TURN 0: PART 6 – TIPS AND TRICKS

Below are some strategies and a few tricks to help you maximize your Turn 0. They may not come into play all the time, or even most of the time. You may not even know it worked. But why not take all the advantages Turn 0 allows?

CORNER OBSTACLES

When playing against Large and Medium ships and placing rocks in corners, be sure to get the pointest part of the obstacles and lodge it as far in the corner as possible to create a 90 degree turn. This could prevent a crucial bank maneuver, forcing the opponent straight instead, or even having your opponent clip the rock.

However, when you are flying Large and Medium base ships and want to corner obstacles. Take the flattest side and lean it against the corner, leaving a gap. This allows a little more breathing room if you need to bank around corners. This could mean getting back in the fight an entire round sooner, or catching a ship in arc that same round.

MOVING AROUND OBSTACLES

When I first started playing X-wing back in 2016, I picked up this tip from the folks over at Slingpaint youtube channel. Some obstacles are triangular in shape, and placing them with point side toward your opponent, or along your attack run, like arrows pointing the way on Mario Kart track, you can benefit on the approach as a bank maneuver has a little bit more play, similar to the corner rock above. This is one of those tips that you probably will never know it works, but it might just save you one day and takes almost zero effort.

And room to spare!

Placing them without caring about orientation could lead to overlap! Ouchies!

Your opponents POV

CORNER BLOCK!

Here is a good tip if you are playing against large ships that want to corner all three obstacles. DONT LET THEM! Place an obstacle just outside range 1 from the corner. This will prevent any rock placement in that corner, and effectively shrink the mat, and bringing all rocks closer together.

RANGE 3 OBSTACLE

This is by far my favorite obstacle to place. It works against so many lists, especially slow jousty lists. If your ships are reasonably fast, you can engage from the flank by turn three and have a huge advantage. Your opponent has to prepare for your engagement ahead of time with an early round 1 or 2 turn, or fast straight maneuvers. This is great against swarms and jousty formation lists.

THE SHIELD

Another favorite of mine. This is the bait setup. It’s most effective with ships with both barrel and boost, and hard 1 maneuvers. Ships like the TIE Advance V1, or the Belbullab. In particular, Grand Inquisitor and General Grievous. They can dangle in the opposite jousting corner and pull the list towards them, and use the corner obstacle as a shield. As soon as the opponent commits to either turning inwards, or committing to the corner, you can roll out and be safe. I used this quite a bit with Grievous to get him behind the enemy.

Showing the options you will have, once the opponent commits next turn, you can roll left or right.

If they turn in, you simply roll left.

If they bank to cover options, you roll right. Only the front two ships here have you in arc. Range 3 through a gas cloud. Pretty safe. Now your opponent has taken the bait and your flankers are in position. to pounce.

For a real world example, I used this tactic in the Gold Squadron Podcast Alpha Qualifier with my Jedi List. In the image below, by round 2, I positioned my bait-Jedi approximately where the red square is drawn. On round 3, my opponent had to commit. I dialed in a hard 1 to land behind the rock and could roll out in either direction, and also left room to stay put and to use the rock as a shield if need be.

That concludes this Turn 0. series. My hope is you picked up something from one of the articles and can use it in your future games. Turn 0 is a crucial part of X-Wing Miniatures game and with just a little effort, you can improve your game without even flying a single ship.