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Am I right that Biggs makes a good support pilot? I like his ability, but I'm not sure how to kit him out. I was thinking R2-D2 and Engine Upgrade (to keep up with the T-70). I'm guessing to skip the torps and save the points. Am I on the right track?

Yes. Biggs is incredibly powerful and sees significant tournament use. But you're probably adding too many points in upgrades. R2-D2 is ok if you have the points to spare, regen is obviously powerful but Biggs tends to die before he has time to get much out of it. Engine upgrade is a waste, it's a lot of points for very little gain and takes away your defensive focus if you use it. The standard Biggs setup is R4-D6 and integrated astromech (a mandatory upgrade on T-65s).

R2-D6 is also a very potent upgrade choice (Typically with Crack Shot).

Is the R7 Astromech worth running on Biggs?

So, take this salted as I don't fly rebels (yet), but I think most people who run Biggs could employ a better strategy.

I almost always see Biggs at r1 of the other ships in a list from the start. So I just take a turn (and that's usually all it takes) to focus on him. And once he's gone (usually without any loss on my side) I'm at the advantage for the rest of the game.

What would probably be more likely to disrupt me would be to keep Biggs back (out of his pilot ability range at least) to allow/ push me to split my fire.

Then after the other ships take some damage, fly Biggs in to formation so I would have to shoot at him, likely at less than optimal conditions. If Biggs survives (more likely than if I had specifically maneuvered to target him with everything) you can do it again (possibly after doing some shield regeneration).

Forcing me to split my shots, I think, is the best way to use Biggs. And if you are good, you might even make it look like a mistake so your opponent thinks s/he is winning by splitting his/her fire.

Thoughts?

 NH Gunsmith wrote:
Is the R7 Astromech worth running on Biggs?

Not unless you have other mechanics in the list that give Biggs free target locks. A focus is similar in overall defensive effectiveness, and can be selectively used.

Apostasus wrote:
So, take this salted as I don't fly rebels (yet), but I think most people who run Biggs could employ a better strategy.

I almost always see Biggs at r1 of the other ships in a list from the start. So I just take a turn (and that's usually all it takes) to focus on him. And once he's gone (usually without any loss on my side) I'm at the advantage for the rest of the game.

What would probably be more likely to disrupt me would be to keep Biggs back (out of his pilot ability range at least) to allow/ push me to split my fire.

Then after the other ships take some damage, fly Biggs in to formation so I would have to shoot at him, likely at less than optimal conditions. If Biggs survives (more likely than if I had specifically maneuvered to target him with everything) you can do it again (possibly after doing some shield regeneration).

Forcing me to split my shots, I think, is the best way to use Biggs. And if you are good, you might even make it look like a mistake so your opponent thinks s/he is winning by splitting his/her fire.

Thoughts?

Biggs with R4-D6 will take at least 3 shots to down. If that is a whole turn of you not shooting at my list, I like that strategy. As I am free to fire on you at will. Food for thought.

Apostasus wrote:
Thoughts?

It's a bad idea. If you can kill Biggs in one turn you can probably kill a different ship instead, so either way you're losing a ship. The only way you're getting through that opening pass with all your ships alive is if your opponent decides to be stupid and voluntarily split their fire just because Biggs isn't forcing them to make the smart decision and focus fire. And this is especially true in the situations where Biggs is most valuable: stress control, Vessery, etc. If you don't put Biggs in your formation from the beginning against those lists you simply lose the game.

Yeah, with Biggs you are paying a couple points to force your opponent to kill what is essentially a generic pilot first. Typically, in exchange, I get to kill the biggest threat in your list, or at least severely damage it.

 Peregrine wrote:

It's a bad idea. If you can kill Biggs in one turn you can probably kill a different ship instead, so either way you're losing a ship. The only way you're getting through that opening pass with all your ships alive is if your opponent decides to be stupid and voluntarily split their fire just because Biggs isn't forcing them to make the smart decision and focus fire. And this is especially true in the situations where Biggs is most valuable: stress control, Vessery, etc. If you don't put Biggs in your formation from the beginning against those lists you simply lose the game.

It’s certainly possible that I haven't run up against skilled users of Biggs, so (as I mentioned earlier ) this should be taken with a dose of salt. But one turn of shooting that would kill Biggs won't kill a Ghost or k-wing (two ships I've seen paired w/ him) and might not be enough to kill Poe or a b-wing. So buying Poe a 2nd round to escape /regen some shields in the mid game rather than just not being shot at for 1 turn in the opening seems more valuable to me. (Disclaimer : I tend to have a strong opening game that sometimes suffers from unforced errors in the mid game; so my analysis is probably biased towards things that would give me the most trouble. .. and I haven't found taking out Biggs first to give me much trouble. )

There are a few games using Biggs on Stele TV's coverage of... I want to say TempleCon? A Con, anyway. Maybe you should check it out. The narrator is... iffy

Apostasus wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

It's a bad idea. If you can kill Biggs in one turn you can probably kill a different ship instead, so either way you're losing a ship. The only way you're getting through that opening pass with all your ships alive is if your opponent decides to be stupid and voluntarily split their fire just because Biggs isn't forcing them to make the smart decision and focus fire. And this is especially true in the situations where Biggs is most valuable: stress control, Vessery, etc. If you don't put Biggs in your formation from the beginning against those lists you simply lose the game.

It’s certainly possible that I haven't run up against skilled users of Biggs, so (as I mentioned earlier ) this should be taken with a dose of salt. But one turn of shooting that would kill Biggs won't kill a Ghost or k-wing (two ships I've seen paired w/ him) and might not be enough to kill Poe or a b-wing. So buying Poe a 2nd round to escape /regen some shields in the mid game rather than just not being shot at for 1 turn in the opening seems more valuable to me. (Disclaimer : I tend to have a strong opening game that sometimes suffers from unforced errors in the mid game; so my analysis is probably biased towards things that would give me the most trouble. .. and I haven't found taking out Biggs first to give me much trouble. )

It might not kill the ships, but it will hurt them. Biggs guarantees an additional round for these ships to do their thing, potentially allowing me to weaken your ships to the point where I gain another round or two thanks to your reduced firepower, all for peanuts more than a generic that I would be taking anyways.

As for splitting ships, all that this does is allow me to shoot a valuable target first. I might not kill Poe, but If I do any damage to the hull, that is damage that will stay. Regenerating all three shields will also take more time than Biggs will give you mid-game. I am also more likely to outright kill Poe than a round or two later, when I will probably have lost a ship. Sending in Poe and Biggs together means that I am forced to kill the less valuable pilot while my firepower is greatest. Poe will have a much easier time regenerating shields when my firepower is reduced mid-late game.

Also, as for the Ghost+Biggs list, I suspect that it is something along the lines of Kannan Jarrus+Recon Specialists+Tactical Jammer. Here, I want to have my opponent shooting at Biggs, because the whole point of the list is to obstruct Biggs with the Ghost, then debuff my enemies shooting with Kannan. This makes Biggs annoyingly hard to kill. But, if you split the ships, the Ghost does not do anything too spectacular by itself, and just takes heavy damage.

When you also put Jan Ors in the Ghost, Biggs also gets an evade instead of a focus. For lulz.

Apostasus wrote:
But one turn of shooting that would kill Biggs won't kill a Ghost or k-wing (two ships I've seen paired w/ him) and might not be enough to kill Poe or a b-wing. So buying Poe a 2nd round to escape /regen some shields in the mid game rather than just not being shot at for 1 turn in the opening seems more valuable to me.

I think you're misunderstanding a bit how Biggs is supposed to work.

With generic "brick of efficient HP" ships like the Ghost or b-wings you aren't taking Biggs because 25 points of b-wing or Ghost is better than 25 points of Biggs and you need to protect your investment, you're taking Biggs to make your opponent's shots worse. The b-wing/Ghost/etc ideally gets a range-1 shot at your target, while return fire is wasted on range-3 shots at Biggs (potentially with Kanan/obstruction/etc). If Biggs isn't starting in formation and drawing fire while you take unopposed shots with the rest of your list then you're wasting Biggs.

With aces like Poe you take Biggs to make sure you have as many options as possible after the first pass. If you keep Biggs out of the fight for a turn and let Poe take the hits you have a good chance of taking permanent damage on Poe (or even getting him killed!) and an even bigger chance of taking shield damage. That means, even if you bring Biggs in at that point, you're committed to a defensive play to attempt to recover that shield damage. But if you keep Biggs in formation you get through the first pass with full HP on your ace and the full range of options available, and hopefully you've put some damage on your opponent's ships so your ace will be taking less fire once Biggs goes down and the ace becomes a target. And this is especially important when you're facing stress control/tractor beams/etc, if you don't have Biggs drawing those threats away from your ace you can effectively lose the game in a single turn.

(Disclaimer : I tend to have a strong opening game that sometimes suffers from unforced errors in the mid game; so my analysis is probably biased towards things that would give me the most trouble. .. and I haven't found taking out Biggs first to give me much trouble. )

You're making a major strategic mistake here. X-Wing, like many games, is a game where early advantages can very quickly snowball into decisive victories. You almost always want to play your most powerful options as early as possible because that maximizes their impact on the game. A successful Biggs play on the first turn of shooting can immediately put you at an advantage, and if you maintain parity in outcomes from that point on you win the game. If you hold Biggs back and fail to take that advantage you now have to make a better play with Biggs later in the game just to break even on where you could have been. It doesn't matter if you believe you have a strong opening already, the best thing you can do to improve your chances of winning is to make that opening even stronger.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As an example of correct Biggs play consider the Corran/stresshog/Biggs list I used to play, or its recent update in Corran/StressARC/Biggs. Corran is an extremely powerful threat that can close out games on his own if he makes it into a good endgame state, while R3-A2 in either form can very quickly wreck a list if it's allowed to get multiple turns of shooting. Biggs makes both of these things happen. On the opening pass you have to shoot at Biggs while Corran kills stuff and R3-A2 starts handing out stress tokens. Once Biggs dies you almost always have to kill R3-A2 to have any hope of losing the game, but you take even more stress while doing so. Hopefully by the time R3-A2 is dead you've taken losses and your surviving ships are loaded down with stress and easy prey for Corran. So what do I gain by keeping Biggs back? Nothing. All I do is let my opponent put damage on the ships I want to die after Biggs, and probably take Biggs' 3-dice gun out of the opening salvo.

As an aside, do you bother with a Tactician in the crew slot on that ARC, or just R3-A2?

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
As an aside, do you bother with a Tactician in the crew slot on that ARC, or just R3-A2?

I think gunner is the default choice right now, at least in the Corran/Biggs/ARC list. I haven't tried the stress ARC myself yet.

I'm coming up short on points for a gunner. 2 points, to be precise.

Thanks for all of the advice, guys. I see where I went wrong with the Engine Upgrade; Biggs will probably be dead before it comes into play or becomes an issue.

I again want to note that, since my best showing was distinctly in the bottom tier of the New England regionals, the truly skilled Biggs users may be out of my experience (likewise the best Biggs lists), but since I run Imperial aces, when he's in formation from the beginning, he usually dies bef


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I again want to note that, since my best showing was distinctly in the bottom tier of the New England regionals, the truly skilled Biggs users may be out of my experience (likewise the best Biggs lists), but since I run Imperial aces, when he's in formation from the beginning, he usually dies before getting a shot.

On the other hand, with rare exceptions, if I decide to focus on something else, it seems much harder. There may be some confirmation bias involved, but the Biggs first pass strategy seems to involve letting my opponents' (whole) list be a target.

And given that, I've usually been able to plan my moves / deployment/ etc so I kill Biggs without much loss.

I'm honestly stumped to try to think of a game I've either played or seen on YouTube where Biggs was decisive unless I was practically screaming at the screen to kill him first.

So maybe I'm just saying that I don't think Biggs is a good use of points (and I confess that I have a similar thought when it comes to a Academy tie... 12 points for upgrades feels more useful than a 2 dice attack).

Apostasus wrote:
And given that, I've usually been able to plan my moves / deployment/ etc so I kill Biggs without much loss.

Then you aren't playing against good Biggs lists/players. You don't use Biggs to give any random ship extra HP, you use him to protect a game-winning threat until it can win the game for you. For example, a Corran/Braylen/Biggs list uses Biggs to keep you from killing the stress ARC before it multi-stresses your aces and leaves them as easy kills for Corran to clean up. Sure, sometimes you'll out-fly your opponent and kill both Biggs and the ARC before you get stressed to death. If Biggs + stress Arc was an auto-win list there would be something seriously wrong. But if every game you're consistently killing Biggs without suffering any damage in return you're either playing against lists that shouldn't be wasting points on Biggs or bad players who don't know how to take advantage of the opportunity that Biggs buys you. Or both.

(and I confess that I have a similar thought when it comes to a Academy tie... 12 points for upgrades feels more useful than a 2 dice attack).

You are wrong. Obviously 12 points of the correct upgrades can be powerful, but loading up on marginal upgrades instead of putting more ships on the table is one of the classic newbie traps of X-Wing. That academy pilot's 2-dice gun is not irrelevant, and its blocking power makes it a significant threat for its point cost. The main reason we don't see academy pilots much anymore is the raw power of the 15 point BSP with crack shot, most of the lists that used to take academy pilots found a way to pay the extra 3 points for PS 4 and crack shot.

Agreed about that last bit. One of our group's girlfriend started playing about a month ago, but she relies solely on her boyfriend to build lists for her. He loads her up with marginal upgrades that can create great synergy, but it's too many rules, and edge cases that you have to carefully plan for.

12 points of blocking goodness that have 3 native green dice? Yes please. And most probably an evade token because you move first? Pfft.