So I'm having my first game tonight, after work.

We settled on 60pts, because my opponent is rusty and this will be my first game. Thus, I decided to stay low on upgrades and whatnot.

I went with:
Gold Squadron Y-Wing
R2 Astromech

Red Suqadron X-Wing
R2 Astromech

Green Squadron A-Wing
Chaardan refit.

I think he has a max of 3 Ties at his disposable, 1 Tie Adv, 1 Tie bomber, the Lambda shuttle and a Tie Interceptor.

Could I be more efficient? I'm trying to limit myself to physical cards, as well. I want to get good at using what I have, and use missing upgrades as a road map for future purchases.

How did it go?

I got floored. It was a blast. I lost like a newborn kitten, but holy hell was it fun.

I need to focus my fire and move with a plan. My opponent hadn't played in 18 months, so we were both going a little bit everywhere.

I had another game last night, with another friend. I fielded a Y-wing, a B-Wing and a Z-95. My opponent fielded 4 TIE fighters. I got rid of one in relatively short order (focusing with the B & Y), but a mis-maneuver on my part got my fighters split up and then I could only scratch the paint. 3 evade dice are a really nice thing to have.

Again, got wiped off the board, but I'm learning, and my friend is super-excited to play.

All in all, I think I need to add things like astromechs, turrets and torps. The basic profiles just don't have enough punch to really impact a TIE bent on evading my hits.

Secondary weapons (well.. torpedoes mostly..) aren't all that and a bag of chips. Turrets and cannons are generally ok, and there's a handful of missiles, but they generally need a dedicated platform to recoup the investment or a remarkable synergy within a list.

It sounds like your initial experiences have coloured your thinking, but there's more hit results on a red die than evade results on a green, so, on balance, any ship throwing out 3 red v 3 green should come out on top. Well flown, your Bs and Xs will be throwing 4 red at those TIEs.

Equally, astromechs are somewhat hit and miss. R2 D2 is golden, and there's a few others, but many of them aren't really worth it just yet (FFG have a lovely habit of redressing the balance of under-employed upgrades as time goes by.)

That said, I wouldn't let what I read on the net stop me trying things out for myself, and neither should you, but while the balance of X Wing is generally excellent, there are some deeply underwhelming upgrade cards (and categories!) out there.

Some of them just don't talk to me, so I go by that. And since changing a list doesn't involve painting two whole squads of an army, it's really not a terrible thing to just try it out.

I saw a Y-wing build that I am dying to try:
Gold Squadron Pilot
Ion Turret
R3-A2
BT4L title card.

This might allow me to control my opponent's movement a bit.

Speaking of which... using Detemination, do I read it right that if it is a Pilot crit, you discard it... as in you don't even take the damage?

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I saw a Y-wing build that I am dying to try:
Gold Squadron Pilot
Ion Turret
R3-A2
BT4L title card.

This might allow me to control my opponent's movement a bit.

That is known as the "Stress Hog." It's typically flown with thee B-wings w/Tactician. It's a control list that can both put out some considerable damage and throw a wrench in your opponent's plans with all the ion and stress.

Speaking of which... using Detemination, do I read it right that if it is a Pilot crit, you discard it... as in you don't even take the damage?

Yes, it is discarded immediately and does not count as damage.

Wow, ok. Not too powerful, but can really help.

I don't have the tactician card yet, so It'll have to only be a part of my list, not the whole list.

So... I may be addicted. My kinda jokingly challenged my wife to a game, since she said I looked like I needed a fix. She surprisingly said yes. I set her up with Luke Skywalker and R2-D2, and an A-wing prototype pilot. I took 2 Z-95 (a Binayre and N'Dru) and a Hired Gun Y-Wing.

So I figured I would fly in formation, N'Dru on his own to gain more dice. I had the hardest time killing the A-Wing, and by the time that was done, she had figured out the game and how to maximize Luke's dice and abilities and promptly got rid of my remaining ships. Luke had lost 2 shields, which he had time to regenerate.

She is a total non-gamer (her quote is "You have to start at *this is a dice* with me) and she picked it up in about 20 minutes.

Every person I've taught (probably three or four now) has only taken a few turns to grasp the mechanics, and by the end of their first game been actively playing and planning, rather than simply trying to figure things out.

It's one of the game's biggest strengths and reasons for its success IMO.

So... I may be addicted.

@ Mathieu,

hold on to your chair dude! I won a starter at Adepticon in May, and during the con i bought a second starter based on everyone's advice. Four months later I have at least two of every small ship and three or four of most, all the large base ships (two aggressor's of course), my wave seven ships are on order, and I picked up two of the new starters yesterday (sorry about the Target thing!). I also have three playing matts and enough dice and templates for three pairs of people to play at the same time!

Yeah, addicting

I knew it was a good game (ah!) when my wife actually stood up at her end of the table to start planning her moves, and then cried triumphantly when I chased her A-Wing "Yes! You took the bait!"

I cried of joy, a little, inside.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I knew it was a good game (ah!) when my wife actually stood up at her end of the table to start planning her moves, and then cried triumphantly when I chased her A-Wing "Yes! You took the bait!"

I cried of joy, a little, inside.

Great news... the question is: do you admit to making pew pew noises when shooting?

I do. But we make pew pew noises when watching Jeopardy so...

It's a fun game but careful not to bloat it too much. I'd say about 150pts is about the limit. I've been turned off a bit personally with the collectibility aspect and card bloat inherent to it but the core game is solid and fun.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:


So... I may be addicted.

Yeah... I know that feeling. I now own at least 1, mostly 2 or more, of every ship up to wave VII and epic ships.

I have a massive Plano tacklebox and I'm actually worried I'm going to have to get another one soon...

Yeah, on rebels advice, TIE fighters are one of the most efficient barebones fighters in the game. They're so good, they're considered the standard that all other ships are measured against for "Jousting efficiency" (literally just mathammer, the tourney players use it to determine whether the ship is good for tournament play or not) In order to beat his TIEs, you either need to out skill him (aces) or out joust him (B wings, maybe the new X Wing once its new Integrated Astromech comes out)

Y Wings are also awesome with Ion cannon turrets and the BTLA4 title. It makes them hit surprisingly hard and have a good control element. Most people use at least one with R3A2 (the stressbot, it's awesome) but I really like running either R2 mechs for Rebels, or Unhinged mechs for Scum. It gives the Y Wings a crazy amount of maneuverability that no one sees coming and lets them be surprisingly effective at dogfighting. Now that Twin Laser Turret is out too, it's pretty great for Y's as well, but I still feel that the BTL/Ion cannon combo is the best unless you're straight up running 3-4 of the little boogers.

I still haven't played a 100 pts game yet, so I still have a lot of room to grow. No one in my circle wants to play scum, so at least I have that all to myself.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I still haven't played a 100 pts game yet, so I still have a lot of room to grow. No one in my circle wants to play scum, so at least I have that all to myself.

Scum can be a lot of fun, but can have a hard learning curve. I recommend picking up Most wanted followed by the Slave 1 and Star Viper. Kath is the best of the best in Scum (IMO).

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I still haven't played a 100 pts game yet, so I still have a lot of room to grow. No one in my circle wants to play scum, so at least I have that all to myself.

Scum have the hardest learning curve, but are the most fun to play in my opinion once you start to figure them out. They really require a good understanding of the game so that you can make builds that screw your opponents over as much as possible. Their entire schtick is that they break the rules of the game, so naturally they're harder to pick up than most.

Make sure to try out in no particular order

All the scum hawks

Z95's with Feedback array

Z95s with dead man's switch

Y Wings with unhinged astromechs

Inertial Dampeners on anything (seriously that card is amazing)

A tooled up Boba Fett

Generally, for rebels:

B-wings are your best 'general purpose' fighter.

X-wings are slightly less efficient, but tend to make up for this with dirty tricks; named astromechs and named pilots are often better.

Y-wings have the toughness of a B-wing for cheap, but lack manouvrability. Always give them some sort of secondary weapon - normally a turret, but torpedos and bombs can work if you build the ship around them.

Z-95s are nice 'filler' - adding in an extra ship rather than 2-3 upgrade cards is not a bad choice, and the named pilots are great support for very few points.

Scum have become my favorite of the 3 factions because of the shenanigains they can pull.

 warboss wrote:
It's a fun game but careful not to bloat it too much. I'd say about 150pts is about the limit. I've been turned off a bit personally with the collectibility aspect and card bloat inherent to it but the core game is solid and fun.

Not counting epic, I feel 100pt games are the best. When you go too much more, things like flying well and a lucky roll here quickly become less important and who has the more of the better ships/pilots is the deciding factor.

locarno24 wrote:
Generally, for rebels:

B-wings are your best 'general purpose' fighter.

X-wings are slightly less efficient, but tend to make up for this with dirty tricks; named astromechs and named pilots are often better.

Y-wings have the toughness of a B-wing for cheap, but lack manouvrability. Always give them some sort of secondary weapon - normally a turret, but torpedos and bombs can work if you build the ship around them.

Z-95s are nice 'filler' - adding in an extra ship rather than 2-3 upgrade cards is not a bad choice, and the named pilots are great support for very few points.

Not that my 2 cents will really matter, but I'm a little confused about your descriptions.

How are B-wings general purpose? That's the X-wing. The B-wing is going to be your slow and steady firepower, the X-wing has more options as far as what to do with it. Y-wings have the toughness of B-wings but lack maneuverability. This implies B-wings have maneuverability. Which they don't. In fact, the B-wing has more red maneuvers than the Y-wing.

Not trying to be rude or anything, your descriptions just puzzled me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 warboss wrote:
It's a fun game but careful not to bloat it too much. I'd say about 150pts is about the limit. I've been turned off a bit personally with the collectibility aspect and card bloat inherent to it but the core game is solid and fun.

Oh the card bloat. It is real. I just bought 4 TIE Fighters yesterday, so yeah....it is real....

 krodarklorr wrote:

locarno24 wrote:
Generally, for rebels:

B-wings are your best 'general purpose' fighter.

X-wings are slightly less efficient, but tend to make up for this with dirty tricks; named astromechs and named pilots are often better.

Y-wings have the toughness of a B-wing for cheap, but lack manouvrability. Always give them some sort of secondary weapon - normally a turret, but torpedos and bombs can work if you build the ship around them.

Z-95s are nice 'filler' - adding in an extra ship rather than 2-3 upgrade cards is not a bad choice, and the named pilots are great support for very few points.

Not that my 2 cents will really matter, but I'm a little confused about your descriptions.

How are B-wings general purpose? That's the X-wing. The B-wing is going to be your slow and steady firepower, the X-wing has more options as far as what to do with it. Y-wings have the toughness of B-wings but lack maneuverability. This implies B-wings have maneuverability. Which they don't. In fact, the B-wing has more red maneuvers than the Y-wing.

Not trying to be rude or anything, your descriptions just puzzled me.

They're general purpose because a Blue Squadron B-wing is the best 22 points in the game. In addition to the coveted 1 hard turn, B-wings also have barrel roll which is one of the best actions in the game. Those two things make it more mobile than the X-wing, but at the cost of actions. The X-wing is better at going straight and banking because of its freer dial, but it also has less shielding than the B-wing.

locarno24 wrote:
This implies B-wings have maneuverability. Which they don't. In fact, the B-wing has more red maneuvers than the Y-wing.

The B-Wing dial is deceptively good.

The key thing is that it has access to every speed 1 and speed 2 maneuver, along with the 2k and barrel roll, giving it unmatched low-speed agility (the Starviper is the only other small-base ship that can match it). Yes, it's got a lot of red - but among its slow maneuvers, only the hard 1 turns and the 2k are red, and it can recover it's stress fairly easily with green 1banks and 1straights.

X-Wings are able to do faster white maneuvers (in particular, it has access to all 2 and 3 speed maneuvers, and they're all white), but you have to think: how can you actually exploit that against B-Wings to get them into arc and take shots, while also staying out of the B-Wings' arcs and avoiding their incoming fire? Here's where the B-Wing's ability to do slow maneuvers is very advantageous - they have a much easier time simply doing 1-speed maneuvers and pointing their guns where they think the X-Wings will be. The X-Wings can't do slow re-positions - B-Wings can exploit their barrel rolls and hard turns to win that fight. The X-Wings can bounce in and out of a furball quicker (doing their 3 and 4 speed maneuvers), but that doesn't prevent the B-Wings from just slow turning in your general direction and taking pot shots (4-speed maneuvers don't get your out of range 3).

Add on to that good stats (3 attack dice, lots of shields, Sensor and Crew slots), and you got a super good generic ship.

This is a lot of theoryhammer on my part, but I do think it's borne out by tournament results. B-Wings (and B-Wing Swarms in particular) are a common and top-tier list. X-Wings are rare in competitive X-wing. If the X-Wing were 1 or 2 points cheaper, the opposite might be true - so the Integrated Astromech is a step in the right direction.

(On an unrelated note, Y-Wings are fairly agile with an R2 astromech. Without, they get screwed by the lack of any green bank maneuvers - it makes them very predicatble when they're stressed).

Yeah... Don't confuse SPEED with MANEUVERABILITY. X-wings have speed. B-Wings have maneuverability.
X-Wings have the closing speed and the ability to rocket out of combat for a turn and come back in. (Jousting in X-WIng Speak). Which is great for ordinance (if ordinance was better). X-Wings are perhaps 1 or 2 points too expensive for the dice they throw in combat since torpedoes specifically are still in such a rough place.
B-Wings is a close fighter... it can dance out of arcs and still shoot. They are perhaps 1 point too cheap based on their dice and dial.


The Integrated Astromech card will help give the X-Wing a nice durability boost (effectively giving them a free hull upgrade (3 points) provided they lose their astromech first. This puts them inline with the dice that they throw provided that you don't spend more than 2 points on the astromech. Under those conditions, it's really hard to say which ship is better... and that makes all the difference in the world!

I've been playing with lists, and until I need to play with Scum (Slave 1 only comes in later this week), I like the idea of anchoring a list with Nera Dantels (B-Wing) with a few cheap torpedoes that he/she can fire out of arc and a stress hog. I want to play rebels more than scum, but I know that if I give demos, people can more readily identify with the rebels.

 Anpu-adom wrote:

The Integrated Astromech card will help give the X-Wing a nice durability boost (effectively giving them a free hull upgrade (3 points) provided they lose their astromech first. This puts them inline with the dice that they throw provided that you don't spend more than 2 points on the astromech. Under those conditions, it's really hard to say which ship is better... and that makes all the difference in the world!

I think that the X-wing, with an Integrated R2 unit, is a rival for the B-wing. It can K-turn, then perform nearly any 1 or 2 speed maneuver, giving it a good advantage in a joust. The Integrated mech is closer to a shield than a hull point, because it shuts down crits. The fact it can be saved for a crit, when combined with the X-wings better agility, help even out the durability.

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:

 Anpu-adom wrote:

The Integrated Astromech card will help give the X-Wing a nice durability boost (effectively giving them a free hull upgrade (3 points) provided they lose their astromech first. This puts them inline with the dice that they throw provided that you don't spend more than 2 points on the astromech. Under those conditions, it's really hard to say which ship is better... and that makes all the difference in the world!

I think that the X-wing, with an Integrated R2 unit, is a rival for the B-wing. It can K-turn, then perform nearly any 1 or 2 speed maneuver, giving it a good advantage in a joust. The Integrated mech is closer to a shield than a hull point, because it shuts down crits. The fact it can be saved for a crit, when combined with the X-wings better agility, help even out the durability.

Oh... oh! I misread the card! I thought that it read "First Damage" not may.... this makes me way more excited!

So... I worked an extra shift to give my wife a day off...

...and there was a Millenium Falcon waiting for me on my desk this evening. She just made me promise she could use it in our next game. I knew I married her for the right reasons.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
So... I worked an extra shift to give my wife a day off...

...and there was a Millenium Falcon waiting for me on my desk this evening. She just made me promise she could use it in our next game. I knew I married her for the right reasons.

Does she have a single sister by any chance?

No, no sister.

So, I had my first 100 pts game last night. I tried a XXX lineup, just to stay safe. I also tried to make my ships as durable as possible.

Luke Skywalker
R2-D2
Shield Upgrade
Marksmanship

Jek Porkins
R5-D8
Hull Upgrade
Veteran Instincs

Tarn Mison
R2-D6
Lone Wolf
Flechette Torpedoes

So I set up Mison away from my other two ships, to benefit from Lone Wolf, and relatively clear of asteroids to make sure I can maneuver. He set up most of his force to bear down on Luke & Porkins. At the end of turn 2, I lost Luke to concentrated fire. By then, I was a bit miffed, but he was flying so close and kept forgetting the order of his activations that I felt I would have a bit of a chance. He kept bumping into asteroids, his own ships, he was stressing out... yet I couldn't roll a damn hit. I think I rolled less than 10 hit symbols all night long. His lambda mopped up Porkins, ridding him of his last shield and 4 hull points in one turn.

The worse part? He hadn't set up his squad before hand and just opened a few blisters, did some quick math and just plopped down stuff. I know that mathematically it is highly unlikely, but I swear there are more evade symbols than hits on those dice.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
No, no sister.

So, I had my first 100 pts game last night. I tried a XXX lineup, just to stay safe. I also tried to make my ships as durable as possible.

Luke Skywalker
R2-D2
Shield Upgrade
Marksmanship

Jek Porkins
R5-D8
Hull Upgrade
Veteran Instincs

Tarn Mison
R2-D6
Lone Wolf
Flechette Torpedoes

So I set up Mison away from my other two ships, to benefit from Lone Wolf, and relatively clear of asteroids to make sure I can maneuver. He set up most of his force to bear down on Luke & Porkins. At the end of turn 2, I lost Luke to concentrated fire. By then, I was a bit miffed, but he was flying so close and kept forgetting the order of his activations that I felt I would have a bit of a chance. He kept bumping into asteroids, his own ships, he was stressing out... yet I couldn't roll a damn hit. I think I rolled less than 10 hit symbols all night long. His lambda mopped up Porkins, ridding him of his last shield and 4 hull points in one turn.

The worse part? He hadn't set up his squad before hand and just opened a few blisters, did some quick math and just plopped down stuff. I know that mathematically it is highly unlikely, but I swear there are more evade symbols than hits on those dice.

Ouch. That's rough man. Sorry to hear that, but it happens sometimes. Me and my girlfriend got into the game at the same time, and our third game she borrowed a Tie Defender from another guy at our store. Neither of us were familiar with a Tie Defender, and it mopped the floor with me. I could've sworn that thing could outmaneuver anything, and never failed to roll enough Evades.

I also feel bad for my friend a few nights ago. I had Prince Xizor peform a Segnor's loop right out of Jake Farell's way, shoot him with 4 attack, rolled 4 Crits....yes, crits, and he failed to roll any evades. Luckily he had a shield upgrade, so was barely still alive.

But that's how it goes with Dice games.

I saw something similar in a game of Armada last night; a Victory-II managed to get the jump on a Nebulon-B, with the Victory's front and one broadside arc getting to fire at short range into the frigate's side. Front arc fires, and inflicts five hits, leaving the frigate with one hull point remaining. the broadside fires - and does nothing at all, and the frigate limps away.

Yikes... such things happen. It's one of the reasons that rerolls are so powerful in a game with relatively few dice.

Speaking on the addicted side...
I'm Anpu... and I'm addicted to Star Wars Miniatures.
I bought my brother's collection... which gives me 14 TIE's, 9 Interceptors.... well, you get the idea.

I would have given Tarn an R7 astromech. Perfect combo as Tarn gets an auto target lock on anyone who targets him. R7 lets you make him reroll if you have a target lock. Dice can only be rerolled once, and remember that defender modifiys attack dice first.

My green dice hate me.

The Baron, range 3, through an obstacle with a Stealth Device.
That's 6 dice people. Not one evade.

My green dice hate me too. Was rolling 5 yesterday with my A wing.. Rolled all blanks to dodge one hit so no love from my green dice. Going to take my dice with me to church on Sunday to get them blessed or have the curse removed. If I didn't have bad luck I wouldn't have any luck.

Ah, that's what you're doing wrong. You should be flying in a B-wing or Y-wing. I swear in my last half-dozen games the only reason I've been able to hit those things reliably is crack shot....

 Azreal13 wrote:
My green dice hate me.

The Baron, range 3, through an obstacle with a Stealth Device.
That's 6 dice people. Not one evade.

I know the feeling. That's why I've strayed away from fielding my Phantoms and Interceptors for awhile. Last time I played them they died waaaaaay too quickly, rolling no evades for anything.

My dice don't hate me, they are just freaking bloodthirsty. Attacking, I'll roll all crits without modifiers. But can I roll a single evade? Nope.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
No, no sister.

So, I had my first 100 pts game last night. I tried a XXX lineup, just to stay safe. I also tried to make my ships as durable as possible.

Luke Skywalker
R2-D2
Shield Upgrade
Marksmanship

Jek Porkins
R5-D8
Hull Upgrade
Veteran Instincs

Tarn Mison
R2-D6
Lone Wolf
Flechette Torpedoes
.

General advice to try this list again

Try a different Elite on Luke. Lone Wolf makes an excellent one for him, since he gets a free focus for defense and you reroll blanks, he's surprisingly tough.

For Porkins, give him Push the limit. It pairs with his ability so well its kind of hard to not try it. Other than that, good setup.

For Tarn, give him an R7 and maybe a torpedo IF you have leftover points from the aces (plasma torpedoes would be a great choice for the opening salvo) R7 pairs with him so well its disgusting.

Also, here's another fun one to try

Wedge: Stay on Target, R2D2, Engine upgrade

Luke: Lone Wolf, R5P9, hull upgrade

Tarn Mison: R7

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:
My dice don't hate me, they are just freaking bloodthirsty. Attacking, I'll roll all crits without modifiers. But can I roll a single evade? Nope.

Oh, yeah, I get on with the red fellas fine! It's just the little treacherous green bastards that give me trouble!

Addiction? I'm not addicted, I can stop any time I want...

My friends started X-Wing a bit before I did. They had sizable Rebel and Imperial fleets when S&V was announced, so I decided that would be my faction. Since the figures weren't going to be out for awhile, I built a proto-S&V fleet by picking up:

5 Z-95s
2 Y-Wings
2 HWKs
1 Firespray

Sure, I couldn't use the Firespray with the other ships, but whatevs. Then S&V came out and I bought 2 Most Wanted packs, putting me up to 9 Z-95 Headhunters and 4 Y-Wings...

Had played literally 1 regular game at that point: the game I played when my friend taught me how to play.

Since then I've bought at least 2 of every S&V ship to release (4 Khiraxzes). With Wave VIII, I plan on expanding my Rebel fleet, since I'm a big fan of the show Star Wars Rebels. Gotta have Hera in my fleet!

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

Spoiler:

No, no sister.

So, I had my first 100 pts game last night. I tried a XXX lineup, just to stay safe. I also tried to make my ships as durable as possible.

Luke Skywalker
R2-D2
Shield Upgrade
Marksmanship

Jek Porkins
R5-D8
Hull Upgrade
Veteran Instincs

Tarn Mison
R2-D6
Lone Wolf
Flechette Torpedoes

.

General advice to try this list again

Try a different Elite on Luke. Lone Wolf makes an excellent one for him, since he gets a free focus for defense and you reroll blanks, he's surprisingly tough.

For Porkins, give him Push the limit. It pairs with his ability so well its kind of hard to not try it. Other than that, good setup.

For Tarn, give him an R7 and maybe a torpedo IF you have leftover points from the aces (plasma torpedoes would be a great choice for the opening salvo) R7 pairs with him so well its disgusting.

Also, here's another fun one to try

Wedge: Stay on Target, R2D2, Engine upgrade

Luke: Lone Wolf, R5P9, hull upgrade

Tarn Mison: R7

I try to stay with the cards I have, I know this is old fashioned, but I haven't gotten my hands on Wedge yet. It's the next purchase, don't worry.

Tarn Mison with R7 is potentially brutal... ly survivable? Is that a thing? He doesn't really need anything else after giving him an integrated astromech.

How yes, the new Core Set HAS FINALLY LANDED IN CANADA!!!

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
He kept bumping into asteroids, his own ships, he was stressing out... yet I couldn't roll a damn hit. I think I rolled less than 10 hit symbols all night long.

You're not the only one who's dice hate him. Welcome to my life:



That's right, four HLC blanks... the story of my life.

I've had it both ways.

Wedge killing a TIE Fighter with a single attack - then smacking into an asteroid.That was a fun night.

Gonna try the Mison/R7 combo tonight. I still feel more comfy with Luke, R2-D2 and Shield upgrade, but I'll try Lone Wolf on him. I guess Wedge and Tarn will hang together tonight.

I won!

Mison/R7, good combo, and not too annoying because not overly aggressive. I think he only got one hit in all night. But damn did he get to use his abilities in mid-game. Right before my opponent decided enough was enough and gave up on Luke and Wedge.

I used Wedge with Marksmanship, an R7 and a Hull upgrade (points), I will switch him back to R5-K6, because he frankly needs it. I was lucky to dodge a lot of arcs with him.

Luke with Lone Wolf, his card ability, R2D2 and a shield, was at full shields by the end of this.

I won a game. *swoon*


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I was thinking of this as I was drifting to sleep last night.

Does anyone know if there are "sleeves" that can accomodate one standard sized card and the smaller upgrade cards, all in half slots (like the little slot in a receipt holder for you to slip your credit card in)? That would be a great play aid to thumb through your options rapidly.

So I showed up at a friend's house today, and I got stumped. I had Tycho (PTL, Wired, Test Pilot), a stress hog and 2 b-wings.

He was playing Whisper (ACD, Mara Jade, FCS), an Academy Pilot and Kath Scarlet with a Rebel Captive and other stuff.

I made very short work of the Firespray. Tycho doesn't care about stress (although it does make him harder to maneuver, I found). It was scary how easily that big ship went down.

In exchange he almost one shot-ed a B-wing (he rolled 2 hits and 2 crits on 2 separate occasions, that last time on 5 dice because he was on my sixes). I had the hardest time after that bringing his tie fighter and even more his tie phantom to bear. The academy pilot dispatched the rest of my ships, (no kidding) and Tycho was unable to get through his evade dice.

I tried to ignore the phantom at first, thinking I'd keep it for last, but the cloak-decloak shenanigans made it really hard to pin down. He flew really close to my ships, and always just dodged my arcs, or I would roll a single hit.

Is there any technique to dealing with a phantom?

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

Is there any technique to dealing with a phantom?

Yep... Turrets.


Also, out PS them to shoot before they recloak. Blocking them and/or taking away their decloak lanes is effective as well. Was your opponent playing with the updated decloaking rules?

Kill it first. Best advice I can give. It's the most dangerous end game ship around. Letting it live to the end, especially if you have low PS ships, is just as good as handing your opponent the end

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

Is there any technique to dealing with a phantom?

Yep... Turrets.


Also, out PS them to shoot before they recloak. Blocking them and/or taking away their decloak lanes is effective as well. Was your opponent playing with the updated decloaking rules?

As a jest, let's say we weren't, and you had to enlighten me about them... how would you go about doing that?

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

As a jest, let's say we weren't, and you had to enlighten me about them... how would you go about doing that?

Well old chap, since we're having a go at it in jest I surmise that I would begin our little jaunt at the FFG X-Wing FAQ where it, among many other errata and changes are cataloged nicely. Mmmm, indeed, jolly good show there.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Is there any technique to dealing with a phantom?

Yep... Turrets.

Also, out PS them to shoot before they recloak. Blocking them and/or taking away their decloak lanes is effective as well. Was your opponent playing with the updated decloaking rules?

As a jest, let's say we weren't, and you had to enlighten me about them... how would you go about doing that?

Out PS them with anyone that is PS 8 or PS 9 with Veteran Instincts or you can try the for the initiative bid if you have PS 9 pilots. Shooting a Phantom before it can recloak with ACD is the easiest way to kill one.

Whisper can only decloak left, right, and straight meaning you can clog up her decloak lanes pretty easily. You can also block them like you block anything else (just fly gak in the way, preferably cheap ships like TIEs or Z-95s), leaving her actionless and vulnerable.

As far as the decloak rules go, they were changed in April to make Phantoms (and other cloaked ships) decloak at the beginning of the activation phase instead of prior to the dial reveal.

oh my, he told me the decloak was at the end of the activation phase, just before the combat phase.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Krinsath wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

As a jest, let's say we weren't, and you had to enlighten me about them... how would you go about doing that?

Well old chap, since we're having a go at it in jest I surmise that I would begin our little jaunt at the FFG X-Wing FAQ where it, among many other errata and changes are cataloged nicely. Mmmm, indeed, jolly good show there.

Jolly good, guv'nor, but that blighted FFG site won't let me peek at it at work.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
oh my, he told me the decloak was at the end of the activation phase, just before the combat phase.

Nope. That's wrong in every way possible.

The old rule was prior to revealing your maneuver dial and it was changed to the beginning of the activation phase after all other abilities that trigger at the beginning of the activation phase (it's the last thing that happens before ships begin moving).

Here is what it says:

At the start of the Activation phase, after players have resolved all other abilities that trigger at the start of the Activation phase, each ship may spend a cloak token to decloak, starting with the ship with the lowest pilot skill (using initiative to break ties).

Oh my. So if he can't decloak because of traffic or whatever, then he has to spend the whole turn cloaked and unable to attack.

Interesting.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Oh my. So if he can't decloak because of traffic or whatever, then he has to spend the whole turn cloaked and unable to attack.

Interesting.

Yes, which can throw your plans for a loop in a hurry. Granted, if a cloaked Phantom is able to complete it's assigned maneuver and take an action, it can be hard to punch through four agility and an evade token. However, that's better than having to eat four of five modified dice from her.

Welp. I played another game last night. I went full heroes, and again had better success. I played this:

Ten Numb
Veteran Instincts
Mangler Canon
Proton Torps
FCS

Poe Dameron
BB-8
Push the limit

Airen Cracken
Wingman

I used Airen and Poe as a squad and tried to keep them within range 1 of each other, it was brutal. Granted, my opponent used a "little bit of everything" list, so it wasn't quite a fair match. I only lost shields and 1 hull on the B-Wing. He was completely wiped out in a little over 7 turns. It stopped being funny after a while, though, because I had the hot hands. It's hard to keep your exultation in check. I tried to be very sober about it towards the end, because it was 3 ships chasing a PS2 tie bomber.

I just wish the games were a little less lopsided, for some reason.

That's a nice list... Poe with triple actions and no stress at the end of the turn is great. Cracken is my favorite pilot ability.

You might actually consider dropping VI from Ten-Numb on purpose to bring him down to PS8, so that Cracken can give him an extra action before he shoots.

Also: the proton torpedo makes more sense on Poe, since Ten-Numb will want to be using his mangler cannon as much as possible. You can spend Poe's focus token to modify the proton torpedo attack, then regain it from Cracken when he shoots.

I'm not closed to the idea, since it's the same number of points, but if I do drop VI (oh and I forgot, my modification for Poe's ship was the integrated astromech, it's a nice insurance policy), I'm left with 2 points.

Since I was already running Ten Numb as a loner, I could give him Lone Wolf for that extra re-roll. Although if there was a way to garner more focus for him. As a way to make sure I would get at least one hit.

Am I right in thinking Cannon = Secondary Weapon, so no modification for range?

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

Am I right in thinking Cannon = Secondary Weapon, so no modification for range?

Correct. Any upgrade card that gives you attacks, is a secondary weapon.

Turrets
Torpedoes
Missiles
Cannons

And Hot-shot blasters.

Yes... you've got it on Secondary Weapons. It took me a long time to figure that out.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I'm not closed to the idea, since it's the same number of points, but if I do drop VI (oh and I forgot, my modification for Poe's ship was the integrated astromech, it's a nice insurance policy), I'm left with 2 points.

IA is nice, but I'm a fan of Autothrusters on Poe... I wouldn't want to give up the versatility of BB-8 even if it meant not dying (also, I don't proxy cards )

Since I was already running Ten Numb as a loner, I could give him Lone Wolf for that extra re-roll. Although if there was a way to garner more focus for him. As a way to make sure I would get at least one hit.

I would suggest dropping the Proton Torpedoes altogether to free up more points. Try something like this:

Ten Numb (31)
Lone Wolf (2)
Fire-Control System (2)
"Mangler" Cannon (4)
Tactician (2)
B-Wing/E2 (1)

Poe Dameron (31)
Push the Limit (3)
BB-8 (2)
Autothrusters (2)

Airen Cracken (19)
Veteran Instincts (1)

Total: 100
View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Am I right in thinking Cannon = Secondary Weapon, so no modification for range?

Correct, for both the attacker and defender.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I'm not closed to the idea, since it's the same number of points, but if I do drop VI (oh and I forgot, my modification for Poe's ship was the integrated astromech, it's a nice insurance policy), I'm left with 2 points.

IA is nice, but I'm a fan of Autothrusters on Poe... I wouldn't want to give up the versatility of BB-8 even if it meant not dying (also, I don't proxy cards )

Would you not keep BB-8, until you were about to lose the ship, then apply IA, in essence giving you a last minute shield

 statu wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I'm not closed to the idea, since it's the same number of points, but if I do drop VI (oh and I forgot, my modification for Poe's ship was the integrated astromech, it's a nice insurance policy), I'm left with 2 points.

IA is nice, but I'm a fan of Autothrusters on Poe... I wouldn't want to give up the versatility of BB-8 even if it meant not dying (also, I don't proxy cards )

Would you not keep BB-8, until you were about to lose the ship, then apply IA, in essence giving you a last minute shield

Yes, but BB-8 turns Poe into a pesudo-arc dodger and Autotrusters means as long as he out of arc of a PWT or at range three, he's guaranteed to get an at least one evade.

Personally, I feel that IA is more valuable one the T-65 X-wing than on the T-70.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

Personally, I feel that IA is more valuable one the T-65 X-wing than on the T-70.

I think that, on a generic blue novice, IA is possibly better than Autothrusters, simply because I am less able to reliably dodge arcs. Therefore, the slightly cheaper R2/R5+IA becomes more useful.

He was often out of arc, thanks to BB-8 and Boost, but very rarely at range 3. He was usually in the thick of things.

Correct.

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:
I think that, on a generic blue novice, IA is possibly better than Autothrusters, simply because I am less able to reliably dodge arcs. Therefore, the slightly cheaper R2/R5+IA becomes more useful.

I more or less agree. However, I still think Poe is better served with Autothrusters.

I'm more than willing to give it a try. It may just be that my opponent was very single-minded, but he focused the whole game on bringing down my B-Wing, so Poe never even lost a shield.

So, I'm a little un-inspired, but I want to surprise my friend tomorrow. I was thinking of springing some bombs on him.

2 x Syndicate Thugs
Bomb Loadout
Extra Munitions
Proximity Mines

Kath Scarlet
Mangler cannon (can't get enough of this bad boy)
Outmaneuver
K3
Engine Upgrade

He's not super competitive, but am I doing something really dumb?

Scum bombs and no Emon?

For shame!

I know. I really love Emon. I was trying to diversify.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
He's not super competitive, but am I doing something really dumb?

Putting a cannon on Kath.

She wants to be shooting out of her butt arc whenever possible because she gets an extra dice, which makes taking a cannon upgrade on her wasted points. Unhinged Astromechs on your Y-wings if you're going to use them as bombers, doubly so if you're using mines since they take an action to drop. If you get stressed on a Y-wing without Unhinged Astromech, you're way more fethed since they only have two green maneuvers on their dial.

It isn't the best list ever, but try something like this:

Syndicate Thug (18)
Autoblaster Turret (2)
Extra Munitions (2)
Bomb Loadout (0)
Unhinged Astromech (1)
Proximity Mines (3)

Syndicate Thug (18)
Autoblaster Turret (2)
Extra Munitions (2)
Bomb Loadout (0)
Unhinged Astromech (1)
Proximity Mines (3)

Kath Scarlet (Scum) (38)
Veteran Instincts (1)
K4 Security Droid (3)
Inertial Dampeners (1)
Engine Upgrade (4)

Total: 99
View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Or something like this, which I think is a little better:

Syndicate Thug (18)
Twin Laser Turret (6)
Unhinged Astromech (1)

Syndicate Thug (18)
Twin Laser Turret (6)
Unhinged Astromech (1)

Kath Scarlet (Scum) (38)
Veteran Instincts (1)
Seismic Charges (2)
K4 Security Droid (3)
Inertial Dampeners (1)
Engine Upgrade (4)

Total: 99
View in Yet Another Squad Builder

The range 1 turret? Are you insane? (Come to think of it, though, it always fires on 3 dice...)

I did have Unhinged AMs, I completely forgot to list them.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
The range 1 turret? Are you insane? (Come to think of it, though, it always fires on 3 dice...)

No, it's only two dice. However, a range one turret on the Y-wings is worth more than a more or less useless cannon on Kath, especially considering you had no turret at all equipped to them.

Truth be told, the TLT Y-wing list is definitely the stronger of the two lists I posted. I would give that one a try.

Scum Kath is best when you aren't really trying to force the rear arc shots... Instead you fly more naturally. I think that a HLC works wonders for her in jousting matches. You get some HCL shots on the way in... you don't K-turn until you are past them so that you get some nice rear arc shots.

I really want to try the bombs, though. I'll keep the TLT list for later, but tonight it's going to be bombs. (You're right, the autoblaster is a secondary weapon, I don't know how good lady luck will be to me, but eh)

So I'm going to downgrade to Emon, give him an Inertial Dampener just in case I get a good shot with a Seismic Charge.

I did a combo, the bomb Y-wings and Kath Scarlet with a seismic charge.

The bombs were fantastic. They accounted for most of the kills last night. I even fired the seismic charge right at my own ship^in order to wipe out two of his. Glorious stuff.

He won in the end because I flee a big bas ship into a corner of the map. I didn't have enough space to maneuver. Aside from that my Firespray still had some shields. All that was left was Soontir Fel chasing a mauled Y-Wing. I conceded at that point.

If your playing against Fel again you could try Emon Azzameen in a Firespray with Action bombs (conner net, cluster mines and proximity mines). He is PS6 so he would move before Fel and since Azzameen has 4 different places to drop bombs you could stick a bomb right on top or in front of Fel and wave goodbye!

Azzameen is a lot of fun to play, but due to his higher PS he's not a super effective bomber since you don't always move first, but the bomb dropping coverage is amazing. And bonus you likely get to shoot as well due to the rear arc (after dropping bomb).

I was thinking of switching to Azzameen, N'dru and... something else. It's sad that Azameen can't take extra munitions for even more kaboom-y goodness.

Although if I go by fluff, Scarlet ought to be fielded with Binayre Pirates (although can you really call a CCG fluff?)

For Azzameen to get extra munitions you have to take the Slave-One title... not exactly fluffy and you only get to have 1 type of bomb. Not so fun. Him with 2-3 bombs though... that's a blast! (pun intended).

With the Andrasta title you can take 3 bombs, or if you take slave 1 you can take extra munitions and 1 bomb.

I prefer the 3 bombs it gives some variety but is also more expensive. You can drop Cluster Mines and Conner Nets horizontally with the 3 turn drop. This potentially allows the conner to position better due to its length. The cluster mines if you drop it right you force 1 ship to hit all 3 of them and Proximity Mines are always good.

Its kind of expensive but you could also take Experimental Interface to drop a bomb and perform an action, however the Firespray doesn't have many green maneuvers.

That's very true. I've been playing lists with PTL on a pilot or two, and action economy is vastly different with Firesprays and Y-Wings. I felt like my most frequent action was this:
Really? (Action): Scowl deeply at the lack of influence your action will have and get a free laugh from your opponent.

Ok, I'm going to need to know how to post lists, SPJ-style.

In the meantime:

Emon Azzameen
Andrasta
Seismic Charge x 3
Inertial Dampener
(43 pts)

Palob Godalhi
Moldy Crow
Recon Specialist
Twin Laser Turret
Bodyguard
(34 pts)

Prince Xizor
Virago
Veteran Instincts
Fire-Control System
Autothrusters
Inertial Dampeners
(38 pts)

N'Dru Suhlak
Lone Wolf
Culster Missiles
(23 pts)

Bynaire Pirate
(12 pts)

I'm having a 150 pts game against two people who will play 75 pts of Rebels and 75 pts of Empire. The Bynaire Pirate is really just there to be a shunt for Xizor, N'Dru could really use glitterstim, but I don,t know where to get the points. Palob will be there just to be an annoyance, stealing tokens and chucking focus out the window when I need to really get those bad dice rolls to give me more. Emon... I loved using bombs on my last game.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Ok, I'm going to need to know how to post lists, SPJ-style.

You mean like this?

Emon Azzameen (36)
Seismic Charges (2)
Inertial Dampeners (1)
Seismic Charges (2)
Seismic Charges (2)
Andrasta (0)

Palob Godalhi (20)
Bodyguard (2)
Twin Laser Turret (6)
Recon Specialist (3)
Moldy Crow (3)

Prince Xizor (31)
Veteran Instincts (1)
Fire-Control System (2)
Inertial Dampeners (1)
Autothrusters (2)
Virago (1)

N'Dru Suhlak (17)
Lone Wolf (2)
Cluster Missiles (4)

Binayre Pirate (12)

Total: 150
View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Follow the link and use that squad builder. When you're done, click "Print/View as Text" and choose the BBCode option and copy/paste it.

I'm having a 150 pts game against two people who will play 75 pts of Rebels and 75 pts of Empire. The Bynaire Pirate is really just there to be a shunt for Xizor, N'Dru could really use glitterstim, but I don,t know where to get the points. Palob will be there just to be an annoyance, stealing tokens and chucking focus out the window when I need to really get those bad dice rolls to give me more. Emon... I loved using bombs on my last game.

Bombs are cool, but if you're using Andrasta on him, give him a little more variety. Better yet, give him the Slave I title and Extra Munitions to take two Proton Bombs (I'm of the opinion that two Protons > three Seismic). To do that, drop Xizor because he sucks and one Z-95 isn't enough to take full advantage of his pilot ability. Keeping him with Palob is a good idea, but it's going to be rather hard to keep them both together given the HWK's gakky dial. Also, give Palob a Blaster Turret instead of TLT; his ability works at range 1-2 and TLT works at range 2-3. Instead of Bodyguard, give him Opportunist which lets him roll an additional attack die against a token-less target (like perhaps the one you just stole a token from...). The Scum HWKs are all awesome and have great synergy with each other. With that in mind, try this:

Emon Azzameen (36)
Proton Bombs (5)
Bombardier (1)
Inertial Dampeners (1)
Extra Munitions (2)
Slave I (0)

Palob Godalhi (20)
Opportunist (4)
Blaster Turret (4)
K4 Security Droid (3)
Moldy Crow (3)

Dace Bonearm (23)
Predator (3)
Ion Cannon Turret (5)
Recon Specialist (3)

Torkil Mux (19)
Ion Cannon Turret (5)

Binayre Pirate (12)

Total: 149
View in Yet Another Squad Builder

He's using Yet Another Squad Builder... they have an option for formatting lists like that. So does the squad builder I use... x-wing-builder.co.uk

I don't know if Xizor really goes into an aces list. N'Dru and Palob have few enough hitpoints... I'd hate for them to die early just to keep Xizor alive another round.

Also, I'd try to switch one of those Seismic for a different type of bomb... more variety on Emmon would be good.

I could justify buying a second HWK-290... but not a brace. Truth be told I only flew it once and was underwhelmed by the dial, but it was never destroyed.

What if I forego the firespray and use a pair of y-wings instead?
(I only own a firespray, a HWK, 3 Z-95, 2 Y-Wings, a StarViper... and a lonely M3-A)

I like the toughness of the Y-wings with Xizor. They can take a few... remember, a smart opponent won't go after Xizor until after the support ships are down. Y-Wings can eat a lot of damage!

What about this?

Syndicate Thug (18)
Autoblaster Turret (2)
Bomb Loadout (0)
Extra Munitions (2)
Unhinged Astromech (1)
Proximity Mines (3)

Syndicate Thug (18)
Autoblaster Turret (2)
Bomb Loadout (0)
Extra Munitions (2)
Unhinged Astromech (1)
Proximity Mines (3)

Prince Xizor (31)
Veteran Instincts (1)
Fire-Control System (2)
Inertial Dampeners (1)
Autothrusters (2)
Virago (1)

Binayre Pirate (12)

Binayre Pirate (12)

Palob Godalhi (20)
Opportunist (4)
Blaster Turret (4)
K4 Security Droid (3)
Inertial Dampeners (1)
Moldy Crow (3)

Total: 149

View in Yet Another Squad Builder


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Although I feel I won't get to use the bombs if I use them as bodyguards...

Only one Scyk? I never leave home without at least two. I'm fact my HWK / Scyk / Scyk list is by far my favourite.. where each Scyk rocks in at 33 points lol

I almost fainted when I read that.

Surely you jest?

Seems like a list that would be fun to try.
How are you going to fly it?

I was thinking of keeping the Y-Wings on a side, separate from the rest of the pack long enough for them to speed forward (ah!) and drop their payload to clog up the lanes for those pesky imperials. Once that is done, I would have them regroup and take over for the Z-95, which could then fly off together and somewhat hunt down whatever refuses to come and play.

I'd start my initial formation as such:

Z (about 1.5 range) Z
(middle) P X

This is to account for the different PS of the fighters and keep enough of a bubble to steal tokens. The formation would go rather slow, to keep up with the HWK, and to maximize the number of focus tokens put aside for later use.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I almost fainted when I read that.

Surely you jest?

Ha! Not at all.

2x Tansarii Point Veterans (Opportunist, Stealth Device, HLC, Heavy Scyk title)
1x Palob Godalhi (Predator, TLT, Shield Upgrade, Greedo)

If something comes near the HWK, one of the Scyks will be shooting at it for 5 dice. Meanwhile the HWK is plinking away at anything in range. Greedo has.. heh.. been kind of a pain but it's a fun list and the only thing that has really hurt me so far has been my consistent ability to roll 2 hits on 5 dice, even with target locks..

 Siygess wrote:


2x Tansarii Point Veterans (Opportunist, Stealth Device, HLC, Heavy Scyk title)
1x Palob Godalhi (Predator, TLT, Shield Upgrade, Greedo)

If something comes near the HWK, one of the Scyks will be shooting at it for 5 dice. Meanwhile the HWK is plinking away at anything in range. Greedo has.. heh.. been kind of a pain but it's a fun list and the only thing that has really hurt me so far has been my consistent ability to roll 2 hits on 5 dice, even with target locks..

I actually really want to get a 2nd Scyk to perform shenanigans like this

In my last game it came down to Soontir Fel with PTL and one other upgrade that meant it was the same cost as my last Scyk. They were in a dogfight for about eight turns and I was pretty happy with the ships performance even if it didn't have all the tokens each turn that Soontir did.

So the Scyk would work well if chalked under the category of "go big or go home"... interesting.

I was trying different builds but as soon as I would see them near 25 pts, I'd just erase everything.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
So the Scyk would work well if chalked under the category of "go big or go home"... interesting.

No. They're a garbage ship, probably the worse one in the game.

"Can it work?" is much different question than "Is it worth the point cost?"; the former is a yes, the latter is a no.

At least I got a mangler cannon out of it.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
So the Scyk would work well if chalked under the category of "go big or go home"... interesting.

Nope. The HLC scyk can "work" against some lists (very slow ones like b-wings), but against a good player it's just way too easy to rush into range 1 where the HLC scyk is completely screwed. And its best-case scenario is usually matching its point cost, not the kind of dominance you'd expect from good ships. I don't think I've ever seen a scyk of any kind perform well enough that I'd want one in my list.

I played against three scyks in a 90 point game at an escalation tournament. I had dash and two a wings. Dash took 1shield off 1 scyk. The a wings did the rest in 6 turns overall.
My first experience with them and it put me off ever buying one

I think it really depends on what you are looking for. The Scyk is never going to be a great ship, the kind you pretty much have to have in a list if you want to rank near the top.. or the kind of ship that will make people groan and leave them wanting to complain on a forum about how OP it is.

Some people view a ship purely in those terms, and argue that if you are going to spend a bunch of points to make ship x behave like ship y, then you should just fly ship y.

I can see the logic in that, sure, but with one exception where I was out by turn 3 I have always held my own with scyks. In a 2 vs 2 game they took down 2 A-Wings, a Z-95, Wedge and banged up Luke some before the B-Wings moved in from the other side of the table and destroyed them. In my last game vs Soontir Fel, Carnor Jax and a Shadow Squadron Pilot they matched it and it went down to the wire, with the Vet and Fel both trying to get the last hit on each other.. and these are just the times I've lost with them. They have won plenty of games too.

Edit: I guess what I'm saying is, it has always been my preference to fly ships that I like, and then find a way to have a good game with them. With the Scyks (and HWK) it is absolutely possible.

 Siygess wrote:
Edit: I guess what I'm saying is, it has always been my preference to fly ships that I like, and then find a way to have a good game with them. With the Scyks (and HWK) it is absolutely possible.

Well yeah, that's because the Scum HWKs are great.

I know the Scyk is a crap ship, I do, but I still love to fly them. I don't do tournaments or anything, so it's not really a big deal to me if I play a crap list.

That said, in double scyk list I would swap the HLCs for Manglers to save 6 points and eliminate the R1 donut hole. Since Palob's ability is R1-2 and HLCs are R2-3, you're basically forced to either separate your HWK or stay at R2. Leaves you enough points for Moldy Crow on Palob (to hold onto those tokens he steals) and either ID and 2 point Initiative bid or Glitterstim and a 1 point bid.

You could also go full bore and swap down to Autoblasters if you were truly crazy, but I'm no sure how long you'd survive IN R1 let alone getting there.

Yeah I originally had.. Dace with the Autoblaster, Engine Upgrade and Saboteur and two support Scyks with Ion Cannons.. but I am super, super bad at rolling dice which is why I usually stick with the HLCs. 3 primary dice at range one (or 4 with Opportunist) isn't so bad... and maxing dice - with re-rolls - is the only way I ever seem to be able to hit anything.

 streamdragon wrote:
That said, in double scyk list I would swap the HLCs for Manglers to save 6 points and eliminate the R1 donut hole.

IMO the only thing worse than a HLC scyk is a mangler scyk. The HLC version is a glass cannon with a fatal blind spot, but at least in theory it can justify its point cost if you're very careful with your maneuvering and use other ships to "pin" your targets in place for a good HLC shot. The mangler version, on the other hand, will never be good. So if you absolutely have to take scyks you should at least take the version that has a chance of being a successful ship.

I've been thinking about what... someone else said earlier in the thread. If I use the Y-wings as bodyguards, I could forego the expense of Binayre Pirates just for expendable HP, and instead use Y-wings that can hurt all the way in, and drop a surprise once they reach turnover. So far I have this instead.

Prince Xizor (31)
Push the Limit (3)
Fire-Control System (2)
Inertial Dampeners (1)
Autothrusters (2)
Virago (1)

Syndicate Thug (18)
Blaster Turret (4)
Bomb Loadout (0)
Extra Munitions (2)
Unhinged Astromech (1)
Ion Bombs (2)

Syndicate Thug (18)
Blaster Turret (4)
Bomb Loadout (0)
Extra Munitions (2)
Unhinged Astromech (1)
Ion Bombs (2)

Palob Godalhi (20)
Calculation (1)
Blaster Turret (4)
K4 Security Droid (3)
Moldy Crow (3)

N'Dru Suhlak (17)
Lone Wolf (2)
Cluster Missiles (4)
Glitterstim (2)

Total: 150

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

I realize I have a second HWK dial from the original pack, so I could "proxy" one more, maybe instead of the 8-dice attack wonderboy. Or replace Palob with a naked Firespray, as long as I remove extra munitions on the Y-Wings. Which, I figure, won't last all that long. I could use flechette torps too, but I figure three different secondary weapons on those is most probably overkill.

So, a couple of things that stand out to me:

1) N'dru is probably not a very good option unless you're playing on a larger table. With 50% more ships on a standard 3x3 table you're going to have a lot more problems with keeping him away from everyone else while still making him useful. If you can keep him away he's still almost as awesome as ever (though more vulnerable to being killed before he can shoot), but you'll have to be very careful in your deployment and initial moves.

2) Your upgrades aren't very efficient:

Xizor doesn't really have the greens to use PTL effectively. Corran can get away with using PTL every turn without green 90* turns because he can take a ridiculous beating while trying to turn around and get another shot, but Xizor can't. You probably want VI instead to maximize his arc-dodging potential, and you might want to consider using a sensor jammer instead of the FCS.

The y-wings need better turrets. Blaster turrets look ok on paper, but they're way too vulnerable to any kind of action denial. Any stress/bumping/etc turns those y-wings into useless paperweights. Instead you want at least ion turrets (possibly with the A4 title) and probably TLTs. That makes your y-wings much more consistent and minimizes the chances of them having useless turns.

The ion bombs are kind of questionable. If you can get a good drop with enough ships to take advantage of the predictable moves they're not terrible, but that's hard to do in my experience. Seismic charges are cheap and usually more effective, while conner nets are more expensive but awesome.

Calculation on Palob is a waste. It's barely better than just using a focus action, and you're never going to want to spend two focus tokens in one turn when your gun requires one to shoot. In fact, I'm not really convinced that Palob is a great idea at 150 points. He's a huge priority target, and I don't think he has the defense to survive focused fire at 150 points. If you really want to use him keep him cheap, an ion turret or TLT and that's it. He's almost certainly going to die before he can make good use of any other upgrades.

We'll be playing on a 4' x 4' table, because of the extra ship. My employee is super stoked at getting to paint a nebula on it too. Artists, it takes so little to please them.

I was toying with VI instead, so I might go ahead and do that. Free up more points.

The Ys are not getting the title because I know my friends have the newfound loves of their lives, A-wing and Interceptors, so I know they will try to dodge arcs as much as possible. I could switch to Ion turrets and drop the bombs (or at least the extra bombs)

I agree that Palob could be leaner. But if I do use another turret, I might as well downgrade the pilot too, since I might want to use the TLT, and Palob's ability doesn't quite jive with it as much. So I could use Dace Bonearm with a TLT. I can keep him back a bit.

I have 4 points left.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
We'll be playing on a 4' x 4' table, because of the extra ship.

In that case N'dru should be fine.

The Ys are not getting the title because I know my friends have the newfound loves of their lives, A-wing and Interceptors, so I know they will try to dodge arcs as much as possible. I could switch to Ion turrets and drop the bombs (or at least the extra bombs)

The main problem here is autothrusters. Your blaster or ion turrets aren't going to hurt an a-wing or interceptor with an out of arc shot anyway, so you might as well hit them twice inside your arc. Even TLTs struggle against tons of green dice, focus + evade stacks, and autothrusters.

But if I do use another turret, I might as well downgrade the pilot too, since I might want to use the TLT, and Palob's ability doesn't quite jive with it as much. So I could use Dace Bonearm with a TLT. I can keep him back a bit.

It's not quite that bad. Palob's ability is short range only, but you aren't necessarily shooting at the same target that you strip a token from. And very often what Palob really does is act as area denial and keep important ships outside of a range 1-2 bubble, which means your shooting is range 3 anyway. But if you don't like Palob I wouldn't take Dace either, his pilot ability just plain sucks. Palob hanging back and acting as area denial is still going to be a much better option. If it's Dace or nothing then take a different ship (the Firespray maybe, or another y-wing if you have another model).

I only have 2 Ys at the moment. And no time to get to a shop that sells (or the budget to allocate, for that matter).

I agree with your assessment of autothrusters, but two things have to be considered in my meta 1) they dislike playing with cards they don't have. So far I am the only one with a StarViper in the group. 2) They don't see the value of autothrusters because they don't use turrets ( they don,t have the models that can sport one). Like them, I very much preferred, say, a shield upgrade (with R2-D2 or R5-P9 on top) because none of my opponents fire out of arc (not one) and I constantly get bumped into so they can bring their primary weapons into range 1. So unless I am making constant, careful efforts to stay at range 3 or so, its conditions rarely applied.

It's going to take time for them to develop a different strategy, I think. So in the meantime I still plan for autothrusters, for once my meta changes, but right now, it's wasted points. But turrets are still a good investment at the moment.

It's far from being Dace or nothing. I could use the HWK as a generic Spice Runner and save on points, at this pace. But if I do remove him altogether, and just run a generic Mando Merc, I know that ship is going to attract a lot of firepower, just by virtue of being on a big base. Regardless if it is tooled up or not. I think I just know where my opponents are psychologically. They will completely ignore N'Dru because he doesn't represent a big number of red dice on the surface (and we play with open cards, as it should be). All they'll see is the big silhouette of the Firespray.

Torkil Mux is probably my favorite Scum HWK pilot. He may not have the EPT slot that the other named HWKs do, but his pilot ability is a great way to deal with the issue of PS bid on your pilots. You may still move first, but move first/shoot first isn't a terrible combination.

The two points you save (1 for downgrading from Palob to Torkil, 1 for not taking Calculation) can be used to upgrade your Blaster turret to a TLT.

I'm still 4 points under (I decided to let go extra munitions).

I could give N'dru an Engine Upgrade, but then I fear he'll start drawing too much attention.

The game is afoot. The Rebel player had to drop out, but my Imperial opponent has offered to fill in the 150 pts all by himself.

I feel a bunch of arc dodgers are going to be coming my way. I bought a Khiraxz today. At least I'll have glitterstim officially.

N'Dru will be on the hunt for either his Firespray or his Lambda shuttle.

 Peregrine wrote:

Even TLTs struggle against tons of green dice, focus + evade stacks, and autothrusters

I was just thinking, kavil with TLT and Latts Razzi would be an expensive yet effective way against high agility ships with autothrusters. I'm going try it out sometime when I'm against a 2 ship list with fel or equivalent for giggles.

kavil gets 4 dice, burn the first TLT attack to get rid of tokens on 2nd attack use Latts to reduce agility by one then attack with 4 more dice. A ship with autothrusters and stealth device would have a rough time. Latts with the 180 arc would at least get a few shots in...maybe.

But then again your burning a latts target lock for 1 damage... lol oh well for the giggles it is!

I think the problem with that approach is that yeah, you've got a nasty counter to Fel, but what do you do against other targets? Corran can tank your 1-2 damage per turn, b-wing spam just laughs at your over-investment in countering Fel, etc. And even Fel isn't out there alone. Let's say your opponent brings Fel and a mini-swarm, they can afford to throw the basic TIEs at Kavil (while Fel hides in the corner) and bring him down in a turn or two because even if they lose everyone but Fel in the process that one ship can finish off whatever you have left.

As a general rule, once you start saying things like "here's my awesome combo to beat X" in X-Wing it's almost guaranteed that you're building a bad list. With only 100 points you just can't afford to focus too much on one potential threat, and spending two ships on the job is almost certainly over the line.

Welp.

It went a lot better than expected. Although I had some really mitigated second turn rolls (and lost N'dru quite fast), I ended up winning the game by a wide margin. I had a Y, my StarViper and my Firespray on the table at the end, with only some shields lost.

He flew, Soontir, Carnor, Zertik, Juno and Dark Curse. They all had Stealth Devices, the Ints had PTL and autothrusters on top, Juno had an ATC, Zertic an AC.

What saved my bacon was that, for some reason, he decided to fly in formation, So he barely dodged arcs. He waltzed right into the path of my seismic charges, trying to hammer at the Ys one at a time while I kept them tight, and kept firing ion turret shots back at him. So I might have helped with the waltzing into the bombs. Then he did some bad maneuvers straight into asteroids.

The Segnor Loop was great fun to throw at him. I could pinpoint my movement thanks to ion damage, and the last few turns were pro forma. I was really lucky, except when it came to N'dru's dice at the beginning, I was barely able to ping off a shield (and Stealth Device) off Zertik with my cluster missiles. I'm never giving him an Engine Upgrade again. I'll probably end up putting a few more points into the Mando Merc, as he was adequate, if a bit lackluster.

So I played this last night:

Jake Farrell (24)
Veteran Instincts (1)
Proton Rockets (3)
Push the Limit (3)
Autothrusters (2)
A-Wing Test Pilot (0)

Poe Dameron (31)
Veteran Instincts (1)
R5-P9 (3)
Autothrusters (2)

Kyle Katarn (21)
Twin Laser Turret (6)
Recon Specialist (3)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

...and fared moderately well. I won the game, but it was not satisfying. I lost Poe on turn 2 because he focused his fire on him and, well, his upgrades were completely wrong for this match. Which brings me to my conundrum, I know what kind of lists wins tournaments, and what seems to be good value for an unknown opponent.

Knowing my enemies never use the Decimator (for a variety of reasons) and that they only want to play Imperials, I feel like I am wasting points on Autothrusters. I have to hand it to SPJ and Peregrine, though, a fully loaded A-wing unloading prockets can wipe the smirk off someone's face. But it has to be with a TL and focus tokens, because otherwise... I'd have had a meh roll (from 2 natural hits to 3 hits and 2 crits). Which was just enough to turn Soontir into a "no hard turning, 0 PS" mess.

I feel like maybe I ought to have stacked more focus tokens on Poe? One was barely enough to keep him alive, and I never could keep it until I regenerated a shield. So I'm going to be all hipster and say "local, man, local. It's more sustainable."

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I feel like maybe I ought to have stacked more focus tokens on Poe? One was barely enough to keep him alive, and I never could keep it until I regenerated a shield. So I'm going to be all hipster and say "local, man, local. It's more sustainable."

Poe only needs one focus token as you shouldn't spend it unless you know you aren't going to be attacked or you don't need to regen a shield. I mean, if you roll a range 1 shot and get four eyeballs, then you should spend it and hope your defense roll is a good one!

That's why he works well with Kyle; when you activate Poe you can use your action for a target lock or to re-position and then have Kyle hand him a focus token. If you don't need to do any other action for Poe, you can focus and then allow Kyle to pass a focus to Jake instead.

I'd play some more games with the list before concluding that it sucks. I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to win, even in a metagame that lacks turrets or rebel/scum lists. Also, autothrusters is a good upgrade even without turrets. Automatic evades are incredibly powerful, so even if you're only getting them on range-3 shots that's still a lot of potential value for a mere two points. And remember, one of the most dangerous points in the game for elite ships is the opening turn of the approach where dodging arcs is the hardest. Three greens + auto-focus + auto-blank + regen makes it likely that you'll get Poe through the opening exchange in good shape.

As I said. I won the game, the amount of fire that Poe endured before he went down allowed the rest of the list to be uncatcheable (if that's a word). I do think the list is a great all-rounder, as it was able to survive the loss of its ace handily. The fact that Vader flew over the same asteroid twice and got damage twice did help, I won't lie.

I realize the value of the 2 pts autothrusters cost, it's just more of a "if it happens, cool" upgrade. I tend to face aces with 5 evade dice at range 3, often with an evade and focus token.

 Peregrine wrote:
I'd play some more games with the list before concluding that it sucks.

Yeah, that list definitely doesn't suck. My friend has been playing lately and has done pretty well with it.

Concerning the current meta: from what I have read on the FFG forums, the game is currently dominated by two upgrades/weapons: the Twin Laser Turret and Autothrusters. i keep hearing that these two upgrades are mandatory and any ship that can't take one or the other is useless. Is this true?

That depends.

If you're one of the people that thinks because those upgrades were featured in the winning Worlds list means they're inherently better than everything else, then yes.

Otherwise, no.

 TheNewBlood wrote:
Concerning the current meta: from what I have read on the FFG forums, the game is currently dominated by two upgrades/weapons: the Twin Laser Turret and Autothrusters. i keep hearing that these two upgrades are mandatory and any ship that can't take one or the other is useless. Is this true?

It's not true at all. Both are obviously powerful upgrades, but they aren't literally auto-win. TLTs are really efficient damage with a 360* arc, and that makes them the current standard for the "efficient generics" part of the metagame. And TLTs put a lot of pressure on agility-dependent ships to stack up tons of defense to counter all of the red dice they're facing. So, for example, Soontir Fel has a big advantage over Vader since both have the same tokens and dice but Fel has an auto-evade against every shot. But not every matchup involves TLTs, and VI Vader beats Fel in a 1v1. The main constraint of TLTs + autothrusters is that if you aren't going to bring one of the meta-defining concepts you need to be sure that your list can handle TLT spam and high-agility aces with automatic evades.

Yes, TLT and auto thrusters are two of the most powerful and often seen upgrades. However, they are not an auto win if you put them in your builds.

How to beat TLT, get in close. Can't fire that off at range 1. I will admit, the scum y-wings with the unhinged makes it difficult with a ll green 3 movements. But, it can be done.

How to beat Autothrusters, once again, get in close, but not too close. Keep those interceptors, T-70s, and others at range two if possible.

I will admit, I do use auto thrusters on my Iggy squad, and why wouldn't I. I do find that glitter stem is very abusive upgrade. It negates alot of shots and helps your shots, just one turn so it doesn't seem as overpowered. Auto thrusters just does it over a game.

The simple fact that I mentionned the Wild Karde has been trotting in my head. So I figured if I can weather the inevitable assault from scale grognards, I would have it roughly the same length as a GR-75 (the model) because having it as big as a Corvette would be a bit weird (even though, let's face it, if you're going to haul stuff across the interstellar gulf, you might as well go big).

I have the small Starship Battles model, which I am using as a jump-off point. I do not know Epic ships enough to know how to price it, or how to define its options. I know it is supposed to be rather slow and ponderous, be well armoured, pack in hidden turbolasers and a small bay for at least one one-man ship or a shuttle.

I was thinking of making it a normal Action VI freighter with scenarios along the GR-75 ship, but then give it a beefier title to bring it up to the Wild Karde.

Any help?

Wookiepedia has the Karde at 125m. The CR-90 is 150m and GR-75 is 90m.
It would be split into Fore and Aft sections (An Action IV would not be).
The Fore Section
0
0
6
4
No guns and less hull then the Corvette (35 points)

Aft
4
0
6
4
Less energy and hull than the Corvette (40 Points)

The title Wild Karde would add guns to the fore section as well as extra hull all around

Ah the Wild Karde.. sadly, the most likely Scum ship to get that treatment since it is both big and reasonably well known.. too bad it looks like a flying toolbox

I'd love to see a Doomtreader, but I think that's probably too obscure even for FFG.

Thanks Anpu-adom. I'm going to put it on the back-burner until next week as pre-Xmas is putting a pinch on my crafting time until my next day off.

So far I have the rough shape of the front end done in foamcore, and the lower part of the mid-hull. I'm trying to find a tube that is about 5 to 6 inches long, but only 3/4 of an inch in diameter. Something not too exotic that I could find in every day life.

If you are willing to pony up the cash, you can always get the version that Mel Miniatures made over on Shapeways. I have concerns about the material but I know AAN ordered some smaller ships from Shapeways and did a great job with them.

Personally I'm really tempted to get his Rogue Shadow and YV-929!

It's nice, but I'd rather make my own. Idles hands and all that jazz. The worse part is, it's only about 20$ more than a Corvette with the sucky Canadian exchange rate at the moment.

But no, I want to see how detailed I can make it before I lose my gak.

So the Wild Karrde is progressing slowly.

My wife bought me an IG-2000. In the spirit of humouring her, I decided to learn to use that ship. To very mitigated results. I'm not used to big bases and I ran all over the place, plus Vader unloaded prockets in my hindquarter that robbed me of all shields.

Anyway, I came up with this build to handle imperial aces. The bug zapper part works. I was wondering if the combination of expert handling (seen as meh most of the time) can be useful on a big base, and with stress being cleared right away. Sure, action economy is still poor but the potential to mitigate a bad maneuver on my part seems necessary in this learning curve.

IG-88B (36)
Expert Handling (2)
Advanced Sensors (3)
"Mangler" Cannon (4)
Inertial Dampeners (1)
Autothrusters (2)

Binayre Pirate (12)
Feedback Array (2)
Hull Upgrade (3)

Binayre Pirate (12)
Feedback Array (2)
Hull Upgrade (3)

Binayre Pirate (12)
Feedback Array (2)
Hull Upgrade (3)

Total: 99

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

As always, be blunt.