Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. Wireless devices may communicate over a primary and fallback beam. To support communications over a primary and fallback beam, a preconfiguration procedure may be performed to communicate to a transmitting and receiving device the identity of the primary and fallback beam. A central scheduling node may assist in identifying the primary and fallback beam for the transmitting and receiving device. During communications, the transmitting and receiving device may switch to the fallback beam when an initial communication fails and may perform a retransmission that includes data from the initial communication over the fallback beam.