Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Ok, so this thread is to review and talk about tactics and list building.

As a noob with only a few games under the belt, I have yet to experience Ion turrets for myself, but from what I gather, they are a pretty critical part of a balanced all-comers list. For rebels this means the Y-wing, and for Imperials this means a Firespray am I correct? Wave 3 the HWK will be able to mount one, which is pretty much the only way to make it worth a damn anyways playing a direct role with 1 paltry attack dice... thank goodness it has what seem to be very interesting buff abilities... but I digress.

What is you guys experience with Ion turrets? Are they critical parts of your lists or do you find they are a minor influence at best? Would you spam them?

A bunch of my friends have wanted to try the harder to play Rebels (harder in my area), and everyone wanted to use the Y-Wing. I've insisted each time that they include an Ion Turret, even if they skip everything else. Nobody has been upset at my suggestion, and most had even come to that conclusion before I opened my mouth. R2 D2 on Horton Salm's Y-Wing with an Ion Cannon is truly abusive.


As for another tactic, I tried running an elite Empire squad, taking Vader with a homing missile and elusive (forces opponent to re-roll an attack die), Soontir Fel with the ability to take a 90 degree turn for a stress (which gives him a focus), and the other intercepter character who gets to barrel roll/boost after each attack, with veteran skills to make him Skill 9. Both Intercepter characters also had the 4pt shield upgrade added to their ships. First game, it went phenomenally well, with me losing a single shield on one intercepter, and the second game it bombed horribly. It's worth another shot, depending completely on how well you can move past your opponent. Damn ion cannons are a nightmare against this.

The beauty of the Ion Turret is that you always have a shot out to range 2 no matter where your opponent ends up. The Y-Wing is not the most maneuverable tub out there and having a 360 gun helps it a lot. It also lets you set up targets for the other ships in your force with the Ion effect, forcing the target that's hit to move a straight 1, making them very predictable as to their position next turn. Plus it's funny when you Ion a TIE and watch it drift into an asteroid.

It will be interesting to see what turret weaponry will be included with the HWK. If the rumored Blaster turret is any good you might see a resurgence of the Y-Wing.

One list I like is:

YT-1300 with Han Solo, Marksmanship and Gunner or MF Title and Luke Skywalker
2 x Gold Squadron Y-Wings with Ion Turret.

Surprisingly durable even with agility 1 ships.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
As for another tactic, I tried running an elite Empire squad, taking Vader with a homing missile and elusive (forces opponent to re-roll an attack die), Soontir Fel with the ability to take a 90 degree turn for a stress (which gives him a focus), and the other intercepter character who gets to barrel roll/boost after each attack, with veteran skills to make him Skill 9. Both Intercepter characters also had the 4pt shield upgrade added to their ships. First game, it went phenomenally well, with me losing a single shield on one intercepter, and the second game it bombed horribly. It's worth another shot, depending completely on how well you can move past your opponent. Damn ion cannons are a nightmare against this.

I've run something similar to this:

Vader with Daredevil and Engine Upgrade - Daredevil is the hard 1 turn for an action and Engine Upgrade lets me boost and avoid the damage roll for using Daredevil.
Soontir Fel with Push the Limit and Stealth - PTL lets me get 2 focus and 1 evade token due to Fel's special ability.
Tur Phennir with Vet Instincts and Stealth

The above combo is 98 points so I do have enough points to upgrade the Stealth to Shield if desired. This list is fragile, having only 11 total hit points, so you really have to be on your A Game to do well.

I'm iffy about Ion cannons being an auto-include in a list. I'm not going to take a y-wing in a list just to have an ion cannon but if I do take a y-wing, it'll probably have one. It works okay against normal ships but when it comes to large ships, their effectiveness is severely cut into 1/2

Been having fun testing out my 2x Firespray with HLC + Obsidian squad TIE with squad leader build. the 2 firesprays move up, shoot at 4 dice against anything and because it's a secondary weapon, the opponent doesn't get an extra dice to defend. This means y-wings and yt-1300s are pretty screwed. Then the obsidian squad TIE usually just hangs back and gives them an extra actions, allowing them to target lock/focus

This is what I normally run in our games at our FLGS. For some reason I am always playing the rebels but oh well they are fun:

X-wing with Wedge, R2D2 and Marksmanship
A-wing with Tyco, Push the limit and Concussion missiles
Y-wing with Gold Sqd pilot, R2 and Ion turret

This list allows the rebels the to move up with the xwing and y wing supporting each other causing the imp formations to break or stress on flips to get shots. But the awing is there to pick off stressed or out of formation ties.

I have won ten games and lost two with this list so far. I want try amd equip the awing with homing missiles to be sure that I can kill interceptors or pesky named tie/ln.

Chewbacca - Veteran Instincts, Millenium Falcon, Gunner - 49p
Lando Carlrissian - Nien Nunb, Gunner, Determination - 51p

Two falcons on PS7. You decide which one goes first. Chewie is immune to crits and lando to pilotcrits increasing survivability. Both shoot again when they miss to maximise focus fire damage.

Deploy both falcons next to each other on one side (because of the high pilot skill you should be able to deploy on the opposite side of your opponents first ships forcing him to either split up or cross through asteroids before reaching you (or deploy in the middle where you placed asteroids) - cross the table - k-turn - repeat. Focus fire one target per turn.

Chewie evades and gets a free action for focus or target lock from landos special ability. SInce lando treats all straights as greens through nien only on the k-turn he cant use his special ability allowing chewie to almost always have at least an evade.


Found this list on the net. Tried it out and it works quite well so far. Won 3 games in a row after not seeing dual falcons win for a while. Only downside is that its really boring to play for you and your opponent. Problems could occur when someone runs dual ion cannons against it. I think triple y-wings would beat the gak out of this. Lucky me y-wings arent available right now in my gaming group

 Mywik wrote:
Problems could occur when someone runs dual ion cannons against it. I think triple y-wings would beat the gak out of this. Lucky me y-wings arent available right now in my gaming group

I love my dual y-wing formations. But what has worked really well was my y-wing ion wagon wheel of death. 3 y-wings flying in slow circles covering each other with Ion turrets and an A-Wing zipping in and out picking off Ionized TIEs. At a 100 points it is hard for the Imps to handle.

Sining wrote:
I'm iffy about Ion cannons being an auto-include in a list. I'm not going to take a y-wing in a list just to have an ion cannon but if I do take a y-wing, it'll probably have one. It works okay against normal ships but when it comes to large ships, their effectiveness is severely cut into 1/2

Look a little further than that, with a 360 arc and 3 attack dice it allows the Y Wing to get a bead on a target much more easily, considering it has the worst manoeuvre wheel of any fighter. The Ion effect is a nice bonus, but I view the cannon as a way of maintaining a steady stream of hits when you can't afford to carry any ship in a list, offensively speaking.

Unless you're doing some sort of torpedoes focused list, I don't think a Y without an IC is worth considering.

^Exactly this. It's not mandatory to take a Y-Wing. It is a necessity to take an Ion Cannon on a Y-Wing, if you've chosen to include the YW.

There are a few lists I am eager to try, including 5 Y-wings at 100 pts, 2 ion cannons, the rest vanilla... the Han Shoots first list...

Right now, on rebels I tend to go Wedge, loaded up with an astromech, protons, marksmanship, 2 generic x-wings, and 1 a-wing with concussion missiles. Usually group Wedge and another x-wing towards the middle or left, then have the 3rd x-wing between them and the a-wing on one of the furthest flanks. Basically head forward and look to focus one of their heavy hitters with at least 2 x-wings, while holding the a-wing back til 2nd turn then rushing forward to hopefully eliminate one of the cheaper ships with the missiles before they can even fire a shot, then spinning around and harassing. So far so good...

On Imperial I have tried a Tie-spam list with Vader and Swarm, and then a smaller list focusing on vader, Fel and interceptors with only 1 regular tie for harassment... success with both those lists so far too.

Tried Wedge with r2d2 today and realised hes not that good in an x-wing. At least in this game i wasnt really able to execute greens to make him worthwile only recovered 1 shield throughout the game (the only damage wedge took). Also i should have taken marksmanship for him instead of deadeye. Its kinda scary how much damage hes able to put out with that. Even without he was devastating.

What i really like was Tycho with cluster missiles+push the limit. Being able to turn - focus/target lock and then boost to get into range1/fire arc is just amazing or turn take focus and target lock - just wow. Was my first game with an a-wing and i LOVE them.

List was
Luke + r5
Wedge + prots + deadeye + r2d2
Celchu + Cluster + Push the limit

Wouldnt play that list again without changes but i won so i will definitely come back to this route. Although it was probably a mistake by my opponent to focus on a-wing and luke before wedge . A mistake he wont do next game.

I anxious to try this:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=332&efcid=6&efidt=795350

 Mywik wrote:
Tried Wedge with r2d2 today and realised hes not that good in an x-wing. At least in this game i wasnt really able to execute greens to make him worthwile only recovered 1 shield throughout the game (the only damage wedge took). Also i should have taken marksmanship for him instead of deadeye. Its kinda scary how much damage hes able to put out with that. Even without he was devastating.

What i really like was Tycho with cluster missiles+push the limit. Being able to turn - focus/target lock and then boost to get into range1/fire arc is just amazing or turn take focus and target lock - just wow. Was my first game with an a-wing and i LOVE them.

List was
Luke + r5
Wedge + prots + deadeye + r2d2
Celchu + Cluster + Push the limit

Wouldnt play that list again without changes but i won so i will definitely come back to this route. Although it was probably a mistake by my opponent to focus on a-wing and luke before wedge . A mistake he wont do next game.

A-wings rock, especially as a glass cannon when armed with missiles, pretty much a guaranteed kill on a tie of your choosing, except the advanced... great harrasers after the missles go too...
I have to say my R2 + Wedge experience was entirely different, R2 kept him alive during a protracted veteran carded Slave 1 duel... otherwise he would have been toast instead of actually surviving the entire game and locking up Slave 1 long enough to let my other ships clean up the ties and then focus it down...

Here is the first few opening moves of my Y-Wing Ion Wheel of Death (100 point squadron):

Setup:


1st Turn:



2nd Turn:



3rd Turn:



4th Turn:


5th Turn:


As you can see how the Y-Wings move in a wide circle which puts out a huge amount of Ion fire. The A-wing staying within this cover till it can bound out and hit an Ionized TIE or a TIE which fell out of formation. The Wheel Formation is able to turn sharply to the inside and recover quickly from the stress with the 1 point R2s. Then with a stright 1 and a couple quick turns the formation can flip flop damaged fighters to the inside.

Very interesting manoeuvre pattern there, will need to try it out! Thanks for sharing!

 Pipboy101 wrote:
Here is the first few opening moves of my Y-Wing Ion Wheel of Death (100 point squadron):

Spoiler:

Setup:


1st Turn:



2nd Turn:



3rd Turn:



4th Turn:


5th Turn:

As you can see how the Y-Wings move in a wide circle which puts out a huge amount of Ion fire. The A-wing staying within this cover till it can bound out and hit an Ionized TIE or a TIE which fell out of formation. The Wheel Formation is able to turn sharply to the inside and recover quickly from the stress with the 1 point R2s. Then with a stright 1 and a couple quick turns the formation can flip flop damaged fighters to the inside.

I'm assuming that you're running 3 Gold Squad Y-Wings with Ion Turrets and R2s. Which A-Wing are you running and how is it equipped? You've got 28 points left over after the Y's so I'd run a Green Squad A with Deadeye, Homing/Assault missile and Stealth for those 28. Just curious as to how you have yours set up.

 Zathras wrote:
I'm assuming that you're running 3 Gold Squad Y-Wings with Ion Turrets and R2s. Which A-Wing are you running and how is it equipped? You've got 28 points left over after the Y's so I'd run a Green Squad A with Deadeye, Homing/Assault missile and Stealth for those 28. Just curious as to how you have yours set up.

Sorry I forgot to put it on there. You have the list down pat.
3 Gold Sqd Y-Wings with R2s and Ion Turrets
1 Green Sqd A-Wing with Homing missiles and Deadeye. I didn't put the Stealth Device on it and will have to check the card.

I have been toying with putting Tycho in but he is just two shots.

Going to try out this list today

Wedge with Expose and R2 astromech
Biggs with R2F2 and Stealth device to keep him alive longer; and hence Wedge as well
Dutch Vander with Ion cannon, proton torpedos, r5k6 to allow him to relock onto targets, which again triggers his ability to help others near him lock onto targets.

Hopefully Biggs keeps Wedge alive long enough for him to continually fire pow4-5 shots at the enemy while lowering their defense by 1. The y-wing is there to harass people with ion cannons but also to help Biggs or wedge get a target lock if they need it because their own actions will be either Expose or getting 1 agility more

Ran Horton Salm tonight (one of my favorite pilots!) with R2D2 and the missile that switches a blank to a hit, Wedge with push the limit and Tycho with push the limit against my friend's first game using Mauler, Vader, Howlrunner and the Tie pilot that disallows opponents re-rolls/focus rolls against him when he's attacked. I was victorious, giving me my first win with rebels. I realize HS is a gamble with R2, as he only has 2 green choices on his dial, but being able to gain shields back on an already beefcake ship is invaluable-along with a 360 degree ion cannon, and he's a miserable sod to remove. Wedge and Horton stuck together and held back, while Tycho zipped up the side and hit the ties in the flank, making a general nuisance of himself. It was fun, Tycho ended up getting obliterated by Vader about 4 turns in, but Mauler was already gone, and the other two ties were hurting as well. All in all, I think I'm starting to get the hang of the rebels-a harrasser on the side plus two tanks working together, maybe there's hope for me to successfully flip off the xenophobic leader of the SW universe instead of only working for him.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Ran Horton Salm tonight (one of my favorite pilots!) with R2D2 and the missile that switches a blank to a hit, Wedge with push the limit and Tycho with push the limit against my friend's first game using Mauler, Vader, Howlrunner and the Tie pilot that disallows opponents re-rolls/focus rolls against him when he's attacked. I was victorious, giving me my first win with rebels. I realize HS is a gamble with R2, as he only has 2 green choices on his dial, but being able to gain shields back on an already beefcake ship is invaluable-along with a 360 degree ion cannon, and he's a miserable sod to remove. Wedge and Horton stuck together and held back, while Tycho zipped up the side and hit the ties in the flank, making a general nuisance of himself. It was fun, Tycho ended up getting obliterated by Vader about 4 turns in, but Mauler was already gone, and the other two ties were hurting as well. All in all, I think I'm starting to get the hang of the rebels-a harrasser on the side plus two tanks working together, maybe there's hope for me to successfully flip off the xenophobic leader of the SW universe instead of only working for him.

I can't tell if its the unexperienced players in my group (not that im experienced either) but i didnt lose with rebels so far outside of core set only games.

Going to try this list today after finally getting my Y's.
1x Gold Squadron Y-Wing Pilot - Ion Turret - Protons
2x Gold Squadron Y-Wing Pilot - Ion Turret
1x Prototype A-Wing Pilot - Cluster Missiles - Stealth Device

Seems to be pretty straight forward. The Y's stay in formation and fly in circles while the a is trying to flank, harrass and pick up ionised ties. Stealth device is there to make target priorities more difficult and increase overall survivability. 28 HP your opponent has to cut through and a very elusive a wing that can stay relatively close to the enemy while being very hard to hit. Stay away from Slave 1 with ions with the a-wing or try to stay out of his back arc. So far i didnt find it hard to avoid slave1s fire arcs ... but i also didnt play against 2 or 3 firesprays so far.

You really are going to need the base r2 units on the ywings imho if you are going to run the ion wheel of death. The cluster missiles are great against slave 1. Those almist completely dropped its shields with one shot.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you go my gallery in dakka under the ion wheel of death folder it has more moves than i showed above. It shows the tight turns of the wheel, coming back into formation and yhe awing's reactions.

 Pipboy101 wrote:
You really are going to need the base r2 units on the ywings imho if you are going to run the ion wheel of death. The cluster missiles are great against slave 1. Those almist completely dropped its shields with one shot.

Jeah saw that happening yesterday.

I forgot to include the r2s in here. List i posted is 97 points

Those R2s are great for y-wings. The ability to keep formation and remove stress during the turns makes all the difference.

 Pipboy101 wrote:
Those R2s are great for y-wings. The ability to keep formation and remove stress during the turns makes all the difference.

Jeah. Im kind of pumped for my first game fielding y-wings. Best thing is that i know i will fight a dual falcon list first

So I played a 500 pt 4-player game tonight, me and my team mate were Rebel. I took dutch, a grey y-wing, wedge and a rookie x-wing, with a smattering of cards, protons and turrets on both y-wings, marksmanship on both x-wings and r2s on dutch and wedge I think... my team mate had luke, tycho and 2 rookie xwings, all loaded up well, concussion missiles on the a-wing, protons on the x-wings, swarm on luke. Imperials had too many damn ties to list lol...

It was a loooong game, but I lost it basically turn 1 by forgetting to take my target lock action on the y-wings, essentially wasting the protons... that, and not realizing marksmanship was an action, not a passive ability, and some absolutely god-awful rolling later on really humped me. My team-mate did better, but without my assistance he could only hold out so long...

There was a point mid game where we could have taken it, we put out a ton of damage, but absolutely abysmal rolling from me, and absolutely golden god rolling from one of the imperial players cynched it, we just couldnt finish off the ships we had hurt.

Take-aways from this big game -

1. Focus changes ALL eyes... I thought it was just one. Focus is HUGE for imperials, they are so much harder to hit than I thought.

2. Barrel rolling is also insanity and there were several times the imps got out of our arcs doing it... never really used all that much.

3. r2s, as someone said earlier, are not that great compared to the in my opinion far more important addition of an extra agility to an x-wing... 2 agility is very vulnerable against swarms I find...

4. forgotten actions are a sin lol

 MajorTom11 wrote:

Take-aways from this big game -

1. Focus changes ALL eyes... I thought it was just one. Focus is HUGE for imperials, they are so much harder to hit than I thought.

2. Barrel rolling is also insanity and there were several times the imps got out of our arcs doing it... never really used all that much.

3. r2s, as someone said earlier, are not that great compared to the in my opinion far more important addition of an extra agility to an x-wing... 2 agility is very vulnerable against swarms I find...

4. forgotten actions are a sin lol

Marksmanship being an action is one of the reason i tend to not take it anymore except on the falcon with han. I prefer deadeye if boasting protons, push the limit or Expose. Also i tend to get either a stealth device or r2d2 (or both) for wedge if i take him. Makes a lot of points in one basket but he draws a lot of attention and needs the increased survivability.

Focus is huge, yes . We had a lot of players thinking you change 1 focus only too. Seems to be a common mistake.

Barrel rolls on mid PS Ships is really game breaking sometimes. We have a tie swarm player that is ridiculously good at blocking my movement with them :(.

Which r2s are you referring to? The generic ones or are you talking about r2d2? I found the generic r2 units to be gold on almost every fighter that can take them.

I normally allow my opponents to put on forgotten actions later. At least in a friendly game. I expect them to take the action they initially wanted and not be a douchebag. Works for us. Wouldnt allow it in a tournament setting though.

You took "2 dutch"?

 Manchu wrote:
You took "2 dutch"?

Bad, BAD Tom!!
And yes, I've had friends have issues with forgetting you can switch all focus, not just one. Barrel roll, if used properly, is the MOST powerful ability in the game-it's why I had such a hard time seeing everyone online saying that rebels are better. Barrel rolls are broken, and Turr Fennar (Intercepter Pilot) can barrel roll for free AFTER he shoots-why he isn't in every Imperial list, I won't understand-fly in, focus (or boost, depending on location), shoot, barrel roll out of harms way. If the rebels aren't employing a 360 degree fire arc ship, they have no hope of dealing with him properly. Enjoy, learn the art of barrel-roll, and watch the rebels cry.

No no sorry just 1 Dutch, I think I was typing two y-wings and paused for a second trying to recall the name, forgetting the two lol...

Fully on board that barrel role is serious business!

Flew the ion wheel of death today. I lost today only because I made one mistake and hit an asteroid with y-wing at the wrong time. If i had turned left insteadnof right i would have killed vader and an interceptor that turn leaving only the firespray. But even with that one mistake it was still a close game.