Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'd like to hear some thoughts on leaving off points to try and gain the Initiative, and in which cases that this can really give the upper hand.

Also, is it generally accepted that whoever "wins initiative" either by points bid or roll off, can choose to move first shoot first or move last shoot last?

I feel with Roark or Han (with VI), as well as BBBBZ PS2 swarm, having the Initiative is pretty useless. you'll hardly ever have a situation where you'll be dying to trump other PS2 pilots or other PS 11-12 pilots.

Imperials on the other hand, Soontir Fel depends on going last with his PS9 and PTL to arc dodge, especially now with Autothrusters. Whisper too depends on having the intiative but is the reverse, wanting to move first and shoot first in the attack phase.

What about Scum? Xizor can potentially be PS9 and has many maneuvering options, but even if you dodge whisper, as long as she gets a shot and recloak +focus, your chance of dealing any damage with 3, even 4, unmodified attack dice isn't that great. Same goes against Han without VI, against C3PO and the evade token, your chances of getting any damage through is pretty low, even if you shoot first or manage to outmaneuver him. PS9 Kavil, with engine upgrade and autoblaster will want to go last, because he needs to know where his prey is to boost into range 1 or Arc dodge and even against the phantom, he doesn't care if you have 4 agility evade and focus or 1 agility.

What about two PS8 IG88s? Even if you were to take VI instead of say PTL or Predator, would you want to leave points off for an initiative bid? With 88D you want to move last and with C you don't care if you shoot first or last because you have an evade token either way but with A or B you want to shoot first to potentially destroy someone before they can shoot. And when you start combining pilot abilities it gets hairy. Especially since PS8 does not by any means ensure that you will beat or tie the enemy's PS.

What other situations you can think of in which initiative is very important and on which side of the maxing out points vs favorable dogfighting circumstances do you fall?

How many points would you feel is "enough" to leave off to guarantee you get initiative and at what point are you leaving off too many and making your list much less capable?

IMO an initiative bid is a luxury item. It's nice to have it if you have an opportunity, but only if it doesn't come at the expense of a meaningful upgrade. For example, if it's a choice between a 1-point bid or upgrading a z-95 from PS 2 to PS 4 I'll probably just take the initiative bid. But I'll rarely start out writing a list with a specific bid in mind. If the points don't work out naturally to allow an initiative bid I'll just play at 100 points without regret.

As for what lists I've been playing lately, mostly Corran with support, which both doesn't care too much about initiative (PS 8 Corran doesn't overlap with many arc dodgers) and doesn't have many points left for luxuries after spending 48 points on Corran. Most of the time I've felt that those initiative bid points would make a bigger difference by upgrading one of the support ships. Maybe if I used Fel or Whisper I'd feel differently about it.

 bocatt wrote:
Also, is it generally accepted that whoever "wins initiative" either by points bid or roll off, can choose to move first shoot first or move last shoot last?

This is correct. Technically the "bid/roll off winner gets to choose" rule only applies to tournaments, but everyone I've played with uses it.

I feel with Roark or Han (with VI), as well as BBBBZ PS2 swarm, having the Initiative is pretty useless. you'll hardly ever have a situation where you'll be dying to trump other PS2 pilots or other PS 11-12 pilots.

I disagree with this. Initiative still matters for the PS 2 list because setup is so important for a swarm. A lot of rebel and scum lists have at least some PS 2 element and giving your opponent initiative allows you a lot more control over how the opening engagement happens. You can deploy directly across from them to force a joust, use the opposite corner to force a route around/through the asteroids, etc.

What about Scum? Xizor can potentially be PS9 and has many maneuvering options, but even if you dodge whisper, as long as she gets a shot and recloak +focus, your chance of dealing any damage with 3, even 4, unmodified attack dice isn't that great. Same goes against Han without VI, against C3PO and the evade token, your chances of getting any damage through is pretty low, even if you shoot first or manage to outmaneuver him.

I think you have this exactly backwards since you're putting too much emphasis on the shooting first aspect of initiative. PS 9 Xizor needs initiative because PS 9 Xizor sucks defensively. If you can't dodge arcs entirely in an endgame situation (with no meatshields left to pass damage to) Xizor dies horribly against Fel/Whisper/etc. The only real question is whether you want a small chance of winning against those endgame threats or if you'd rather accept the auto-loss endgames and not waste points trying to salvage the impossible.

How many points would you feel is "enough" to leave off to guarantee you get initiative and at what point are you leaving off too many and making your list much less capable?

There is no single correct answer. Dual phantom lists have won tournaments with a 15+ point initiative bid (taking a TIE fighter actually makes the list worse because it gives the enemy phantom an easy target to shoot at to recloak), but obviously that's an extreme that hardly anyone wants to go to. For a normal list I'd say 0-5 points, with the "too much" point defined by how badly your ships need those points vs. diminishing returns on getting something out of a bid. The most common point total is 100, so 99 is enough to get you a choice in the most common situation and a 50% chance in the second most common, 98 gives you a choice against most people who make an initiative bid at all and a 50% chance against people who tried to beat 99, and beyond that you get so few people making that much of an initiative bid that you're spending valuable points competing with only a small percentage of your potential opponents. If you go below 98 points you need to understand that you're making an extreme bid, and you'd better have a good reason for it.

IMO the bid I would avoid is the 97ish range. You're over-bidding against most people, but not bidding enough to keep up with the extreme cases that say "I'm willing to spend 10 points to give Fel a better endgame". Once you get below 99-98 you have to think about making a much bigger bid to make it useful.