This was a recent match I played as part of the X-Wing Vassal League, a free-to-join league for online X-Wing play involving over hundreds players from around the world. It was, in short, a disaster.
My list
This is, in my opinion, the strongest "standard" two ship list in the game right now. Supernatural Kylo with Primed Thrusters can basically just dial a blue maneuver (including the ridiculous 5 straight) and be placed wherever on the board you see fit. Meanwhile, fully loaded Quickdraw can (usually) play the opening like an I6 arc dodger while the Afterburner charges are up, then later transition to a more traditional Quickdraw bruiser role once some of the larger threats are gone. With Pattern Analyzer and Afterburners, Quickdraw has all sorts of silly interactions, and I usually discover a new trick to do with her every two or three games. She's the gift that keeps giving. Typically, if you can trade Quickdraw for the ship that Kylo most fears, you can find a path to victory in most match-ups, and occasionally you just steamroll to a win without losing points. The points currently spent on Concussion Missile are flexible and I'm continuing to tinker to find out where they best fit, with the current build based around trying to give QD some more options when she has to disengage, since 2-ship lists need to throw as many red dice as humanly possible to make up for the lack of warm bodies. This is a list I've had some success with, including getting to the final table at a Hyperspace Trial back in May, and I like to stay fluent with it as it's a nice option to be able to use for things like the Vassal league.
Opponent's list
A solid Resistance list, basically taking a pre-July Resistance 5's list and replacing Lulo with Finn. All of the individual pieces in this can do work, and it's generally a lot of beefy or difficult-to-catch targets. If it can get an early advantage, this is the sort of list that can just snowball to a win against a lot of lists. Another interest wrinkle with this one is the Pattern Analyzers, which combine with Talli and Ello to give this whole list a Rebel Beef with Leia vibe. These ships all have a lot of dice mod uptime, which makes it difficult to exploit regrouping turns.
Opening strategy
This is a pretty favourable match-up for my list, with no ship moving after Kylo. My goal, then, was to make sure Quickdraw kills at least one ship before she dies, as Kylo can feasibly take an end game against three of these ships, and is pretty strongly positioned if he's against only two of them. The T-70s have the least tricks to dodge my arcs, as well as the lowest agility, so my aim is to remove one of them first to make the board a lot less scary for Kylo. That said, none of these are really appetising targets, especially with Heroic across the board.
Deployment
With this list I bring two gas and one big rock. I'd prefer three gas but having one rock gives me a pivot point on the board in case my opponent is bringing a swarm, which I need in order to set up a safe approach. My opponent brings a big rock and two debris, which take up a lot of space and are generally not something I want to see or deal with, so it's not a great scene in general.
My opponent puts a big rock in the middle first (1), which is not ideal but does at least give me a pivot point for his jousters to have to commit to one side of. I put a debris field in one of my corners (2) to try to minimise its impact on the game. Opponent puts the other debris near my bottom corner (3), which is generally annoying as it takes up a fair amount of space but still builds a clump with the middle asteroid that is a bit tighter than I would prefer to see. I corner again with a big rock (4), and my opponent places a gas cloud roughly equidistant from the top three obstacles, also generally annoying for me. Finally, I corner the last cloud (6). It's not as wide open a board as I would like, but there's at least a lot of open space in the bottom left diagonal half of the board, which should give Kylo a lot of room to exploit his options.
My opponent deploys first, placing three of his ships in the bottom corner and Talli in the top corner. I place both of my ships in the top corner. Doing this forces Talli immediately to either run way or risk getting destroyed by Quickdraw, which means one less ship I need to worry about doing something wildly unexpected. This set-up also gives me a reasonable chance to have some amount of engagement that starts in the middle and allows me to K-Turn/S-Loop into the open portion of the board while my opponent has to K-Turn into the obstacles.
This is a fairly strong opening set-up for the list I'm running, all things considered. I was feeling pretty confident here, picturing a few different scenarios where my opponent's ships ended up tied up in the rock and awkwardly split.
Now seems to be a good time to tell you that this match review is all about learning from big mistakes, so let's start the list with number 1: overconfidence.
Turn 1
I'm confident Talli is going to head south on the board, and totally happy if she decides not to anyway. I mostly anticipate the other ships heading straight east, but nothing I'm doing in the dial stage here will be committing me to anything either way. The only real decision I deal with here is whether to open aggressively with Kylo and try to put early pressure on Talli, or to be a bit more conservative. I opt for the latter, just to keep my options open, as I want to be a bit cautious while the other three ships remain uncommitted to anything on the board.
Activation
- Finn: 2 Forward, no action
- Nien Nunb: 2 Forward, no action
- Ello Asty: 2 Forward, no action
- Tallissan Lintra: 5 Forward, no action
No surprises here, although I would maybe expect Talli to boost.
- Kylo Ren: Supernatural Reflexes (Boost Forward, 1 Force remaining), 2 Bank Left, Barrel Roll Left Forward
- Quickdraw: 2 Hard Left, no action
With the conservative approach used, Kylo is now positioned to threaten a ton of board space (as we'll discuss before next activation). Quickdraw is also taking it slow, as I want to time his approach into the obstacle field so that I can use Afterburners to avoid fire.
No shooting, and so Kylo regenerates his Force and we're back to dials.
Turn 2
One of the keys with this list is making sure Kylo generally positioned so he has multiple viable options for his next turn. I did a decent job of that last turn, but to demonstrate, here are some of the basic options I have on the table (and that my opponent needs to be concerned about):
Now notice that these are all the exact same dialled maneuver, the 5 Forward. With basically no commitment, I now threaten any of these areas on the board, all of which leave me multiple options for the following turn. If the opponent commits too hard to one of these, I simply choose not to be there, and if he tries to cover them all, he ends up in 1v1 situations with a ship that essentially outclasses any of his individual pieces.
For this turn, then, Kylo's dial was easy. Quickdraw needs a bit more though, and here I think we can settle on mistake 2: making a slow, predictable approach with Quickdraw.
Activation
- Finn: 1 Forward, no action
- Nien: 1 Forward, no action
- Ello: 1 Forward, no action
- Talli: 3 Bank Left, Barrel Roll Right Forward
1 Forward to victory for the Resistance, leaving the option to turn straight north on the board open and not rushing into any engagements. I think I misread this as too passive when I was playing the game, but I think it's correct now, given that it leaves him open to threaten a few different lines of play. My opponent is very free to do this because, so far, I have put absolutely no pressure on him with my opening moves. So, mistake 3: allowing my opponent ample time to position for his preferred engagement.
- Kylo: Supernatural Reflexes (Boost Forward, 1 Force remaining), Autothrusters Barrel Roll Right Forward, Stress, 5 Forward, clear stress, Lock (asteroid)
I do what I should have threatened to do a bit more last turn, based on my opponent's setup, and belatedly try to pressure Talli. I come up about a quarter of a base width short of being in engagement range and miss my chance at a free shot on an unmodded Talli.
- Quickdraw: 1 Bank Right, no action
Mistake 2 and 3 are in further evidence here. Quickdraw makes no meaningful threat to the board this turn. I am reasonably poised to advance next turn either straight east, straight south, or diagonally towards my opponent's main force, but I'm far enough away that my opponent isn't forced to guess and commit to any of these. My thought at the time was that my preferred engagement would be near the middle of the obstacle clump, but here we get to mistake 4: flying arc dodger Quickdraw like she's normal jousting Quickdraw. This is a jousting approach, lining up to fly right at the opponent and apply blasters directly to his forehead, but instead I should be quickly moving Quickdraw to a position where my opponent has to commit and react. I force no decisions here and give my opponent the chance to again take a passive approach next turn and avoid getting burned.
No combat, unfortunately for Kylo. He goes back to full Force and we move to turn 3. I'm on a 15 turn clock, and time is not quite on my side.
Turn 3
My opponent has essentially two strong options here: a hard turn north to threaten Kylo, or a bank into the middle to threaten Quickdraw and remain able to react to any of Quickdraw's main three avenues of attack. Based on that, the bank seems more likely, but I'm still a bit nervous to bring Kylo in too aggressively, just in case. Once again, this is a mistake, a nice specific one for number 5: going slow with Kylo here instead of dialling up ol' reliable 5 Forward. The 5 Forward gives me the following major positions:
The only risk to Kylo here is if my opponent does hard turns followed by boosts from the T-70s, but upon further analysis, there's really not much to be scared of there. Finn can't boost, and since he's in front, he needs to get out of the way of the T-70s so they can boost, which possibly leaves him unable to effectively threaten Kylo anyway. Further, if they boost, the T-70s are unmodded. Finally, if my opponent is so bold to try to call a Kylo play there, he's going to have an awkward turn to follow it, and he's giving Quickdraw a wide open chance to come up from behind.
I fail to really recognise this, instead doing a 2 bank, with these being the options I was mostly considering:
Still decent coverage, but generally leaves Kylo more exposed, not less.
Meanwhile, Quickdraw can probably be aggressive here too. A 5 Forward (with the option to boost) might end up being a fairly direct joust, but it's unlikely to be an exchange of Range 1 fire. More importantly it leaves Quickdraw with some interesting options next turn, including Pattern Analyzer S-Loops to really put my opponent in a bind. Barring that, this would be the time to 3 bank in either direction, forcing my opponent to react and commit to one of my ships. Basically, the three main Quickdraw landing spots here (with boost options shown) look like this:
I think these are all viable positions. Even the joust straight up the middle is unlikely to get punished too badly (especially if I do not use Afterburners). If my opponent does 3 banks without boosts, QD is only taking shots from two to three of the enemy ships, all at range 3, and this is a fairly strong commitment that leaves the flank totally exposed to Kylo. The right bank, to the north of the middle asteroid, is essentially completely safe, but removes pressure on my opponent as he can isolate my potential locations to one half of the board next turn. The left bank is also mostly safe this turn, although my options for the following turns get a bit tricky (but probably still manageable). Ultimately, I think any of these are probably decent options.
Naturally, I choose to do none of them.
Activation
- Finn: 2 Hard Left, Focus
- Ello: 2 Hard Left, Focus
- Nien: 2 Hard Left, Focus
- Talli: 3 Bank Right, Focus, Refined Gyrostabilizers (Boost Left), Stress
Again, because of the lack of pressure I've applied, my opponent can do this and essentially threaten both of my ships. This is a perfect example of how to recognize a failed flank attempt! If you're offering your opponent two targets and he can feasibly answer "both," you're not really flanking.
- Kylo: 2 Left Bank, Lock (asteroid), Autothrusters (Barrel Roll Right Forward), Stress
A misplay again with Kylo. I play way too conservatively and end up just under a base length away again from locking or shooting.
- Quickdraw: 2 Forward, Evade
A much bigger misplay. Quickdraw is now almost fully committed to the middle jousting lane, as I've advanced too far to be able to 3 Bank + Afterburners to either side. Even after doing the 2 Forward, I could have mitigated my blunder by barrel rolling in either direction, this at least opening up two viable attack routes, but by staying where I am, I've now reduced Quickdraw's options next turn to either going fast, going slow, or disengaging and risking losing shields with no targets to shoot. The turn after next is going to be terrible (spoiler alert), but the reason that turn is as disastrous as it does is a direct consequence of this turn here.
Another turn of no shooting.
Turn 4
My spider sense was tingling, but I don't think I realised just how screwed I was here. Both of Quickdraw's 3 Bank + Afterburners appear blocked (the 3 Bank Right actually can land and be followed with a boost right, but it's very close and I didn't trust my eye enough to attempt it). I can still get out of this with hard turns, although that kind of disengage means I'll have to spend another couple of turns getting Quickdraw set up to reengage. Honestly, it's still probably a better option than marching Quickdraw to her doom, but I'm approaching being a third of the way through this match without scoring any points, and I'm worried about a protracted dance around the rocks. Don't forget that my final salvo is just 5 dice to my opponent's 10!
Based on that, I choose to go straight with Quickdraw, giving me the choice of either going fast or going slow. Fast leaves me boost options, but risks bumping or being smothered and unable to reposition out of any arcs. Slow, in my mind, still leaves me options for next turn (but, of course, this is almost completely incorrect). Of the two choices, a bold 3+ Forward (probably even a 5 Forward) is likely best. Naturally, I choose to go slow.
For Kylo, I keep it simple and dial the 5 Forward, allowing me to either tie the opponent's ships up trying to chase me in the bottom corner, or punishing them if they expose their flank by committing to Quickdraw here. I don't think this is a terrible call.
Activation
- Finn: 2 Bank Left, Focus
- Nien: 3 Bank Right, Focus
- Ello: 2 Bank Right, Focus
- Talli: 2 Hard Left, clear stress, Focus, Refined Gyros (Boost Left), Stress
This is actually a pretty good outcome for me. My opponent is trying to pursue both targets, which means neither of my ships is under the full pressure of my opponent's entire list. In a "divide and conquer" strategy, this is pretty much part 1 covered. Unfortunately, of course, I have done a poor job of setting myself up to capitalise on it!
- Kylo: 5 Forward, clear stress, Barrel Roll Right Back, Autothrusters Boost Left, Stress
I stopped counting the mistakes but this is another one. I go with the plan I had in place to respond to a scenario where all of my opponent's arcs are on me, even though only half of them are actually targeting me. Then, I fail at X-Wing fundamentals, failing to reposition to get a shot. I dodge all arcs, but don't even get a target lock to show for it, which is absolutely unacceptable in this situation.
Better choices here would be a supernatural boost left and 5 straight right into Finn, bumping and depriving him of a shot and then trading range one shots with Talli, a situation that likely costs one or both ships one shield. Better still would be a supernatural barrel roll left and then a 5 forward, leaving me just in front of the gas cloud and once again trading range 1 shots with Talli, although this time with an action. That scenario favours Kylo a bit, with a reasonable chance at getting all of Talli's shields while probably giving up a one Kylo shield, at most. Neither of these are ideal trades, but both set up scenarios where Talli can get initiative killed by Quickdraw, which is perhaps worth a slight sacrifice here.
- Quickdraw: 1 Forward, Focus
Stop me if you've heard this before: Quickdraw advances and is under half a base length away from shooting anyone. I have gained nothing and am now almost entirely trapped in a bad joust for next turn.
No shots through four turns.
Turn 5
This is a terrible board state. Quickdraw's only safe outs are now true emergency ejections, hard turns that leave me exposed and likely to take damage with no counterattack. Quickdraw is thus essentially committed to going straight into her doom. I choose a 3 Forward, reasoning that I might somehow have an open boost to dodge arcs, but realistically this will only happen if my opponent misplays and allows me to slip off the hook here. Outside of that slim hope, Quickdraw's fate has been written over the past two turns.
Kylo can safely engage here. There's the chance that my opponent does K-Turns and/or Tallon Rolls to turn on him, but that would be inviting Quickdraw to take free shots for the next couple turns, which I'd be only happy to see take place. I've played too scared already as it is, so I need to accept the trap I've willingly (and slowly) walked into and make the best of it.
Activation
- Finn: 3 K-Turn, Pattern Analyzer (Focus), Stress
- Nien: 2 Forward, Focus
- Ello: 1 Forward, Focus
- Talli: 2 Bank Right, Focus
As expected, the big guns move on Quickdraw, because why would they possibly not? Finn's K-Turn covers their flank and leaves some pressure on Kylo while still threatening my Quickdraw.
- Kylo: Supernatural Reflexes (Boost Forward, 1 Force remaining), 2 Hard Left, clear stress, Lock (Ello)
Kylo finally manages to get a lock! Of course, I am (wait for it) about a quarter of a base length outside of range 2.
- Quickdraw: 3 Forward, Evade
This is the absolute worst case scenario. Even with the Evade, Quickdraw dies here 64% of the time. Given Quickdraw's doomed nature, accepting it and taking the target lock on Ello would have been the better choice, at least providing one single-modded shot (FCS) and one double-modded shot (Fanatical and FCS). The Evade is a bit too optimistic, and I probably miss out on damage as a result.
Alternately, going faster and bumping Nien is also probably better. Quickdraw's survival becomes almost a coin flip, with the enemy's chance at getting a kill dropping to 52%.
Of course, none of these scenarios are ideal, or even acceptable. But it's really important to emphasise that while these are mistakes, the true mistake that lead to this was two turns ago.
Combat
- Quickdraw attacks Ello (range 1), 2 shield damage
Hey, maybe this is all going to work out after all!
- Nien attacks Quickdraw (range 1), spends focus, Quickdraw spends evade, 2 shield damage
- Talli attacks Quickdraw (range 2), spends focus, 1 shield damage, 1 hull damage
...so you're telling me... there's a chance?
- Quickdraw spends charge and attacks Ello (range 1), uses Fanatical, Ello triggers Heroic, 1 shield damage, 1 hull damage
- Ello attacks Quickdraw (range 1), 3 hull damage (including Direct Hit) and Console Fire, Quickdraw dies
Things did not work out at all. In fact, Quickdraw manages to die without Finn even needing to shoot him, an unfortunate bit of variance swing.
- Kylo attacks Ello (range 3), spends lock and 1 Force, Ello spends focus, no damage
This one really hurt, but I don't really have much cause to complain, as doing more than 4 damage to Ello here was less than even odds, and I had less than a 10% chance of getting the kill. If Quickdraw had target locked, my chance to kill Ello is a bit better, around 29%, but still not at all the sort of trade situation you're looking for with this list.
- Finn attacks Kylo (range 3, obstructed), uses ability to add focus result, gains 1 strain, spends focus, Kylo converts blank to evade from gas cloud, 1 shield damage
Okay, this one just felt cruel. Kylo only takes a damage here 27% of the time, but the dice gods felt that Quickdraw's sacrifice was insufficient, and insult is added to injury.
Kylo regenerates a Force (but not his pride) and we limp on to Turn 6.
Turn 6
This isn't unwinnable, but it's pretty damn far from ideal. Score wise, I'm actually only down 76-29, thanks to this list hiding 109 of its points in Kylo and another 15 in the bid. In fact, getting the lead back isn't outlandish: if I can finish Ello and get half points on any non-Finn ship, I'm back in the lead. As long as I don't lose half points on Kylo, safe play and a few lucky shots can get me back in. However, there's basically no margin for error, and because I failed to get a single arc off the table, I need to fly very cautiously and avoid taking basically any fire. The fact that I've already lost a shield to a stray Finn shot definitely doesn't help.
More bad news is that Kylo is not exactly the heavy hitter in this list. Kylo excels at cleaning up half-beaten boards, but it's very difficult for him to get meaningful attacks while dodging 3+ arcs as well. Ello surviving with as much health as he did makes this a real long shot.
Another problem: I'm now on tilt. At this point, I'm basically livid with myself for having played this one out the way that I did, and I'm spending far more time and mental capacity beating myself up that I should be pointing towards figuring out a path to victory. The fact that I've played this list well in the past and I have now turned around and done this has me feeling embarrassed, and it absolutely affects my play. Instead of getting a solid read on my opponent, I sort of half-heartedly assume there's going to be some K-Turns, dial in a 5 Forward, and resume the self-loathing.
But don't worry, dear reader, because as we're about to see, things can always get worse.
Activation
- Finn: 1 Forward, clear stress, Focus
- Talli: 1 Hard Left, Focus, Refined Gyros Boost Forward, stress
- Nien: 4 K-Turn, Pattern Analyzer Focus, stress
- Ello: 4 Forward, Focus
This is actually a lot less aggressive than I might have expected. Ello choosing not to K-Turn and Talli keeping her arc forward give me far more breathing room than I expected.
Unfortunately, especially with one shield already gone, I'm not comfortable enough to press forward to go for the kill on Ello, as this will almost certainly cost me one shield, if not a hull (and half points), and my chance of doing even one damage is relatively low. Given that, the safe play is probably a boost right and 5 straight, which gets me out of all arcs at the cost of a somewhat awkward turn after this. Of course, why choose the safe play when I can do this...
- Kylo: Supernatural Reflexes Boost Left (0 Force remaining), Autothrusters Barrel Roll Right Backward, stress, 5 forward, clear stress, no action (bump asteroid), 1 damage from asteroid
I mean, it's been one of those games, so this shouldn't have surprised me. This wouldn't have been a half bad maneuver if I'd dialed a 4 Forward, but instead, it's another nail in the coffin.
Combat
- Nien attacks Kylo (range 2, obstructed), 1 hull damage and Loose Stabilizer
Kylo gives up half points and is stuck on straight maneuvers. Just like that, the score is 131-29, and I have to kill two ships and half another to get back in the lead.
Turn 7 (and on)
While there was hope at the start of Turn 6, once Turn 7 rolls around, all I can possibly hope for is getting a bit more MOV from somewhere before I lose Kylo. The game is otherwise essentially beyond hope, and there isn't a lot of valuable insight to be gleaned from the remainder.
It takes me five(!) more turns before I line up a reasonable shot, a double modded range 3 shot on Ello that hits green dice full of paint and does zero damage. Kylo dies two turns later on Turn 14 (I should have been running to preserve MOV but was absolutely not thinking about things clearly at all), and I take a gut punch of a loss, 200-29.
Closing Thoughts and Lessons Learned
Don't play X-Wing any more?
In all seriousness, this one really got to me. It's tough taking a list that you're reasonably confident with and have had good results with, and then to play so far below your own standards. It took me about a half hour before I could forgive myself for it, and then writing a whole blog post to come to terms with it entirely.
Some of this is the nature of two ship lists like Kylo/QD, Fenn/Guri, Supernatural Anakin and friend, etc. These lists can be pretty forgiving for poor board positions, but specific misplays can be catastrophic. I did both in this game, and the results are exactly as I should expect. A review of the dice stats after the game did suggest that they did me no favours, but that is a relatively minor contributing factor and definitely not the main cause. This was a poorly played game, and my opponent did not let me get away with it.
The biggest lesson to learn here is that Thiccdraw needs to be played like an arc dodger. If the plan is just to fly into the heart of the enemy squad, then Quickdraw should just take Shield Upgrade and give up on arc dodging altogether. Afterburners Quickdraw needs to play as cagey as possible in the early goings, prioritizing high level positioning over straight-up trades wherever possible. Anytime I forget this, I tend to lose Quickdraw early and then end up playing from behind with Kylo. You can get away with this sometimes, but there are limits, as clearly demonstrated in this game.
This list also needs to put a bit more pressure on the opponent. Having a million options isn't so valuable when your opponent can dial conservatively and remain protected against most or all of those options. I had clear opportunities to apply early pressure, but chose instead to play overly cautious, and by doing so gave my opponent ample time to arrange his ships just the way he wanted. By the time I got around to engaging, I was fighting on his terms.
Finally, this list requires a ton of attention to the turn ahead. I've always been aware of this with Kylo, but this game really made it clear that it's possibly even more important for Quickdraw. Quickdraw's dial is good, but she certainly doesn't have the ability to respond to an unexpected board state the way Kylo can. If Quickdraw is placed in a position where her next turn has very few options, she becomes easy to predict and isolate. Once that's been done, her two green dice don't hold up very long.
So, all in all, given this one to play again, I'd be running Kylo in there to chase Talli off early, I'd probably run Quickdraw out a bit wider, and I'd try to do a much better job of range control so that Quickdraw could actually leverage her Afterburners to arc dodge and get some early one-sided shots instead of trading unfavourably.
It was a brutal one on my ego, but I think it made me more aware of some of the limitations and vulnerabilities of the list, and I'd like to think I'll be more aware of them moving forward. Certainly, things can't go any worse than this!
Oh god why did I just say that.
...
As always, thanks for taking the time to read this. Please feel free to share your thoughts and observations in the comments below!
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