Beginner's Guide to Competitive Listbuilding Principles

For a lot of players, part of the fun in X-Wing is building your own list. Unfortunately, building a strong list is hard, and it's easy to fall into various traps and build a weak list.

If you are a net-lister, you also need good list-building skills. You will have to decide which list you choose and whether to tweak it.

This article will go over some fundamental list-building principles I've come across. It covers what you should think about when you approach building a competitive list and discusses some common list-building traps to avoid.

Play strong lists

The first advice I have for list-builders is to copy and play the strongest lists. 😛

Wait, this isn't what it looks like, let me explain!

One of the most important skills for list-builders is the skill to figure out whether a list has potential after playing it only once or twice. You don't have time to playtest a list for dozens of games to figure out how strong it is. The worst thing that can happen is you spend a month playtesting a list only to realize it's not very good the week of the big tournament. Once you have this skill, you'll be able to quickly discard the weak lists, giving you more time to playtest and tweak a list with actual potential.

You need to know what it feels like when you fly a strong list. The best way to learn is to feel that power first-hand. You'll then be better equipped to build your own lists. That's why my first recommendation is to fly the strongest lists and see what it feels like.

You have my permission to strike this pose after your first time playing the strongest meta list

Against weaker lists, it should feel like you've got reasonable winning chances when you make a bad decision or have weaker dice. You should only be losing when you both have bad dice and make worse decisions. The game should feel absolutely crushing when you have good dice or make better decisions, where your opponent is completely helpless and they're losing no matter what they do.

Against strong lists, you should be able to come up with a reasonable plan for winning the game before it starts. This plan shouldn't rely on favorable dice or achieving a very specific and unlikely board state. When you have bad dice, it should feel like you can pull the game back to even if you make one great outplay. When you get outplayed, you should still be in a state where lucky dice can bail you out and bring the game back to even.

If you really need this guide, you're probably not great at evaluating list strength (if you're good at that, you probably don't need this guide 😊). You might misjudge how strong or weak your opponent's list is, and you may end up with a false sense of security if you play against a very weak list. In this case, the safest thing can be to remove that element by playing against other strong meta lists which have done well in tournaments.

An astute reader may have noticed that you'll need to be able to judge who had better dice. It's really easy to fool yourself on this, so spend some time on the X-Wing Probability Calculator to develop a better sense for much damage you can expect out of common situations. Remember, it's quite uncommon to get exactly even dice, and it's possible for dice luck to even out over the course of a turn or game (although often it does not). 

Do not focus too much on "synergy"

One of the common list-building traps is "Control-F" list-building. Coined by Swim, a Legends of Runeterra streamer, this is where you blindly go all-in on a synergy or mechanic. For example, General Grievous gets a bonus for not being in his target's firing arc. Outmaneuver gives the ship a bonus for not being in the target's firing arc. It's tempting to put them together because these cards have the same words. Another example is spamming the same ship in efficiency lists.

X-Wing is not a matching game

Control-F list-building isn't always a bad thing. In some cases, it will make sense! For example, it's often a good idea to run many copies of the same generic pilot. There are lists where Outmaneuver on General Grievous may make sense. The problem is this is not a reliable way to build strong lists. It may or may not work, and it can distract list-builders from more effective options.

Start from power, not from countering a list

Another list-building trap I often see is when people build a list with the idea of countering a list. This usually doesn't work out. In a tournament, you're not likely to see a particular list more than once or twice, and you may never see the list you tried so hard to counter. Even when they get their matchup, these "counter" lists often still lose!

The problem is this mindset often gets list-builders focused on the wrong thing. The best counter to a list is a stronger list. That's why "counter" lists often lose to the list they tried to counter: they were built around some gimmick that may be slightly stronger against that list, but overall they are simply weaker lists.

The moment you realize you should have played a bigger dynamite

Instead of building a list to counter a list, you should build a strong list that has reasonable or good matchups against the field.

That doesn't mean you should never think about other lists when list-building! You may want to pay special attention to strong ships that are also good against the meta, or at least not weak into the meta. For example:

• Ships tend to be especially weak against ships with one higher initiative, or against arc-dodgers with the same initiative but a bigger bid.
• More evasive ships (e.g., 3-agility ships, ships with lots of defensive mods) are relatively weaker against more attacks, big attacks, and reliable attacks and are relatively stronger against fewer attacks, smaller attacks, and less-modded attacks.

Once you have a strong list, you can also consider adding some tech choices to improve your matchups against certain lists. But start from building a strong list, not from building a list to counter another list.

Focus on matchups and board states

The most important things to think about when list-building are matchups and board states. As Swim says, the only thing a card can do is take a game that was lost and turn it into a game that was won, or turn a game that was won into a game that was lost.

X-Wing is a game with dice luck, and MOV sometimes matters for making the cut. "Win more" does have some value in X-Wing. Still, when list-building, your primary focus is to turn losing matchups and board states into winning ones while minimizing the amount of your winning matchups and board states that turn into losing ones.

As a quick aside, this skill will also improve your strategic and tactical decision-making while playing the game. You have many reasons to develop this skill!

Here are some common situations to consider when list-building:

• You're facing arc-dodgers that move after you.
• You're facing the strongest jousting list in the meta.
• Your opponent has you flanked.
• You've flanked your opponent, and they can choose which part of your list to turn on.
• Your opponent flies to deny you one of your tricks.
• You've lost one or two of your ships.
• You're down to your last ship or last two cheap ships.

When you consider filling out your squad with extra ships, choosing between different pilots, or adding pilots, you should be thinking about how this changes your winning chances in these situations, and any other common situations you may be facing given the expected meta.

For example, if your list is really strong against jousting lists but weak against arc-dodgers that move after you, you may want to consider spending some points to shore up that matchup. This can be a good idea even if it weakens your matchup against jousting lists a bit. Of course, you should be careful not to tunnel-vision and weaken your good matchups too much for what you gain against weaker matchups.

One of the results of this situation-based analysis is you usually don't want to mix tanky ships and glass-cannon ships in the same list. Your opponent will have an easy time killing your glass-cannon ships first and your tanky ships won't deal enough damage to punish this. Unless you have some way of protecting your glass-cannon ships (e.g., they are very difficult to catch), you should include ships of similar durability-to-damage ratios.

Let's return to that Grievous with Outmaneuver example. Suppose you've got a list with Grievous and a Vulture swarm. If your opponent ignores Grievous and turns on the swarm, Grievous gets double mods while they slowly chew through your Vultures, and you probably win. If your opponent goes after Grievous first, the Vultures may not be able to deal enough damage to punish that hard enough and you'll probably have a good chance to lose.

What happens if you add Outmaneuver to Grievous? Well, your winning situation is even more winning! Now, what happens if they turn on Grievous first? Outmaneuver does nothing, you just handed your opponent more points, and your Vulture swarm has fewer points to spend for offense to punish this. And unfortunately, you don't have a great way to force your opponent to ignore Grievous. Outmaneuver is only a "win more" card in this list and is probably a bad idea unless it's extremely under-priced.

Now, let's consider a list with Grievous, Ensnare Sun Fac, and Ensnare Chertek. If your opponents turn on Grievous, Ensnare Sun Fac and Ensnare Chertek get free rein to tear your opponent's list apart. You're probably winning those games. Your biggest chances of losing are probably when your opponent turns on Sun Fac first and kills him quickly. Outmaneuver can turn those losing situations into winning ones or perhaps even change your opponent's decision of who to attack first, so the upgrade may be a good idea for this list. Of course, you should still consider if there's a better way to spend the points (examples include a bid or Gravitic Deflection on the Nantex, and these will depend on the point cost of the upgrades and the meta).

Remember, even if your list doesn't really need a bid and you have spare points, you don't have to spend them. Since games often end on time, unspent points can be helpful and sometimes the bid will deny your opponent some value. In the Feb 2019 Toronto System Open, I lost my first game by 2 MOV. I'd upgraded a Bandit Squadron Z-95 to a Tala Squadron Pilot with Selfless for 5 points. The Tala died and I didn't use Selfless that game, and the higher initiative didn't matter much either. Adding Selfless with my spare points turned a won game into a lost game. It was still probably the right call over the long run, but you should remember it's not free to spend "spare" points.

Look for value

The best thing you can bring to a tournament is a 240-point list, and the worst thing to do is to bring a 160-point list. As long as the cards aren't perfectly balanced, a keen sense of value is important when list-building.

Don't do this to yourself

There are several common traps you can run into. First, some players try to "chase" value with a weak ship by loading it with upgrades. Unless the upgrade is extremely strong on that ship, usually transforming it into a different ship in some way (examples include Special Forces Gunner for Quickdraw or Advanced Sensors for Guri), adding more upgrades isn't going to fix the ship. If you buy a lemon used car for too much money, adding fancy speakers at fair market value isn't going to get your money back. The solution is to avoid the lemon and buy a good car at a great price.

Second, one of the most common list-building traps is to load too many upgrades on ships. Upgrades are often balanced around a ship that uses them the best, and many are mediocre for their point cost on any ship. Loading your fleet of good cars bought at a great price with speakers at fair market value may not be as good as spending that money on an extra car. You should be especially careful when adding upgrades on cheap ships. The value of most upgrades is multiplicative, which means they are stronger when the ship itself is stronger, but the cost of most upgrades do not scale with the quality of the ship they're equipped on.

Another list-building trap is to run a ship without a staple upgrade. Some ships, like the aforementioned Quickdraw and Guri, depend on having a specific upgrade to be worth their points.

Finally, a trap that often shows up when value isn't considered strongly enough is a list without enough offense. My rule of thumb is to bring at least three ships with 3-dice attacks, or a similar equivalent. 2-dice attacks count for half, and a 4-dice attack counts for 1.5 ships. These ships should also be durable enough to survive one average round of combat. When your list doesn't have enough offense, it often gets hard to play because you can't remove problematic enemy ships (examples include a ship with control elements, or firing arcs to give your arc-dodgers space to breathe) fast enough. This is not a hard rule, especially if your ships are extremely good at arc-dodging, but you should have a very good reason to bring fewer ships.

Unfortunately, outside of playing a bunch, scouring tournament results, or doing lots of math, I'm not sure how to really develop this sense for value. Situational thinking can be one way to approach this. Often, bringing too many inefficient ships or upgrades will ruin some of your matchups for little gain in other situations. Let me know if you have any other ideas!

Conclusions

When list-building, you should be looking to add value pieces to your list, which have a low point cost for the impact they have on the board. As you add ships and upgrades, you should be thinking about your chance of winning in different matchups and board states. You want to add ships and upgrades which flip losing situations into winning ones without flipping too many winning situations into losing ones.

As you list-build, there are many traps to watch out for. Don't tunnel vision on synergies. Build a strong list first, and don't list-build to counter another list. Be very careful to add ships and upgrades that bring more value than they cost, and try to bring enough offense in your list.

Finally, if you haven't done this before, go check out some recent tournament results, pick one of the top-placing lists, and play that a few times. Get a sense for what it feels like to play a strong list. Once you do that, it will guide you in your future list-building. Good luck and have fun!

My E-Wing Recommendations

There seems to be renewed interest in the E-Wing with the latest points drop, and there's been a lot of advice thrown around on how to run them. I thought I'd share my experiences and suggestions flying E-Wings.

I've been running generic E-Wings on and off since shortly before the mid-2019 points update. At first, my list was Crack Shot Wedge, 2x Knave Squadron Escorts with R3 Astromech, and Sheathipede Zeb. After the Knaves dropped by 2 points each, I could fit Leia crew by dropping Crack Shot and downgrading to AP-5. With the latest points update, I think 3x Rogue Squadron E-Wings might be the way to go, along with a cheap filler fourth ship. I still need to test it out, but I think it has the potential to be an A-Tier competitive squad.

What is the E-Wing?

Let's first examine the E-Wing chassis to see what its role is.

The E-Wing chassis is a 3-attack ship that's more durable than X-Wings and B-Wings. Against 3-dice attacks with a single mod, an E-Wing is expected to survive an extra attack compared to the X-Wing and an extra 0.7 attacks compared to the B-Wing without spending mods on defense. The extra durability comes in the form of 3 agility. That means it's more vulnerable to big attacks, it's stronger against weak attacks, it gets large value from focus tokens on defense, and it's more exposed to variance.

The ship chassis ability, Experimental Scanners, is a good offensive ability which gives the ship a chance to have double-mods on your first attack. Having that second mod on a 3-dice attack increases your expected damage from 1.5 to 2 against a 2-agility ship without mods, and from 1.2 to 1.7 against a 3-agility ship without mods. For comparison, double mods is more than half as good as adding a fourth die. A 4-dice single-modded attack averages 2.3 damage against a 2-agility ship and 1.9 damage against a 3-agility ship. It's closer to the damage output of Crack Shot or Juke, which deals 2.1 and 1.9 damage against 2-agility and 3-agility ships without mods, respectively, although Crack Shot is stronger against ships with focus.

There are two downsides to Experimental Scanners. First, you will occasionally miss out on a free target lock when you are too close to a target. This is especially likely to happen if you use an E-Wing to block. Second, it can be partially nullified by your opponent being flying cautiously with the targeted ship. While it is sometimes possible to re-select your target in later turns before engagement, you will still be forced to choose between a priority target which you may have a hard time getting in arc and a more available but less-critical target. Even with these drawbacks, the Experimental Scanners ability is strong.

The E-Wing has good tools for strategic positioning. It has both boost and barrel roll actions. It also has every basic maneuver with only the 1-speed turns being red, and a K-Turn and two S-Loop options for turning around. Further, the boost and barrel roll options can link into a target lock in preparation for the engagement. These options mean the E-Wing has the tools to get where it needs to go before the engagement occurs.

However, the E-Wing does not have great tools for tactical positioning. The ship can't double-reposition. Once engaged, the linked actions lose most of their value. The ship often already has a lock thanks to Experimental Scanners, it's often at Range 1 after repositioning, and it can't link into a defensive action. The base chassis also has low initiative. The high-initiative pilot, Corran Horn, doesn't have a great ability as an ace (namely, something with action efficiency or additional repositioning). The ship probably needs Afterburners to function as an arc-dodging ace, and that's not ideal because pilots cap out at initiative 5 and the ship lacks useful linked actions after repositioning. E-Wings will get some arc-dodging opportunities against lower-initiative ships since they have both barrel roll and boost, but you shouldn't count on them arc-dodging everything as a win condition.

As such, the E-Wing functions most naturally as a premium jouster. It has the maneuverability to reach the ideal position for the engagement. Once the shooting starts, the E-Wing has above-average damage output and durability.

Pilots

The generics come with initiative 2 and initiative 4. The initiative 2 Knave Squadron Escort would probably C-Tier around 53 points and the initiative 4 Rogue Squadron Escort would probably be C-Tier around 56 points. Subtract 5%, 10%, and 15% for B-Tier, A-Tier, and S-Tier respectively.

The currently-released named E-Wing pilots, Gavin Darklighter and Corran Horn, are mostly premium jousters like the generics since their abilities don't affect their roles too much.

Gavin Darklighter's ability is pretty interesting. Because the ability isn't that powerful and because it works on his own attacks, you don't need to use Gavin exclusively with swarms. I estimate the value of the ability at roughly 6 points over a Rogue Squadron Escort even in 3- or 4-ship lists.

Corran Horn is not nearly as strong as his former 1.0 iteration. His double-tap ability is much more situational since it requires a bullseye and he can't run away as easily. In the old days of 1.0, Corran Horn was happy to run away with a focus, an evade, and a shield regen. Today, he no longer has triple mods on defense or the potential to double-reposition. Corran's double-tap ability is only useful when the bullseye shot at the end of the round is more valuable than the shot he'll have next round. I estimate the combination of the initiative bump and the ability is probably worth roughly 8 points on top of the Rogue Squadron Escort, and his role is a (more) premium jouster instead of the points fortress arc-dodging ace he was in 1.0.

Why R3 Astromech?

R3 Astromech is usually a bad card. Most ships want to focus instead of taking a lock, and there's no guarantee they'd have two enemy ships in range to lock or that they survive long enough to use both locks.

The E-Wing chassis solves all of those problems. Experimental Scanners means the E-Wing is guaranteed to get two locks on before the engagement and the E-Wing is durable enough to have a reasonable chance of using both locks before dying.

R3 Astromech grants the ship an extra mod for one attack. As discussed earlier, double mods is slightly worse than Crack Shot against unmodded defenses and significantly worse against modded defenses, but it's easier to benefit from the second target lock than Crack Shot. This is especially true since you gain the benefits again if you can disengage for a turn. Crack Shot is probably worth 3 points, and I estimate R3 Astromech is probably worth around 4 points on the E-Wing.

At first glance, it seems like the R3 Astromech benefit is slightly worse since it's delayed: you only benefit from it over two turns. However, it's actually an up-front benefit in that it almost always guarantees you'll have double mods against an available target on the opening engage. In some cases, the extra damage from the second lock could kill or score half points on that target in the first round, allowing you to comfortably turn on the first locked target next round.

Beyond its mathematical value, R3 Astromech makes flying E-Wings much easier and flying against E-Wings much more difficult. I tested R4 Astromech for a couple games and was struck by how hard it was to choose which ship to lock. I had to think really hard and ended up making some really bad decisions. R3 Astromech can provide a significant mental advantage over the course of a tournament.

The opposite is true for your opponents. With only one lock, you have to announce your target priority. Your opponent can respond by keeping their locked ship safe. With two locks, you can lock a ship on both flanks (e.g., Soontir and Vader against Imperial Aces), or lock both a filler ship and a premium ship against joust + ace lists (e.g., Kylo and a generic TIE against Kylo Generics). It's much harder to keep two ships out of the fight and it means you have a stronger threat of turning your guns on either flank.

Why not R4 Astromech?

Even if you decide not to run R3 Astromech, I would not recommend running R4 Astromech. R4 Astromech is tempting because it turns the 1-speed hard turns white as well as giving the ship blue 2-speed hard turns. An under-stated benefit of R4 Astromech is the blue 2-speed banks. Sometimes, you'll want to turn and move faster than a 1-speed maneuver the turn after being stressed, and R4 Astromech lets the E-Wing to do that.

That said, R4 Astromech is a luxury that usually does not fit on the E-Wing. As premium jousters, E-Wings usually want upgrades that improve their damage output or durability. Blue hard turns can improve damage output and durability if the ship has a good linked action. For example, the TIE Advanced v1 benefits from its blue turns more than the TIE/fo Fighter from its blue turns (except Scorch) because of its linked reposition to focus actions. R4 Astromech really helps Poe Dameron because he wants to be stressed every turn for additional mods and the option to double-reposition. Unfortunately, the E-Wing does not get added value from being stressed since it doesn't have a good linked action, so R4 Astromech doesn't do too much for the E-Wing.

R4 Astromech can also be useful for ships that don't have blue banks or turns to one side. For example, Dengar would love to have R4 Astromech. It's probably also useful for BTL-B Y-Wings. However, not only does the E-Wing already have blue 1 banks, it also has both a K-Turn and two S-Loops to adjust its facing on the turn-around turn so it can most likely use its blue straight options the following turn.

That leaves the 1-hard turns. It's a great maneuver to have, but it's unnecessary. Plenty of jousting ships work fine without the 1-hard turn. With some planning, it's rare that doing a 1-speed hard turn instead of a 2-speed hard turn will make a significant difference in your games.

Overall, I think people tend to overrate the value of having a good dial on jousting ships without linked actions. Most jousting ships can do their jobs as long as they have a high-speed turn-around maneuver (Tallon Rolls don't count), a 1-straight, and a set of banks and turns. Outside of some combo which gives the E-Wing extra power for stress, the R4 Astromech is probably worth only 1 point on the E-Wing.

Other upgrades

As a premium jouster, the E-Wing doesn't need a ton of upgrades to do its job. Outside of R3 Astromech, I'd recommend using spare points to bring better and more ships rather than adding extra upgrades on an E-Wing.

Until Crack Shot goes up to 3 or more points, it's a strong consideration for any small ship with a Talent slot. The E-Wing is no different.

Elusive is OK on the E-Wing, but it competes with Crack Shot and with other ship upgrades. Half of a Shield Upgrade is worth about 3 points on the Rogue Squadron Escort. You can come out ahead if you use it at least twice, but you may have a better place to spend the points. If you bring it, don't choose bad maneuvers to chase its effect.

I've seen people include Fire-Control Systems on their E-Wings. I don't recommend it for a couple reasons (with one exception, see below). First, the benefit itself is marginal without a bonus attack or some reason to keep the lock, such as ordnance or the TIE Advanced x1 ship ability. It only increases your chance of keeping your lock by about 40 percentage points. It's also reasonably common to kill the target in one round with multiple double-modded attacks. Corran has a double-tap ability, but it's not likely to be used frequently enough for FCS to be worth the 2 points. Second, the E-Wing has the option to disengage to re-acquire locks, making it less of a priority to hold on to a lock. 

I'm skeptical about Proton Torpedoes on the E-Wing. It gives you a scary alpha strike, but it's very expensive. You may be better off bringing more and better ships. Advanced Proton Torpedoes is both very situational but also relatively cheap. I think having Advanced Proton Torpedoes is the only case where Fire-Control System could make sense. R3 Astromech is probably an auto-include if you bring torpedoes.

Some other upgrades which IMO aren't great:

• Predator: The benefit is normally lower than Crack Shot, and Predator is uniquely bad on E-Wings because they're likely to have rerolls already.
• Daredevil: The E-Wing is mainly a jouster and not an arc-dodger, so it doesn't get too much value from this.
• Outmaneuver: This is best on super arc-dodgers like Guri, or on very tanky ships like TIE Defenders. The E-Wing is already more of a glass cannon so it's hard to get value from this.

Wingmates

This is the most points-dependent section of this article, so I'm not going to give any specific suggestions. Ideally, you want to run strong ships, and that's going to change with every points adjustment. However, I do have some observations on what types of wingmates the E-Wing likes.

Thanks to its double mods on offense, the E-Wing leans towards being a glass cannon ship with a relatively high damage output for its durability. It's even more of a glass cannon if it takes R3 Astromech. Glass-cannon ships work best with other glass-cannon ships and work poorly with tanky ships that have a relatively low damage output.

The E-Wing has a couple quirks in how it flies. First, it's a ship that wants the option to disengage to reacquire locks. This means it wants wingmates who can also disengage. It's no good if the E-Wings fly off to reacquire locks only for their wingmates to get isolated and destroyed.

Second, the E-Wing likes extra actions but only after the engagement happens. Coordinating a damaged E-Wing gives it focus and evade on defense. Coordinate also gives you opportunities to pick up another set of target locks or reposition with a mod. However, unless you only have one E-Wing in the line of fire, the E-Wing doesn't make good use of coordinate in the first turn of the engagement because it will already have a focus and lock. If you coordinate an evade token on one E-Wing, your opponent will just shoot the other one. That means if you bring a coordinate ship, you want a non-E-Wing ship to get value out of that first turn's coordinate (I used Wedge as my primary coordinate target).

Finally, the E-Wing isn't the ideal blocker. It has an above-average attack that's sacrificed if it blocks and it has poor linked actions after a reposition. Pairing them with cheaper blocking ships can shore up this weakness, or you'll want another way to deal with arc-dodgers like a high-initiative ship.

Beginner's Guide to Not Jousting

I've said in the past that flying arc-dodgers is not harder than flying jousters at the tournament level, but there's an initial learning curve on how to avoid jousting.

Here's a basic idea you can try to avoid jousting: Don't put your ships in the same place.

In this case, "same place" means "area covered by the same firing arc(s)". In other words, flank with your ships.

This is not a flank:

This is a flank:

The important thing is where your ships are during the engagement, not where they are deployed. You can start your ace ships anywhere as long as they are spread out before the engagement. Similarly, don't get baited by spreading your ships during deployment but have all your ships end up in the same place by the time the shooting starts.

Of course, things get more difficult if enemy ships have multiple arcs, but this general concept still applies.

There are several reasons to spread out your ships. First, it's easier to arc-dodge and avoid shots with one ship than it is with three ships. When your ships are in the same place, their escape routes may end up getting blocked off by your own ships.

Second, it's hard to arc-dodge and get shots at the same time. Even when all your aces successfully arc-dodge, you may not have gained anything. Flanking means the ships that don't arc-dodge get free shots.

Third, it forces your opponent to make decisions and thus gives them more chances to make mistakes. If all your ships are in one place, your opponent's choices are obvious (turn towards all of your ships). When they have to decide which of three ships to turn toward, they might make the wrong choice and give you a significant advantage.

There's an added benefit of flanking for all ships, even ships that aren't aces. When ships are flying head-on at each other, they usually have to K-Turn to keep their guns on target. Flanking ships can keep guns on target without turning around. This means flanking is especially beneficial for ships that are often stressed and can't K-Turn (e.g. Soontir Fel, Braylen Stramm) or ships that don't have a K-Turn (e.g. the Upsilon Shuttle).

As such, flanking is also important if your list has both a jousting block and a flanker or arc-dodger, or if you only have ships with average or below-average maneuverability but you'd lose a straight joust.

Counterplay

For the other side of the matchup, there are a few ways to play against a flanking list. First, you can try to jump on one ship before the others can capitalize. In the best case scenario, you can kill or cripple one ship for free. If you play it especially well, you may have time to regroup before your opponent can punish even if you don't catch or cripple the target.

Second, you can try to herd your opponent's ships together. You can threaten to jump on a ship and force it to turn into its allies. Once your opponents ships are in the same place, you'll have an easier time catching them.

Sometimes, you can split your firing arcs. This threatens your opponent with at least some damage and may make them play more cautiously with spending tokens on offense. Don't do this if the enemy ships have strong defenses that require focus fire to overcome. This can also leave your ships uncoordinated and in a position to be picked off by the aces.

Finally, you can make sure you catch at least one ship in your arcs, even if you have to give up the flank to the other enemy ships. As long as your ships are shooting, you may still win the damage race. If possible, leave yourself with an option to threaten the flankers with your maneuver the next turn.

There's currently one more strategy against flankers that's potentially problematic for the game: "mobile fortressing". This strategy involves only flying your ships along the board edges, either waiting for your opponent to approach or for a favorable final salvo. It removes one of the flank approaches using the board edge while threatening the other approaches with hard turns and K-Turns. It's often the best strategy if you have a less-maneuverable list. Unfortunately, this strategy could be degenerate since it's pretty easy to execute and has limited options for counterplay. I believe the rules should heavily discourage mobile fortressing for this reason, and judges at various events may already be using their discretion to penalize mobile fortressing.

Playing against the Ensnare Nantex

(Aug 31, 2020 edit: With the non-Ensnare Nantexes seeing strong play right now, I have clarified in the title that this article only addresses the Ensnare Nantex, which is an entirely different ship. You may still find this article somewhat helpful.)

As Wave 5 was released, I predicted Sun Fac would cost enough that he'd be mediocre, although I was concerned about the pricing of the cheaper Nantexes. Well, I was wrong about Sun Fac and right about the other Nantexes. They're all extremely strong. In my experience, Nantexes can lose when I blunder them, but they've completely dismantled some strong lists in games that weren't even close. At this point, I fully expect the Nantex to do well at Worlds, and I'd rank it as a favorite to win.

When a new strong card or list comes on the scene, you have a few options:

1. Whine about it.
2. Change your list to give you a better chance against it.
3. Play the list yourself.
4. Learn to play against it.

Whining can feel good (anger is addictive), but it's probably counterproductive to actually winning. Playing a counter is harder than it sounds. You'll face a variety of lists in a tournament. It won't do you any good to win the 1-2 games against the Nantex and lose every other game. Plus, with how few hard counters there are in X-Wing, you'll still have to fly well to beat the Nantex and there's a real chance you'll lose even a "favorable" matchup. I highly recommend playing a list you enjoy that gives you the best chance of winning, but playing the new strong list may not be the best option for everyone.

So that leaves figuring out how to play against the Nantex. It's important to realize the Nantex is not a gimmick ship. It's very strong and understanding how to play against it won't auto-win you the game, but it gives you a reasonable fighting chance that'll come down to the mind-games and dice.

1. Try out the Nantex

If you don't know what the Nantex can do or what to do against the Nantex, you're probably going to lose horribly. You need some reps with or against the Nantex. Playing the ship is a good way to figure out its weaknesses even if you don't plan on flying it yourself.

If you don't have CIS, you can proxy it with a similar dial. The TIE Advanced Prototype v1 dial is pretty close to the Nantex dial. Swap the 2 Tallon Rolls for 3 Sloops, the 4K for a 5K, and keep a reference of the real blue maneuvers handy. The E-Wing dial is also pretty close if you don't do the 1 straight and swap the 4K for a 5K. You can also play it on VASSAL.

2. Consider your obstacles

The obstacle choice against Nantex isn't obvious. They are maneuverable aces with repositioning that goes over obstacles and a turret that can be rotated for "free". It's tempting to see their tractor beam and take small rocks or gas clouds, but then there are no obstacles to restrict the Nantex's arc-dodging options. More importantly, gas clouds are great for Nantex because they have 3 agility and your shots against them need to count.

The best option against the Nantex is debris clouds. They can sit on them and shoot, but going over them prevents them from tractoring themselves on that turn. At this time, it's not clear whether a Nantex that tractor beams itself on a debris cloud rotates its turret or not. The stress will also limit their maneuvers next turn.

Otherwise, you can go with asteroids if you feel very confident about playing with them. You may not want to go with the largest rocks, but medium rocks may be an option that compromises between restricting the Nantex and restricting your own options.

3. Know their threat range

The 5-straight boost moves the Nantex half a base past Range 3. That means if you have a small ship that can go 1 straight around Range 5 of the Nantex, they can get a tractor beam if they rush in.

If the Nantex isn't facing your ship, its threat range is roughly Range 4 with a bank and about Range 3.5 with a turn.

This is a long threat range, but just because they have the option doesn't mean it's a good idea for them to go in. Know this is an option and you can guard against it.

4. Prepare to sacrifice a ship

In a neutral opening engagement, chances are good the Nantex squad will kill a ship. Once a ship gets tractored that first round, it'll probably take heavy focus fire and die. It's hard to stop this given the threat range of the Nantex.

If you can't get the perfect R2-R3 engage, accept a ship will get tractored and killed and make the best of it. Throw your least-important ship out to occupy space and protect your better ships from the Range 1 Ensnare. Put your other ships in position to take good shots at any Nantex that gets in range to tractor that sacrifice. If needed, block with the sacrifice ship to deny a token.

As an added benefit, throwing a ship farther forward can also give you a free shot if the Nantex decide to hang back for a turn. It might not get through their 3-agility and evade, but a lucky crit can really swing the game.

5. Hunt the Nantex with higher-initiative ships or with lots of ships

Making decisions with the Nantex when they move last is easy. When the Nantex has to move first, things get much harder. They can wreck ships they block, but it's more feasible for a higher-I ship to avoid their turret arc and the Ensnare. This also means a low-ship endgame is much more manageable if you have the higher-initiative ship.

As such, sending a solo ace to tango with lower-initiative Nantex is an option. Of course, beating Sun Fac this way is less feasible. Nantex lists can easily run a 9-point bid, or a 13-point bid if pressed. If you can't beat them in initiative, you'll have to beat them in numbers.

6. Keep multiple shots on target

The approach is where the Nantex is at its weakest. Their repositioning options are deadly up close, but it won't save them at an intermediate range. Their attacks are much weaker without Ensnare. The best-case scenario is to catch them at range 2-3 with multiple ships.

If you can't do that, make sure you at least have all your arcs pointed at the target. The Nantex are annoyingly tanky. On average, they take 4x single-modded 3-dice attacks to kill. You can't afford to split your firing arcs. Remember, each Nantex can only tractor one ship away. Point enough guns on them and they will take attacks and damage.

The Nantex get much stronger in a knife-fight. It can be hard to avoid getting tractored. In these cases, try to keep multiple shots on target. One ship will get tractor beamed out of action, but your other ships have to be ready to punish.

7. Play around their dead-zones

Playing around the Nantex's rear dead zone is not reliable. A 1-hard with a turret arc pointed to their side covers a lot of area that was previously behind them. However, when they have their turret arc pointed in a direction, they can't take a tractor token without turning their turret arc. Keep in mind the Nantex doesn't have to turn its turret arc, but the way their arc is currently pointed does make the them more predictable.

Another thing to keep in mind is this also applies for their engagement. The Nantex does not want their arc pointed in the direction they'll engage the turn before the engagement. This gives you the option to possibly surprise them and catch them with their turret the wrong way.

8. Blocking can be a good option

The Nantex doesn't need to fully complete their maneuver to take a tractor token and turn their arc. However, they do have 3 agility and benefit greatly from focus tokens. Blocking the Nantex denies them the tokens and makes them much easier to kill. Just remember to have another ship or two ready to shoot them.

Again, doing these things aren't a magic bullet to winning, but can make the Nantex matchup more reasonable. The Nantex is very strong and many lists probably have a bad matchup against them. With some practice and good flying, you might be able to survive a difficult Nantex matchup to advance, as long as you win your other matchups.

Playing a Counter

If you decide Nantex are concerning enough to play a counter, there are some lists that should have reasonable or good matchups against them. With the new rules change, medium-base ships require two tractor tokens to be tractored and large-base ships need 3 tokens. Unless they have that many tokens, none of the Nantex abilities work against them. That includes Gravitic Deflection and the Chertek and Sun Fac pilot abilities.

That said, you can't just throw out any medium- or large-base ships and expect them to work. For one thing, some lists bring multiple Nantex so they will still tractor your ships. For another, you have to win your other matchups or else you'll never even get a chance to match up against the winning Nantex players and ruin their day. You need to bring good ships, and not all medium- and large-base ships are good.

There are some strong lists that have medium- and large-base ships. Below are some lists I found on Listfortress that have had some good results:

• Quad U-Wings
• Double Decimators
• Republic ARCs (e.g. Sinker Swarm, Obi 3 ARCs, Obi Ric 2 ARCs)
• Kylo Tavson X
• Deci-Whisper
• Rey Poe (optionally with Talli or Finn?)
• 4-Ship Scum (Seevor, generic Kimogila, Sol Sixxa, 4-LOM)
• Boba X
• Ketsu OT X

Other big-base ships you can consider include:

• Rebel Han Solo
• Resistance Chewbacca (with Pods)
• TIE Reapers and TIE Punishers
• Asajj (but you probably want at least 2 more ships)

I haven't tested this, but swarms with 6+ ships may also have reasonable matchups against the Nantex. A formation can limit the options to pull a ship out of position and swarms should have enough guns to reliably kill any Nantex that lands in front of them. Options include:

• Sear Swarm
• Vulture Swarm
• Sinker Swarm
• TIE Swarms may not have enough guns, but it could work

Aces have a rough time getting tractored, but some ace lists can get a large enough bid (10+ or 14+) to move after Sun Fac. These lists may have a reasonable chance at dodging the turret arc and blowing up Sun Fac early. Options include:

• Guri Fenn
• SuperKylo Quickdraw
• Light Imperial Aces

Addendum: Possible Nerfhammer Targets

I don't think the Nantex will survive the next iteration of adjustments in its current state. As with anything, a sufficiently-large points adjustment will take the Nantex out of contention.

Annoyingly, the Nantex is much more effective against small-base ships than medium- and large-base ships. As I discussed earlier, these effects are very difficult to balance. The best thing would be to flatten the effectiveness of tractor against small-base ships and larger ships. This can be done by making tractor beam weaker in general. One local player suggested forcing a player to spend the tractor tokens to move a ship. An idea I had is to weaken the barrel roll option on small ships by only allow the middle option (no forward or backward barrel rolls) and the 1-straight template is placed vertically like a medium- or large-base barrel roll.

In any case, there probably won't be any more adjustments until Worlds is over. Good luck, and please beat some Nantex lists so they don't dominate the tournament! :)

Beginner's Guide to Your First 100-Point List

Building your first 100-point list as a newbie can be pretty intimidating. I've got some guidelines for building lists, but they might be too abstract for your first game. I've also made some tournament-worthy budget lists, but they can be too complicated for your first game. I haven't been able to find a simple list-building resource for complete beginners with limited collections.

This article hopefully fills that gap by giving you some simple guidelines for your first 100-point list. Basically, pick a combination of ships so you have enough offense, add some upgrade cards that won't make your list worse, and you'll be good to go for some casual games! These guidelines are intended to make it harder to completely mess up your first 100-point list. These aren't ironclad rules, and there are tournament-level lists that break some of these guidelines.

Here's a rough priority list for how to spend your points.

1. Spend on ships so your squad fits one of the recommended categories. Upgrades which improve your ships' offense should also be prioritized first (e.g. turret upgrades).
2. Spend points to upgrade to pilots with strong abilities.
3. Spend points on upgrades which provide extra offensive or defensive actions.
4. Spend points on extra ships.
5. Spend points on pilot skill upgrades for pilots which already have PS 7 or higher.
6. Spend points on other upgrades which can't hurt you (e.g. the survivability upgrades) or to increase your generic pilots' pilot skill.

I'll explain these in more detail below, but first, let's look at some examples. These examples use both Core Sets plus one expansion (in parenthesis). As you read further, pick one of these lists and see if you can explain how it fits my suggestions.

Beginner Rebels 1: Poe Biggs Miranda (K-Wing)
Beginner Rebels 2: Poe Biggs B A (Rebel Aces)
Beginner Rebels 3: T-70 Biggs Chewie (Millennium Falcon)

Beginner Imperials 1: TIE Aces Swarm (TIE/fo Fighter; use a TIE/fo from the Core Set for Omega Leader)
Beginner Imperials 2: Ryad Tomax Miniswarm (Imperial Veterans)
Beginner Imperials 3: Oicunn Miniswarm (VT-49 Decimator)

Ships

Start by picking your ships. There are good and bad ships with the same attack value, but for now, focus on bringing enough offense. Even fragile ships can be salvaged by a couple rounds of good flying, while it's extremely difficult to outfly your opponent over the course of many rounds to make up for a lack of offense.

Pick a squad of ships which fit one of these categories:

1. Three ships with 3 attack dice.
2. Two ships with 4 attack dice.
3. Six ships with 2 attack dice.
4. One ship with 3 attack dice and four ships with 2 attack dice.
5. Two ships with 3 attack dice and three ships with 2 attack dice.
6. One ship with 4 attack dice and three ships with 2 attack dice.

Note these are minimum numbers; you can always bring more ships. When you're new and have limited upgrades, bringing extra ships is often the better use of points.

If you really want to play with a certain ship and can't fit it in otherwise, it's acceptable to be 1 attack dice below the guidelines (e.g. two ships with 3 attack dice and one ship with 2 attack dice). Your offense will be weaker if you do this, so try to compensate by making your attacks more consistent through upgrades or abilities which give you extra actions (see below).

Some upgrades and abilities can affect the ship's effective attack value:

• If a ship equips an upgrade that increases its attack by 1, it counts as having that higher attack dice value. For example, an ARC-170 which equips the Alliance Overhaul title counts as having 3 attack dice.
• A ship with Gunner (or other effects which allow for two attacks in 1 round) counts as two ships with that ship's attack dice.
• A ship with Twin Laser Turret counts as one ship with 3 attack dice.
• A ship with an effect which reliably and repeatedly adds an extra die or hit (e.g. Zeta Leader, The Inquisitor, Norra Wexley) counts as having attack dice 1 higher than the printed value.
• A ship with an effect which reliably and repeatedly negates an evade result (e.g. Omega Leader with Juke + Comm Relay, Tomax Bren with Crack Shot) counts as having attack dice 1 higher than the printed value.

Feel free to experiment with the pilots within your point budget. A good rule of thumb is you should only pay for more expensive pilots if it comes with a strong ability or Elite Pilot Talent upgrade slot you need. In general, the best abilities improve your ship's attack value, give you extra focus/evade/target lock actions, let you reroll dice or convert focus/blank results to hit/evade results, or deny actions from your opponent. Movement abilities can be fun, but those are more situational and are strongest on pilots with high pilot skill.

Upgrades

Once you get your ships, you can fill out leftover points with upgrades. You don't have to fill up all of your available upgrade slots, and most lists won't fill up every upgrade slot. Don't forget you can always spend leftover points on more ships!

As a beginner, your main goal here is to avoid upgrades which make your list worse. You should avoid upgrades which cost an action or replace your attack. That's not to say these upgrades are always bad, and I'll list some exceptions when I go into more detail below. However, many of these are worse than your default actions or primary attack. As a beginner, you may not be able to evaluate when they're better than your default action or attack, so I suggest you avoid them for now. The worst-case scenario is that you've spent points to make your list less effective.

Thankfully, most other upgrades won't hurt you. Even if they're not amazing, they can be fun to try out and will only help you if you have left-over points to spend. Upgrades like Wired, Weapons Guidance, and Cool Hand may be situational and/or weak, but they will never hurt your list as long as you don't go out of your way to activate them. Treat them as a small bonus when you need to take the triggering maneuver or action anyway, and they'll only help you. Even upgrades which are overpriced such as Hull Upgrade and Shield Upgrade are OK for your first lists since they will only help you.

Here's some specific types of upgrades I'd recommend to fill up your extra points, along with some upgrades I'd suggest avoiding.

Turrets

If a ship has a turret slot and only 1 or 2 attack, you'll almost always want to equip a turret on it. The best turret by far is Twin Laser Turret. Dorsal Turret and Ion Cannon Turret are also OK.

Ships with stronger primary attacks like the Attack Shuttle or VCX-100 don't need to equip a turret, but a cheap turret like Autoblaster Turret or Dorsal Turret makes them more flexible at a low cost.

Extra actions

The first are upgrades that reliably give you extra actions for 2-4 points, specifically ones that let you get Focus + Target Lock (or other ways to reroll dice) or Focus + Evade (or other ways of negating 1 damage) every turn. These are usually amazing upgrades, and competitive lists often feature several of these. Here are some examples:

1. Autothrusters
2. Push the Limit (on ships with at least 5 green maneuvers, ideally with hard green turns)
3. Fire-Control System
4. Expertise
5. Predator
6. R2-D2 for Rebels
7. M9-G8 for Rebels
8. Rey (crew) for Rebels
9. Attanni Mindlink for Scum
10. Dengar (crew) for Scum
11. K4 Security Droid for Scum

Extra repositioning actions or upgrades that double-up on an action (Recon Specialist) aren't as good as ones like above, but they can be useful if you have extra points to spend.

Extra pilot skill on pilots with 7+ pilot skill

Veteran Instincts is a reasonable-to-great options on ships with 7+ pilot skill. That puts them above most ships in the game, which makes them more reliable at arc-dodging, catching other arc-dodgers, and shooting first. Adaptability is also a good option. Since it's free, it's even reasonable on pilots with lower pilot skill.

Extra survivability is a decent last resort for evasive ships

These usually aren't that great. For example, the Push the Limit upgrade on the right ship gives you an extra Evade every turn it's used for 3 points. The Hull Upgrade modification only gives you one "Evade" for the whole game for 3 points. Still, these upgrades will only help your list if you have leftover points to spend. Examples include (in rough order of desirability in general; the first 3 are better than the rest):

• Lightweight Frame for Imperials
• Chewbacca (crew) for Rebels
• Ysanne Isard for Imperials (only on big ships with lots of health)
• Hull Upgrade
• Shield Upgrade
• Stealth Device
• Cool Hand (only if you don't have any other use for your Elite Pilot Talent)

Put them on your most evasive and most valuable ships first. A Hull Upgrade on a very evasive ship might let the ship survive an extra two attacks, but it may only cancel out half an attack on a 1-agility ship. Similarly, Stealth Device might last 3+ defense rolls on a ship with 3 agility and Focus or Evade for defense, but will usually break on the first defense roll for a ship with 1 agility.

Avoid secondary weapons besides turrets (Missiles, Torpedoes, Bombs, and Cannons)

For the most part, these require a combination of upgrades and/or pilots to be better than primary attacks or actions. I'd avoid most of these when you're just starting out. Some can actually make your ships worse if you try to use them. There are a few exceptions:

• Proton Rockets on 2-attack, 3-agility ships that can reliably get Target Lock and Focus.
• Cannons on ships with a special Cannon synergy (e.g. IG-88B, Outrider title, TIE/D title). For these ships, cannon upgrades are the highest-priority upgrades and you should spend points here first. You'll want the Heavy Laser Cannon or Mangler Cannon for IG-88B and the Outrider, and Ion Cannon or Tractor Beam for the TIE/D.
• Feedback Array on 2-attack ships (not a secondary weapon, but it replaces your attack)

If you really want to take ordnance, you need the Extra Munitions upgrade. You'll also want the Guidance Chips modification or Long-Range Scanners modification for missiles and torpedoes, and Sabine Wren (crew) or bomb-improving pilot abilities for bombs. The best ordnance options are Homing Missiles, Plasma Torpedoes, Cluster Mines, Conner Net, Ion Bombs, and Seismic Charges.

Avoid upgrades which cost your action

The Focus action is extremely strong. Most upgrades which cost your action aren't better than Focus, much less also make up for their point cost. There are some exceptions:

• Engine Upgrade on big ships is good, especially if they have a turret and/or high pilot skill.
• Vectored Thrusters is OK on ships with high pilot skill and multiple actions.
• Black Market Slicer Tools is pretty good. It's cheap and can be better than Focus.
• Spacetug Tractor Array is amazing.

Think about whether the ship can use the upgrade

When you put an upgrade on a ship, make sure you think about under what circumstances you'll use it! For some reason, I keep seeing the Wired upgrade on the original Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon. The only way to give Han stress to activate the Wired upgrade is to K-Turns. Since it has a turret, he probably won't need to K-Turn too often. Wired is a decent option on many ships, it just isn't a good idea for most turreted ships. Contrast that with Wired on Rey with the new Millennium Falcon title. Even though she has a turret, she has a powerful ability which requires getting opponents in her firing arc. She'll often be using K-Turns and the title ability and picking up stress (before you get Kanan Jarrus crew). She can get a lot of use out of the Wired upgrade.

These aren't awful uses of points since they generally won't hurt you, but there are probably better options. Even a mediocre survivability upgrade might be a better use of points than an upgrade you'll almost never use.

---

These guidelines will get you started with a decent list for your first few games. As you get more familiar with the game, you'll probably notice most of the strong tournament lists follow these guidelines, along with some other guidelines like these:

• Expensive ships should be hard to kill through tankiness and/or maneuverability, unless they bring extremely high firepower with moderate survivability. "Expensive" starts around 35 points.
• Ships with 3+ attack and 2+ agility usually need action economy to modify both their attack roll and their defense roll.
• Action economy is pretty strong in general, along with ways of denying actions (e.g. stress).
• Ships with a true 2 attack need to be cheap (as close to 12 points as possible) or have fantastic utility. If you're relying on them for your offense, they need Crack Shot or maybe Juke.

But you don't need to worry about these in casual games, and especially not for your first few 100-point games.

Now go build a list and play some games! Good luck!

Beginner's Guide to Deploying Tight Formations

If you're flying low-pilot skill ships with limited maneuverability or a swarm of cheap ships, you'll usually want to deploy your ships in a tight formation. Flying ships in a tight formation isn't too hard and is often easier than flying them individually, but it does require knowing a few tricks to avoid bumping into yourself.

There are many resources on deployment, maneuvering, and flying in formation, including these:

• Earning Your Wings
• The Metal Bikini's Maneuvering as a Formation 1 2 3
• Stay on the Leader's Flight School 101 1 2
• Paul Heaver's Turn Zero 1 2

They're great resources, but I want to give you some easy-to-remember deployments to get you flying in formation quickly. I'll also discuss some general deployment principles below.

If you just want one formation to get you started, Formation 1 is what I use most often.

Formations

Measurement

I'll use distances based on the straight templates. Distance 1 means the length of the 1-straight maneuver template, distance 2 means the length of the 2-straight maneuver template, and so on. Distance 1/2 is the width of any straight maneuver template. Small ship bases are 1 by 1 and large ship bases are 2 by 2 (not counting nubs).

If I refer to ship bases, it's distance 1 for small ships and distance 2 for large ships.



Formation 1: deploy your ships in a grid half of the ship-base apart.

If you only want to remember one formation, this is it. This lets you perform the same maneuver on all of your ships without bumping.



This works for both small- and large-base ships. For small ships, you need to deploy them distance 1/2 away from each other. Use the width of the straight maneuver templates to space your ships out. For large ships, you need to deploy them distance 1 away from each other.

When playing with the physical miniatures instead of online, your ships will get nudged and the maneuver templates are slightly imprecise. Over time, it can take your ships out of formation and cause bumps. The large ships should be fine, but the small ships can be quite sensitive to this. You can't space out the small ships more vertically since the deployment zone is 2.5 small ship-bases in width, but you can slightly shift the alignment of the front or back row to give the corners more space on the banks.

You can use this principle with as few as two small ships. For three ships, some players like to deploy them in a line while others like to deploy one ship behind another. For four ships, some players like to form a block while others like to make a Tetris "T" or "L" shape. You can experiment with the different shapes as long as you space your small ships distance 1/2 apart.

If you have both small ships and large ships, deploying them distance 1 apart will let you perform the same maneuver without bumping. However, this usually isn't the best option since the small ships move slower than large ships when performing the same speed maneuver. You'll usually want to deploy the ships distance 1/2 apart and perform maneuvers 1-speed faster with the small ships (see Formation 3).


Formation 2: With small ships, align the outside of the nub on one ship with the opposite edge on the front/back ship.

This formation also lets you perform the same maneuver on all of your ships without bumping.

Be generous when lining up the outside of the nub with the edge. If you line up the edge against the nub, your back ships can run into your front ships when doing a straight maneuver after a bank maneuver. You may want to add a bit more space between ships and between the nub and ship edge when playing with the physical miniatures to account for any nudges or imprecise maneuvers.

This formation is useful when you want a vertically-compact formation for small ships at the cost of being more spread-out horizontally. If you deploy in the corner, the sixth ship will run into asteroids placed at range 2 from the board edge.

The pinwheel formation is a slightly tighter variation of this. Line up the back ship's nub against the opposite nub of the front ship:

Formation 3: In mixed small/large ship squads, deploy your ships distance 1/2 apart. Your small ships must be against the front or back edge of the deployment zone.

Your small ships must perform maneuvers 1 speed faster than your large ships to avoid bumping.



Again, you may want to slightly offset the small ships to give yourself more tolerance for nudges and imprecise maneuvers when playing with physical miniatures.

Since large ships move faster, you generally perform maneuvers 1 speed faster with small ships to keep up. This formation lets you do just that while keeping your ships in formation and is tighter than spacing your ships distance 1 apart.

If you want to perform the same speed maneuver with your small and large ships, they need to be deployed distance 1 apart.


Formation 4: Deploy one large ship on front edge of deployment zone facing forward. Deploy another ship on back edge of deployment zone distance 1 away facing the first ship.

If both are big ships, your first maneuver will be a 3-straight with the forward ship and a 2-hard turn with the back ship. This formation lets you fly one ship behind the other and do the same maneuver on both ships without bumping.

   

You can use Formation 1 and deploy two large ships distance 1 apart facing the same direction, but that takes up a lot of room horizontally. You might have trouble navigating past asteroids between your ships, and the inside ship may have to turn toward the board edge to engage enemy ships. This formation saves space horizontally and puts both of your ships near the board edge. The back ship will almost always be 1 range farther, which can be good or bad depending on your list and the target.


If the back ship is a small ship, your first maneuver will be a 2-straight with the big ship and a 3-turn with the small ship.

   

It tucks the small ship behind the big ship and is often used if you have Tactical Jammers on the big ship. If you want to keep this formation, have the small ship perform maneuvers 1-speed faster than the big ship.

As a variation, you can deploy the forward-facing ship touching the side-facing ship instead of distance 1 apart. If you do this with the side-facing ship facing the board edge, make sure your side-facing ship is at least distance 3 away from the board edge so its turn will fit.



General Deployment Principles

Why not deploy ships right next to each other?

Imagine deploying your ships side by side. They each take up 1 ship base in width. After a bank, they've turned 45 degrees. As we learned in high school, the diagonal is ~1.4x the ship's width so your ships won't fit. (You also won't be able to do hard turns because there won't be room for the nubs.)

There may be cases where you'd want to deploy ships right next to each other, but it'll be harder to fly them close together without bumping.


Why deploy your ships in a tight formation?

Focusing your fire on one enemy ship is very important in this game. It reduces the damage you take by killing enemy ships faster, and it's often the only reliable way to push damage through on tokened-up evasive ships. If you spread your ships out, there's a risk your opponent will rush down an isolated ship before your other ships can help it. It's also easier to fly your ships in formation as one "super-large" ship rather than fly your ships independently.

That said, there are reasons why you'd spread your ships out. For example, suppose you have a high-pilot skill ace with your group of jousting ships. If your ace deploys last and your jousters are deployed opposite to your opponent, you can deploy your ace in a flanking position to make it harder for your opponent to focus it down. This is especially true if your ace relies on avoiding enemy firing arcs; these ships don't want to be too close to your other ships. You may also have to spread your ships out if your game plan relies on killing one specific enemy ship first.

Keep in mind these formations are for deployment and pre-engagement moves. You may want to split ships off to block in the initial engagement, and your formation will inevitably break apart after the first turn or two of engagement.


Why deploy in the corner?

You usually want to deploy in the corner for two reasons. First, it limits the directions your opponent can attack you from. You'll be able to cover most flanking options by either banking or hard turning. Second, it limits your opponent's options after the initial engagement. Suppose you deployed in the corner while your opponent deployed in the center. After your opponent's ships turn to face yours, they'll be facing the board edge and many not be able to safely K-Turn.

There are cases where you'd want to deploy near the middle of the board. The flanking ships mentioned above will usually go near the middle of the board. In general, deploying highly-maneuverable aces gives them more room to play with, although you'll still often see them deployed in a corner.

You'll usually want to deploy in the middle if you have to deploy first and your opponent's squad is better at jousting than yours. Deploying in a corner means your opponent can deploy across from you and force a joust away from obstacles, while deploying in the middle brings the obstacles into play. (If you deploy after them, you have the option to deploy in the far corner.)

Lastly, deploying near the middle makes sense if you're playing against a list where you have to kill one ship first, especially if you have to deploy first. Deploying in the middle usually makes it easier to hunt that ship down, while deploying in a corner lets your target hide in or run to the opposite corner.

Deploy your low-pilot skill ships in front and toward the side you'll be turning.

If you put the low-pilot skill ships behind your high-pilot skill ships, you won't be able to do 1-speed maneuvers without bumping your own ships. There are some good reasons to put low-pilot skill ships behind high-pilot skill ships, usually to hide important ships or for the option to bump your own ship to block certain maneuvers. For convenience, you'll normally put your low-pilot skill ships in front and on the side you'll be turning towards.


Closing

These formations and principles are useful to know for your first games flying in a tight formation, and you'll probably use some variation of these in many of your future games. The best deployment will change based on what squad you and your opponent is running and on the obstacle placement. Don't be afraid to experiment with other formations and deployments! It's said that obstacle placement, deployment, and initial maneuvers can be as much as 33% of the skill in X-Wing, so this is a good thing to think about and practice.

The good news is deployment and initial maneuvers are relatively easy to practice. Set up some rocks in common places (e.g. range 2 x range 2, range 3 x range 3, or in the middle of the board) and see what maneuvers you can do while avoiding them. Pretend you're facing a common list and see if you can handle several different deployments (e.g. across from you, in opposite corner) and initial maneuvers (e.g. turn away, go straight, turn towards you, going fast, going slow).

I use VASSAL (X-Wing module here) to practice deployment and initial maneuvers; you can find a tutorial here or on YouTube. You can also use X-Wing Squadron Benchmark. For initial maneuvers, you should understand the Rule of 11 (here called the Rule of 10:16)

Good luck and good flying! Please let me know if you have any other simple and useful formations.