Even though I've retired from X-Wing, I've been clarifying my thoughts around why I dislike the Random player Order After Dials (ROAD) rules change and AMG's other stated rule changes. Such is the reality of leaving a community and game of six years, it doesn't come easily! But hey, critics review games they don't intend to play in the future all the time. I guess I can as well. I don't know if this is closure or the last gasp of the bargaining stage of grief. A benefit of leaving the game is I can root for the community and be happy for those who enjoy the new rules, rather than fighting to s ..read more

All good things come to an end, and it doesn't feel right to leave without saying goodbye. I've had a wonderful 6 years playing X-Wing. It's time for me to step off the ride. The community here is truly special, and I'm going to miss it. I wish you all the best. Big shoutout to Miranda Ketita, the person who got me into X-Wing. Thanks for taking me under your wing and showing me the ropes. A huge shoutout to Marc de Bruyn, my playtest partner back in London. We spent a long time theorycrafting and practicing, and you gave me tons of feedback on my model. The London Ontario X-Wing community thr ..read more

(I hope Betteridge's Law doesn't apply.) This is an article where I say there's a problem and have no idea how to fix it. The source of all of society's problems Imagine a discussion about Punishing One Dengar. He was extremely weak at 74 points at release and is now a competitive option at 58 points. If someone asked at release why Punishing One Dengar is weak, the responses would probably have talked about his awful dial, being a clunky big-base ship, not really having a turret, no extra dice mods, dying under focus fire, etc. If someone asked why Punishing One Dengar is strong now, respo ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more

Along with the massive changes to Hyperspace legality, the Jan 2020 points adjustment makes huge changes to the Hyperspace meta. In this article, I review the best Hyperspace-legal pilots in each faction and discuss my overall thoughts on each faction as a whole. For those more interested in Extended, I'll also list what I think are the best non-Hyperspace-legal pilots for each faction. Overall, the Jan 2020 points adjustment solidifies the bar for efficiency set by the generic Kihraxz in the previous adjustment. Previously-efficient ships and ships which received further buffs to meet that s ..read more

Tournaments are fun for everyone! We catch up with old friends, play some good games of X-Wing, and crown a winner. After they're done, we can look at the results to see what to complain about for the next few weeks/months! :) That raises an interesting question: how much information do tournament results give us about card or list strength? I think the answer might be: not much. We can be more confident when we have more data, but we should be careful drawing firm conclusions from tournaments. We've had a history of drawing hasty conclusions from tournament results. When 2.0 first launched ..read more

(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 s ..read more

There are two problems with the current fortressing/stalling rules. Fortressing occurs when a player keeps all of their ships stationary by bumping into their own ships for two consecutive turns. Afterwards, they must break the fortress or forfeit the game. Stalling rules are subject to interpretation. The floor rules describe stalling as "intentionally playing slowly to exploit an advantage they could gain from the time limit". Some judges also reference the "[fortressing] is considered a form of stalling, as it seeks to create and exploit a stalemate" line under the fortressing rules to issu ..read more