Article 12: Dispersed Jousting

It's been quite a while since the last blog post.  The summer has been busy, and I've re-written and remade figures for this article a few times.  So if you're reading this, you must have come back, so thanks for sticking with me.

Introduction:

There's a mindset I keep running into that if you're not dodging arcs, you're jousting, and if you're jousting, your ships are in close formation, i.e., moving in the same direction, about a range band apart from each other.  This is a binary way of approaching the game, and leaves out a huge middle ground of potential formations that allow for flexible engagement against a wide range of opposing squads.  I'm not aware of any term in X-wing nomenclature that codifies what I'm about to write about, so I'm going to call it Dispersed formation for the duration of this article.  

Very basically, this tactic is spreading your ships out and converging on a target.  The exact geometry of this squad formation is pretty flexible, the key factors are forcing a decision and having good timing.  You need ships spread out enough that the opposing squad is forced to make a decision to go after one part of your list, and your ships must be close enough on the engagement turn that they can combine fire against the opposing squad.  

It bears remember that "Close" and "Dispersed" are arbitrary terms that are describing two points on a spectrum of formations.  Understanding the differences should help think about which end of the spectrum is more useful in a given situation.

Before we get into the meat of things, as an aside, whenever I hear someone say "X list is bad because it's a jousting squad, but it jousts worse than Y (Y=to whatever the best jousting list at the time is)", I think about this, and how it's one of the ways to turn speed and maneuverability into an efficiency advantage.  

Strengths and Weaknesses, Close Formation:

Both Close and Dispersed formations have strengths.  The close formation maximizes overlap of firing arcs, particularly at the Range 1 and Range 2 bands, which makes it hit very hard in those zones (Figure 1). It also blocks extremely well by having many bases in close proximity.  Furthermore, the close box formation has no major timing issues.  All the ships move near each other, so you'll more rarely have one ship in combat with others out of combat, not contributing.  Likewise, you'll never have a ship out of position, as the ships are close, they'll always be within range to support each other (assuming you have their arcs pointed the right way).  Finally, a box formation can make use of Range 1 benefit effects, such as Biggs, Iden, Howlrunner, Selfless, etc.  The downsides of the close formation are that its movement is easily disrupted by obstacles and because it often fights as a single "super-arc", tactics that avoid shots from one ship can avoid shots from the whole squad.  For example, a ship that dodges one arc can often dodge several, and an obstacle that provides a defensive bonus against one arc can provide a bonus against several arcs in close formation.  

Figure 1:  Rough combined firing arc of ships in a Close jousting formation.

Strengths and Weaknesses, Dispersed Formation:

Likewise a dispersed formation has important advantages and disadvantages.  Because your ships are spread out, they are vulnerable to ships that are more maneuverable and can attack the edge of a formation and isolate one ship without support of the others.  Additionally, timing an attack is more difficult.  Your aim is for all the ships to make contact with the opposing squad on the same turn.  Because ships are spread out, there is more possibility of one or more ships being out of range, or in range but unable to fire on the same target as another friendly ship.

The movement flexibility of Dispersed formation offers a number of advantages:
1.)  A Dispersed formation can maneuver easily through obstacles because it is moved as individual ships. 
2.)  It can concentrate fire in a very large area (although this overlap typically has a lot of Range 3 band involved) (Figure 2).  
3.)  The individual ships have room to maneuver, allowing them to reposition more flexibly than in a Close formation.
4.)  Only one ship can be blocked at a time per enemy ship.

Figure 2:  Rough combined firing arc of ships in Dispersed jousting formation.

Perhaps most important, however, is 5.): Because the ships are spread out, the opposing squad generally is forced to commit to one ship in the squad. This has multiple effects.  The first is that if the opposing squad over-kills their target, leftover guns are not pointed at the rest of your ships.  In a Close formation, any remaining shots can start damaging the ship that's next to the destroyed ship.  Furthermore, because the ships in a Dispersed formation are both spread out and often at different angles, the ships at one end of a formation can often continue fighting next turn without performing red moves.  This allows them to keep high quality shots on target turn after turn when a Close formation may have to K-turn to continue fighting.  This efficiency over time can make up for an initial suboptimal joust match-up if the difference is not too great.  See the example below for further explanation.

Example:  Close Formation vs Dispersed Formation

To illustrate what I've been discussing, let's look at a simplified example, 4 Dispersed X-wings vs 4 Close B-wings.  Before we begin, I want to add a caveat that this is a decidedly simplified example.  Both squads are basic ships, there are no asteroids, and the minds planning the moves for these ships are rather uninspired.  I think, however, that it will be a useful illustrate how these formations interact on the board.  

The setup:  In the opening turns, the X-wings have used their relatively fast dials and boost action to spread out in a rough semicircle around the B-wing's formation (Figure 3).  

Figure 3:  One turn before initial engagement.

The initial engagement:  The B-wings move slowly to maximize arc coverage.  The X-wings take fast moves to seek locations on the map that avoid all 4 shots (3 shots at a mix of range 2-3 are very unlikely to take an X-wing down in one turn) (Figure 4).  Because of their chosen moves, the X-wings can't fully concentrate fire on the B-wings either.  Both have slightly suboptimal engagements and are unlikely (<10%) to lose a ship.  However, both sides are likely to have one ship that's really beat up at the end of the turn.  

Figure 4:  The initial engagement turn.

The turn after the initial engagement:  The B-wings move to block and finish off the wounded X-wing.  All the X-wings continue to converge and can attempt to finish off the wounded B-wing (Figure 5).  This is where the real advantages of Dispersed formation start coming into play.  Because the X-wings are coming in from so many angles, the B-wings can't fire on another X-wing once they finish off their heavily damaged target.  The X-wings will get to fire on any of the B-wings after their initial target is destroyed.  Furthermore, the next turn becomes very difficult for the B-wings.  To stay engaged, they'll need to K-turn or T-roll, and the X-wings won't.  Not only have the B-wings wasted shots this turn, they'll be getting unmodified shots next turn, further swinging the advantage in favor of the X-wings.  

Figure 5:  The turn after the initial engagement.

When to Disperse, and when to stay Close:

In general Close formation is useful when you expect to win a head-to-head joust.  It increases odds that all your arcs will be on the same target and that they all engage at the same time.  It's also very useful with lower initiative ships.  A block in Close formation occupies a lot of space, and can use its leading ships to block opposing ships into the arcs of its trailing ships.  If you are engaging ships that are notably more maneuverable than yours, Close formation also prevents your ships from being caught unsupported, although you may need to modify your formation to spread out arcs.  Obviously, if your squad relies on range 1 support effects, Close formation is also essential.  

Dispersed Formation is useful when the advantage in a joust is narrow or not in your favor.  It can also be a very useful tactic if most of your ships are moving second, as it gives your own ships more room to reposition to dodge arcs, and an effective block by the opponent only blocks one of your ships instead of disrupting your whole formation.

What kinds of ships can use Dispersed formation?

Generally, choosing Close or Dispersed formation is more dependent on matchup than on which ship you have in a squad, but there are some important things to keep in mind:

1.)  Your ships need to be fast enough to collapse from a Dispersed formation to get all guns on target in a single turn.  This means faster ships can Disperse wider (and use more of the advantages provided by Dispersed formation).  So B-wings are pretty poorly suited to fighting dispersed because they're slow and can't converge well.  X-wings are okay with their faster dial and a boost they can use before the combat turns start, and TIE Interceptors are excellent because they can get a reposition and still have a Focus action on top of having a fast dial.  
2.)  You typically want some form of repositioning to take advantage of the extra room to maneuver.  
3.)  Yours ships should have a dial with enough flexibility to take advantage of the increased movement options from being dispersed.  

This isn't to say that all of your ships need to have all of these attributes, to use a Dispersed formation, but some probably should.  

Conclusion:

There's more to jousting than just raw efficiency and 1-straight to victory.  The use of different formations allows squads to overcome mathematical weaknesses by leveraging speed and maneuverability advantages.  Keep this in mind during squad building and while playing games, and you may find that ships have a lot more capability than suggested by just the statistics on the card.

Thanks for reading.