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X-Wing is a game that has interested me for a while now, especially when I'm in the mood for something different to Warhammer 40k. I've played around with online squadron builders and done some article reading.

However, whenever I read about "strong tournament lists" or "things shaping the meta", it's always the larger ships involved (VT-49, Millenium Falcon, Outrider) As a result, I have two questions:

1. Are any of the standard starfighters any good? The larger ships are cool and all, but I'm more interested in the various Rebel and Imperial starfighters. Can you still make viable lists with these ships?

2. How many ships should you have in your list for standard games? I read that most games are played around 100 points. Especially from a Rebel perspective, how many ships should you put on the tabletop?

In the next couple weeks I'm hoping to meet up with the group that plays X-Wing at my FLGS so I can watch how the game is played. Hopefully I'll be able to get my questions there if I don't get any responses.

1) Yes. You can quite happily compete without large based ships. They're powerful, but they only get really good when you start to stack upgrades on them. By comparison, I've seen people win events using TIE fighter swarms containing nothing that hasn't been out since wave 1. You will definitely need to have a plan for dealing with large ships if you go to game night kits, tournaments or other competitive events. That doesn't necessarily mean you need to have one yourself.

The two 'its a thing on the internet' lists which don't feature large ships are four B-wings with either upgrades or an accompanying Z-95 Headhunter, or a swarm of 6-7 TIE fighters, but you can put up a respectable fight with any fighter list once you know what you're doing with it.

Even the basic X-wing has it's moments. Generic X-wings are a bit overpriced compared to the newest stuff, but not much, and (more importantly) the named X-wing pilots are some of the best in the game. Even several years in, a basic "Trench Run Crew" of Wedge, Luke and Biggs can be a bugger to face - especially with recent upgrades (Lone Wolf on Luke, for example) and doubly so when people who try and play the meta too much arm up to face large ships exclusively.

2) Depends on your squad. If you're looking at rebel fighter wings then it tends to be 4-5 generic pilots or 3-4 if you have some named pilots in your squad. 2 ships is probably too few unless one ship is a heavy like the falcon, and 6+ ships too many - you can make a swarm with 6-8 rebel Z-95 Headhunters, but their upgrades and pilots suit being ordnance carriers and support ships better than being front-line pilots like TIE Fighters and Scum & Villainy Z-95s

1.Standard starfighters are plenty good in regular games. Because victory in a tournament is determined purely on points destroyed within the set 60-75 minute time on the round the game at higher levels gravitates towards lists that give away few points. Big ships are harder to destroy than small ships especially when working to a time constraint so thats why they shape the tournament meta.
2.I run 5(4B-Wings,1 Z-95 Headhunter) as I favour the rebel swarm playstyle of all low pilot skill generic ship. An imperial swarm would run 6-8 small ships. Beyond that theres a lot of viable 2 ship lists with either 2 large or 1 large and an ace pilot,3 ships either all aces or 1 large and 2 small, or 4 small ships with a variety of upgrades. For a beginner I would recommend learning with either a 4 small ship list or a 1 large 2 small to begin with, its a low cost buy in point if you plan your purchases and should give you a good feel for the game.

 TheNewBlood wrote:
1. Are any of the standard starfighters any good? The larger ships are cool and all, but I'm more interested in the various Rebel and Imperial starfighters. Can you still make viable lists with these ships?

Yes. Even if you only consider top-tier competitive lists swarms of generic TIE fighters and b-wings are metagame-defining lists, Corran/Soontir Fel/etc can dominate in the hands of a good player, etc. And this is especially true if you don't play in tournaments, since a big part of why the big turret ships are so good is the difficulty of finishing them off in a timed match if the turret player is willing to slow play and drag the game out to the time limit. Take away the ability to say "oops, time's up" when their turret ship is down to its last HP and they're suddenly a lot less effective.

2. How many ships should you have in your list for standard games? I read that most games are played around 100 points. Especially from a Rebel perspective, how many ships should you put on the tabletop?

3-4 is a good starting point (counting large-base ships as two ships, and z-95s as half a ship). Two ships is almost always a bad idea since you just don't have enough HP to stay alive long enough to finish the game. Three ships gives you a ton of points for upgrades and high-end pilots but requires skill and strategy to make up for your lower numbers, while four ships gives you great math (HP/dice/etc) at the cost of upgrades and PS. Once get up to five or more ships you're committed to playing a swarm with few or no upgrades, which is a legitimate plan but definitely isn't typical.

1) Pretty much all the star fighters are viable, a few such as the X-Wing suffer from being over costed points wise as they came out early in the games lifetime
before the designers really got a proper feel for points values but FFG has an ongoing effort to bring everything up to at least playable via upgrade cards

2) 3-4 ships is about usual, either 1 big ship plus support, or 3-4 starfighters is usual, although all factions can do swarms of 6-8 of very cheap ships, swarms can be fun but
then can also end as a massive traffic jam of ships mid-table !

As other posters have said Big Ships are used in tournaments for partly due to their strength on table and partly due to the scoring system, your opponent would need to
remove the big ship from the game to score its points value and they are usually quite tanky and hard to kill.

Also worth noting is that at the moment it's regional championship time for X-Wing so most articles will be focused on the things you mentioned, however X-Wing
is balanced far more than 40k and you can have fun with all sorts of ships and lists, I'm currently have lots of fun with my Scum list, it's never going to win any tournaments
but with the dirty tricks Scum can pull its always interesting

You really only need to worry about strong tournament lists in a tourney setting. When the game can go on for even 2 hours (or more) their ability to have 1hp left as time is called and not give away any points isn't nearly as useful. In particular, swarms of smaller ships can eat them alive (BBBBZ, Tie Swarm, Bugzapper Z95's, etc.

Most tourney lists run an ace such as corran or fel to help combat this, but without a strict time limit on their side the balance of power will swing quite a bit.

Ultimately, it will come down to skill, maneuvering, planning, and setting up well at the start. I can bring a pretty weird list and still beat a newbie with a tourney list because I know how to play better.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Most tourney lists run an ace such as corran or fel to help combat this, but without a strict time limit on their side the balance of power will swing quite a bit.

Of course it should be noted that removing time limits makes those aces a lot stronger. Corran/Fel/etc often have long endgames where you're dodging arcs and regenerating shields for several turns between shots and slowly wearing down an opponent. In a timed match you have to balance keeping your 35-50 point ship alive with killing enough enemy ships to win with decent MOV, and that often means taking risks to line up a shot. In an untimed match you don't have to take those risks, you can just patiently wait until your opponent gives you an opportunity. So those big ship + ace lists are still good, they just might put more emphasis on the ace instead of the turret.

The thing w/ x-wing is that the cards make the game. Cards are spread out through out all the expansions. So sometimes you need a imperial set to get the card you want for your rebels.

THis link has up to wave 4 (IIRC)
http://www.afewmaneuvers.com/topic/573-full-card-list-by-expansion/

 FeindusMaximus wrote:
The thing w/ x-wing is that the cards make the game. Cards are spread out through out all the expansions. So sometimes you need a imperial set to get the card you want for your rebels.

There are a few sites that sell the cards on there own (buy packs and break them down) this could save you having to buy a ship you dont realy want - (but who dosent want a shelp of cool fighters!!!)

Just saying, though, there are a few (free!) apps that have all the cards, complete with picture and all, e.g. X-Wing Companion. Only Squad Builders also provide the card and all its special rules, including the rules and explanations.