X-wing: Tournament Lessons Learned (Figuring out how to play in a tournament)

Hi everyone,

Well, how about if we start with some of the key things we've learned about how to play in an X-wing tournament :)

A quick look at the tournament set-up.  Six players - three rounds.

1) Bring lunch!  We got SOOO hungry.  And, there really isn't time to go get food between rounds.

2) Bring a tray!  Just like many people do for Warhammer 40K, we watched one person (Mr. B) very comfortably move his force from spot to spot -- while we scrambled to move our dice, our templates, our ships, our markers....

3) Figure out the powerful combinations in advance (if you can).  We were a long way from winning, but we did learn a powerful-lot about how to play.  A really powerful thing was that each person there had worked out a really great combination of ships and upgrades -- where the two worked really well together.

4) Practice flying!!!  We flew into/through lots of asteroids.  We crashed into lots of ships.

5) Consider playing Rebels to start out.  More shields.  It seemed a consensus that a challenge with playing the Empire is that with many ships one bad defense roll and your ship goes up in smoke.

6) Figure out your formation flying in advance.  Think hard about who in your formation will move first - and *maybe* put the lower pilot scores in the front, not the back :)

So....  Here's how our battles went.

Round 1:

- Played a very nice gentleman - helped us through our first round in a tournament :)
- His force -- Millennium Falcon piloted by Han, with 3-CPO.  He also had two A-wings.

Results:  1 A-wing destroyed; All Imperials destroyed.  So, we scored 20 points.
- Other results:  Lots of mistakes with flying.  Very hard to fly with the Tie Fighters with higher piloting skills in front; and the lower pilot skill Defender and Phantom in back!!!
- Other mistakes:  We kept forgetting to use Mauler Mithel's Predator upgrade.
- We were also shy on good use of the Defender's Ion Cannon and the Phantom's cloaking.

Round 2:

- Played Mr. B who had clearly played quite a lot before.
- His force -- Phantom, Slave-1-type ship, Interceptor

Results:  We did not kill any of Mr. B's ships.  But, he killed all of ours.
- Other results:  Scratched up several more asteroids.  And, could see that we really missed a few good barrel-roll chances.
- Key lessons:  Got to see the power of the Advanced Cloaking Device with Mr. B's Phantom.  Wow!  Very maneuverable.

Here is the pilot Mr. B was flying

With Advanced Cloaking Device, Echo was really powerful

Round 3:

- Played Mr. B2 - also very experienced.
- His force -- 2 B-wings, 1 X-wing, 1 A-wing

Results:  We did not kill any of Mr. B2's ships.  And, yes, he killed all of ours.  But, we were at least close to killing one of his B-wings and his X-wing.
Other results:  We did some cloaking - and actually managed a good de-cloak + K-turn to have a chance at a range 1 shot (which we missed).
And:  We almost took out Wedge in his X-wing (though we didn't)

Final:
- Yup, we came in last of the 6 players.
- But, we did get a cool new Tie Fighter card!!
- And, most important, we learned a ton (in each battle) and we had a GREAT time.

Many thanks to each person we played with and spoke with.

Cool new Academy Pilot card :)