Hi all,

A rookie in the true sense of the word here.

I had a measly 2 games and only 50 and 60 points at that. With Rebels.

(coincidence if I might add; I am not partial to any side.)

Today I found out that a gaming buddy of mine recently has picked up quite a bit X-wing models too.

We happily agreed to play a game coming Wednesday (March 19th) He prefers 100 pts.

(I do not care. Just wanna game/roll dice/ shove cool miniatures)

Now...

Our LGS has abysmal stocks of X-wing models so odds are the following models will have to do;

-3x Tie Fighters

-1x Tie Advanced

-1x Tie Interceptor

-1x Firespray/Slave 1

Now; given the obvious glaring omission of having ANY experience with Imps and nearing-none to the game itself;

How would you fill up the 100 points with this and why?

Any and all input much appreciated.

Pick up the Firespray. It's a wonder Imperial vessel, with a wealth of upgrades to add to your collection (if you are a fan of imperials, you'll love 'stealth device' for named TIE's and Interceptors.)

I recently ran this list to excellent success:

http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/55006/kath-obsidian

One Firespray, 4 TIE's. Nice.

Krassis Trelix — Firespray-31 36

Heavy Laser Cannon 7

"Backstabber" — TIE Fighter 16

"Mauler Mithel" — TIE Fighter 17

Saber Squadron Pilot — TIE Interceptor 21

Push the Limit 3

A fairly straight forward hard hitting list the idea being to try to keep Krassis at range 3 as much as possible try not to get into range 1 to get the most from the HLC and the rest of the squad get them in close and try to keep fire off Krassis. The beauty of this squad is you don't have to worry about keeping ships close to each other. Fly all ships separate and when the opponent try's to focus or follow one flank with all the rest.

I like this list a great deal.

Soontir Fel with Push the Limit is a hard ship to pin down and his ability to gain an extra focus token when stressed is awesome, combined with PtL, you can stress him whenever the need arises. PtL allows you to take 2 actions per turn for the cost of gaining a stress token. (see previous comment on stress)

Kath Scarlet will stress your opponent if they cancel a crit hit and the first ship to shoot at her each round will auto stress due to the rebel captive. In general, stress will deny your actions until you clear it with a green move from the movement dial.

Kath can also take a great deal of incoming fire.

Expert handling allows you to Barrel Roll kath which is awesome on the large ships. It will stress her, but can be very worth it.

The two Ties are great for getting in the way of opponents ships, causing bumps that will then stop your opponent from taking actions.

All in all, a solid list that isn't that hard to fly.

I really like the idea of Soontir Fel (with PTL/stealth)

But why Kath Scarlet?

Downgrading her to a 'regular' bounty hunter and dropping the expert handling would save up points to boost the academy pilots to Dark Curse and Night Beast.

What am I missing?

(thanks a bunch for these fast answers btw. awesome!)

Here is one build I put together.

Turr Phennir - Elusiveness - Stealth Device - 30

Darth Vader - Cluser Missiles - Swarm Tactics - Stealth Device - 38

Dark Curse - 16 points

Backstabber - 16 points

Total - 100 Points

Now you can play this one a few different ways. One is you keep Turr and Vader together, why? For Swarm Tactics that is why. By using Swarm Tactics you allow Turr to fire first along with Vader, this means he gets his free boost/barrel roll before the Rebel ships shoot back at him. Basically allowing him to dodge fire, but still get important shots in alongside Vader. If Rebels do get shots at him, the Stealth Device gives him 4 defense dice and Elusiveness lets you make them reroll one of those for a stress token.

A bit of risk but I think it that is part of the fun, using Stealth Devices and such. Of course Turr can fly on his own hunting lone targets. While Vader takes Backstabber and Darkcurse with him, giving one of them PS 9 for a shooting round. Vader is built to be a defense tank. Taking a focus and evade token every turn with his two actions helps maximize the four defense dice he will get when shot at. The cluster missiles allow for a good damage burst, since Vader can target lock and focus the same turn. Using the cluster missiles against a heavier target could prove useful.

I like the Firespray builds, the ship is more forgiving since it has the two different fire arcs. I just think it costs too much in comparison to what you get. I came up with a build for it, but still kind of iffy.

Howlrunner - Swarm Tactics - Stealth Device - 23 points

Bounty Hunter - Heavy Laser Cannon - Gunner - Stealth Device - 48 points

Black Squadron Pilot - 14 points

Night Beast - 15 points

For this one, you keep Howlrunner and the Firespray together because of the swarm tactics and Howlrunner's ability. Howlrunner will let the Firespray reroll an attack dice per attack in conjunction with the Gunner upgrade. Basically if you miss completely, Gunner will let you attack again, while if want to reroll a single blank/focus you can because of Howlrunner. You want to keep targets at around Range two though. You can shoot at three, having Howlrunner focus fire with the Firespray but the extra defense dice might make or break some of those shots.

This also means though, the Firespray can effectively fly past targets with Howlrunner, but shoot behind them to keep pursuing fighters off their tail. The Stealth Devices help with defense in the added bonus that both ships can take evade tokens. Again a bit risky but I think if it works, it can be pretty nasty.

You can fly in Night Beast and the Black Squadron Pilot as backup to further make the Alpha strikes more deadly. They could also break off and hunt targets that try to get away or flank.

Those are my suggestions, I prefer the first one myself to be honest. But I was working with the cards you have available at this point.

Sorry about the edit, I missed a silly little note regarding Kath's ability and the Heavy Laser Cannon. I'm still new to some of the Imperial stuff as well.

With that selection of Imperials you're going to want, even need, the Firespray in the mix. It is possible to put the fighters together to make a squad but they may take more "fancy flying" to really make them work. Here's a thought for five fighters:

Vader + Engine Upgrade (assuming the upgrade is available)

Turr

Howlrunner

Academy Pilot x2

Alternatively:

Vader + EU

Soontir Fel + Push the Limits (assuming this is avialble)

Academy Pilot x3

Either of these is basically a 2:3 with the Advanced and Interceptor working as an element while the three T/F all work together.

Personally, with your experience with the Rebels I think you'd do better with a Firespray and 2-3 fighters although there a lot of space to work with there.

You are not missing anything really. I just prefer to block with the Ties and then use Kath's high PS and abilities to dictate the game.

Yesterday I played two games:

First game:

(borrowed) Lambda (gunner/FCS)

-Backstabber

-Howl Runner (swarm tactics)+ 3 Academy Pilots

vs;

Ten Numb (B-Wing) , Jan Ors (HWK 290) + Blue sqd pilot (plus gear)

Rebels deployed more or less in the middle while the Imps had their mini-swarm on left with Lamda & BS on right flank.

The Rebels moved cautiously and tentatively towards the Lambda/BS allowing Howlrunner+buddies to swing in from the flank and draw first blood (3 of them could shoot at range 3 with focus/HR) or rather; remove some shields.

Then the pincer closed and from 2 sides assailed the Rebels got a bloody kicking.

With not a single ship lost for the Empire and only the HWK on 1 hp left the Rebels conceded.

The 2nd game:

Kath Scarlet + rebel Captive

Soontir Fel (PTL/stealth)

2 Academy pilots

vs

Dutch Vander

Garven Dreis

Biggs Darklighter

Kyle Katarn

This time things were even uglier.

Soontir on extreme left. Kath+2 AP on extreme right.

Rebels made the choice to go straight for Kath with the plan to deal with her and deal with the elusive Fel later.

This did not go down very well with the Imperial Ace and he moved like lightning.

Moving 4, boosting and barrel rolling in the first turn he could get to range 2 on his second turn.

(out of the fire arcs of the Rebels)

His first volley removed both shields from Biggs who went down after Kath/firespray plus one AP could fire as well.

Then the interceptor simply dove straight to the other rebel flank and got behind the Y-wing only to find out the git had some turret.

Evading the incoming fire like a pro he survived the game unscathed btw.

(but some say he blinked when the turret started firing. )

Things got from bad to worse from there for the rebels

The Firespray had only 1 hp left but again the Imperials lost not a single ship when the Rebels conceded.

My fist conclusions after my first 2 (100 pt) games:

Soontir Fel eats chuck Norris for breakfast, drinking freshly squeezed superman juice.

(with average to good dice he is nigh unstoppable it seems)

Swarms are amazingly cool to move/watch on the table.

And if anything is unlucky enough to end up in front of them it goes ugly very fast.

4 ships > 3 kitted out ships. (I think; hard to say really with the drubbing the Rebels got yesterday)