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I've been playing for a short time now, and i'm kind of feeling the rebels have it rough.... I'm not one to complain about pilot skill, and this game is largely determined by the general rather than the list (which i LOVE). But whats everyones awesome rebel lists? I've been noticing the Imperials have a crazy good assortment of cheap cheap ships and almost always are able to outshoot the rebels because they outnumber them 2 or 3-1 on a normal day.

I've been thinking of running:

wedge, biggs with r2-d2, and an academy x-wing with 2 prototype a-wings.... low low pilot skill on most of my shooting but i figure if i can keep biggs alive for as long as possible i may stand a chance to tank most of the imperial shooting for a few turns.

Whats your monster list?

A really nasty list that runs closely to what your already working on is called the 3 Ameigos. Wedge w/ PtL, R2 Astromech, Proton Torp; Luke w/ R2D2, Biggs w/ R2F2 & Stealth Device. Fly Biggs slighly behind wedge and luke, so he can be at range 3, that gives him a 5 agility, good luck with hitting that MR 2 attack Tie Fighter. Wedge with PtL gets a target lock and focus and usually crushes a ship in one shot with the Torp, and can "wash" the stress with ANY 1 or 2 move. Luke is kind of a clean up guy, just in case the game goes long enough to have biggs get vaped.

joe_deman wrote:
I've been noticing the Imperials have a crazy good assortment of cheap cheap ships and almost always are able to outshoot the rebels because they outnumber them 2 or 3-1 on a normal day.

The TIE swarm list's biggest advantage isn't its raw power, it's how forgiving it is once you figure out how to maneuver all those ships without collisions. Unlike a 3-ship elite rebel list a squad of 8 academy pilots can lose a ship early to bad dice or a maneuvering mistake and still be in the fight. And since you don't have any complex abilities to juggle you can concentrate entirely on picking the correct maneuver each turn, making it less likely that you'll, say, fly Wedge out of range of Biggs at a critical moment and lose your key ship.

However, the rebels have four big advantages:

1) X-wing's math often favors single big attacks over lots of small ones. Consider a pair of basic TIE fighters shooting and an equal-points basic X-wing both shooting at an X-wing. That's four attack dice vs. three, so you'd think the TIEs have the advantage. But in reality it isn't four attack dice, it's two sets of two attack dice that each have to roll against agility. So the TIEs average a total of 1/2 a HP of damage to the X-wing, while the X-wing does 3/4 a HP on average. So actually the X-wing is getting 50% more firepower despite rolling one less attack die.

2) Rebels have much better options. A TIE swarm is just going to fly around making basic attacks with focus/evade every turn, just like the quickstart rules. They're never going to have stuff like a Y-wing/Falcon flying around killing stuff with a 360* turret, Wedge gunning down fighters every turn while Biggs draws all your fire, A-wing missile alpha strikes crippling you before the game begins, etc. Granted, the imperials can bring an elite list and do those kind of things, but then you're talking about a 3-4 ship Fel/Phennir or Slave 1/shuttle list instead of a swarm.

3) Rebels have shields. Not only is their raw HP better but you're ignoring a lot of crits that the TIEs have to take. So you're keeping each ship alive longer, and you're keeping it fighting effectively until it dies.

4) Rebels deal with asteroids better. A TIE swarm is hard to maneuver, and only gets worse when you get into mid-game where you're maneuvering around asteroids as well as your own ships. A single X-wing is much easier to fly in that situation, so while the TIEs are losing shots and actions because of collisions you're flying around at full efficiency and killing stuff.

Use those advantages and you will win.

wedge, biggs with r2-d2, and an academy x-wing with 2 prototype a-wings.... low low pilot skill on most of my shooting but i figure if i can keep biggs alive for as long as possible i may stand a chance to tank most of the imperial shooting for a few turns.

Two things:

1) You're over the standard 100 point limit, but not up to 150. Double-check your points and make sure you're not making a mistake somewhere.

2) I'm not convinced about basic prototype A-wings. Yeah, they're cheap, but they don't do a whole lot. I might take one if I have 17 points and don't want to spend that much on upgrades, but I don't think I'd ever take two of them. However, if you cut down to 100 points you can trade one in and upgrade the other to a second rookie X-wing.

Kai wrote:
A really nasty list that runs closely to what your already working on is called the 3 Ameigos. Wedge w/ PtL, R2 Astromech, Proton Torp; Luke w/ R2D2, Biggs w/ R2F2 & Stealth Device. Fly Biggs slighly behind wedge and luke, so he can be at range 3, that gives him a 5 agility, good luck with hitting that MR 2 attack Tie Fighter. Wedge with PtL gets a target lock and focus and usually crushes a ship in one shot with the Torp, and can "wash" the stress with ANY 1 or 2 move. Luke is kind of a clean up guy, just in case the game goes long enough to have biggs get vaped.

This is a pretty typical start to a rebel list: Wedge/Salm/Ten Numb is the main killer, usually with PTL and similar upgrades to take them from "pretty good" to "where did that TIE go". Meanwhile Biggs soaks up a lot of firepower before he goes down, ensuring that your killer ship survives into mid-late game when maneuvering a TIE swarm to focus fire becomes difficult. Where you go from there depends on your preferences, Luke is a solid general-purpose ship, while Dutch/Dreis/etc can shoot while passing out support actions to make the rest of your fleet more effective. Or you could just add another killer ship.

My current thoughts are one of two options:

Same basic Wedge/Biggs combo with Salm (2x torps) as a second killer ship. Salm has less long-term potential than Luke, but a impact early in the game while your meatshield is alive. And it has the nice bonus of not needing a third X-wing that I don't own.

or

Cut Wedge/Biggs down to their base cards to bring in Ten Numb with autoblaster/advanced sensors/PTL/engine upgrade. Sure, it's 45 points but once the Biggs shield gets him into knife fighting range advanced sensors + PS 8 + three move actions a turn is ridiculously good at getting into position while dodging firing arcs, and the autoblaster says "don't bother rolling dice, just remove it from the table".

wow it sounds like i really need a Y-wing or two. I have almost none of those cards you just mentioned. And yes, you were absolutely right, i was way over the 100 pts i was aiming for. My bad

I did a few games with this set up, Wedge: R2-D2, Luke: Veteran Instincts, Rookie Pilot (x), Prot. Pilot (a)

Had some decent success with this list. The A-wing was a late game advantage, spent the first half hindering movement and generally being all sneaky. While Wedge/Luke are firing before anything Imperial, which was lovely. The rookie is there for the added hits.

I'm probably going to pick up a b-wing and a y-wing or two this week, so we'll see what options that opens for me. With the cards i have and the models i'd say this is a reasonably effective 100 pts tho