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So, my buddy and I have recently gotten into X wing. I bought him a core set for his B-day, and then a few days later got myself a core set. Then he went a little crazy and bought almost every ship our FLGS had in stock. Unfortunately there seem to be no X wing, Y wing, or Tie fighter expansions available anywhere except overpriced ebay auctions, but we pool our resources and can comfortably field 100 point squadrons.

Collectively we have the following,

2 x core sets
1 x YT-1300
3 x A Wings
2 x Tie Advanced
5 x Tie Interceptors
1 x Firespray 31

The problem is that the Imperials seem to have a distinct advantage most of the time unless there is a YT-1300 on the board. I have managed to kill a chewie falcon once or twice, but Han Solo is currently undefeated. He dominates every game he shows up in to the point that it seems unbalancing. My preferred rebel list goes something like this,

Han Solo with crewman Luke, and the Millennium Falcon upgrades
2 xRed Squadron X wing, no upgrades
or
2 x Greed Squadron A wing with Concussion Missiles
or one of each

Now, we are both fairly new to the game. I often feel like I don't quite have maneuvering completely under control, and am still trying to figure out if missiles are worth it and how to not get killed with em still in the tubes (for instance). But, All that being said, is Han Solo really that powerful or are we just missing something? Given the units we have to work with can anyone offer some tactical advice on how to handle a Falcon?

He isn't unbeatable. Take a tie swarm, 8 ties, focus down the x-wings first, then lace into the falcon... 15 wounds sounds insane until you realize you have 16 - 24 shots a turn vs 8 to 16 defence dice, and you will be able to focus every time, and he will only be able to do it once the whole turn.

Don't split your forces, use the weight of your attacks, you should be able to wipe out the x-wings in 2 turns and then just wail on the falcon. you should have at least 5-6 ties left at that point.

Good luck!

I've played a fair number of games as of late with my girlfriend, she plays Rebels, I, Imperial, and I have not found Han to be a particularly large problem.

I've had considerably success running Krassis in a Firespray with Heavy Laser Cannons, Mercenary Co-Pilot and a seismic charge with 3x Academy Pilots and Mauler Mithel in tie fighters.

By hanging back with the firespray and unloading with the cannon consistently, and focusing on the falcon in the first turn or two as both squadrons approach each other, the Falcon generally takes a pounding. Luck plays a role, no doubt, I've had great success getting criticals with tie fighters on the falcon, knocking down weapon strength or removing its sole agility die, but in the end, focused volume of fire early on will wear it down quickly; only one agility means it's going to have to take most of the hits it suffers.

The falcon does really well when the Empire tries to play elite. Tie Fighters and interceptors aren't cost-effective against it when heavily upgraded, as their mobility advantage doesn't mean anything when Han can shoot anywhere and first. A cheap swarm backed up by a versatile gunboat has done quite well against him.

 MajorTom11 wrote:
15 wounds sounds insane until you realize you have 16 - 24 shots a turn vs 8 to 16 defence dice, and you will be able to focus every time, and he will only be able to do it once the whole turn.

This is the key. Han + gunner is clearly good, but it's a lot of points and can only engage one target a turn. Meanwhile on defense 1 agility hurts and crits are almost guaranteed to go through once the shields go down.

Also, a very important rule is don't panic. Han has enough re-rolls that he's going to hurt something, so you need to accept that you're going to take losses and keep fighting anyway. If you lose your first ship right away and assume the match is over it's going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Thanks for the replies guys. We're a little short on common tie fighters, but perhaps the problem is there's not enough concentration of fire going on. I suppose we could proxy some interceptors as fighters to get more on the table. I was really excited about the interceptors when we first got them, but they dont seem to provide much advantage versus cost increase against a YT-1300.

When Tie fighters attack something like a YT-1300 do yall think its better to be at range 1 or range 3? What I see are tie fighters closing to get the extra attack die and then getting one shot by Han. Range 1 seems to be a very dangerous place for tie fighters. So, Ive been trying to hang back, but staying at range is harder than I thought it should be and Han running an evasion token every turn plus the extra defense die doesnt help either.

What seems to happen is Han does his best to kill a Imperial ship every turn or so while the Imperials zip around trying to kill the rebel fighters. By the time the rebel X wings and/or A wings are dead the Imperials dont have enough fire power left to seriously threaten Han. Well, not versus his one shotting a ship a turn anyways. Then again we've never had 8 Imperial ships on the board at once. I think the most we've seen is 6. So yall think the Imperials need to kill off the rebel fighters before they try to concentrate on the Falcon?

Dagormundo wrote:
and Han running an evasion token every turn plus the extra defense die doesnt help either.

Don't forget that the evasion token only works one time, you don't get to use it against every attack. A swarm of TIEs will probably take off the evade token with the first shot and then everything else is shooting at base agility.

Well, not versus his one shotting a ship a turn anyways.

He shouldn't be doing that anyway. He's got a max of four attack dice (and only at close range) vs. three evade dice (plus focus/evade/long range/asteroids) and three hull on the TIEs. Unless you get really bad luck it should take 2-3 turns to kill a TIE.

 Peregrine wrote:

Dagormundo wrote:
and Han running an evasion token every turn plus the extra defense die doesnt help either.

Don't forget that the evasion token only works one time, you don't get to use it against every attack. A swarm of TIEs will probably take off the evade token with the first shot and then everything else is shooting at base agility.

Well, not versus his one shotting a ship a turn anyways.

He shouldn't be doing that anyway. He's got a max of four attack dice (and only at close range) vs. three evade dice (plus focus/evade/long range/asteroids) and three hull on the TIEs. Unless you get really bad luck it should take 2-3 turns to kill a TIE.

I've lost ties firs turn to lucky shots, but three academy pilots with a heavy hitter to back them up can still take him down. If he's evading every turn, that means he's not target locking or focusing, and as Peregrine says, just keep shooting. Volume of concentrated fire will bring him down.

The key really is having something to back up the ties which can take hits in return, which as of right now really only is a Tie Advanced or a Firespray. I'm thinking the Lambda will work as well, but for now, don't try using fighters alone against Han. I've played a game or two where I've opted to just run fighters, and Han does quite well against it. Something with 10 wounds and 3 or 4 consistent attack goes along way to increasing your ability to fight him.

Also consider mixing your games up, and playing without the Falcon and Firesprite.

A pretty simple list that's been doing pretty well for me vs. the "Han Shoots First" lists has been:

Darth Vader w/ Swarm Tactics & Homing Missiles
Howlrunner w/ Swarm Tactics
Mauler Mithel w Veteran Instincts
x2 Academy Pilots

The part that gets most HsF lists is that they take the full 100pts available, and that means if there is a tie, the Empire goes first, and with this list that's Vader and his wingman, and Mithel. The Homing missiles at R2 can really put a dent into Han's shields and after that the 1 green really put's the big guy in a bind. I usually have the whole pack focus on Han, burning him down ASAP, or Biggs if he's using the Darklighter shield tactic. Hope this help youout, you Imperial dog, you!

I'll reiterate the above. Focus fire on Han with heavy hitters and he goes down in two turns with only 1 defense die. Since he can't ignore crits and frequently costs 50+ pts with upgrades, crits can really put the hurt on him. I'd recommend spamming prototype pilots with missle upgrades or TIE spam personally.

Having run a Han vs. TIE spam game this weekend, I can reiterate the comments made that focus fire from a lot of ships can really quickly take out Han.

One thing I've tried is spamming Cluster Missiles - it does have advantages, it can nearly alpha strike Han by putting out a lot of attack dice all at once. But on the other hand you're spending a lot of points on missiles instead of ships... The biggest problem I found with trying to spam lots of missiles is your tactics become too obvious and it's easier for Han's X-wing buddies to line up shots and take your ships out too quick :/

Used him in a couple of games, tried swapping sides with my opponent and he is certainly tough.. think closest either of us got to killing him was down to 2 hull points, that 360 fire feature is a massive bonus.

I bought the Falcon yesterday and played a game last night, my girlfriend used it (I wanted to use my TIE Interceptor and new TIE Bomber)

I had 107 points, she had 102. I had a TIE Bomber, TIE Interceptor and 2 TIE fighters, she had an A Wing, X wing and the Falcon

I managed to strip the Falcon of shields, and destroyed the A-wing but that's all, I was tabled soon after.

I probably didn't have enough ships, to be fair, but the Falcon is definitely a formidable ship just because of the 360 firing arc

Lots of heavy fire, missiles, heavy laser.. think if you can focus enough fire on him at the beginning that 1 defence dice means his shields and hull points can be stripped off quickly.

concentrated fire is the best way to go. if you can deny hans actions by blocking the falcon that might help as well.
its always a tough matchup because you have to take the bull by the horns and take han out early wout getn too many hits from his support ships - usually 2 rookie x-wings.
use the fact that he can only target one ship at a time to ur advantage. attacking him with less than 3 ships a rnd is kind of futile unless you have 3 atk dice - focus fire with tie-fighters at med-close range should wear down his shields.
a well placed assault missile is good - if you have a few more tie bombers you can really hit han hard with an alpha strike early on.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
oh yeah, forgot to add... if you can get thru those shields and get lucky with a disabling crit of some kind, you should be good. sometimes better to be lucky that good.