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So I've only played a few games, however the xwing seems to me to be drastically over cost on squad points. Is there a viable way to use them or make them more effective?

I did try out some a wings and loved them. I am regretting buying the starter kit now

I just started playing so take my advice for what it's worth but I think the X-wing while not flashy is a workhorse. As an imperial you tend to ignore it as you go after other targets and it just keeps plugging away at you.

When I fly them, I find that they get the majority of my kills. Again this is because while my opponent is trying to out fly my A-wing and the Y-wing is just sucking up fire, the X-wing is getting into range band 1-2 and getting the kills.

Again, I have only play 10 or so games but I enjoy the X-wing. If you are playing against uber competive people then perhaps it is not the best ship.

We tend to play much more casually.

Wedge + PTL + BB-8 + Engine Upgrade

The X Wing is useful now. Also Biggs has niche uses and basic Rookie Pilots with an astromech and Integrated Astromech have a place. As does a Rookie with Proton Torps and the new Guidance Chip as a minorly cheaper alternative to B Wings with Fire Control Systems. Especially led by Blount w/ XX-23 S-Thread Tracer Missiles

 Dave-c wrote:
the xwing seems to me to be drastically over cost on squad points.

Your instincts are correct: the basic X-Wings is overcosted. It is neither efficient from a pure dice-rolling perspective, nor does it have any special actions or maneuvering options to give it an advantage over other ships. By contrast, T-70 X-Wings and B-Wings have point efficiency, special maneuvers, and extra actions.

You need Integrated Astromech to bring standard X-Wings close to parity with other ships. This free upgrade is deceptively powerful, as it lets you selectively dump a critical hit, and so keep your X-Wings operating at full effectiveness for another turn or so after they would normally be destroyed or crippled. You'll still struggle against swarm lists full of B-Wings or TIE Fighters, but it won't be nearly as one-sided of a fight as it was previously.

As for flying them:
The 1 speed maneuvers are your best friend, especially if you're flying against Imperial ships or Large Base ships (they can't fly slow enough). Just keep flying slow, and keep your guns pointed at the target. When you're jousting a target (e.g., both you and your opponent flying directly at each other), think about how you're going to get your X-Wings turned around when you fly past them. Fight the instinct to just K-Turn constantly - use your big swoopy 3-turns to get out of the furball if your positioning is bad. Don't play the "turning game" with ships who have hard 1 turns.

Integrated Astromech has elevated X-Wings from garbage-tier to usable-tier (The Elusive Porkins is awesome), but it's not quite enough to make them competitive in a tournament setting. There are just too many other ships that do their job better... not the least of which is the T-70.

I fly X Wings a lot. They're not super competitive per se, but the upgrades that came with the T70 pack make them very good.

I usually fly either a 3 amigos style list with 3 aces, or a 4 X Wing flight with a couple rookies, Tarn Mison, and Wedge. I find they take an immense amount of skill to use well, and honestly a bit of suicidal and balls to the wall flying as well.

Here's a couple sample lists of what I use.
4 X Wing list

X-Wing: Rookie Pilot (21)
X-Wing: Rookie Pilot (21)
X-Wing: · Tarn Mison (23)
R7 Astromech (2)
Integrated Astromech (0)
X-Wing: · Wedge Antilles (29)
Stay on Target (2)
Targeting Astromech (2)
Integrated Astromech (0)


3 amigos style list
X-Wing: · Wedge Antilles (29)
Stay on Target (2)
Flechette Torpedoes (2)
Targeting Astromech (2)
Integrated Astromech (0)
X-Wing: · Jek Porkins (26)
Push The Limit (3)
· R5-D8 (3)
Integrated Astromech (0)
X-Wing: · Luke Skywalker (28)
· Lone Wolf (2)
· R5-P9 (3)
Integrated Astromech (0)

People REALLY underestimate porkins.

Again, they're probably not worlds lists, but I've had great success with both 3 and 4 X Wing lists. They're just really hard to fly. But man when you get it down its an absolute blasy

The generic x-wing is pretty bad. It's not a great jousting ship, and it doesn't have any exceptional maneuverability or other redeeming qualities that might justify poor jousting math.

The unique pilots can be useful despite being in a bad ship. Biggs is great in a metagame full of stress control, Wedge is still a decent glass cannon, Hobbie might have some potential with targeting astromech effectively giving him a white k-turn and a free target lock, and Wes sees a bit of use as an opportunist enabler. But overall Biggs is the only one I'd feel good about taking to a tournament, with the others falling into the "probably not so terrible that you auto-lose but not good enough to give you easy wins" category.

Kind of a quick review of the X-Wing pilots and my thoughts on how to build them out. I bought a Rebel Transport a couple weeks ago, so I've been making a point of trying all the T-65 pilots with Integrated Astromech and various astromech combos:

Rookie Pilot PS2 21pts
Use with R5, R2 or R4D6. A fairly okay pilot, somewhat cheap, and it rolls 3 red dice.

Red Squadron Pilot PS4 23pts
Use with R5, R2 or R4D6. Worse than the rookie. PS4 gives you range advantages with Target Locks over generics, but also introduces the possibility of getting blocked. It also gives you some protection against Predator, but I don't think it's worth 2 extra points.

Tarn Mison PS3 23pts
Use with R7 astromech. Underrated, especially for his price. Abilities are unaffected by stress, and he has an overall high level of durability when he is engaged by one enemy ship.

Hobbie Klivian PS5 25pts
Use with Targeting Astromech or Stressbot. An okay pilot, with good maneuvering options (can K-Turn, target lock, then dump stress!) Good offensive output, but the lack of an elite slot sucks.

Biggs Darklighter PS5 25pts
Use with R4D6, R5P9, or R2D2. The best X-Wing pilot, with a pilot ability that you can build lists around. There are lots of guides out there about how to use him.

Jek Porkins PS7 26pts
Use with R5-D8. Decent pilot, but aggravated by random chance (His ability and R5-D8 will sometimes screw you). One of the cheapest Rebel pilots with an elite slot and PS7, and he plays will with stress mechanics. Build options are diverse. Hard to fly well.

Garven Dreis PS6 26pts
Use with R2 or R2-D2. Overpriced, especially because it only reliably benefits ships that are lower PS than him. Rebels have more effective methods of handing out free focus tokens. No elite slot seals the deal.

Luke Skywalker PS8 28pts
Use with R2D2, R5P9, BB8. Good pilot, with a powerful defense ability and high enough PS that engine upgrade and BB8 are interesting choices. There are lots of ways to build Luke, but almost all focus on regen and defense.

Wes Janson PS8 29pts
Use with R2D2, R5P9, BB8, Targeting Astromech, R3-A2, R7-T1. Overpriced, but his debuffing ability synergizes well with his high PS, and has list-building potential (Opportunist).

Wedge Antilles PS9 29pts
Use with R2D2, R5P9, BB8, Targeting Astromech, R7-T1. Good pilot, with a powerful offensive ability. His natural PS9 is mostly wasted unless you take Engine Upgrade, which precludes taking Integrated Astromech (making him significantly less durable than other X-Wings).

my rebel swarm list has 2 t-65s in it.

when they have a few a-wings blocking for them, you can make use of the 3 attack dice

 jokerkd wrote:
when they have a few a-wings blocking for them, you can make use of the 3 attack dice

The problem is that the b-wing does this better in most situations.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DanielBeaver wrote:
Biggs Darklighter PS5 25pts
Use with R4D6, R5P9, or R2D2. The best X-Wing pilot, with a pilot ability that you can build lists around. There are lots of guides out there about how to use him.

Or R2-D6 and crack shot. Biggs is going to die anyway, so you might as well make his one shot hurt as much as possible. I've had some good results with that setup.

Well, first of all lay me clarify I purchased the new force awakens strayer kit so I have the T-70 models. That being said I was fighting tie fighters grin the same kit. The tire fighters were drastically cheaper and drastically more effective. 3 agility plus evade and I couldn't get past their one shield, let alone scratch the paint.

I'm just not sure where to go from here with them. It seemed like it was neither durability or attack ability, but the lack of both. Time and again the tie fighters shrugged off damage like it was nothing.

Just not sure how to proceed with them. Genuinely considering selling for a wing models.

Sounds like the problem is either newbie mistakes or just the luck of the dice. The T-70 is much better than the original x-wing, and the named pilots can be really good. Poe Dameron was in the list that won worlds this year, for example.

Yeah, I would give it at least 5 or 6 games to even out the luck of the dice, and get more familiar with maneuvers.

Seems like the X wing could do with its own kind of Chardaan refit to make it a bit more competitive.

 General Kroll wrote:
Seems like the X wing could do with its own kind of Chardaan refit to make it a bit more competitive.

It just got Integrated Astromech, which helps a lot, but I agree that it could use a Chardaan-clone upgrade (trade torpedo for -2pt). It's still a little overshadowed by the B-wing in my opinion, and dropping the rookie to 19pt base (so 20pt with an integrated R2) would help it out a lot.

That said, characters X-wings can be great.

Wedge is a glass cannon.

Wes is great in a metagame with Poe- you can get him PS10 for cheap, and strip Poe of those Focus Tokens.

Hobbie is a decent jouster with the Super-K-turn.

Bigs is an amazing meatshield. Integrated Mech made him even better.

 Dave-c wrote:
Well, first of all lay me clarify I purchased the new force awakens strayer kit so I have the T-70 models. That being said I was fighting tie fighters grin the same kit. The tire fighters were drastically cheaper and drastically more effective. 3 agility plus evade and I couldn't get past their one shield, let alone scratch the paint.

I'm just not sure where to go from here with them. It seemed like it was neither durability or attack ability, but the lack of both. Time and again the tie fighters shrugged off damage like it was nothing.

Just not sure how to proceed with them. Genuinely considering selling for a wing models.

You running them as the base PS 2 T70's or are you running Poe? Because Poe is amazing, one of the best pilot abilities in the game.

Also, if you were doing just basic starter box games, 2 TIE's are gonna have the advantage on a lone generic X wing. Try playing 100pts and it'll even out a bit.

Wedge Antilles PS9 29pts
Use with R2D2, R5P9, BB8, Targeting Astromech, R7-T1. Good pilot, with a powerful offensive ability. His natural PS9 is mostly wasted unless you take Engine Upgrade, which precludes taking Integrated Astromech (making him significantly less durable than other X-Wings).

Not necessarily - as noted, you can get improved maneuvers in his Elite Talent or Astromech slots; R7-T1 is always worth considering, or Stay On Target with Integrated Astromech.

I might have to try out some of these ideas in a game against myself, will let you know how that goes for me!

Thanks for the ideas!

I don't get it. The Original Poster is upset for buying the core box? If you didn't get them then you would have no temples, no dice, so why so upset?

How would you play without dice and templates?

Davor wrote:
I don't get it. The Original Poster is upset for buying the core box? If you didn't get them then you would have no temples, no dice, so why so upset?

How would you play without dice and templates?

My buddy also bought the starter box.

Still only gives you one damage deck, though.

Also - not strictly relevant for 'normal' games, but you'll find the X-wing massively more capable in Epic games - Compared to a B-wing, being able to move at speed 4 reliably makes a much bigger difference on a double-sized board, and in an environment where weapons can hit you at range 4 or range 5.

If you're disheartened by the T-70 versus TIE/fo, by the way, don't respond by going for A-wings! If your problem was failing to hit the Eyepatch, dropping from 3 dice to 2 dice is unlikely to help you much.

Also... one thing to note: if you were having problems hurting TIE fighters evading, how big a game were you playing?

The reason I ask, is that if you fight one core box contents each (1 X-wing versus 2 TIEs), that's not unexpected. If you try the game at 100 points, it might work better.

Evade is an incredibly good action when only being shot at by a single attacker - when facing attackers with evade tokens, you tend to need to shoot at them to force them to spend the token, then shoot at them again 'tokenless' - the difference between a defender having a focus token and not can be the equal of one or more extra green dice.

Also; a big part of winning with T-70 x-wings is outflying TIE fighters - unlike a 'normal' X-wing, which essentially flies in a straight line and throws red dice at things until they go away, the T-70 is an accomplished arc dodger. Not like a TIE interceptor, which can actually avoid incoming fire, but to avoid opponents getting a shot in the first place; boost and Talon Roll give you options to dance just as well as the First Order's toys.

This is particularly useful with named pilots - Blue Ace and Ello Atsy are far, far more manoeuvrable than the T-70's basic dial would suggest.

The upgrades in the T70 pack are good... you can make a generic 4XZ list that will be strongly competitive.
Ello Asty and Poe are awesomely strong aces. Wedge and Biggs got a lot of nice tools in the T70 pack as well. We are spoiled by the TLT... it took no effort at all to figure out how to use that effectively. Integrated Astromech is a different kind of fix... one that the best players are still working on figuring out.

For X-Wing swarms, which generic Astromech is worth taking?

1pt generics: R2 vs R5
R2 lets blow off stress with your 2 Hard and 2 Bank. The hard 2 is a particular valuable green maneuver to have, but on the other hand X-Wings only generate stress from their K-Turns.

R5 lets you ignore and mitigate some crits. This makes your 3 hull points more valuable, behaving more like shields. 25 of the 33 cards are Ship criticals, but only 10 of those are fully neutralized by R5.
Fully Ignored (10)
-Console Fire
-Damaged Engine
-Damaged Sensor Array
-Loose Stabilizer
-Major Hull Breach
Mitigated (11)
-Direct Hit! (only helps for the first HP, otherwise you have to dump your R5 with IA to save your ship)
-Structural Damage (lowers your agility for the round)
-Weapons Failure (lowers your attack for the round)
R5 has no effect (4)
-Major Explosion (triggers and deals damage before R5 can flip it)
-Thrust Control Fire (deals a stress then flips)

2pt generics: R7 vs Targeting Astromech

R7 grants you a "reverse target lock": you can spend locks to force your opponent to re-roll their attack dice (and you choose which one). I haven't seen math on this, but my first-hand experience makes me think it's better than a defensive focus (but you can also double-up with a defensive focus if you have a lock from earlier). The obvious use is for defense against arc-dodgers.

Targeting Astromech lets you acquire a target lock when you perform a k-turn (there are other ways to trigger it, but 90% of the time it will be this way). This improves your action economy when jousting - but is it enough? This is a way better ability on Y-Wings (which is true of... all the Astromechs, basically).


I don't really have an answer here for what the best generic astromech is. I usually take R5 astromechs, because defensive upgrades are useful in all games, but the effect is admittedly subtle. Are the 2pt astromechs worth looking into? After all, it's only a 1pt difference.

 Dave-c wrote:
So I've only played a few games, however the xwing seems to me to be drastically over cost on squad points. Is there a viable way to use them or make them more effective?

I did try out some a wings and loved them. I am regretting buying the starter kit now

Yes there is a viable way to use them. I have had success with a 4 X Wing build with Luke, Garvin, Bigss and a Rookie. It gives me decent defense and survivability, and using Garvin's free focus token is very handy to the following tactic. This list has an even spread of pilot skills with the bulk in the middle of the range.

This is how I play X Wings.

1. Deploy 2 in front, 2 in the back. Biggs is in the back next to Luke. Your Rookie is the last one to shoot, and usually finishes off your squadron's target. So keep him stacked with focus tokens from Garvin.
2. Move up into long range 3. Biggs can be in a position to soak up those range 3 shots with an extra defense die.
3. Target Lock as your action. DONT waste it on long range, save it for next turn when you have a focus token to use as well.
4. Next turn, Focus and burn your target lock. Hopefully your within 1-2 range and re-rolling blanks and turning focuses into hits. With luck your putting out 3-4 hits per X Wing, and 12-16 hits in front of your squadron. With this tactic you can really start to wipe ships away. TIE fighters just seem like paper against so much firepower.

You need to setup test flights on your desk at home and play MANY many test flights using this setup. With this tight formation you really need to master the maneuver dials so your ships don't get in the way of each other and utilize Biggs' ability to it's fullest.

 DanielBeaver wrote:
For X-Wing swarms, which generic Astromech is worth taking?

R2-D6 with crack shot, for a cheap option that is much better than any of the generics. Who cares if it's unique, I can't think of any reason you'd want to take more than one T-65 in a list.

 Peregrine wrote:

 DanielBeaver wrote:
For X-Wing swarms, which generic Astromech is worth taking?

R2-D6 with crack shot, for a cheap option that is much better than any of the generics. Who cares if it's unique, I can't think of any reason you'd want to take more than one T-65 in a list.

But not usable on the PS2 X-Wing, because of the PS lower limit. The PS4 generic is overpriced, even with IA. I'm partial to R4-D6 as a unique 1pt astromech.

 DanielBeaver wrote:
But not usable on the PS2 X-Wing, because of the PS lower limit.

Sure, but how often are you using a rookie pilot?

Would 4 rookie pilots with R2 and IA with a Bandit be an appropriate, simple intro squad to fly?

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Would 4 rookie pilots with R2 and IA with a Bandit be an appropriate, simple intro squad to fly?

I believe so. Might be good, as it is basically 4BZ... with some minor tweaks.

 Anpu-adom wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Would 4 rookie pilots with R2 and IA with a Bandit be an appropriate, simple intro squad to fly?

I believe so. Might be good, as it is basically 4BZ... with some minor tweaks.

Unfortunately, I think that the Rookie Pilot doesn't quite measure up to a Blue Squadron pilot.

 Peregrine wrote:

 DanielBeaver wrote:
For X-Wing swarms, which generic Astromech is worth taking?

R2-D6 with crack shot, for a cheap option that is much better than any of the generics. Who cares if it's unique, I can't think of any reason you'd want to take more than one T-65 in a list.

Tactical reasons: probably none, except I've been hearing that rookies with a 1pt astro and IA are equal to a B Wing in jousting efficiency, so who knows, maybe that's a legit reason. Theyre basically a slightly faster, not as tight turning, B Wing that can selectively ignore a crit/have a ton of green moves. Honestly won't know until I try it for myself with something like a BBXXZ list or somethong to compare them.

Other reason: they're friggin X Wings, one of the most iconic ships in the game. I'll run them till the cows come home and I did pretty decent with them before the patches in the T70 blister, so I will continue to use them. It may not be the most optimized list but I enjoy flying them and everyone underestimates them because of what they hear on forums*

*disclaimer: I do not go to regionals often. I am not playing at worlds. I'm just stating that I can run them just fine in a normal meta even before the changes and felt like it was a fair foght, even against netlists.