Can someone please give me a brief overview of each of the X-Wing miniature units released to date? Specifically, the following info:
* How strong the unit is relatively (a 1-5 star system with brief explanation would be good)
* How the unit is usually used (e.g. harasser, main ship, support, etc.)
* Some well-known builds featuring the ship or well-known combos involving the ship (e.g. TIE Swarm w/ Howlrunner TIE Fighter)
There are a lot of articles and reviews available for new players starting out. Google is your friend here.
I am aware of articles out there and have read some of them. However, as I am new, I can't tell which articles are useful/up-to-date and which ones are not useful or obsolete. And, sometimes the articles I found give conflicting information.
I think the problem here is not a lack of information, but rather information overload. It would be tremendously helpful to me and perhaps to other beginners to have a more simplified high-level overview of what ships exist in this game, their relative strengths, and some basic strategies involving the ships.
Edited by gundamvI'll do the Imperial side up through Wave 3 (as that's what I'm familiar with)
TIE Fighter: 5 Stars; the single most cost effective ship in the game. It has a good dial, great selection of actions (including the all-powerful Barrel Roll), is cheap, and has awesome named pilots.
The ship is usually used as a frontline ship in packs, often supported by Howlrunner. Other uses exist, though; Academies are used for blocking, Backstabber is a flanking ship, and the Black Squad pilot is cheap and has an EPT, making it an excellent support ship when properly outfitted.
Common builds: Howlrunner + 6 mooks or 5 named TIEs, generally known as the TIE Swarm. Howlrunner + 4 TIEs, a miniswarm that can have another ship added to it. Backstabber + Night Beast: a 31 point combo that can often be a cornerstone of good lists. BSP + Draw Their Fire or Wingman: a support TIE. Dark Curse + SD: for when you just want to be that troll.
TIE Advanced: 1–2 Stars; In Wave 1 it was decent, but from there on out there are just better options. General consensus is it costs too much for what it brings onto the table, and it is weak in attack. Vader is still good, though.
The ship is rarely if ever used. However, it can function as a missile delivery system. In addition, Vader makes an excellent flanker. In Epic games, Maarek Stele can make a showing as well.
Common Builds: Vader + Engine Upgrade: the man gets a stressless PtL, so abuse it to get that crazy maneuvering. Maarek Stele + Marksmanship: rarely used, but a means to maximize his Crit-generating capacity.
Firespray-31 (Slave 1): 4.5 Stars; an amazingly balanced ship with great staying power, good weapon damage, lots of upgrades, and that auxiliary firing arc. You can't go wrong with this ship–even unupgraded it is a threat.
The ship is a tank, and as such it generates high "threat." Take advantage of this by having it come in from one side while an equally damaging threat (such as a miniswarm) comes from the other. Also, the rear firing arc is huge. HUGE.
Common Builds: Bounty Hunter + RecSpec: it doesn't get much at kier than this, folks. BH + Gunner: doesn't feel bad when it can't get that action for whatever reason. Kath + Expert Handling: the ability to Barrel Roll a big ship is simply amazing. Everyone has to try this.
TIE Interceptor: 3–4.5 Stars; it all depends on the pilot. A tricky ship to learn, but very rewarding when it pays off. These guys have the best movement options other than the Phantom, and can clear stress like a pro. Better attack than a standard TIE, but much equal hull value.
There are two ways to use the Interceptor. Low PS interceptors can be placed right into TIE Swarms or can be used as a (albeit more expensive) filler ship. They seem to be doing quite well in tournaments these days. High PS Interceptors are mostly fielded as flankers.
Common Builds: any Interceptor that can take an EPT must have PtL, it's the best combo in the game. RGI + PtL comes in at exactly 25 points. Soontir Fel + PtL + TC: this lets you get a TL + F combo with an action to spare. Turr Phennir + PtL: PtL can be activated on the free boost/BR, giving you a third action. A personal favorite is Lt. Lorrir + HU at 26 points.
TIE Bomber: 3.5–4 Stars; a really good ship, just waiting for a way to make ordinance useful again.
Common Use: these can be potent Alpha strikers, especially when combined with Jonus. Alternatively, they can be run without any upgrades as part of a "phat TIE swarm with Howlrunner.
Comman builds: Gamma + Seismic clocks in at 20 points and is notsomethingnto be trifled with.
Lambda Shuttle: 3 Stars; it appears to be the worst ship in the game, but looks can be deceiving. A staggering array of upgrades can be put on it.
The ship is used as a cornerstone; the rest of the list is build around it most times.
Common Builds: OGP + Vader: the Doomshuttle, at 25 points you have a suicide ship that can't be ignored. Add Gunner for twice the crits. OGP + Advs + EU: the start of many great shuttle combos. OGP + EU + FCS + Gunner: the so-called "buzzsaw shuttle," it will rarely miss.
Being as there are so many ships a review like that would take a good amount of time so I'll just do 1 of the expansions and maybe others will do 1 as well.
I'll start with the b-wing because it's my favorite ship ever.
I would give it 4 out of 5 stars because it can take a lot of punishment and has decent maneuverability options with the barrel roll ability being paired with adv sensors. Downside is the lack of agility dice for defense.
It's used mainly as your heavy hitter when paired with heavy laser cannons and thrives at long distance with that setup. A stock bwing is still capable of holding its own however under focus fire it won't last long but neither will most ships if they are being focused on either. That's where the hit points make up for the lack of agility dice.
There are lots of builds that utilize bwings as it is strong in the meta right now. A few examples are bloody daggers or Biggs walks the dogs and others which tweak lists consisting of xxbb or xybb. Hope this helps and I'm sure others will have their input about my review of the bwing so your best bet is to just read up as mentioned above but hopefully this gives you a start 
Okay here I go
TIE Fighter: Surprisingly hard to hit, but can't take much damage, they don't do a lot of damage alone.
Best quality: cheap
Worst quality: damage out put
Tactic: swarm
TIE Advanced: basically a TIE fighter with a slightly worse dial and shields
Best quality: Darth Vader
Worst quality: they are relatively expensive and have low damage out put.
Tactic; Vader makes a good flanker or support ship
TIE Interceptor: supper great dial, great attack, but they still don't have any shields
Best quality: with boost and barrel roll they are great dog fighters
Worst quality: can die in a single shot if get unlucky
Tactic: PtL, get out of enemy firming arcs
TIE Bomber: very versatile weapon load out options. Pretty cheap missile/torpedo/bomb platform
Best quality: secondary weapon upgrade slots
Worst quality: rely on (possibly expensive) one shot secondary weapons
Tactic: Jonus Swarms
Firespray: possibly the best all around ship in the game. Very upgrade able but still performs well w/out upgrades. Its big base can be a blessing and a curse.
Best quality: Hard to kill
Worst quality: Most of the named pilots have dumb abilities.
Tactics: great jouster
Lambda Shuttle: it is the cheapest large ship in the game, it also has a terrible dial. Finally it is very upgradable. However it almost needs advanced sensors and Engine Upgrades to dog fight.
Best quality: upgrade ability
Worst quality: needs upgrades to be good
Tactics: (because of its upgrades these can vary widely) doom shuttle, buzz saw shuttle, cheap HLC platform
I intentionally left out the Defender and the Phantom. I have theories about these ships, but I don't have enough first hand experience to state an informed opinion.
I also thought the empire only list was a long enough. Perhaps I will post latter on the rebel ships. But I fly imperial more.
Edited by HrathenInstead of a ship by ship review, I'll just add some general guidelines
All ships are decent and have their place, except maybe the tie advanced.
In general, tough, tanky ships are a bit easier to play and more forgiving, while fragile nimble ships are more dangerous in skilled hands
The exceptions are the lambda and hwk. Both are good ships and can be used effectively, but require practice to pay off.
With a few exceptions (especially recently) secondary weapons are a bit overcosted.
Typically, more ships is better than lots of upgrades.
Tie fighters you may want to run lots of, most other ships reasonably top out at 3-4 max
Very useful overviews of Imperial ships so far. Thanks!
I really like the B-Wing analysis too.
Any thoughts on other Rebel ships? Also, is the Imperial Aces set any good?
I know it might be premature, but your impressions of Wave 4 would also be appreciated.
Very useful overviews of Imperial ships so far. Thanks!
I really like the B-Wing analysis too.
Any thoughts on other Rebel ships? Also, is the Imperial Aces set any good?
I know it might be premature, but your impressions of Wave 4 would also be appreciated.
Xs, Bs, and YT-1300s are the clear favorites here. They're the only ones with which a 3-ship build is currently viable.
Ys are good control and decent support
HWKs are decent support and can be decent gun-boats
A-Wings are really hard-to-kill and are currently the only Rebel Missile-Carriers (B,X, and Y carry Torpedoes, which are vastly inferior except for the Flechette).
All of the ships of Wave IV are great as well, for different reasons.
Imperial Aces is good for three reasons:
not to say other things in it aren't good - Carnor Jax's ability is scary as hell once you figure out how to use it, targeting computers are nice, etc, etc, but those three are the best things in my book.
Imperial Aces is good for three reasons:
- The Royal Guard Pilot - this is a generic pilot with pilot skill 6 and an elite pilot skill talent. Remember that a TIE interceptor is no tougher, but is more expensive, than a standard TIE fighter; its main defence is never being in someone's arc of fire in the first place. Moving last, and getting to boost/barrel roll/push the limit and do both is a massive advantage.
- Push The Limit Cards - there is a reason this is the elite pilot talent everyone yammers on about. Getting to do two actions is awesome if you have two actions worth doing. Boost + Barrel Roll is the most obvious one - in a previous game my manouvre literally landed me square on a proton bomb, and hitting the turbos with this combination got me completely out of the blast radius before it went off....
- Hull upgrade - some people argue shield upgrades are better, but it only really matters if the first hit you take is a critical, and if it isn't (even if it is), it's a point cheaper. An extra hit point is gold dust on fragile fighters.
not to say other things in it aren't good - Carnor Jax's ability is scary as hell once you figure out how to use it, targeting computers are nice, etc, etc, but those three are the best things in my book.
You forgot Opportunist and Hull Upgrade.
Very useful overviews of Imperial ships so far. Thanks!
I really like the B-Wing analysis too.
Any thoughts on other Rebel ships? Also, is the Imperial Aces set any good?
I know it might be premature, but your impressions of Wave 4 would also be appreciated.
Another Imperial player here, so I'll just second the other reviews of them.
Imperial Aces are a really nice set. Maybe 4.5 stars. It has some great upgrade cards that let you get even more out of your pilots, like the Royal Guard title card which allows pilot skill 5 & up to take two modifications. With this you can give your Int a target lock action and shield, or a stealth device and hull, or whatever combination suits the role you want it to fill. The pilots are good too, I especially love the royal guard pilot, a pilot skill 6 generic for 22 points. If you go the interceptor route I'd recommend getting 1 aces pack and 1 standard pack, it will give you all the pilots and upgrades you'll need, and at their high point cost you'll rarely want to fly more than 3 in a squad.
I'm a huge fan of the firespray, I'd give it 5 stars. Some fun squads are:
1 Firespray with a mini swarm of tie fighters or bombers, or a pair of interceptors
2 firesprays with 1 interceptor, or a pair of tie fighters
3 firesprays
It's a little dicey trying to rate the ships like this. They each have different characteristics which can be a help or hinderence depending on the situation. Also, the ships are highly upgradeable and have different pilots with different skills. Using these effectively, often in unison with other units, is where the individual ships become less important, and the fleet as a cohesive unit become greater than the sum of its parts. A naked HWK is undeniably a '1-star' ship by itself, it's literally useless. Kit it out properly in a fleet of ships that can make use of its unique pilots, token-handing abilities etc and it can easily become the MVS (most valuable ship, natch)
You can certainly say which ships are easiest to use, which is really helpful for a newbie. You're pretty much looking at leaving aside Shuttles, HWK's, TIE advanced and TIE phantoms for the first few games. They're not necessarily bad, just require a better understanding of the rules to get the most out of 'em. With one exception; the only ship people really struggle to make work, the only genuine 1-starer as far as usefulness goes, is the Advanced.
For a first timer, I'd recommend chucking a 'Falcon or Slave-one into a list along with some basic X or B wings or TIE fighters or Interceptors. You have a nice, durable large ship that's forgiving to use due to the firing arcs and toughness (Though be careful with the manouvering), as well as the most basic ships that are pretty good with or without upgrades from which you can learn the basics.
Lambda Shuttle: 3 Stars; it appears to be the worst ship in the game, but looks can be deceiving. A staggering array of upgrades can be put on it.
The ship is used as a cornerstone; the rest of the list is build around it most times.
Common Builds: OGP + Vader: the Doomshuttle, at 25 points you have a suicide ship that can't be ignored. Add Gunner for twice the crits. OGP + Advs + EU: the start of many great shuttle combos. OGP + EU + FCS + Gunner: the so-called "buzzsaw shuttle," it will rarely miss.
I agree with everything Revanchist said except this, and then only partially.
If you haven't learned how to fly the Lambda it is 3 Stars.
If you HAVE it is easily 4-5 stars. Buzzsaw and Doomshuttle ALWAYS bring their points back. It's one of the best values in the game. There is NO correct choice your enemy can make when going up against a properly flown Lambda.
Typically you fly it up one of the flanks on the opposite side as the rest of your force. At that point your opponent has a choice: go after the big, scary (and cheap) lambda? Or go after the rest of your force.
If the choose the Lambda it's typically a mistake. It will take them a minimum of 3 turns to kill it, and that is usually a fatal mistake because the majority of your points are now behind them and ripping them apart.
If they choose the rest of your force it's, well, not a mistake (as it was probably the best choice), but now they have the Lambda perpetually shooting into their side/read, and once it is in that position IT WILL NEVER LEAVE!
So it's either a huge, game losing distraction, or it gets to shoot its 3-4 dice almost every turn for the entire game.
It's an amazing ship and an amazing value. But it has a learning curve.
I agree with everything Revanchist said except this, and then only partially.
If you haven't learned how to fly the Lambda it is 3 Stars.
If you HAVE it is easily 4-5 stars.
No, if you haven't learned how to fly it well it is 1 star. The shuttle looks absolutely horrible, with that dial even a tanky 3 dice attack seems bad because you will never have a target. It is only after you see it in action by a skilled player that you realize it is actually 5 stars.
Hence the average of 3.
Oh, one last thing I think is worth mentioning:
Up until this point having more ships has been much more important than having more upgrades, at least competitively. This was due to a number of factors beyond simple game mechanics. High PS interceptors (for example) could in fact do well against most high ship count lists, but were so easily countered by the various popular Falcon builds that they just didn't make sense competitively. On the other hand, a high ship count list would do at least moderately well against everything. So competitively, high ship count was always a safe bet.
This appears to be changing drastically with the release of wave 4!
Early reports of the new Tie Phantom show that in skilled hands it can absolutely destroy low PS, high ship count lists. Several other new ships and upgrades are also harsh against them. Pilot skill, the ability to produce stress, ion tokens, and other control abilities seem to be becoming extremely important.
So the conventional build wisdom that has been true up to this point (more ships trumps more abilities) appears to be getting a welcome shake up.
I did a video awhile back for new players called "What to buy next when on a budget". it's on my channel, you might find it helpful.
I agree with everything Revanchist said except this, and then only partially.
If you haven't learned how to fly the Lambda it is 3 Stars.
If you HAVE it is easily 4-5 stars.
No, if you haven't learned how to fly it well it is 1 star. The shuttle looks absolutely horrible, with that dial even a tanky 3 dice attack seems bad because you will never have a target. It is only after you see it in action by a skilled player that you realize it is actually 5 stars.
Hence the average of 3.
Yeah, I can agree with that. It's really bad when you don't know what to do with it.
I do think that marking it as a 3 star average is misleading though. It doesn't really give the proper picture of its abilities. It both misleads the new player who expects it to be average, when it ends up being horrible when they try it, and discourages putting in the investment that makes it a 5 star ship.
So, again, I think it is worth noting:
If you DON'T know how to fly: 1 star. It's bad.
If you DO know how to fly it: 5 star. It is one of the best ships in the game.
Is there another thread or webpage that summarizes all of the typical and common named builds and squads? I keep coming across "Doomshuttle" or "Han Shoots First" or "Biggs Walks the Dogs" or "Buzzsaw" etc. etc. As a casual but frequent player, I have no idea what any of those mean.
Can someone help me out?
Is there another thread or webpage that summarizes all of the typical and common named builds and squads? I keep coming across "Doomshuttle" or "Han Shoots First" or "Biggs Walks the Dogs" or "Buzzsaw" etc. etc. As a casual but frequent player, I have no idea what any of those mean.
Can someone help me out?
Man, I wish. We should start a list at some point. But I can help with the ones I can remember:
Buzzsaw: cheapest Lambda with gunner and engine upgrade (the thing can cover the entire board in one turn with it), optionally an HLC
Doomshuttle: cheapest Lambda with Vader, optionally an engine upgrade. You take advantage of the fact that that the shuttle often ends the game with full HP to turn some of that HP into attack damage at critical times.
Trench run: Luke, Biggs, Wedge. Wedge does your damage, Biggs keeps your opponent from focus firing, and Luke wins you the late game because you can not kill him ever without serious focus fire!!!
Han Shoots First: At the core it is Han with a gunner. He usually shoots first, never needs to target lock, and can re-roll up to three times (so four attempts in total) if he doesn't hit. There are several optional choices to go with him (Chewie is popular).
Duel Falcons: Just what it sounds like. Often Lando and Chewie, who have some synergy.
Tie Swarm: Uh, it's a tie swarm. Like...lots of them. Usually with Howlrunner
XXBB: Just what it sounds like. There are lots of variations, but the core is two B-Wings.
Scruffy Looking Nerf Herders: Falcon and two Y-Wings with Ion
That's all I can think of off the top of my head.
Typically with Tie Swarm it's all Academy or Obsidian Pilots & Howlrunner (with some room for upgrades), so 7 TIE on the board flying in formation.
Can someone please give me a brief overview of each of the X-Wing miniature units released to date? Specifically, the following info:
* How strong the unit is relatively (a 1-5 star system with brief explanation would be good)
If I can get on my high horse for just a moment, I have a peeve with scalar valves for multidimensional things. You really can't rate any of these ships on a scale of one to five because they all have more than one aspect you need to consider.
Were the game (or indeed life) so simple as to be able to accurately rate complicated things on a scale, it would be spectacularly boring.
If I can get on my high horse for just a moment, I have a peeve with scalar valves for multidimensional things. You really can't rate any of these ships on a scale of one to five because they all have more than one aspect you need to consider.Can someone please give me a brief overview of each of the X-Wing miniature units released to date? Specifically, the following info:
* How strong the unit is relatively (a 1-5 star system with brief explanation would be good)
Were the game (or indeed life) so simple as to be able to accurately rate complicated things on a scale, it would be spectacularly boring.
It is fully understandable to want to know how the community sees something.