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Last night I had my first game with chewie flying the falcon. An expensive ship, but it was an absolute beast. He pretty much took out slave 1 and 2 ties before succumbing to a lucky shot. I'll be using him again! What's your favourite ship combo?

B-wing + advanced sensors + optional HLC = <3

Once rebel aces comes out Farlander + advanced sensors + veteran instincts will probably appear in every list I use.

I'd love to try a b wing, sadly my order for two gets bumped back every month. :(

Ffg are really losing out on sales - I'd have spent hundreds by now if stuff was readily available.

blue squadron b-wing, advanced sensors - 25p
blue squadron b-wing, fire control system - 24p
chewie, gunner, push the limit - 50p (goes with 2 b-wings)
han solo, gunner, push the limit, recon specialist, millennium falcon - 58p (goes with 2 rookie pilot x-wings)

I also love Chewie in the Falcon with a gunner and A-PLs. I run him next to Lando with Nien Nunb and PTL, and it gives me two ships with two actions each each turn. Chewie is a serious monster though. I don't get the fascination with using Han. Yeah, it's Han-he's great. Just not as much in this game.

For Imperials, it would be Turr Phennar at the moment (IA hasn't come in on truck yet, so can't give props to new pilots yet) with Veteran Instincts and a floaking device. A guy moving at PS 9 who can throw down an evade token, a focus token, shoot near/at the top of the pecking order, and then boost/barrel roll out of the way of anything barring a 360-degree shot and have 4 dice PLUS an evade token each turn? Yeah, he's good. 360 hurts though, because one unlucky round will ruin him. If you can avoid being shot by more than one ship each turn though, he should be nigh unstoppable.

Luke R2-D2 Shield Upgrade.

^The classic, eh?

TIE Interceptor - Baron Fel, Push The Limit

I'm a simple man, with simple likes. I've always loved the 181st, even before they went 'mainstream' as Sabre Squadron in later games/fluff.

Turr Phennir with veteran instincts. PS 9, roll up into range 1 of any x-wing, 4 shots, then barrel roll or boost out of the front arc. It's situational, being that it requires initiative, but it's fun to take out half of wedge's health before he goes bat$%&! on my ties. This can also work with expose, but then you'd be at PS 7, and you may not be able to take out expensive fighters.

Wedge+Draw their fire+Shield upgrade+R2-D2
Biggs+Shield upgrade+R2-F2

I call it the "Final Fantasy"

With the new stuff coming out:

Porkins (26) with PtL (3), R5D8 (3) & Hull Upgrade (3) = 35

Tycho (26) with A-Wing Test Pilot (0), Chardaan Upgrade (-2), PtL (3) & Daredevil (3) = 30

X-wing Wedge with Marksmanship, R-2
HWK-290 Roark with Blaster Turret, Recon Specialist and Moldy Crow Title
A-wing Green Squadron Pilot with Swarm Tactics
A-wing Prototype Pilot


Once the Rebel Aces comes out I can give the A-wings the Refit and Wedge Opportunist instead of Marksmanship.

Just got a game in with Imp-Aces, and I have to say that I am liking Carnor Jax.

Carnor Jax
-PTL
-Royal Guard TIE
-Stealth
-Shield upgrade

This guy is fairly fun. I ran him into the middle of my opponents squadron to go after my opponents HWK, and completely shut down their shooting (I took one point of damage on one of my Academy Pilots- from a B-wing at point-blank range). He's fairly durable, as Agility 4 is really hard to hit, even at range 1 when your opponent can't focus. Still needs some finesse, but seems to be good at going for the throat, while supporting the rest of your force (both offensively and defensively).

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:
TIE Interceptor - Baron Fel, Push The Limit

I like to add Stealth Device. It's hilarious when you can have four dice and focus/evade token.

 GreyHamster wrote:

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:
TIE Interceptor - Baron Fel, Push The Limit

I like to add Stealth Device. It's hilarious when you can have four dice and focus/evade token.

Yeah, this is honestly as close as the game comes to a "broken" character.

Soonter Fel w/ Push the Limit & Stealth Device
Tur Phenir w/ Push the Limit & Stealth Device
Darth Vader w/ Elusive
98pts
It takes a REALLY lucky shot to get any damage onto anything. Han with gunner has the best chance, hoping to get both the focus and evade tokens with the first attack, and a lucky shot with the second. Vader Becomes almost impossible to touch. 4 Defence + focus/evade + Elusive to reroll an attack die.

 Enigma Crisis wrote:
Once the Rebel Aces comes out I can give the A-wings the Refit and Wedge Opportunist instead of Marksmanship.

Neither of these is very useful. Marksmanship costs 3 points (more than expert handling and the same as PTL), and all it gives you is an offense-only focus that can sometimes give you relevant crits. If your target has shields remaining, dodges all of your shots, or would be killed anyway by a normal hit then all you've done is pay 3 points and your EPT slot for a focus action that can't be used defensively. Marksmanship is only worth it when you have a way to exploit additional crits (Ten Numb) or multiple attacks that can't be boosted by a single focus token (gunner, cluster missiles). Meanwhile opportunist is terrible on Wedge because PS 9 means he's shooting first, which means that everyone still has un-spent tokens. Opportunist is best on low-PS ships so your higher-PS ships force a target to spend tokens to stay alive, and then the opportunist ship finishes them off.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Enigma Crisis wrote:
Once the Rebel Aces comes out I can give the A-wings the Refit and Wedge Opportunist instead of Marksmanship.

Neither of these is very useful. Marksmanship costs 3 points (more than expert handling and the same as PTL), and all it gives you is an offense-only focus that can sometimes give you relevant crits. If your target has shields remaining, dodges all of your shots, or would be killed anyway by a normal hit then all you've done is pay 3 points and your EPT slot for a focus action that can't be used defensively. Marksmanship is only worth it when you have a way to exploit additional crits (Ten Numb) or multiple attacks that can't be boosted by a single focus token (gunner, cluster missiles). Meanwhile opportunist is terrible on Wedge because PS 9 means he's shooting first, which means that everyone still has un-spent tokens. Opportunist is best on low-PS ships so your higher-PS ships force a target to spend tokens to stay alive, and then the opportunist ship finishes them off.

I don't have to be on the defense if you aren't there to retaliate. When I read Wedge's pilot skill I see offense plain and simple Marksmanship and Opportunists scream offense to me. 3-5 Attack Dice to 0-2 Defense Dice the odds are in my favor with Wedge scoring a Hit Marksmanship increases the odds of scoring a hit. Roark's ability allows my A-wings to go before Wedge making the opponent use their tokens if need be. With my list as I have posted it has taken 3rd and 2nd place a few times against Han Shot First, Double Falcon and TIE Elite lists. My list will probably change a little once the GR-75 gets released and I have access to Wes Janson to force removal of tokens more easily.

 Enigma Crisis wrote:
I don't have to be on the defense if you aren't there to retaliate. When I read Wedge's pilot skill I see offense plain and simple Marksmanship and Opportunists scream offense to me.

It's not about being on the offense, it's about whether or not those options are really a meaningful improvement in offense. Marksmanship isn't because it costs a lot of points and is often worse than the focus action you already have, and opportunist isn't because Wedge's high PS means that you fire before anyone has spent their focus/evade tokens and rarely get the bonus die. If you want maximum offense you take PTL and stack focus + target lock. If you want a more balanced ship that hits almost as hard but has much better defense you take expert handling.

And the whole "kill them before they shoot" plan falls apart very quickly when you encounter multiple enemy ships. Wedge is great, but even if you assume a guaranteed kill he can still only kill one ship per turn. And that leaves everyone else to shoot at him, where his average defense makes him die very fast. Expert handling avoids this because you can often barrel roll out of arc entirely against a ship or two and go from killing one ship then dying to range 1 shots from his two friends to hurting one ship badly and then staying alive to do it again next turn.

3-5 Attack Dice to 0-2 Defense Dice the odds are in my favor with Wedge scoring a Hit Marksmanship increases the odds of scoring a hit.

But just scoring a hit isn't enough. You need your target to have no shields when the crit marksmanship gave you is applied AND still have HP remaining after all of your damage is inflicted AND suffer a relevant crit. If either of those three conditions aren't met then you just paid 3 points to make your focus action useless defensively.

Roark's ability allows my A-wings to go before Wedge making the opponent use their tokens if need be.

This isn't very effective because A-wings don't hit very hard. With only two attack dice it takes a fair bit of luck to force your opponent to spend any of their tokens. If you really want to make opportunist work you put it on an A-wing, not a high-PS character, and take advantage of the fact that any target that survives Wedge's shooting is unlikely to have any defensive tokens left. And if you trade the Roark gimmick for another X/B-wing your A-wings are even more likely to get to use opportunist since your opponents will have spent focus tokens to boost their offense.

(Of course then you have the question of why you're paying points to make A-wings marginally useful instead of just trading them for X/B-wings and an unconditional three attack dice.)

Honestly, I've never understood the draw of advanced sensors, maybe I'm missing something, but what's the perk in doing your actions before moving?

Personally, while I don't run it often, I've quite enjoyed the following combo:

Krassis Trelix
HLC
Mercenary Co-Pilot
Seismic Charge

Flexible, killy, expensive, but supported by some basic ties, can handle most things. I've found him to particularly good at whittling down the Falcon, which is the bane of the squadrons I usually run, which are interceptor-heavy.

 MajorStoffer wrote:
Honestly, I've never understood the draw of advanced sensors, maybe I'm missing something, but what's the perk in doing your actions before moving?

Four perks:

1) If you're going to lose your action step (by doing a red maneuver or bumping a ship/asteroid) you still get an action. For example, you can take a focus action and then k-turn, negating most of the drawback of the red maneuver. Or if you don't want to move or want to make a shorter move you can take your action and then deliberately ram a ship, suffering no penalty at all.

2) If you take a movement action (boost or barrel roll) you can change your ending spot. A sharp turn followed by a barrel roll is not the same as a barrel roll followed by a sharp turn. Or, to give an extreme example, let's say you choose a 5-straight and a boost to the left. Without advanced sensors you're stuck making a long move directly ahead and then a slight turn at the end. With advanced sensors you can make that same move, or you can choose to turn 45* before making the long straight move and end up far off to the side. This is especially important on the shuttle, since its dial is so terrible.

3) You can avoid blocking. For example, if you see that your k-turn is going to be blocked you can barrel roll to the side, dodge the block, and make your maneuver successfully. If you landed in front of an asteroid you can move out of the way and avoid taking damage from it. Etc.

4) You can use PTL without a stress penalty. Take your action, take another action with PTL, and then execute a green maneuver to clear your stress and start the next turn without the obligation to do a green maneuver. This is pretty nice since the big drawback of most PTL ships is that you're locked into a very limited maneuver dial because you start every turn with a stress token.

And note the key thing these all have in common: you make the choice during your activation step, not during planning. This is why dagger squadron B-wings with advanced sensors are so popular, at PS 4 you're moving after a lot of ships and you can use those additional movement options once you've seen where everyone is going to go. For example, when I want to force the initial pass to happen through a specific point in the asteroids I've used a "stall" formation where my B-wings and YT-1300 are deployed facing each other. In planning I give the B-wings 1-banks and the YT-1300 a 1-turn. Then after I've seen whether or not my opponent has moved up far enough to reach my desired engagement point I can either do nothing and let everyone bump and not move, or barrel roll the B-wings out of formation to clear their movement, which then frees up the YT-1300 to start moving.

 MajorStoffer wrote:
Honestly, I've never understood the draw of advanced sensors, maybe I'm missing something, but what's the perk in doing your actions before moving?

To echo what Peregrine said above, being able to preform your action prior to revealing your movement dial can be huge. I just finished watching this:


The B-Wing player makes extensive great use of Advanced Sensors on his B-Wings. I'd give it a watch just to see how well that upgrade worked for him.

I am growing to love Boba Fett with a Navigator. Being PS 8 he will see how most ships on the board will have maneuvered, At that point if you chose any bank maneuver, you will be able to choose between all six banks to either direction. Compiled with 3 shots in front or behind and you will there isn't a ship in the game that can hide from you. All on a pretty durable ship with decent agility. Any wonder why I love this bounty hunter so much?

My current favourite is Lorrir with Royal Guard, Stealth and Shield. Looking forward to Wes with VI and Tycho with refit.