On BatReps

I don't love them.

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Okay, let me clarify. I don't love 5 minute summaries of tournament matches on podcast episodes, or two paragraph summaries of games with a random photo from the middle of the game showing that one time when everybody's ships bumped all at once.

Don't get me wrong, I think these are fun. I'm glad to see people sharing experiences they had playing this game. I enjoy hearing about bad beats or unexpected wins as much as the next guy. People can and should keep doing these!

But I won't be doing that here.

The traditional BatRep is fun (even the word is camel case, which practically guarantees fun), but it doesn't always offer a lot in terms of insight into the game. It's hard to glean much from a typical batrep beyond a general sense of how well (or poorly) the game went, how the dice rolls went, and in some cases, some stray observations on strategy.

What I'll be doing is something a little less fun, a lot more long-winded, and hopefully a bit more valuable purely in terms of driving strategy and tactics discussion. Because nothing drives web traffic like long-winded strategy discussions!

In my game reviews, I'm going to try to take the time to discuss the lists, examine how I planned to approach the match, and walk through obstacle placement and deployment. I'll be walking through my thought process on each turn, including why I did what I did, what alternatives I considered, what I was anticipating, and most importantly (and occasionally most embarrassingly), where I went wrong.

Because, as you're going to see, I go wrong so, so very often.

I'm hoping this format is informative and useful, and that players at all levels will be able to get at least something from these. At worst, you can marvel at my mistakes, if not learn from them. Everyone likes to watch a train wreck once in a while, and I'll be sharing those here right alongside the times I'm able to pull out a win.

For the purpose of ease of illustration, I'll be using VASSAL for most or all of these. VASSAL is one of several ways to play X-Wing online, and you can learn all about VASSAL (and the wonderful VASSAL League) right here. There are also various videos on YouTube that go through the finer points of Vassal; new ones get posted often as VASSAL gets updated, so I encourage you to look for a fairly recent one. And if you haven't already played on VASSAL, dive in! The community is generally very friendly and willing to help out a newcomer, and what seems like a daunting interface will become second nature after only one or two games.

I hope you'll all follow along with my matches in review! I'm looking forward to some great discussions (and probably some chuckles at my own expense). Don't forget to let me know if there's a list you'd like to see me play!