A buddy of mine has been running the following squad with an astounding level of success:
Han Solo (46)
-Luke Skywalker (7)
-Chewbacca (4)
-Marksmanship (3)
Prototype Pilot (17)
-Stealth Device (3)
Prototype Pilot (17)
-Stealth Device (3)
I played against this list 4 times yesterday.

First game was with Howlrunner w/ Stealth and Determination, 2 Academy Pilots, and 3 Alpha Squadron Pilots. I wrecked his A-wings right away, but Han was acing a TIE every round. By the time the A's were down, two Ints were also down, and the third went before he could shoot Han a third time. Han finished the game with 3 or 4 hull remaining.

Second game I swapped in Soontir w/ PtL and Stealth, Howlrunner w/ Determination, and 4 Academy Pilots. This game the A's went down even faster, both dying before they would shoot on the second round, but again, Han was wiping out 1 TIE per round. Soontir managed to frustrate him for a couple turns, but Chewie negated the only good thing I did to Han, and he won with the Chewie shield and like 5 hull remaining.

Third time was with a Scarlett Cowgirl-inspired build; Kath w/ Recon Specialist and Seismic Charge, Omicron Group Pilot w/ Gunner, Engine Upgrade, and FCS, and Soontir w/ PtL and Stealth. The shuttle went down fast, but so did Han's shields. Soontir managed to evade fire literally forever, but Kath went down pretty hard after dealing 5 damage to Han. The game ended with 1 A-wing with 1 hull left, the other with no shields, and Han with 3 hull left.

The final game was with me using my Store Championship winning squad: Roark w/ Ion Cannon Turret and Recon Specialist, 2x Red Squadron Pilot, and a Dagger Squadron Pilot w/ Advanced Sensors. I felt really good about this game going in, and the first two rounds had me immediately doubting my squad. As a reference, I fought only TIE swarms and mirror matches in the store champs, so I didn't see a Falcon build that night. Roark went down before the third round, and every other round after that I lost a ship to Han. There were a couple turns that, despite the large base, I just couldn't get Han in my sights, whether it was by being A-wing blocked or just clever moves by Han.

So, what advice would you guys toss out to try to kill this thing?

Did you shoot at A - wings if you had shots on Han? That han doesn't have evade so everyone should form up, send one tie out to deny action, you should have the firepower to kill it in 2 turns if you ignore A-wings

I was following the old doctrine of "Kill support ships first, focus Falcon later", which used to be the way to kill it. With A-wings, though, apparently that doesn't work out so well.

Did you shoot at A - wings if you had shots on Han? That han doesn't have evade so everyone should form up, send one tie out to deny action, you should have the firepower to kill it in 2 turns if you ignore A-wings

I'm not kidding, here: why attack the A-wings in this list at all ? They're hard to hit, but with low PS and essentially negligible offensive capabilities. Kill Han early in the match while you're at your highest level of offensive power, and then watch your opponent fly those A-wings around and realize how hard two ships with 2 Attack (and no backup from Howlrunner, PTL, etc.) will struggle to deal meaningful damage to anything.

Han dies within 2 - 3 turns of concentrated fire to a 7 or 8 TIE swarm. Interceptors are the worst to take against Han, as you pay many points for their dial that is useless vs hans turret, and they die just as fast as a regular TIE.

I played many times vs HSF lists, similar build than you played against (only Gunner instead of Luke), and I have yet to find an imperial build that can reliably face the HSF list besides swarm. First time I took the swarm (7 TIEs, Howlrunner) I was amazed how fast Han went down (2 turns of shooting, 4th game turn), Leaving me with 6 TIEs against his other two fighters.

Since then I still try different builds vs HSF, but if I want to drop Han (when I get annoyed by seeing him again) then I just take out my swarm and finish him fast.

I personally love A-wings, but with just Stealth Device, they're hard to hit, but not much of a bother. With your final list, I would've worked hard to get in close to the Falcon, doing everything I could to get those four dice. Attacks on the A's are wasted unless you can get 4 on them, with a Focus.

I was following the old doctrine of "Kill support ships first, focus Falcon later", which used to be the way to kill it. With A-wings, though, apparently that doesn't work out so well.

It makes sense when all three ships have 3 Attack--since the escorts don't have any problem tearing you up while you go after the Falcon, and even after the Falcon dies the escorts will have a bite. To some degree, that's still true even of Greens+PTL, which can Boost+Focus for 3 dice or Focus+TL for a very accurate 2-dice "sniping" attack.

But Prototypes don't even have multiple actions to fall back on. And Prototypes with Stealth are even more trouble to kill, without getting any better offensively, which means your "return on investment" for killing them is really low. In fact if Han does enough damage before he gets dead, you may not be able to kill the Prototypes at all--but you don't really need to, because Han costs so much in that build.

I was following the old doctrine of "Kill support ships first, focus Falcon later", which used to be the way to kill it. With A-wings, though, apparently that doesn't work out so well.

This only applies in timed environments. Swarm ships are cheaper than Han and A-wings. You have to kill two, he has to kill four in order to get the modified win. So in a timed tournament battle, staying away from Han is a good strategy as long as you can kill the escorts and run the time out. However, if you're looking for a board wipe, you MUST focus Han first, or you'll never beat him.

I was following the old doctrine of "Kill support ships first, focus Falcon later", which used to be the way to kill it. With A-wings, though, apparently that doesn't work out so well.

Yeah, that's not actually a doctrine, like, ever.

It's as simple as this: which do you want to face in the endgame? An A-wing or two that are squirrelly and hard to hit but which can be killed on a single bad defense roll and have low attack?

OR

An incredibly fast, maneuverable big ship with a 360 turret, two means of rerolls, several means of spiking damage output, the ability to entirely negate lethal damage one time, and who never has to be flying straight at you to hurt you?

Take your time.

But seriously - the A-wings are bait. Any damage they do for him is gravy. And you're falling right into his trap paying ANY attention to them (beyond not running into them) before you kill the endgame monstrosity that is the Falcon. You're winning the game FOR him with your strategy.

Your friend seems to like crits, maybe try to find a spot for a bsp+draw their fire? Keeps squints alive longer (hopefully).

I was following the old doctrine of "Kill support ships first, focus Falcon later", which used to be the way to kill it. With A-wings, though, apparently that doesn't work out so well.

This only applies in timed environments. Swarm ships are cheaper than Han and A-wings. You have to kill two, he has to kill four in order to get the modified win. So in a timed tournament battle, staying away from Han is a good strategy as long as you can kill the escorts and run the time out. However, if you're looking for a board wipe, you MUST focus Han first, or you'll never beat him.

Actually this is also bad advice, sorry. In a timed game, you want as many points worth of his ships off the board as possible as early as possible, in case time runs out.

That being the case, do you spend the entire game chasing around his fast, hard to hit, 40 points worth of A-Wings who are perfectly happy turtling up and dying slow while Han shreds your squad with impunity?

OR

Do you want to throw everything you have at the massive, easy to hit 60 point target that is also his biggest offensive threat to you by far, and put him at a massive points disadvantage if the game looks to run to time?

Seriously, if you get Han off the board, he is in a hole as far as points go, and your chances of winning - by any means; points if the time runs out, or wiping out his squad - rise astronomically the faster you remove Han from play. It is, and I feel like I cannot stress this enough, never a good idea to go after any of his other ships first.

Now, if you have no shot at Han, an A-Wing parks at range 1 in front of you? By all means, shoot it. But if you DO have a shot at Han - even a range 3 shot - and he parks an A-Wing at range 1 in front of you? That's because he is desperately trying to convince you to shoot anyone BUT Han. And what should that tell you?

http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/53087/miniswarm

Seems similar to what you want to do. Stay in formation and pass around critz

And 3 pts to play with.

I play against a buddy with a similar build, though he'll often have a missile on the A-Wings just to keep you from ignoring them. Regardless, focus on Han first, then deal with the vastly reduced threat of the A-Wings.

I was following the old doctrine of "Kill support ships first, focus Falcon later", which used to be the way to kill it. With A-wings, though, apparently that doesn't work out so well.

This has already been covered but this is a case where it is definitely NOT true.

1. If the support is B-Wings it may be true. The B and Falcon have the same agility and attack although in this case the important thing will simply be "take out something quickly." B-Wings are often the most expensive support option which means points are most balanced as well.

2. X-Wing support. A touch harder to hit but fewer shield/hull while also keeping the full 3 attack dice with good maneuverability. Taking these out quickly can be helpful.

3. A-Wings. MUCH harder to hit, especially with a Stealth Device, but suffer a damage drop off. Generally you should ignore these while the Falcon is up. These attack with 2/3 dice while the Falcon attacks with 3/4 and both are basically making two shots. Stop Han FIRST. The two A-Wings do not hit as hard but are FAR harder to hit.

4. Turret support. Tricky to attack but remember that Ion and Blaster Turrets both top out at R2.

Looking at the matchups I'm afraid there wasn't enough "swarm" going after Han. Both times you had Interceptors which may be nice against the nimble A-Wings but generally cost a LOT to send at the Falcon which doesn't care too much about the Interceptor's benefits. I also remember seeing "Han was taking out a TIE each turn" and will remind you Interceptors go down just as easily as basic Fighters except they cost half again as much. Two Alphas equals three Academies with each option having a total of six red dice but the Academies have half again as many hull points.

I'm not sure of the strategy used game 3 but my thought would be "keep Soontir away from Han unless he'll have a kill shot" and the pound the Falcon with your two large ships. They should be hitting the Falcon just as hard as the Falcon can hit ONE of them. As long as your two big ships could take down Han and hopefully damage an A-Wing I think Soontir could take both A-Wings single handedly.

In the 4th game if the strategy was "take out the escort first" I believe that is what immediately did you in although here I'll admit the A-Wings were more of a thread because you had less agile ships.

If I knew I was going up against that HSF build, I'd probably bring something like this to the party:

Ten Numb + FCS + APT + Marksmanship (42)
Biggs + Shield Upgrade + R2D2 (33)
Roark + Ion Turret + Nien Nunb (25)

Roark and Biggs would hang back but always within range 3 of both the Falcon and Ten, so that everyone is forced to fire on Biggs which should buy me a round or two after engagement. The MF would end up needing to do a range 3 shot on Biggs keeping Ten safe for a bit. Roark and Biggs would keep doing green moves to keep getting 1 shield back for Biggs each turn. Roark would pot-shot with the Ion if the As came after them, which I would expect them to from most players. Roark, staying at range 3, would pass the PS12 to Ten so that it becomes TSF instead of HSF. Ten would get TL on the Falcon as soon as possible, then close to range 1 against the MF and open up with the APT as soon as in range, hopefully dropping the shields in the alpha. After that stay at range 1, keep auto TL on the MF and fire 4-dice with Marksmanship every turn until someone goes boom. The first crit could only be mitigated if the MF was taking Evade every turn which may cut down on any TL/Focus modifiers.

This is one case where selective use of three elite pilot special abilities may work better than more dice from a four ship lower PS build. Risky, situational build? Hell, yeah. This is not a list I'd want to try flying every day. If the HSF player isn't shaken by the two ships at range and ignores the bait and directly goes after Ten with the As, it may not last long enough to get the APT off with the follow-up fire.

I was following the old doctrine of "Kill support ships first, focus Falcon later", which used to be the way to kill it. With A-wings, though, apparently that doesn't work out so well.

Yeah, that's not actually a doctrine, like, ever.

It's as simple as this: which do you want to face in the endgame? An A-wing or two that are squirrelly and hard to hit but which can be killed on a single bad defense roll and have low attack?

OR

An incredibly fast, maneuverable big ship with a 360 turret, two means of rerolls, several means of spiking damage output, the ability to entirely negate lethal damage one time, and who never has to be flying straight at you to hurt you?

Take your time.

But seriously - the A-wings are bait. Any damage they do for him is gravy. And you're falling right into his trap paying ANY attention to them (beyond not running into them) before you kill the endgame monstrosity that is the Falcon. You're winning the game FOR him with your strategy.

I agree. Even though I'm incredibly new to the game, I was smh when I read the "awings went down first..". Why focus on 2 little mosquitoes when you have a beast of a falcon rolling around dealing awesome damage?

How to beat Han solo? Well attacking him might help..