Hello, I'm thinking about squad that is based on Ibtisam and Opportunist upgrade.

So far I came up with this:

Ibtisam + Opportunist + Advanced Sensors 35 points

Wes Janson 29 points

Dagger Squadron Pilot + Advanced Sensors 27 points

At this point I have 9 points to spare, and have no clue what it would be. Maybe you have some suggestions to make this squad efficient.

Thanks in advance. Cheers.

Ok, drop Advanced Sensors on both B-Wings and try out Sensor Jammer. I know, I know, it sounds crazy, because Advanced Sensors is so good, right? Trust me, Sensor Jammer is a bargain at 4 points. I haven't played a game yet where it didn't cancel at least 2 hits, which is 2 points per shield upgrade. And if they focus? Well, now they have to choose whether to spend the focus on attack or on defense. Especially since Ibti has Opportunist so if they are higher PS they risk getting an opportunist shot at them.

That leaves you 7 points. Maybe PTL + R5P9 on Wes?

I can see where Sensor Jammer and Wes could synergize, but still think Advanced sensors and Fire Control system are way better. Were I you I'd be trying to fit more ships on that team. If you wait until poat wave 4 you could fit 3 Z-95s rather than the dagger squadon. I would cut Advanced sensors, the dagger, add a Rookie X-wing and a prototype A-wing. Advanced sensors and opportunist don't synergize the best. Fittin an extra 2 attack dice can be huge.

I've been having good luck with this list:

I've been having good luck with this list:

Wes Janson (35)

X-Wing (29), Swarm Tactics (2), Shield Upgrade (4)

Ibtisam (43)

B-Wing (28), Sensor Jammer (4), Heavy Laser Cannon (7), Opportunist (4)

Blue Squadron Pilot (22)

Janson can get either Ibby or the Blue firing at an 8 to hopefully minimize the shots you're taking that round. Sensor Jammer on Ibtisam helps her survive longer and/or helps her strip focus tokens off the ships she's shooting at.

I'm pondering whether to swap the Shield Upgrade over to Ibtisam, though. Your opponent is going to start coming after her HARD once they see her popping X-Wings with one shot at Range 3.

I one-shotted Biggs in the first round of shooting on Friday at Range 3. I can also see this as being a good way to get rid of Howlrunner early in the game when you're facing a TIE swarm.

It helps you to target higher PS ships.

Example: Wedge shoots first and has a focus token. Wedge rolls 3 hits, 1 blank. I activate Sensor Jammer to turn one into a focus. The other player now has to decide whether to spend his token to get 3 hits against me, or keep the token and only get 2 hits against me.

Either way, it helps me to either survive longer by taking less damage or to give me an Opportunist shot against them.

As crazy as Sable sounds, I have to agree that Adv Sensors on Ibtisam with Opportunist doesn't synergize well. I don't mind it so bad on the dagger, but definitely not Ibtisam as you'll be taking stress to use Opportunist, thus making Adv Sensors much less useful. My biggest concern with this list is Wes. He's vulnerable, and the most obvious target for your opponent as he helps strips token for Ibtisam, and has the lowest hp. Consider:

Ibtisam + Opportunist + Sensor Jammer

Wes + R2D2 + Shield Upgrade

Dagger + Adv Sensors

You still keep your dagger but now have some decent protection on Wes. I do feel the Dagger is a bit of an odd man out here though. I feel you're a bit weak on Pilot Skill with the dagger, and if you want to take ships off the board before they shoot at you, PS 4 might hurt you. An alternative could be using Wedge in that spot:

Wes + Veteran Instincts

Wedge + Opportunist + R2 Astromech

Ibtisam + Opportunist + Sensor Jammer

Wes strips, then Wedge + Ibtisam both fire 4- 5 attack dice each via Opportunist. You're fairly weak on hp, but if Ibtisam makes it to the end game, sensor jammer will net you A LOT of added hp over the course of the game. Even if she is targeted first, that's fine as your lower hp ships get to survive longer. All that said, it's still 3 ships, and you'll be very vulnerable to streaky dice, action denial, and swarms. Be fun throwing a lot of dice though Good luck!

It helps you to target higher PS ships.

Example: Wedge shoots first and has a focus token. Wedge rolls 3 hits, 1 blank. I activate Sensor Jammer to turn one into a focus. The other player now has to decide whether to spend his token to get 3 hits against me, or keep the token and only get 2 hits against me.

Either way, it helps me to either survive longer by taking less damage or to give me an Opportunist shot against them.

It changes a hit into a focus.

While that works sort of, Ibby's PS is too high for that to be a reliable strategy. Especially given the fact she's probably not going to be the first target with this build. Wes is far more dangerous, and by the time Wes is dead you should have killed their highest PS pilot. I do like the HLC Opportunist build as 5 dice at range 3 is just brutal.

It changes a hit into a focus.

I thought sensor jammer was 'when defending, you change an attackers die from 1 hit to 1 eyeball.' I understand from your example that you the attacker are changing the dice. That's why I'm confused. I've never run sensor jammers so I'm trying to get an understanding.

To protect Wes and Ibtisam we can always out Biggs Darklighter in the squad.

What do you think about this idea?

While that works sort of, Ibby's PS is too high for that to be a reliable strategy. Especially given the fact she's probably not going to be the first target with this build. Wes is far more dangerous, and by the time Wes is dead you should have killed their highest PS pilot. I do like the HLC Opportunist build as 5 dice at range 3 is just brutal.

In this case, Sensor Jammer is a redundancy in case Janson dies, but it's also useful on it's own (to either take less damage or to force the attacker to spend their Focus) or for cases where Janson doesn't have a shot on the same target as Ibtisam.

In cases where she's attacking a lower PS ship, Janson can strip them of their Focus/Evade token. It's a redundancy that's also useful on its own.

Also, Janson is there to make my opponent take a tough decision. In all honesty, he's NOT the dangerous part of the build. His ability is nice, but Ibtisam will usually not NEED it. On top of that, if they're tossing attacks at him rather than Ibby, that's longer that my Murder Ship gets to stay alive.

It changes a hit into a focus.

I thought sensor jammer was 'when defending, you change an attackers die from 1 hit to 1 eyeball.' I understand from your example that you the attacker are changing the dice. That's why I'm confused. I've never run sensor jammers so I'm trying to get an understanding.

No, perhaps I wasn't being clear. Wedge at PS 9 shoots before Ibby at PS 6. Wedge (with a Focus token) rolls 4 dice, gets 3 hits and 1 blank. As the defender,I have an opportunity to modify his roll first, so he I activate Sensor Jammer. He now has 2 hits, 1 focus, 1 blank. Now the attacker has a chance to modify his dice. They can either spend the focus, in which case it's 3 hits and they've lost their Focus token, or keep their Focus token, in which case I'm now only facing 2 hits.

I shoot later in the phase, with my PS 6. If he spent the Focus, I can activate Opportunist. If he didn't spend the focus, I took one less possible damage. If he doesn't spend the Focus, I also have Janson who can strip the token for me before I shoot.

That makes total sense now. Thank you. It seems that adv sensors are an auto add. I typ run fcs for the cost. But if you running elite b's perhaps sj is the way to go.

While that works sort of, Ibby's PS is too high for that to be a reliable strategy. Especially given the fact she's probably not going to be the first target with this build. Wes is far more dangerous, and by the time Wes is dead you should have killed their highest PS pilot. I do like the HLC Opportunist build as 5 dice at range 3 is just brutal.

In this case, Sensor Jammer is a redundancy in case Janson dies, but it's also useful on it's own (to either take less damage or to force the attacker to spend their Focus) or for cases where Janson doesn't have a shot on the same target as Ibtisam.

In cases where she's attacking a lower PS ship, Janson can strip them of their Focus/Evade token. It's a redundancy that's also useful on its own.

Also, Janson is there to make my opponent take a tough decision. In all honesty, he's NOT the dangerous part of the build. His ability is nice, but Ibtisam will usually not NEED it. On top of that, if they're tossing attacks at him rather than Ibby, that's longer that my Murder Ship gets to stay alive.

It changes a hit into a focus.

I thought sensor jammer was 'when defending, you change an attackers die from 1 hit to 1 eyeball.' I understand from your example that you the attacker are changing the dice. That's why I'm confused. I've never run sensor jammers so I'm trying to get an understanding.

No, perhaps I wasn't being clear. Wedge at PS 9 shoots before Ibby at PS 6. Wedge (with a Focus token) rolls 4 dice, gets 3 hits and 1 blank. As the defender,I have an opportunity to modify his roll first, so he I activate Sensor Jammer. He now has 2 hits, 1 focus, 1 blank. Now the attacker has a chance to modify his dice. They can either spend the focus, in which case it's 3 hits and they've lost their Focus token, or keep their Focus token, in which case I'm now only facing 2 hits.

I shoot later in the phase, with my PS 6. If he spent the Focus, I can activate Opportunist. If he didn't spend the focus, I took one less possible damage. If he doesn't spend the Focus, I also have Janson who can strip the token for me before I shoot.

Again, not seeing how it's a bad redundancy. It's helpful with or without Janson, either to help with shooting or to keep the centerpiece of the list alive.

Chances are, you can kill the most dangerous ship in their list in the first round of combat. Wedge is dead after taking his first shot, Howlrunner is taken out before his minions get to wreck face.

In cases where the enemy has Biggs at Range 3, you can likely kill him in Round 1 with a mix of Ibby and Janson shooting at him, which allows your Blue Squadron to put fire on something else.

I've flown this list, with slight modifications, for about a half dozen games and I've been satisfied with its performance. The only type of list I've not flown it against has been a swarm, which I'm hoping to be able to do soon.

Again, not seeing how it's a bad redundancy. It's helpful with or without Janson, either to help with shooting or to keep the centerpiece of the list alive.

Chances are, you can kill the most dangerous ship in their list in the first round of combat. Wedge is dead after taking his first shot, Howlrunner is taken out before his minions get to wreck face.

In cases where the enemy has Biggs at Range 3, you can likely kill him in Round 1 with a mix of Ibby and Janson shooting at him, which allows your Blue Squadron to put fire on something else.

I've flown this list, with slight modifications, for about a half dozen games and I've been satisfied with its performance. The only type of list I've not flown it against has been a swarm, which I'm hoping to be able to do soon.

That means that once Wes is gone you are actively giving them two reasons to focus, not just one. Ibby loses both her defensive and offensive advantages if they have a focus token and fire after her, which most pilots on the tournament scene do. Plus you have 8 Points of upgrades on her that see less use as the game goes. That's a tough sell. Wes Combos well because he can strip the token from an pilot he wants. Your redundancy only works when the target fires before Ibby. That isn't going to happen much. Especially given you're running a 3 ship list. That's already a bad plan, as 3 ship rebel builds are not known for being effective.

I ran Ibby with opportunist (plus fire control system) alongside Wedge (with R2 generic + photon torps) and Tycho (with assault missiles). I did really badly but that was a combo of bad dice rolls and bad flying. Ibby plus opportunist is great! She takes no prisoners and almost helped me beat 2 bounty Hunters and an Omicron shuttle (had a bounty hunter and shuttle gone with Ibby gone before he took down Wedge

Again, not seeing how it's a bad redundancy. It's helpful with or without Janson, either to help with shooting or to keep the centerpiece of the list alive.

Chances are, you can kill the most dangerous ship in their list in the first round of combat. Wedge is dead after taking his first shot, Howlrunner is taken out before his minions get to wreck face.

In cases where the enemy has Biggs at Range 3, you can likely kill him in Round 1 with a mix of Ibby and Janson shooting at him, which allows your Blue Squadron to put fire on something else.

I've flown this list, with slight modifications, for about a half dozen games and I've been satisfied with its performance. The only type of list I've not flown it against has been a swarm, which I'm hoping to be able to do soon.

Because Ibby has Pilot skill 6. Nearly every tournament squad you face will have 1 Pilot at most above PS 6.

That means that once Wes is gone you are actively giving them two reasons to focus, not just one. Ibby loses both her defensive and offensive advantages if they have a focus token and fire after her, which most pilots on the tournament scene do. Plus you have 8 Points of upgrades on her that see less use as the game goes. That's a tough sell. Wes Combos well because he can strip the token from an pilot he wants. Your redundancy only works when the target fires before Ibby. That isn't going to happen much. Especially given you're running a 3 ship list. That's already a bad plan, as 3 ship rebel builds are not known for being effective.

It seems as if you're theory crafting this, rather than speaking from experience. From experience, it works. It's going to take them at least two rounds of most of their force focus firing to take Wes down. If they do, I've likely taken out at least two of their ships. In the mean time, they're not shooting at Ibtisam, which is who they should be trying to kill ASAP.

I'll happily trade Janson to get two of their main ships out of the picture. If Opportunist is useless after than, I'm totally okay with it. The Sensor Jammer continues to be useful throughout the entire game.

A quick glance at both the Store Championships and the Regionals results threads show that 3 list Rebel builds can and do work, but they do take a bit more finesse than a typical four ship build.

I've tried Sensor Jammer. It's not good. Not against anything that can focus.

More than that, I don't believe it takes 2 rounds of focus fire to take down Wes. He dies during the first engagement 90% of the time. He's an X-wing. He's not durable. Maybe your metagame focuses on higher PS ships, or they run lots of dual falcon lists or something. But 4 3 attack rebel fighters will drop Wes in a turn without blinking.

Sensor Jammer is going to shine against Epic scale ships. They already suffer from an inability to modify attacks, and then you disallow a reroll. But in standard 100 point play it just makes your opponents always focus and never target lock. That flies in the face of Opportunist 100%. I cannot imagine it working effectively against anybody with half a brain towards strategy.

I've tried Sensor Jammer. It's not good. Not against anything that can focus.

More than that, I don't believe it takes 2 rounds of focus fire to take down Wes. He dies during the first engagement 90% of the time. He's an X-wing. He's not durable. Maybe your metagame focuses on higher PS ships, or they run lots of dual falcon lists or something. But 4 3 attack rebel fighters will drop Wes in a turn without blinking.

Sensor Jammer is going to shine against Epic scale ships. They already suffer from an inability to modify attacks, and then you disallow a reroll. But in standard 100 point play it just makes your opponents always focus and never target lock. That flies in the face of Opportunist 100%. I cannot imagine it working effectively against anybody with half a brain towards strategy.

I am sorry to hear that it didn't work for you (the single??) time you used it. But I've used it on several occasions on Ibtisam and with the setup below it worked just perfectly:

Ibtisam w/Elusiveness, Sensor Jammers and Stealth.

If combined with Garven + R2 and Biggs + R2-D2 and a few torps it works even better, but I've also run it with Wedge and Luke with similar effect/luck/success

It was useless for literally an entire tournament, not once cancelling a hit. At times(facing falcons with Marksmanship) it was actually detrimental(Noting that I ran it with Elusiveness, which didn't work well either thanks to Ibby's PS. It's not a good card when your opponents play smart. Wes can, again, make it somewhat useful. But again, he dies in the first turn of engagement in your average 100 point game that lacks Biggs.

Like I said, maybe your local meta is different than mine. Maybe your opponents don't think about the game in the same terms my opponents do. But played at its best Sensor Jammer is awful in regular play. Against the Tantive it looks to be amazing.

I can't imagine putting a Stealth device on a B-wing. The second they manage a good roll and have a focus it's gone. The math doesn't lie.

Well of course one shouldn't use it when the Opponent has Marksmanship. And you're right, the meta is very important, but still I can not understand how it din't cancel ANY hits at all; your dice must have been ice cold or at least not very hot if your opponent had Focus or Marksmanship available each time, plus I would hardly use it in those instances unless my next ship might benefit from it. But so be it

Well of course one shouldn't use it when the Opponent has Marksmanship. And you're right, the meta is very important, but still I can not understand how it din't cancel ANY hits at all; your dice must have been ice cold or at least not very hot if your opponent had Focus or Marksmanship available each time, plus I would hardly use it in those instances unless my next ship might benefit from it. But so be it

The issue is that Elusiveness against a focused opponent is also only 25% effective. Thus creating a ton of focusing against me. Because again, my opponents are smart players. From there, they knew they would have a hard time landing a hit if they used focus on defense, so the opted to take the hits. Because that's smart play.

Against opponents who don't think through the math Elusiveness Advanced Sensors can be good. If you have a good run of the dice they can be good.(Although Elusiveness combined with Ibby's PS also has some huge issues that Opportunist lacks.)

I'm not saying opportunist on Ibby is bad, it's not. It's a smart combo. I'm saying that against most of the current metagame it combos badly with Sensor Jammers, that sensor jammers is a card that changes how your opponent plays more than it does anything(And is severely overcosted for what it does in a 100 point game), and that math agrees with me.

Beyond that throwing more than 4-5 point of upgrades on any small base ship is probably a losing proposition. There are exceptions, but not many. Dropping 8 for Opportunist and Sensor jammers is cutting out the option of fitting 4 small base ships, which will Always be better than 3 heavily upgraded ones. There are players tha can make 3 rebel ship lists work without the Falcon. But not many. Especially not against evenly skilled opponents.

Wes + Veteran Instincts

Wedge + Opportunist + R2 Astromech

Ibtisam + Opportunist + Sensor Jammer

Wes strips, then Wedge + Ibtisam both fire 4- 5 attack dice each via Opportunist. You're fairly weak on hp, but if Ibtisam makes it to the end game, sensor jammer will net you A LOT of added hp over the course of the game. Even if she is targeted first, that's fine as your lower hp ships get to survive longer. All that said, it's still 3 ships, and you'll be very vulnerable to streaky dice, action denial, and swarms. Be fun throwing a lot of dice though Good luck!

I really like the look of that squad. Nicely chosen upgrades with a strong central idea. I want to try this.