X-wing 2.5 First Impressions: Chance Engagement

I WILL DESTROY YOU!

Chance engagement is a slightly modified version of the 2.0 dogfight, so it seemed appropriate to start with this scenario.

Setup: There's a central objective placed before any obstacles are put down. Obstacles cannot overlap this objective during setup.

This changes obstacle placement slightly, as there's now a space in the centre which cannot contain an obstacle (it's not a big deal). The central objective has a large scoring area (range 0-2 is huge), so I don't think you can realistically setup a 'roadblock' to make contesting the objective difficult for you opponent. If you setup facing the objective a 3-forward will get your ship in range to contest the objective, and will probably still keep you out of range of a round 1 engagement (unless your opponent goes fast and boosts). I don't think obstacle placement will be much different from how we're been doing it in 2.0; place obstacles in a way to advantage your list while disadvantaging your opponent's.

Scoring: We're given three ways to score VPs in this scenario:

1) The first way you score VPs is when an enemy ship is reduced to half it's starting HP. This nabs you VPs equal to half the ships squad point value, rounded down. 

Notice how I've drawn attention to that last bit. The fact these VPs are rounded down is a big deal for your ships with an odd squad cost (especially those in the 3-cost slot). This can be demonstrated with the following two squads:

1. An Imperial list made up of six 3-cost TIEs, and Night Beast. 
2. A Rebel list made up of four 4-cost Rebel ships, plus Derek Klivian, and Blount.

Both lists are 20 points, so you think they'd score VPs equally, right? After heavy fighting Night Beast and Blount are dead (both 2-costers), and all other ships are reduced to half HP. So what does the score look like? The imperials have scored 11 VPs compared to the Rebels 8 VPs. The odd squad cost of the Imperial ships is actually helping them to deny VPs to their opponent. Now this will only be an issue if the game goes to time, or the Rebel player allows the Imperial play to score VPs off the centre objective, but is is worth considering during squad building. Here's our first take away: Due to the way half-points are calculated, odd costed ships have an advantage in this particular scenario. I would say it's a pretty minor advantage, but it is worth acknowledging and thinking about when squad building and playing.

Another thing to consider for some factions is the half HP rules are written in a way to prevent you regening back over your half HP threshold, and denying your opponent points. However, you can still use regen to keep your ships above the half HP threshold. As an example: Luke Skywalker with Shield upgrade and R2D2 can potentially suffer 6 (of a possible 10) damage  and still not cross his half HP threshold. It may very well be worth absorbing some early hits on Luke's shields and then flying off for a few turns to regen his shields back and come in for a second pass.

2) If an enemy ship is destroy or removed from the game, you gain VPs equal to half the squad point value of that ship, rounded up. There's also a caveat that you score full VPs if the ship didn't already give away half points. 

This is obviously related to the previous scoring condition. You absolutely want to keep your wounded ships alive, and finish off enemy ships if you can. 

3) At the start of the End Phase, you score a VP if you are the only player that has ship(s) at range 0–2 of the satellite.

As I mentioned earlier, range 2 is a pretty huge bubble, so you can contest this with a lazy 3-forward on the first turn. There's no need to recklessly speed into the centre, especially since it's only a single VP, which can be easily denied. The question with this centre objective is do you commit early for a joust, or do you skirt the edge of the board for a better engagement and forfeit some VPs? The answer will depend on your list and/or playstyle. 

IMO losing 1-2VPs isn't the end of the world, as long as you have a clear idea of where you want to engage, and you can gain an advantage from it. Also, if your list doesn't include a 2-coster (unlikely, but you never know), your opponent can score a single VP off the centre objective, and still need to table you to score 20+ points. It's a very niche situation, but again worth mentioning. 

Victory: Basically, kill your way to 20+VPs before your opponent can. 

How are we trying to win this scenario? First things first: You cannot get to 20VPs without fighting. In my experience, it's very easy to win the other 3 scenarios with a large portion of your VPs coming from the objectives. That's not going to happen in this one, as the central objective will only net you 12VPs max before the game times out. So you're really falling back on some X-wing 101 strategies and tactics to win you the day:

1. Ships are really just guns; keep your guns alive as long as possible, while focusing on removing your opponent's guns as quickly as possible (and hence damage their ability to remove yours). 
2. Don't be afraid to peel off a wounded ship and bring them back into the fight later when it's safer. You can also just deny your opponent the kill unless they commit ships to chasing that 1HP TIE fighter down.
3. Modifiers win games.
4. The best defence is not being targetable.

Squad Building Considerations:

• You will score most of your VPs from killing in this scenario, so your list needs to be able to remove enemy ships, while preserving your own. This hasn't changed much since 2.0 dogfight, so you can focus on all the same things when building a list (look for efficiency, combos, bonus actions, etc).
• I don't think a complete ace strategy is ideal (eg: triple aces). In 2.0 aces could apply pressure to less manoeuvrable squads by stealing some early points in the form of half points on a ship and then forcing the opponent to 'chase' them. They could then bait and switch to slowly pick the enemy apart and get/protect a lead to win on timeout. The addition of VPs for holding the central objective makes this a much riskier strategy. Can an ace-heavy list afford those turns of setup? My gut says no. I do think aces are still relevant, but I don't think they can be the only thing you have. A more hammer and anvil approach seems viable, eg: Soontir + 6x Obsidians + Night Beast seems like a sold 7-ship swarm to brawl with, and an ace to be the flanker.
• Odd costed ships, especially those in the 3-cost slot, have some inherent advantages in this scenario. It's debatable how impactful it is, but it is there. I'm not sure if this would affect my squad building choices as much as how I play those 3-cost ships in this scenario.
• Regen also offers some additional advantage in this scenario, by giving your ships 2-3 extra hits before they drop past their half HP threshold.

I hope this analysis is helpful!