Continuing on the basics of Star Wars X-Wing miniatures game, I thought I would focus this time on the intricacies of the combat mechanic, another thing I look back on my experience and say to myself, god I wish I knew that from day one.

The Dice
The X-Wing combat dice, red for attacks, green for defense, are no equal! Most gamers won’t spend too much time analyzing the dice of a game, but in the case of X-Wing it plays a pivotal, quite possibly the single most important piece of the puzzle in understanding what is and isn’t an advantage.

To put it in plain terms, if you have a ship with 3 attack dice, rolling against a ship with 3 defense dice, the defender is at a disadvantage. The reason is that by default 50% (2 hits and 2 crits) of the results on an attack die are hits, while only 37% (3 evades) of the results on a defense die are evades.

Duh! This is not everything there is to the puzzle. Going deeper into the mechanic you will note that most ships have the options of either evading, or focusing, which again, changes the odds, given things are equal (the same amount of dice) but the odds are still in the attackers favor. This is because an attack die with a focus token has 2 focus faces, so if you do the math, with 4 hits and 2 focuses on an 8 side, this means with focus you have a 75% chance of hitting.

The defense die however with a focus gets you to 66% (3 evades and 2 focuses faces on an 8 sided die). The advantage remains on the attack.

Now there is the evade action which effectively gives you 1 free success you can spend against one attack roll after you see the dice results. This however again, given things are equal (3 dice each) and assuming the attacker takes a focus while the defender takes an evade still leaves the attack at a slight advantage. In that, the attack also all but guaranteed to have at least 1 hit, so with the remaining two dice he has about an equal chance of getting as many hits as the defender can roll with 3 defense die at 37% percent.

I’m not going to get too deep into the statistics, but the point here is this. When playing X-Wing, the only good defense is an offense. Think of the green dice as a formality, to win you need to shoot and really what you want to do is shoot first.

Pilot Skill and Combat
This is where pilot skill really comes in. While movement takes place from lowest to highest skill which gives a small benefit to low skill pilots as they can effectively get in people’s way and cause overlaps, having a high pilot skill is everything because you shoot first.

Imagine a simple scenario. You have a low pilot skill X-Wing vs. a High Pilot X-Wing and let’s assume they are stationary. Since they are equal ships, simply facing each other, who will win? The player with the higher skill. The reason is that, shooting first will most likely result in a final round in which the higher pilot skill X-Wing will shoot and blow up the lower ship X-Wing before he gets a chance to shoot. Just ask Han Solo!

The final piece, shooting arcs
Since we know that the person shooting is at an advantage and shooting first exponentially increases that advantage, the end result is that the player who keeps his target in his sights and gets the most shots in a match is most likely to win the game. As such maneuverability of the ship and player skill in maneuvering his ships becomes really the defining final piece of the puzzle. Each piece is important, but only when they all come together is victory assured.

Conclusion
Combat in Star War X-Wing is a combination of working the statistical of the dice, really understanding what it means to roll X attack dice vs. Y defense dice. It comes down to pilot skill, a choice you make when you’re building your list. Finally maneuverability combined with smart player choices (player skill). For a novice player that is a lot to juggle at once, so where do you start?

The answer is you start with the things you can control.

We can control our understanding of the attack dice vs. the defense dice. Simply knowing that when you charging a Millennium Falcon and are about to roll an attack with 4 attack dice against his 1 defense dice that not only are you at a major advantage but likely to get 2-3 hit minimum will give you the confidence to make such a charge. You can almost ignore defense dice to a degree, they are statistically likely to fail their owner. So be aggressive, shoot, shoot and shoot.

You can control the pilot skill of the ships you field. It’s tempting to take low pilot skill pilots because they are cheap point wise and allow you to field more ships, but the reality is that you are far better off with 3 X-Wings with high pilot skill pilots in the cockpit than you are with 4 low pilot skill X-Wings. Rolling 9 dice and shooting first, is far better than rolling 12 dice and shooting last because you are likely to lose a ship before it gets too shoot, so you’ll be rolling 9 dice anyway.

Finally maneuverability, now this one is tougher to control and really tougher to make a determination. What is maneuverable, what are we comparing it to. Clearly Tie Fighters are more maneuverable than X-Wings, but when it comes to maneuverability typically this means having the ability to keep ships in your firing arc by making tight turns, doing 180’s and keeping your ship in a position to fire. With X-Wings you have maneuvers like the 180 degree turn, you have sharp turns. It’s a maneuverable ship for all intense and purposes. Not as maneuverable as some other ships, but more than sufficient to keep ships in your firing arc. Avoid slower, hard to maneuver ships when you first start playing X-Wing, get familiar with the X-Wings, A-Wings, Tie Fighters and Tie Interceptors first and avoid large ships like the falcon or Lambda shuttle until your more comfortable with the games nuances.

Now certainly there is a lot more to the game here, there are all sorts of ships and list with different variances and effects that can render some or all of these things like firepower and maneuverably useless, but again, we are talking about a starting strategy here. Something to base your starting plays at and giving yourself a fighting chance. As such, understand some of this information and apply it. Over time lights will start to turn on and you will gain the confidence needed to consider deeper levels of play.

I can tell you that when facing 3 X-Wings with high pilot skills and special effects, it doesn’t matter if you’re a new player or a veteran, that list is always strong and it is so because it filters through the most fundamental core elements of the game. It’s safe pick and you will win matches, in particular when facing opponents working without the basic information outlined in this article.