Article 2: How to Joust Less Badly

Jousting is the first technique any new player to X-wing learns.  It’s basically pointing your ships at the other player’s ships and moving forward.  If you have two new players in the game, frequently games are played entirely this way.  If you have two experienced players, there’s often a lot of maneuvering that happens before the joust, but a joust still happens.  Historically, ships with turrets were the only kinds of ships where jousts wouldn’t be the likely initial form of combat, but even then jousting wasn’t necessarily a bad idea (I’m looking at you, NyMiranda).  In 2.0, however, the reduction in the efficacy and flexibility of turrets means jousting is going to take even more prominence.  Players that want to maximize their odds of victory will still need to damage and destroy opposing ships.  On top of this, the Final Salvo rules mean that squads that are content to try and win without taking any victory points are almost always the squads that are most powerful in the joust anyway, so weaker jousting squads will have a stronger onus to engage, despite being more likely to suffer in the head-to-head joust. 

To think about this issue, I want to look at a few different scenarios, who they favor, and why.  The goal is to give a player something to think about when they’re setting up a joust or maneuvering before the initial joust.  What is their squad good at, and what sort of situations should they be pursuing to maximize their squad’s strengths.

1.)     Two squads line up and joust in open space:

An oft-quoted adage for X-wing is that if both players joust, at least one of them is wrong.  This is because there is typically only one squad for whom jousting is advantageous, and if jousting efficiencies are fairly even, they’re probably both making a mistake by leaving the results up to dice instead of skill.  It’s not quite as simple as it’s often made out to be, however.  An initial joust can favor one squad for the first turn, but the other squad on subsequent turns.  The best 1.0 example is Crack Swarm vs Triple x7 Defenders.  The Crack Swarm front loads the damage, and is much stronger on the initial joust, whereas the Defenders might be weaker on a head to head joust, but are very strong on subsequent turns because the white K-turn allows full efficiency after the turnaround.  If they jousted each other, it might look bad for the Defenders after the first turn’s dice are rolled, but they could find themselves in a very good position on subsequent turns.  (Note:  I understand the matchup would be much more nuanced than this, but it’s a simplified example). 

Generally, the stronger jousting squad IS going to be the one that benefits from the open field joust, especially because the stronger jousting list typically has more ships and appreciates the extra room to maneuver that the open field provides. 

How to get the most out of the open field joust:

1.)     Your initial damage cripples the opposing squad.  Example:  A Howlswarm takes a ship off the table.

2.)    You can absorb initial damage, but can make un-returned shots on the subsequent turns. Example:  A bunch of I3 X-wings block the K-turns of an I1 TIE swarm with their initial engagement position

3.)    You control range to maximize the range bands where your squad does damage, but minimize the opponent’s optimal range bands.  Example:  Ordnance alpha strike engaging at Range 3, or a non-Ordnance squad engaging Ordnance alpha at Range 1.

4.)    A smaller, less efficient squad is offset so that all of its firepower can be applied to part of a larger, more powerful squad, while the larger squad can only apply some of its firepower to the smaller squad.

Generally, if you can make one of those four situations happen (that list isn’t exhaustive), you can make the open field joust work for you. 

2.)    Two squads maneuver for a while and then joust in open space:

This happens a lot.  Two squads run by players that like to think they’re too savvy to just straight joust will run around for a while before jousting.  This is not time wasted if turns your open field joust from a disadvantageous position to one of the advantageous positions described in the previous section.  Obviously, it’s pretty bad if you make your position worse. 

The other major factor to consider is how a squad loses its power.  A Howlswarm loses a lot of power early (when Howlrunner dies).  Ordnance alpha strikes lose a lot of power early as their munitions are expended.  Durable, low ship count lists lose power late in the game because it takes so long to kill them.  Squads that lose power early like to spend a lot of time setting up the right maneuvers, because it means a higher percentage of the combat turns involve their spike offense.  Squads that stay strong in an extended engagement want to engage earlier (all other things being equal) because it gives them more time to grind out damage and leverage their endurance.  The kicker is that the long-term squads usually need to be more careful of the engagement to avoid the lion’s share of the spike damage of front loaded squads, so this can be tough.

3.)    Two squads line up and joust through obstacles.

4.)    Two squads maneuver for a while and then joust through obstacles.

These two situations are extensions of their respective open field jousts.  The same strong and weak positions in the open field hold for jousts involving obstacles with a few additions. 

1.)     Obstacles can take the position of ships for preventing effective turnaround moves.  If a significant portion of a squad has to K-turn over some rocks to remain engaged, then fly over those rocks on the subsequent turns, they probably won’t make that K-turn.

2.)    Obstacles can provide more or less cover depending on the ships involved.  A lower footprint squad has an easier time getting a defensive bonus on all their ships by having a single large obstacle between them and an opposing squad.  If the majority of its members can draw an open shot on a single unobstructed target, while much of the opposing squad has an obstructed shot, then the smaller footprint squad has a big advantage.  This dovetails into the offset joust position described for the open field joust.  An extra defensive die from an obstacle is also more significant the smaller the individual attack.  A bunch of 2-dice attacks are hurt much more by an obstruction than a few 4-dice torpedo strikes. 

3.)    Obstacles restrict maneuvers, especially repositioning maneuvers.  If find this heavily favors squads that have ships that move first, because attack lanes can be blocked, forcing later moving ships to turn away or risk getting multiple shots against them with no actions to mitigate those shots.  This maneuvering restriction also makes it more likely for ships to land in specific range bands in relation to the opposing ships.  This can be exploited or avoided depending on the relative strength of your ships. 

5.)    One squad flanks unsuccessfully. 

Oftentimes pre-engagement maneuvering doesn’t do enough.  One would like to engage from an advantageous position, but maneuvering the squad as a unit can’t always make that happen.  This situation occurs when one begins to look at splitting a squad into multiple elements to attempt a flanking position.  Unfortunately, splitting forces can let some bad things happen:

The flanked squad can engage one element (either flanking or main) before all of your elements can engage.  If your flanker takes too long, or if the opposing squad is maneuverable enough to turn in on your flanker before the main body of your squad can engage, you end up with 100% of the opposing squad taking shots but receiving shots from <100% of your squad.  The greater portion of the squad that a flanking element is worth, the bigger the risk of mis-timing the flanking maneuver is because if the flanking element gets jumped, you lose a greater portion of your squad, and if the main element is jumped, the firepower disparity is greater. 

6.)    One squad flanks successfully.

A flanking maneuver can be successful and deliver dividends for the rest of the game.  It can be successful in a different ways, however, and these different ways will be optimal for different squads.  Keep in mind what you’re going for if or when you attempt to flank.  That will determine how you decide to flank.

1.)     Preserve the flanking ship: 

If there is a small, but important flanking element, the opposing squad can be punished no matter what is done.  A fast, hard hitting ship that can escape if the opposing squad turns in against it is ideal.  It should be cheap enough to keep the main element of the squad strong enough to hold the opponent’s attention, but significant enough that ignoring it gives the flanking squad an advantage.  Three situations arise. 

The first is that the main element engages before the flanker.  This is okay if the main element is efficient enough or if the flanker is important enough.  If preserving the flanker for the end game is the highest priority, one should err on the side of this result.

The second is that the main element engages at the same time as the flanker.  This is good, because it preserves the flanker without diluting the squad’s firepower on the initial engagement turn.

The third is that the flanker engages first.  This is great because the flanking element is effectively getting free shots before the main engagement.  The downside is that this is the situation that most frequently leads to the opposing squad turning in and engaging your flanker with a huge disparity of forces.  This is where the ability of the flanker to GTFO is really important.  If it can’t punish the opposing squad for biting on a flanker (usually by bugging out to avoid shots), there is little to prevent that attempt.  If the opposing squad bites on the flanker, but then exposes its flank to your main element, that is often a very good situation, but might not be worth losing a flanker for, so caution is needed. 

2.)    Maximizing good moves for part the flanking squad:

If there are two roughly equal elements, with one flanking, and one manages to have them meet the opposing squad on the same turn, then half the squad can be set up with a significant positional advantage.  Half the squad will be in a joust, but the other half won’t be.  This lets them take more offensively oriented actions (Lock vs Focus, for example), more importantly, it means pursuit moves on subsequent turns aren’t red.  As two squads meet in a joust, they typically perform red turnaround moves after shooting at close range.  If half your squad can keep the opposing squad in arc by banking or turning instead of K-turning, you will have ships with actions which can exploit opposing ships without actions.  For large footprint squads like a swarm, it gives a larger area of operation, expanding the possible maneuvers and reducing the chances of unintentionally bumping.

3.)    Forcing the opposing squad to commit: 

If the opposing squad must fly in a tight formation to maintain maximum effectiveness, a split squad and good turn 0 setup can force an opposing squad to pick which of the elements to attempt to engage.  The presence of asteroids, for example, can prevent a squad turning in to engage a flanking element effectively, meaning a larger flanking element is possible.  This is the “best of both worlds”, combining the advantages of scenarios 1 and 2.  One advantage here is that if it doesn’t quite work out, it collapses to scenario 2, which might be okay anyway.  

                      

7.)    Both squads disperse and individual elements have multiple small engagements:

Okay, we’re really not jousting anymore.  Sometimes both squads decide to flank, and it ends up with multiple 1v1 or 1v2 battles.  Like jousting, this will almost always favor one squad, but it can favor squads in different ways.  Knowing what you’re trying to do and how your squad tries to win will help you decide which of these scenarios you want to pursue (or avoid). 

1.)     One squad is more reactive than the other:

This is the typical scenario when a squad has a higher Initiative repositioning squad dispersed against a lower Initiative efficiency squad.  Individually, each reactive ship has an advantage of only having one blocker to contend with or one arc to dodge.  Each ship is in a 1v1 fight where its maneuverability or token advantages count the most.  Once a ship achieves victory against its opponent, the game rapidly snowballs as the victor moves to support its allies.

2.)     One squad is faster than the other:

Another scenario is that ships are poor in 1v1 fights, but can move large distances each turn.  In this case they might spread out encourage an opponent to spread out, but then use their speed to converge faster than the opposing squad can.  The effectiveness of this strategy depends on how well the fast ships can manage a disadvantageous position before jumping to support their allies. 

3.)     Uneven match-ups occur:

Sometimes squads have a variety of ships.  Some efficiency, some reactive, some support.  In this case, the goal is to identify where advantages can be exploited or weaknesses mitigated.  If a 50 point ship can sufficiently occupy an 80 point ship without rapidly becoming damaged or destroyed, the advantage it buys the rest of the squad might be worth it.  Alternatively, 120 points of a squad might harass 150 points of a squad while the 80 point ship beats down a 50 point ship for some free damage.  It all depends on the individual ship matchups, players, and situation.

Hopefully this gives you some things to think about next time you really just want to line ships up and run them forward.  Let me know if this has been helpful, if something needs clarification or expansion, or if I’m just full of crap.  

Thanks for reading.