X-Wing: This is How We Learn
ChahDresh earns a little redemption by being less dumb, and gets a plaque for his trouble.
As usual, every card I reference can be found on Yet Another Squad Builder. If I lapse into jargon and use terms you don’t recognize, let me know in the comments below and I’ll fix my mistake.
In my last column I discussed some of the mistakes I made at my last store championship run. I could blame some of it on rust, but I made poor decisions all day long. One of my recurring mistakes happened before anyone placed their first dials; correcting it made an outsize difference.
I’m referring of course to deployment. My list goes a long way towards informing how I deploy: I run Norra Wexley as my heavy hitter, Snap-and-Stress Nien (whom I’ve lauded before) as troublemaker/anti-ace tech, and Tarn Mison with M9-G8 for support and as a pocket closer. I really enjoy how the pieces of the list fit and work together, but certain aspects of it are somewhat predictable.
For example, Tarn at PS3 is going to reveal to my opponent my general deployment plan. Between his low PS and his ride, the renowned flying brick that is the T-65, he’s always in danger of being flanked. Standard counter to that is to deploy near a board edge to help keep everything in front of you. Norra goes alongside for mutual support. This has the added effect of frequently forcing Tarn to be a problem for your foe. Between Tarn’s low priority and M9-G8, your opponent doesn’t really want to shoot at him, not when he could be burning down Norra or Nien, but ignoring Tarn isn’t a savory solution, since he ends up getting lots of range one shots if ignored.
Deployment First Drafts
But where to put Nien? In the past, I’ve been splitting him out towards the middle of the board. If my opponent accepts the joust I offer with Norra and Tarn, this happens:
(Someone always corners a rock there, but it’s rarely an issue.)
That’s good! It forces bad choices on the enemy for who to shoot first and ensures someone will be able to get good positioning in the second round– either because the enemy is stressed and thus predictable, or locked in a close encounter with Norra (or both). The enemy has to decide if he wants to turn towards Nien and let the jousters get close, or stay head-on, try to burn down Norra before she disengages, and risk never getting to turn around again because of Nien’s control.
This deployment also works well against enemies who have their own flanker split wide; Nien loves flying against aces with higher PS than his. For some time I flew against enemies who did one of those two things (accept the joust or mirror me), and eventually this setup became habitual for me. But what happens if the enemy declines the joust?
With Nien and Norra at PS 7 there are plenty of lists that can read my deployment and engineer this. Tarn and Norra are too slow to react in this case; most ships can get to Nien and force the engagement before the jousters can get there to support him, leaving Nien out to dry. If I realize the danger in time, Nien can counter-fly by coming back towards the pack, then TRolling back around, but this doesn’t always pan out. Nien likes this encounter even less because he has to get close to function, getting close entails going fast, and going fast further opens the gap between him and my jousters.
Time to Learn
This happened time and again at the last tournament, and time and again I paid the price. So, step one to my improvement plan: be less dumb.
Now Nien’s higher speed is working for me instead of against me. I can still get my pincer effect for a multi-axis attack, with the axis broader depending upon how long it takes to engage. And if the opponent doesn’t set up opposite corner and instead jousts me head-on? That’s fine, too! I have the tricks to come out ahead in that scenario. Same best-case as my previous pattern and a better worst-case: the situation is now improved.
An additional fun effect of the revised deployment is that it enables me to use M9-G8 on Nien instead of Norra. Since Nien will be boosting frequently, or using his focus on defense, this allows him to make at least partially modified attacks (as opposed to buffing Norra’s making the “rich get richer”); more importantly, it also gives him a re-roll on his Snap Shots, so sayeth the FAQ. That makes the Snap Shot an actual source of offense instead of just a way to dish more stress.
I made a number of other tweaks, too, but the big one was just remembering how my list works, and how it’s supposed to work, and adjusting my deployment accordingly. I’d fallen into a habit, as happens to the best of us, and was paying the price. Having earned (and deserved) my bruises, I changed up my approach, got myself into much better engagements, and (somehow) came away with a Store Championship.
~Tell us about your hard earned tips and tricks for X-Wing.
ChahDresh is an amateur writer and an even more amateurish X-Wing player. Share your “I sucked but I’m better now” stories in the comments below.
