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On Saturday, I'm entering my first tournament (ever!) just to see how it goes.

Now, I don't have much:
I have two core sets, two Y-Wing expansions, YT-1300 expansion, one Tie Fighter expansion, one Advanced Tie expansion, and one Lamda-class shuttle expansion.

I am planning to run rebels as I have only played a couple of games with a friend and both times I played rebels. It seems odd to be entering a tournament but I play Star Trek: Attack Wing every other week so I'm familiar with the mechanics.

Looking around, there's a couple of lists that interest me. I apologize for blatantly copying some of your lists; it's just easier for me that way right now.

List One:
Dutch w/R5-K6 & Ion Turret (30)
Garven w/R2 (27)
Rookie Pilot x 2 (42)

I stole this one from Zathras' post over here and it sounds interesting. However I'm worried that it may require more finesse and experience to work well.

List Two:
Biggs w/R2-F2
Wedge
Luke w/Draw their Fire, R2-D2, Shield Upgrade

I'm short 6 points with this list but this one seems to be a fairly popular one. Also this one seems to be more 'newbie' friendly.
Most of the lists out there seem to require Push the Limit and/or Stealth Device but I'm loathe to drop the cash for an A-Wing and/or a Firespray right now, especially for a card or two.
If you would recommend this list, what would you recommend I take given what I have? Swarm Tactics on Wedge so that I can have all of my ships fire first and hopefully whittle down the opposition?

Thanks!

LIST 2 is BEST LIST! LOL!

Seriously it's honestly my favorite 100pt list to play for usability and most importantly fluffy reasons. Swarm tactics is good, Squadron Leader has some advantages but some drawbacks too. Really wish you had a stealth device for Biggs but no biggie. Really wish you had a Push the Limit/R2 Astromech for Wedge but whatev's. Two Flechette Torps would have fit but meh. So with what you got I'm tempted to say R2 Astro/Expert Handling on Wedge so he can breakout to Dogfight Beast mode when and if he has to. But I think I'm going to actually recommend classy classics and say Marksmanship/R2 Astromech and skip the last two for initiative, OR...or...Shield Upgrade on Biggs, and Swar Tactics on Wedge.

Thanks for the advice.
I think I may go with this so far:

Luke w/ Draw their Fire, R2-D2, Shield Upgrade
Wedge w/Swarm Tactics
Biggs w/R2-F2, Shield Upgrade
100 pts

I didn't even realize that the YT-1300 came with two Shield Upgrade cards until I pulled out all of my cards again.

Or should I go out and buy an A-Wing, ignore my protesting credit card, and put PTL and a R2 on Wedge and drop the Shield Upgrade on Biggs? I would be short two points but I guess that would go for initiative?

Since your still new and haven't run the list too much yet, and I'm totally in the same boat of not wanting to buy an entire blister for a single card (Looking at you Lambda, Slave 1) I think just stick with the shield, it plays into the strategy of the list more. If there was a single ship I'd reccommend you buy for just a card it would be Slave 1 for a stealth device for Biggs as that is a more efficient card for the strategy.

Speaking of! The name of the game with this list is LIVE! The goal being to beat the snot out of them as they are forced to kill Biggs first, then they focus on either Wedge or Luke, usually wedge, keep plinking away until when Wedge dies Luke is still at full hull, and ready to regen shields for days. This is when it gets tricky. If your not already setup to go kill some stuff, you might need to take advantage of the corners and just put on some speed to get away from the fight to recharge the shields and line up another pass by diving into the corner where their mobility can be pinched off. Also Guard your back in the early game by deploying in a corner and riding the wall up into the furball. Take some time to practice keeping the formation together if you get a chance.

Thanks for the tips.

Actually, regarding flying in formation, what kind of formation would you recommend for this set-up?

I was thinking of a triangle, with Biggs up front, Wedge with the table edge on his side, and Luke furthest from the table edge. Or swap Wedge and Luke's positions?

I was initially thinking of keeping a really tight formation with Biggs the furthest away from everyone to try to make it so that as many people will have to make range 3 shots on him.

GREAT question! The formation you want is more a inverted 'Flying V' with Wedge closest to the enemy and Luke further with Biggs taking the tail between them. So to answer your question swap Wedge and Luke then bump Biggs over a bit, he needs to always be ready to draw shots. The goal of this is to have as you mentioned Biggs hopefully always 1 range band further back than Wedge or Luke but you want to also be able to allow your opponent to occasionally hit Luke or Wedge and soak up some initial damage, then have Biggs come in for cover. Divide up the pain so that each X-Wing stays alive longer. That part can be tricky as all get out, but your running a three ship list, so you have to be sneaky and get more out of each individual ship.

If your going against Tie interceptor heavy lists you might want to change to a line formation with Biggs in the middle and Luke one space ahead and Wedge one Space behind. (Like a slash "/" shape to get more coverage area on fire vectors. Against dual falcons concentrate fire on the ship you can attack at the closest range on the most consecutive turns in a row to focus fire it out. And against any list with a Firespray, concentrate on the Firespray the same way first as it's tail gun will cause Luke problems in the end game.

Thanks again. You have been extremely helpful.

I'm probably going to practice maneuvering my ships around obstcles. I'm not use to having asteroids in a game and in Star Trek, you can fly through (but not land) obstacles.

Oh, when you come up against a Large ship and 'regular' ships, what do you usually target first?

I typically try to focus on one thing at a time to reduce the number of shots coming back at me, so that usually involves taking down the weaker ships first, unless I have a very good opportunity of taking down something strong.

Hey, I'm famous! WOOOT!

Anyway, I have no problem with anyone using lists I post. It's why I do it actually. As for your 2 lists I made a change to list one. I found the R5-K6 droid to be lacking so I replaced it with a regular R2, which gave me enough points to equip the Rookies with R2s of their own.

Yeah, I saw in one of your other posts but I don't have enough R2s to equip everyone with one.

Hopefully you get this before your game! Generally I try and prioritize targets by whats the biggest threat or just needs to die. Han Solo and Wedge and Howlrunner's and Soontir Fel are all top priority. The 'get small fry out of the way' was my strategy when I first started playing but I quickly found the opposite to be the better course of action.

Yeah, I realized that shortly afterwards.

So here are my results (note that I may not remember exactly what they had so point values may not necessarily add up):

Game 1:
Opponent had:
YT-1300 w/Chewbacca
2x B-Wing w/Heavy Laser Cannon

He set up the two B-Wings in one corner and then Chewy in the other. I setup across from Chewy.
He made the mistake of flying Chewy across the center of the board, right in front of all three of my X-Wings. I opened up on him and took him down quite a bit and blew him up by the end of turn 2.

I thought that this would be easy but those HLCs are nasty! My manoeuvring got messed up and everytime he targeted me, Wedge or Luke were in range three and Biggs was out of range. Wedge went down in a couple of turns and Luke was brought down to one hull before I was finally able to get Biggs and Luke together again. Took down one of B-Wings before Biggs finally bit it while covering Luke. Luke was able to get back to full shields thanks to R2-D2 and I was able to take out his last B-Wing.

Game 2:
Opponent had:
Wedge w/ R2-D2 and Swarm Tactics
Dutch w/ Ion Cannon, R5-K6, and Advanced Proton Torpedoes
Roark w/ Ion Cannon
Don't remember where he had his last 4 points as he was at 99 to get initiative.

This game went over quickly. We set up directly across from each other and headed at each other. I wanted to make sure that Biggs was within range this game so I flew everyone up pretty quickly. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that was what my opponent wanted and he came zooming straight up at me and next thing I knew, we were both in range one of each other. He got to fire first and blew up Biggs that turn. There was some pretty bad dice rolling on my part. I then got behind him and tried to nail him but Wedge kept getting hit by ions. Eventually Wedge got taken down. I was able to take out Roark before Luke bit it too. It was closer than I thought as Dutch and Wedge both had about 1 or so hull left each.

Game 3:
Opponent had:
Backstabber
Captain Jonus w/Squad leader
3x Tie Bomber, two of which had 2x flechette torpedoes, while the last one had 1x flechette torpedoes

He had everyone setup in one corner so I set up in the opposite corner.
He had his bombers sweep across the back of his zone while he sent up Backstabber along the side. I moved up and then turned to go after Backstabber. However, that messed me up as Biggs was in the back and slammed into Wedge, causing Luke to plough into Biggs. That messed up my formation long enough for the Tie Bombers to come screeching in and launch torpedo after torpedo at me. Biggs and Wedge (when Biggs was out of range) were getting stress token piled up on them. Biggs went down soon enough and Wedge and Luke got separated. The majority of the Bomber flew after Wedge while Luke was engaged in his own little furball with the remaining Bombers. Wedge soon went down and I had everyone else coming after Luke. Luke managed to take out a Tie Bomber and that was it before the game ended due to time. Backstabber had only one hull left but I couldn't get close enough to hit him. The asteroids seemed to do more damage to my opponent than I did as he had no problem sending his Bombers through the asteroids to get at me. He unluckily rolled three crits and they were almost all Direct Hits.

Game 4:
Opponent had:
Rookie X-Wing w/R2-F2
Dutch w/ Ion Cannon, Proton Torpedoes, R2
Horton w/ Ion Cannon, Proton Torpedoes, R2
I forget where his last 8 points went.

We set up across from each other and headed straight. This time I took it a little slower so that we were engaged at range 2, with Wedge at range 3. However due to my higher PS, I managed to take out Dutch before he even got a shot off. Horton fired off his Protons at Biggs but I managed to dodge them. I then K-Turned all three, came up behind him and took down Horton. Then it was just a matter of cleaning up and I surrounded his X-Wing and took him down too without any of my guys taking any hull damage.

Overall, I had 2 wins and 2 losses. The main thing that was screwing me up was having Biggs at initiative 5, flying behind everyone else. It was fine for the straights but when I tried to do hard turns, I kept slamming into my own guys and messing things up. Definitely need more practice flying in formation.

I was pretty nervous initially as this was my first tournament ever for any game but I had a lot of fun. The people I played with were great and it was a very relaxed atmosphere. In the end, I got a Z-95 Headhunter Bandit squadron promo card, a B-Wing Dagger squadron promo card and got my name drawn to win a Colonel Jendon promo card as well.

The tournament was a bit on the pricey side at $15, but I had fun. I would probably do something like that again.

AWESOME! Sounds pretty good actually for your first real foray into this list. Even your losses sounded close. And formation flying is hard enough, keeping the ranges between your own guys and from you to your opponent all controlled is tougher still. The hard turns with the V formation, and the backwards PS are a hassle maybe I should have warned you about, but I forgot sorry. I've just gotten too used to it.

One thing to note is that a Rebel player should generally take advantage of one of their major maneuvering benefits: The ability to go slow. Make them come to you and you can control range and stress much more capably.

I tried to practice leapfrogging the night before but it was clearly a matter of lack of experience. Everything went out the window after first contact usually.

Thanks again for the advice!
Hopefully I'll be able to find a regular gaming group nearby to play X-Wing every now and then. Yeesh, this is going to be expensive, collecting both Star Trek: Attack Wing and X-Wing...

No prob bro. I have a solution to your problem: Sell your Star Trek to buy X-wing! lol just kidding. see ya around the forums