So, I was looking at the E-Wing's unique upgrade slot combinations, and was hoping to find a SableGryphon-eque synergy between two of the strongest upgrade slots in the game. This is the fruit of my attempt

.-=-. .-=-. .-=-. .-=-. .-=-. .-=-. .-=-. .-=-. .-=-.

B lackmoon S quadron P ilot

+ R7 A stromech

+ F ire- C ontrol S ystem

-= {33} =-

1. The Blackmoons attack
2. They gain a TL against the defender
3. When the defender attacks, the Blackmoons can spend their TLs to severely reduce incoming fire.

Note: FCS is not a free Target Lock action. You can do it while stressed, or if you've already acquired (and spent) a TL that round.

You re-roll the enemy's attack dice before they can modify them. If they have Focused (or similar), this reduces their outgoing damage to 75% of what it would have been. If they did NOT focus, it reduces their outgoing damage to 50%.
You have 3 green dice at R2. Do the math.

This high amount of defense against the ship you decide to attack, inspired the fleet's name.

A Retiarius was a Roman Gladiator who used a Net and Trident. The one he would attack with the net would not be able to attack him while he destroyed his victim with the trident.

Also, the E-Wing and the Sigil of the New Republic both kinda look like Trident-blades, and it's a 3-pronged attack 'cause you have 3 ships of PS 3, so I found it rather apropos.

This fleet's best match-ups are:

1. A fleet in which the ideal target is PS 3 or fewer (e.g. a Bounty Hunter + Recon + HLC). You will always have the combo available before their shot, so you can do your actions with no mind paid to the following turns.
   
2. The second-favorite victim is Han Shoots First (or other builds in which the highest-damaging target has PS>3). The Blackmoons can still attack with relative impunity, they just don't get to Target Lock their own attacks anymore, as the TL from the previous round of fire ought to be spent when Han Shoots. They can still Focus/Barrel-Roll/Evade with impunity. Round 1 is either spent Target Locking the big guy, and attacking unimproved, or spent taking Han's full fury while dealing their own, trusting that you'll survive the onslaught with enough HP to control him down.
   
3. Alpha-strike lists are an interesting duck. Save your R7 Target Lock interaction for nerfing their missiles. Once those have been dodged, you might as well throw the R7 away, and eat the missile-launchers alive with your FCS action economy. I still think the match-up is favorable on my side, but those first few rounds of combat will be interesting. Also, Munitions Failsafe will annoy the crap out of this list.
   
4. Most other list archtypes will play an interesting game against this, and would probably go down to the skill of the fleets' commanders. It has the weaknesses of a 3-ship fleet, even though its one with added offense and defense on a 3/3/2/3 body with an interesting action and maneuver suite.

There are three fleets that I can foresee giving this fleet hell, though.

1. Proton Bomb fleets carry a high chance of destroying my E-Wings. I've only got 2 hull, so even if I don't get 1-shot by a Direct-Hit, my ships still die to 2 bombs a piece. Considering you can fill your ships with up to 4, and that this happens to 3/4 of Wave 4 (and the A-Wing as well), I'm starting to see this one go up in popularity.
   
2. TIE Fighter Swarms, particularly Howlrunner Swarms, don't have a hierarchy of ships to attack first. In fact, the R7 Astromech is largely going to be wasted points in this situation, and the FCS won't get much use either.
   Once Howlrunner is gone, the TIEs will have a hard time getting through your 3 agility dice, but they will still outnumber you 2-1 or worse.
   
3. Fleets with 3 Gunners, each with 3 (or more) attack. Gunner is designed to eat ships with 3 agility. You have a good matchup against 1 or 2 Falcons (being able to double-defensive action to knock out the Gunner will do that, particularly if you can use one of them offensively if it wasn't needed), but 3 Buzzsaws (be they Shuttle, Phantom, or Titled B-Wing) will HURT.

Note: Rebel Swarms are not a risk like the TIE swarm are. Take out the ships with 3 attack first; you don't have much to fear from naked As, Ys, or Zs, even in plurality.

The downside is that R7 can be fairly easily bypassed by simply shooting at a different E-wing, one that does not have a target lock on you.

Edit: that being said, I really like this idea. The E-wing really needs to use its upgrade slots to create synergies like this to make its cost worth it.

Great analysis. I think the main problem with FCS/R7 synergy is the R7 reroll only works once on a single target-locked ship, and FCS carries over only to the ship you're shooting at. The combo is wasted if you kill your target; the economy of maintaining target locks on different ships means this list doesn't want to concentrate firepower against a single small ship, which is one of the fundamental tenets of X-Wing at a competitive level.

R7 doesn't help you much against concentrated attacks from the enemy, and you are guaranteed to lose or at least take severe damage on a single E-wing in the first pass. Also as we don't know the E-Wing dial yet we can't tell exactly how viable a 3 ship E-Wing list is.

Definitely a fun build I want to try though.

The E-wing dial has been spoiled. It is essentially an X-wing dial with some minor upgrades / tweaks.

The downside is that R7 can be fairly easily bypassed by simply shooting at a different E-wing, one that does not have a target lock on you.

Edit: that being said, I really like this idea. The E-wing really needs to use its upgrade slots to create synergies like this to make its cost worth it.

The idea is that all 3 E-Wings shoot at the same ship, meaning that single ship doesn't have ANY good targets of attack. Thus all of my talk about picking out the most damaging target.

E-wing has:

Forwards 1-5 (1-3 Green)

Banks 1-3 (2 Green)

Turns 2-3

Koiograns 3-4 (3-4 Red)

Note that it's the first ship in the game with all 5 forward options. Neat!

It also feels more like an A-Wing dial than an X-Wing dial. You trade the 1 Turn for a 1 Bank and a 1 Forward, and the 5 Koiogran for a 4, and whitewash some greens.

The downside is that R7 can be fairly easily bypassed by simply shooting at a different E-wing, one that does not have a target lock on you.

Edit: that being said, I really like this idea. The E-wing really needs to use its upgrade slots to create synergies like this to make its cost worth it.

The idea is that all 3 E-Wings shoot at the same ship, meaning that single ship doesn't have ANY good targets of attack. Thus all of my talk about picking out the most damaging target.

Provided your concentrated fire didn't kill the target.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea. I really like FCS & I'm looking forward to the R7s. I just know I've had games where FCS felt useless because the target died. In this specific case, that hampers your defensive plan.

The downside is that R7 can be fairly easily bypassed by simply shooting at a different E-wing, one that does not have a target lock on you.

Edit: that being said, I really like this idea. The E-wing really needs to use its upgrade slots to create synergies like this to make its cost worth it.

The idea is that all 3 E-Wings shoot at the same ship, meaning that single ship doesn't have ANY good targets of attack. Thus all of my talk about picking out the most damaging target.

That should work for one turn, against high durability targets like a Falcon or Firespray, otherwise if you're throwing 9 attack dice per turn at a ship and it's still not dying, well, then you have bigger issues!

E-wing has:

Forwards 1-5 (1-3 Green)

Banks 1-3 (2 Green)

Turns 2-3

Koiograns 3-4 (3-4 Red)

Note that it's the first ship in the game with all 5 forward options. Neat!

It also feels more like an A-Wing dial than an X-Wing dial. You trade the 1 Turn for a 1 Bank and a 1 Forward, and the 5 Koiogran for a 4, and whitewash some greens.

It has no 1 turn, and it DOES have a 1 straight, so I think it flies much more like an X-wing. An E-wing can formation fly with an X-wing, an A-wing can't. The extra K-turn, shuffling greens, and 5 straight are all gravy.

The downside is that R7 can be fairly easily bypassed by simply shooting at a different E-wing, one that does not have a target lock on you.

Edit: that being said, I really like this idea. The E-wing really needs to use its upgrade slots to create synergies like this to make its cost worth it.

The idea is that all 3 E-Wings shoot at the same ship, meaning that single ship doesn't have ANY good targets of attack. Thus all of my talk about picking out the most damaging target.

I think that if three E wings shoot at one target, there's a good chance that target is dead. That being said, the FCS-R7 combo could be pretty useful in that it could make your opponent take less-than-optimal shots-

For example, say there is a Bounty Hunter with a R1 shot on one of your e-wings, and a R2 shot on another. You shoot the BH with the close E-wing but shoot a different target with the other E-wing. Now the BH has to either give up the extra attack dice or take the shot that you can modify with your dice.

But in the end I think this setup may be pretty unwieldy to run. I'm looking at Adv. sensors and R2 astromechs for a super-maneuverable dogfighter build, myself.

The downside is that R7 can be fairly easily bypassed by simply shooting at a different E-wing, one that does not have a target lock on you.

Edit: that being said, I really like this idea. The E-wing really needs to use its upgrade slots to create synergies like this to make its cost worth it.

The idea is that all 3 E-Wings shoot at the same ship, meaning that single ship doesn't have ANY good targets of attack. Thus all of my talk about picking out the most damaging target.

Provided your concentrated fire didn't kill the target.

That is the general idea. Its just that now the target won't be doing much while you kill it.

How bout this.....

Corran Horn--R7, FCS, swarm tactics

Black Moon--R7, FCS

Tarn Mison--R7

So now you have corran and blackmoon fire early, and get the TL they need for defense, and tarn gets his if he is fired on.

So even against high ps lists you will have your full TL re-roll capability, and as a plus, Horn will get to fire again in the first round, so your first pass will hit harder.

How bout this.....

Corran Horn--R7, FCS, swarm tactics

Black Moon--R7, FCS

Tarn Mison--R7

So now you have corran and blackmoon fire early, and get the TL they need for defense, and tarn gets his if he is fired on.

So even against high ps lists you will have your full TL re-roll capability, and as a plus, Horn will get to fire again in the first round, so your first pass will hit harder.

That is also good. I'd call it R7.EXE

E-wing has:

Forwards 1-5 (1-3 Green)

Banks 1-3 (2 Green)

Turns 2-3

Koiograns 3-4 (3-4 Red)

Note that it's the first ship in the game with all 5 forward options. Neat!

It also feels more like an A-Wing dial than an X-Wing dial. You trade the 1 Turn for a 1 Bank and a 1 Forward, and the 5 Koiogran for a 4, and whitewash some greens.

It has no 1 turn, and it DOES have a 1 straight, so I think it flies much more like an X-wing. An E-wing can formation fly with an X-wing, an A-wing can't. The extra K-turn, shuffling greens, and 5 straight are all gravy.

Regardless, I think its a great dial. Best of both worlds. Can hang tight with either A's or X's. Having 2 K-turns is also nice, although will be useful only ever so rarely. I also love the fact it has barrel-roll (evade is nice too). Finally a rebel ship that can give an interceptor a run for its money in terms of manoeuverability! (although it has less greens, so is not as good w/ PtL).

How about using Dutch to pass them locks? He moves later in the round and could allow you to Lock a target you think will be targeting your E-Wing that round. Would also allow you Focus or Evade as needed?

Now, the best combo I have yet come up with for the E-Wing (and it's still not super great, though it is mean) is:

Corran Horn + FCS + Marksmanship + Advanced Proton Torpedoes

Now, you move into range 1 of your victim and you use your action as Marksmanship. You then attack, turning one eye result into a crit and the rest into hits. If you target is still alive, you get a Target Lock. Now, during the End Phase when Marksmanship is still active, you have a Target Lock, a Range 1 Target, and an APT. You attack with 5 dice, turn 3 blanks into eyes, then one blank into a crit and the rest into hits. Since you've already attacked your target once with a 4 dice + Marksmanship attack, shields should be weakened and you should wreak terrible havok. Best against large, tough targets.

Still, rather expensive at 46 points.

Now, the best combo I have yet come up with for the E-Wing (and it's still not super great, though it is mean) is:

Corran Horn + FCS + Marksmanship + Advanced Proton Torpedoes

That is mean. Although your opponent would kind of have to be dumb to let you pull that off (the obvious counter is to not be in range one and focus fire on him).

I'm having trouble coming up with an effective E-wing build. It's a little too costly to be a mainstay like Blue Squadron or Rookie but an R7 E-Wing is pretty good in the late game, possibly the strongest lategame fighter. Most competitive builds I've made revolve around 1 E and 4-5 Zs... the E flanks while the Zs punish.

The one thing I don't like about it is that I don't know how to pronounce "Retiarian"

The one thing I don't like about it is that I don't know how to pronounce "Retiarian"

ree-shee-AIR-ee-an

Also, before anyone cries "Necro", I linked this list in a new post, saying that it would do well in the local metagame.

The one thing I don't like about it is that I don't know how to pronounce "Retiarian"

ree-shee-AIR-ee-an

Also, before anyone cries "Necro", I linked this list in a new post, saying that it would do well in the local metagame.

I'm actually thinking about taking exactly this list in honor of my local gaming store - Blackmoon Games.