this means they're running a two or three ship list. Yeah, there are plenty of builds that include a Firespray and four other ships, but you can't honestly look me in the eye and claim there are as many of those 5-ship Firespray lists and 3-ship Han Solo lists. 

Well, so what, right? Han Shoots First and blah, blah, blah.  

Here's the thing- yes Han's likely to do four damage each and every turn, but he's only doing it to one ship at a time. A proper TIE Swarm is going to be 6 or 7 ships. So while Han's working his ability, Gunner, probably Marksmanship, and whatever else, congrats! You just downed a ship worth somewhere probably between 12 and 20 points.

Is that statement a little heavy on the hyperbole? Yeah, probably. Kinda not though. TIEs just aren't worth much. Howlrunner's the most expensive TIE, but even sticking her with Swarm Tactics still leaves her a point cheaper than Rookie X-Wing. Mauler Mithel? 4 dice at Range 1. Night Beast? Free Focus when pulling a green. Dark Curse? No Focus against him and no rerolling dice. Yeah. Backstabber? Extra Attack die when you're outside your opponent's arc at any range. Nasty and provides some stealthy long-range fire support. 

Put all those guys (and girl) in one list (not saying you'd want to necessarily, just making a point) and you're at 82 points. Want to throw in another TIE and some Mods for everyone else? No prob, Bob. 

Again though- the list has it's shortcomings. TIE Swarms win when the guy flying them can focus his fire from several ships on one enemy ship. Many of them win by having everyone fly in a formation as tight on Howlrunner as possible. I've talked at length how that can be a hell of a lot harder than it looks (or sounds on the internet), so I won't spend a ton of space here rehashing. Suffice it to say, as the opposing player, the best thing you can do is not drive straight at the TIE Swarm trying to shoot Howlrunner. If you can force them to make a couple of turns, you'll likely invoke some collisions in all but the most practiced Swarm players, or worst case scenario, at least cause that formation to loosen up a bit. Ideally, after either of those things happen is when you'd engage the Swarm.

While a TIE Swarm can be forgiving for a new player because so many ships can help mitigate loss of Actions due to overlaps and mistakes in maneuvers, if you're still having trouble with stuff like that you're probably going to have a tough time winning your local Regional with a Swarm list. However, if you know what you're doing with one, you can definitely inflict the ol' Death by a Thousand Cuts on your opponent, even if they bring a Chewie Falcon. 

So what's a typical Swarm look like? Much like the 4 X-Wing lists I talked about yesterday, a Swarm can take on many different forms, but two of the most popular lists have something that fairly resembles the following- 

Sample 100 Point TIE Swarm Lists- 

Classic TIE Swarm
Howlrunner w/ Swarm Tactics
Dark Curse
Black Squadron Pilot w/ Swarm Tactics
Academy Pilot
Academy Pilot
Academy Pilot
Academy Pilot

I ran against lists like this a lot back six months ago or so. 7 TIEs, 3 of which are attacking at Howlie's Pilot Skill 8 because of the Swarm Tactics relay. Dark Curse is darn near unhittable. Anybody within Range 1 of Howlie benefiting from her special ability. If you can move this list effectively, it's a real bitch to fly against and do anything but soil your flight suit. 

Give this list the cold data treatment like I did the X-Wings and you get something like this- 

7 TIE Fighters
Total Attack Dice at Range 2: 14* (some re-roll possibility from Howlrunner)
Total Hull: 21
Total Shields: 0 
Total HP: 21

Recall the 4 X-Wing stats and you see why this list gets people worried when the guy running it at Regionals says, "Yeah, I won a Falcon at my KRT with this list." 

How do you beat it? Get Howlrunner off the board at all costs. It gets much easier after that. Also, like I said earlier- make this list maneuver. Fly through asteroids, start totally on one side of the map, whatever. Just don't let it fly straight and K-Turn the entire match. 

The other Swarm I used to run into quite a bit looked something like this- 

6 TIE Vader Swarm
Darth Vader w/ Squad Leader
Howlrunner w/ Swarm Tactics
Academy TIE
Academy TIE
Academy TIE
Academy TIE

Flies similarly as the Classic Swarm, but Vader's usually in kind of a roving role away from the main pile. This can make the Swarm easier to maneuver as you don't have that oddball Advanced out there to mess around with and since Squad Leader works out to Range 2, you can still have Vader pass off one of those free Actions to Howlie or whoever. Passing to Howlie is pretty effective if you can do it since it lets her pull two Actions so long as they're not the same ones. As you'd expect, this increases her survivability quite a lot, which is fantastic since she's such a high priority target for your opponent. Taking down a TIE Fighter that always Focuses and has an Evade Token is either going to take quite a few shots or a pretty good amount of luck. 

Best advice against this kind of list is to play contextually. Vader and Howlrunner are your priorities, but go after the one that you're more likely to ding and/ or kill that particular round. I wouldn't go out of my way for one rather than the other- they're both equally important in my book. Barring that, if you can get rid of a couple of the Academy TIEs, by all means do so. It's not as good as getting Vader or Howlie off the board, but you can at least take away a couple more shots coming your way. As always, make them pull some turns and banks, then go after anyone who loses their Action for the turn. 

You'll noticed I haven't talked much at all about Mods. It's not because I don't think they aren't good on a TIE Fighter in a Swarm, but be really careful about including too many.

Despite what you might think, a 5-ship Swarm performs a lot differently than a 6-ship Swarm. If you've thrown down your models and you've got the points left, sure, stick a Stealth Device on Howlrunner or whoever. It's not likely to be the dumbest thing you've done all day, but be careful not to waste too many points on them. It's sorta like when I saw people talk about 3rd ed 40k Guard armies with Carapace Armor. I mean look, if you've got some fluffy reason that your Guardsmen are wearing 4+ armor, by all means- I'm not going to tell you how to play your game. But if you're coming into the Guard from a Space Marine army and you're trying to get a little closer to that 3+ save you're used to? Well, frankly, you're doing it wrong. Guard are the cheap and the dead. And that's ok because even back then, the points would balance things out. Same deal here- don't make Howlrunner cost more than a stock Luke or Wedge- it's just too many eggs in one basket that everyone is already trying to dump all over the ground. Go for more TIEs, and you'll probably be glad you did. 

Tournament Lists- 4 X-Wings

Standard X-Wing Miniatures List Discussion Disclaimer- The most important element you can bring with you to any X-Wing Tournament is your own experience with the game. You can take the nastiest, meanest, and most bestest internet list with you to a Tournament, but if you don't know how to manage Pilot Skill, Actions, and Maneuvers, you are going to get sent home with an donut for your W's. 

I can't stress this enough- this game is not 40k where you plop down the most points-optimized net list from the latest codex, push it forward the max amount, then win. Your list is important, but you need to be familiar with the game and you need to be familiar with playing the list you're using if you want to consistently compete at a high level. 

When it comes to this 4 X-Wing list, there are several specific permutations that crop up fairly often (which I'll talk about later), but they all basically play the same way and have the same strengths and weaknesses in a general sense. 

4 X-Wings 
Total Attack Dice at Range 2: 12
Total Hull: 12
Total Shields: 8
Total: Hit Points (Hull + Shields): 20

Looking at just the stock ship cold data we see that Attack number and it looks pretty nice, right? That's the firepower of 6 TIE Fighters and is the equal, at least in dice, to three YTs. It's a good amount of damage to trot out, which is a big reason why this list performs well time and again. Obviously that number climbs to 16 if you can get all four of them in Range 1, which isn't the craziest notion in the world since X-Wings are fairly maneuverable ships compared to most anything but an Interceptor, A-Wing, or TIE Fighter, and have a little meat on their bones to take some shots back.  

Recall too that X-Wings have a fairly handy maneuver dial. While you lose some flexibility lacking 1 Turns or a 5 Straight, and only having a single K-Turn on your wheel, you do gain a slight contextual advantage over most Imperial opposition in that you've got a 1 straight at your disposal. 

The list is fairly hearty too with 20 HP total with nearly half of that being shields that are going to keep you from dealing with face up Damage cards. 

Me personally, I think this is the most accessible (read: easiest to fly) list available to the Rebel tournament player that still will yield some solid results if used correctly. If you're still kind of new to the game, or mainly play Imperials but have decided to switch Factions, or have played a bunch of different builds and aren't particularly great at any one of them, this is probably the build for you. 

It isn't without it's drawbacks, of course. A 4 X-Wing list doesn't have the points for a lot of upgrades and named pilots. It's going to play fairly basically. It's going to be somewhat predictable in that nothing you do will surprise anybody. It's also a list that's been used since the very beginning, so a lot of people have flown against it and have probably developed their own methods of beating it. 

All that said, it's still a very versatile list. It ain't sexy by any definition, but If you're smart with deployment, you can divide all that firepower up so it can be applied where you think you'll need it most. You've got the firepower and the staying power to win against Swarms, you've got the guns and number of ships to hedge bets with firing arcs to play against smaller, more specialized lists, and even against some of the more exploitative big ships lists, you've got options to play decently well at any Range, so while they're trying to close or stay away, you can fly at any distance and still be pretty dangerous. 

With four ships in your list, you can flub a maneuver or two and not lose all of your shots or Actions for a turn the way you can with a two or three ship list. Conversely, it's much easier to manage maneuvers with 4 X-Wings than a 6-7 ship TIE Swarm because you've got less ships to move about and keep from knocking into stuff. Now, if you're aces at maneuvers and can't remember the last time you bonked into an asteroid or one of your own, this isn't as important, but again- the case I'm making is that the 4 X-Wing list is probably the easiest Tournament list to run while still being pretty viable. 

Third, there are a lot of options to build into a 4 X-Wing list, so you can mitigate your own shortcomings to a certain extent by adding (or removing) Named Pilots, Droids, Modifications, and even Proton Torpedoes. This of course segues nicely into the part where I talk about some...

Sample 100 points 4 X-Wing Lists-  

Luke and Friends
Luke Skywalker, X-Wing Pilot w/ Swarm Tactics
Red Squadron Pilot w/ R2-D2
Rookie Pilot w/ R5 Astromech
Rookie Pilot

This basic core list of Luke and Friends can be tailored a bunch of different ways depending on what you need it to do or not do. The list above is the one I ran a lot just after the Kessel Run and before Wave 2 dropped, so it's tailored a bit to me and my meta (Swarms). Take that for what it's worth. 

Basically, I would do my 4-ship split deployment with Luke and the upgrade-less Rookie on one side of the board, Red and the R5 Rookie on the other side. Luke would rely on his Focus-lite ability to survive being the lead ship in, pushing his Pilot Skill of 8 to the trailing Rookie X-Wing. On the other side, Red would lean on R2-D2 to keep him alive, usually flying straight at the enemy, firing his shots, then continuing on for a turn or two with various greens to replenish shields before turning around to take another run at things. R5 Rookie would trail Red and finish off anything he didn't kill with a one-shot, and also run a little interference while Red healed shields. The R5 Astro helps with that last part. 

It's a pretty simple list- no complicated synergy to manage (or be denied) really, the main thing it has trouble with is a post-Wave 2 list with a bunch of Pilot Skill 9 stuff (namely a Fel- Vader list with Turd Ferguson either being the beneficiary of Swarm Tactics or Veteran Instincts to boost him up to Pilot Skill 9 as well). 

One thing I kinda found out the hard way is Astromechs in general often aren't the panacea they appear to be for an X-Wing. Your mileage may vary, but really think long and hard about the points you sink into your backseat drivers. 

Also, if you're absolutely desperate for 2 more points, you can downgrade that Red to a Rookie. Personally, I like having Red in there to stay ahead of the average TIEs once whoever inevitably has Swarm Tactics has been dealt with, but some folks might see that as two wasted points. 


Wedge and Biggs and Co.
Wedge Antillies
Biggs Darklighter w/ R2-F2
Rookie X-Wing
Rookie X-Wing

This core configuration of Wedge, Biggs, Rookie, Rookie is arguably the most popular 4 X-Wing list, and for good reason- Wedge is nasty, Biggs is fairly easy to get the hang of and use, and the Rookie X-Wing is still a pretty formidable ship.

I see Wedge flying around with no upgrades because the combination of his card text and Biggs is good enough to keep him out of trouble a lot of times. Biggs on the other hand, I see upgraded with all kinds of stuff to help keep him alive- R2-F2, R2-D2, or Shield Upgrade being the most common. I like R2-F2 better than R2-D2 on Biggs because Biggs has to survive the current round for R2-D2 to benefit him (he also has to pull a green) and Shield Upgrade is only going to work once, really. You can debate this with me all day, and the answer will depend largely on your own playstyle, but for me, I see Biggs taking multiple shots per Combat Round while he screens for Wedge, so I want something that's going to be "kicked on" the entire time, not after the fact and not just once. Just be careful not to bump him into anybody as he's gotta have an Action to turn on R2-F2 and you don't have the points for Wedge to sport a Squad Leader upgrade.  

I don't know how well this list would fly in a split deployment- I've never tried it that way. Usually this list sets up in a loose formation more on one side of the board than the other. Wedge tries to fly in close to get that extra Attack die which almost virtually assures him 4 damage on the intended target, while Biggs pulls the shots that should be hitting Wedge away. The Rookies fly interference and can be peeled off to engage whatever target you had Biggs firing on and probably not killing. 

The key to using one of these lists is being able to run Biggs effectively. His ability can be both a benefit and a curse. I'd say the main thing to watch out for is having Biggs pull shots from anyone besides Wedge- namely the two Rooks. Let those guys take their lumps. Once Biggs is out of the picture, Wedge is still as dangerous as he always was, but has to play a little more conservatively as he's going to be taking fire and also because he has zero upgrades. Playing as this list though, if you can manage to keep Biggs alive through the initial storm and into the middle innings of your match, you're likely going to come out ahead at the end if/ when you do lose him.


The New Guys
Rookie X-Wing w/ Proton Torpedoes OR Shield Upgrade
Rookie X-Wing w/ Proton Torpedoes OR Shield Upgrade
Rookie X-Wing w/ Proton Torpedoes OR Shield Upgrade
Rookie X-Wing w/ Proton Torpedoes OR Shield Upgrade

I see The New Guys in basically two different forms- the Wave 1 form was with each of them sporting Proton Torpedoes, the Wave 2 version has Shield Upgrades. Were I to use this list in a tournament setting, I'd likely hedge my bets and do both- 2 with PTs, 2 with Shields. Of course, I'm a bet hedger from way back, so your mileage may vary.

I'd also probably do my split deployment, let the PT Rookies lead initially, then have the Shield Rookies fly past them and take their spots. If I was lucky enough to Target Lock with the PT Rookies, I'd sit on that lock for another turn, let the Shields that flew on by them take a few shots, hang back and get a Focus token on the PT Rooks, then hopefully let the Torps fly at what's most likely Range 2. 

The thing about a list with all the pilots at the same Pilot Skill is it gets you a lot of options. You can maneuver (and choose Actions) and fire in any order you want. Now, that may not sound like that big of a deal, but it does allow for some tactical flexibility. It also kind of makes a waste of points for anyone who spent on Swarm Tactics or Veteran Instincts or higher Pilot Skill Common Pilots. 

The Shield Upgrade version of this list is probably the more viable of the two simply because you add to the already good durability of the X-Wing while also adding an upgrade that directly helps mitigate the downside of flying a list with such low Pilot Skill; namely that just about everyone is going to shoot at you before you can shoot at them. Only reason I say I'd probably go half and half is to deal with big ships at range if at all possible. 

Veteran Instincts- (Tournament/ Regionals) Etiquette and Protocol, Part 2

Veteran Instincts is another new series here on TheMetalBikini.com where I discuss topics that might appeal to a more veteran level of X-Wing Miniatures player. Think of it as a more advanced version of the Bikini Battle Basics series and you're not far off. It's stuff you need to know, but might not be readily apparent or noticed, or so I think anyway. Far as I know, right?

Tournament/ Regionals Etiquette and Protocol, Part 2

Part 1 in this series ran last Friday. You probably read it, but if you didn't, click that link.

5. Non-Combatants, er Non-Participants
At Games Day 2006, my last match of the tournament was against an Imperial Fists player from Ohio with a beautifully painted army and his wife. 

Yeah, right? It was kinda weird having a spectator. 

To her credit, I think she just sat and read a book the entire match, and after we were done, she came over, the three of us chatted pleasantly, and I thought, "Wow, well that was cool of her." She was just there to support her man, check out some cool models (of which I had none- my opinion, not theirs), and catch up on some reading. 

I've never had the "Oh no, there's the guy that always brings his friend/ girlfriend experience", but I've played next to a couple of tables and talked to a few of the poor bastards that have. It's not pretty and in many ways, your entourage can be much more annoying than you the actual player. I mean, look at it like this- I can beat you. You become that super-arrogant guy I beat at that one tournament. You become an NPC in my story, in other words. A beaten foe; a bested wannabe nemesis. Even if I don't beat you, maybe I managed to one-shot your Stealthed-up Turd Ferguson, or stuck Han with the critical that makes him Pilot Skill 0 and got to make a Han Shoots Last joke. 

I can't do anything to your obnoxious girlfriend or your dipshit friend. I don't have the opportunity. Well, not legally anyway. 

Long story short, you're responsible for the folks you bring with you to this thing. I don't want a bunch of hoo haa from your buddy, your buddy's girlfriend, or whatever during our match, dig? I don't want to be the guy who complains to the TO about your annoying sidecars, I really don't man. Let's just play the game. Dre puts it much more eloquently than I do, if you need further clarification on the point. 


6. Know Your List
I kinda talked about this in some other article on here that I'm too lazy to look up right now, but know what the cards in your list do. Look up any pilot abilities, upgrades, droids, whatever on here, on the AFM Forums, on the FFG forums, whatever. Fully understand what they do before our match. Play your list at least a few times before we meet in a tournament we both paid money to play in. I don't want to be the guy to tell you your card doesn't work the way you think it does, because you might have built your whole list around that incorrect interpretation, and now you're going to have a crappy day because of me. That's no fun for either of us, bro.

Further note, if you're using a pilot with an upgrade that falls into a grey area rules-wise, I'd take a long look at whether or not I'd play that particular combination in a tournament. I'm not going to go through and list all of the rules exploits that have been exposed, they're out there if you want to find them and I've talked about one of them fairly extensively on here before. Me personally, I think it's a bit of a party foul to show up with something like that. Now, you and I, we may have very different motivations for why we're playing in this thing. I'm not trying to tell you how to play your list, I'm just saying I wouldn't do it. 

I remember one time when I was teaching at a community college, we were going through contract negotiations and there were a whole segment of instructors that were convinced the district had this big slush fund and they wanted that money. It got to the point where they were talking about striking over it, which was kind of a big deal because unfortunately this segment of instructors included the president of our little union at the time. I got up and said, "I didn't take this job to be a striker, I took it to be an effin' teacher.", and walked out. 

That's kinda how I feel about tournaments. If you want to argue about rules, just do that on the internet, man. It's way cheaper and you're much more likely to find fun sparring partners than people who've paid $15 or $20 to enter a tournament where they're ostensibly at the very least, planning on playing a game rather than following Robert's Rules of Trolling or whatever. Again though, it's your dough. You can do whatever you want. Just realize the guy on the other side of the table may not share the same zeal for debate as you. He may just, you know, want to spend his day playing the game, right? 


7. Bring Only What You Need
Some folks might be interested in seeing your entire X-Wing Miniatures collection. Me personally? I'm not. This is a pre-painted, pre-assembled miniatures game, for cryin' out loud. 

I don't see any reason to bring a ton of extra crap with me to a Tournament. Hell, at the Kessel Run, I loaned out all of my Imperial stuff (including movement templates, range ruler, tokens, etc.) to a friend of mine who wanted to play but didn't own anything- I wasn't going to be using it as I was playing Rebels, so why not, right? Even if I wouldn't have loaned it out, I wouldn't have brought it with me. 

The less stuff you have to lug around, the better. As I've alluded to in other points in this article, it's probably gonna be a long day. Travel light and you'll be happier for it. Also if, God forbid, your stuff gets stolen or you bring so much stuff with you that you forget something at the venue, the curb outside the hotel, a bench at a bust stop, whatever, you're not out your entire collection. 

Note this goes for tokens and whatnot too. Actually, it goes even more for tokens and whatnot than the ships. Everyone who's played this game even once knows there's a somewhat ridiculous amount of fiddly stuff that goes along with it. Watching you try and pair up Target Locks for five minutes because you brought all 26 letters of the alphabet is time that could be spent playing, and if we go to the wire, that's really going to be disappointing. If you only bring 3 ships, bring 5 sets of Target Locks, tops. Apply that same line of thinking to the rest of your tokens too- bring what you need, then fudge the number up a couple in case you lose one or it gets mixed in with your opponent's or something.

Now, I know, I know, you've got all your stuff in a Plano box or whatever, and it's not that big of a deal to bring the whole thing, and you don't really want to disrupt your system, and blah, blah, blah. Just trust me on this- for a 100 point tournament, you can probably fit what you actually need in one of the Core Set boxes. Now think about how much easier it is to cram a Core Box into a backpack along with a couple of Diet Dews and a candy bar or something versus lugging around a tool box all day like you're Mr. Fixit. 

Or if you really want to be cool, bring all that stuff, but leave it in the car. Then if some poor guy forgot his third Interceptor back at the hotel or it got broken on the way in, you can be the dude who lets this cat borrow yours, which will elicit a slow-clap from me for sure, because well, let's be honest. I'm totally the type of person to start a slow clap- any reason will do. 

8. "Good Game"
When we're done, win or lose, throw your hand out there across the table, shake it like a man (or woman- are we still pretending girls play dorky-ass miniatures games like this? :) ) and not a limp fish, and wish me a good game. If you won, listen to me berate myself for hitting an obstacle or rolling badly, while I pretend my loss had nothing to do with your superior skill at the game and sympathize. If you lost, I'll extend you the same courtesy. I don't want to hear a bunch of gloating and bragging- this isn't HALO, for Christ's sake. We're better than that. 

Be happy you've won, take any compliments from your vanquished opponent you have coming to you, and throw a couple back their way. 

If you're the winner, resist the temptation to point out every mistake your opponent made that helped you win. I know folks who do this, hell, I'm guilty of it at times, but most of the time it isn't constructive immediately after a match, even if that's 100% your intent. Most of the time, it just comes off kind of know-it-all and dickish. 


So there ya go. How not to be a bad opponent at your next tournament, right? Well, either that or "How to spend two days on your blog being a bossy cow- MOOOO!" If my oldest could read, he'd crack up that I wrote that; it's one of our inside jokes.