I was thinking that with phantoms and dual YT's all over the place, is there still a place for the 4 Y-wing build? I heard about it a little when the game first started but not sure if it could still keep up these days. Thinking about running this old-school list in a local tournament at my LFGS:

Dutch + ion

Gold + ion + R5 x3

360 degree turrents, just need to keep everyone at range 1-2. Ions to mess up movements and make those phantoms predictable. might have trouble with YT's bc of all the hull/shields, but might outlast since there are 4 y-wings against only 2 yts shooting every turn. Might even get lucky and ion them off the board. Thoughts?

With all of the new hotness you will get murdered.

I have six Y-Wings and they are almost exclusively for glorious Epic play.

You could take a yt and 3 golds. Hold people in place while Chewie blasts them.

You could take a yt and 3 golds. Hold people in place while Chewie blasts them.

doesn't that come out to be, like, 111 points?

I don't quite understand some of the negativity behind the y-wing. As a ship admittedly its slugish and underpowered but if you get hold of Horton Salm with an Ion Turret you can control the battlefield really well. I've managed to kill large ships simply by 'ioning' (Not a word but works well i think!) them off the board. If you put in the Astromech that treats all 1 and 2 maneuvers as green you can make it quite maneuverable. I can't quite see the day my Y-wing doesnt sit in my fleet.

I was thinking that with phantoms and dual YT's all over the place, is there still a place for the 4 Y-wing build?

The 4Y build was never terribly popular, because it struggles to present meaningful offense against lists with high Agility, and meanwhile it takes heavy damage from cheap, efficient 2 Attack ships. Taken together, that means its worst matchup was/is the TIE swarm, which is a relatively common list.

Could it become popular? I'm fairly confident that it won't. I think Phantoms constitute an excellent argument for including fighters with turrets, but I think the advantage peaks at 2 ships and afterwards hits a point of diminishing returns. Mixing up the ships in your list is likely to produce better outcomes: YYZZZ is likely to perform better, as just one possible example.

You could take a yt and 3 golds. Hold people in place while Chewie blasts them.

doesn't that come out to be, like, 111 points?

Yeah I'm not really sure how I came up with that.

Run this for giggles:

Y-Wing, R2 Astromech, Flechette Torpedoes, Proton Torpedoes

Y-Wing, R2 Astromech, Flechette Torpedoes, Proton Torpedoes

Y-Wing, R2 Astromech, Flechette Torpedoes, Proton Torpedoes

Y-Wing, R2 Astromech, Ion Cannon Turret

By focusing so much on phantom defence your leaving yourself vulnerable to other threats.

And it's not like phantoms have even featured that heavily since wave four hit, every one went straight to falcon spam.

Anyone heard of fielding the following or similar squad?

x2 Gold, R2, blaster turret

x2 Gold, R2, ion turret

Sounds like it could be fun... or boring... or a disaster in the making

*bidding my time waiting for y-wing ace pack upgrades...

I've run YYBB and has good success. Ion with the Y's, stalk with the B's. You either run the ships off the board, or blow them up before they get there. However, that was before Imp Aces, Big Ships, and W4.

At this point, I might consider

Grey + R2D6 + Predator + Blaster

My buddy took second at Dallas regionals with a BBYY list. So yes, Y-Wings are still a viable ship.

oh no question it's still a viable ship. Just not on it's own...

I had a fun game with:

Horton + ion + Prot + Prot + EU + R2D2

Dutch + ion + R2

Gold + ion + R2

=99pts

Horton is fully loaded and def priority, but with good board control from Dutch/Gold ion shots, he lasted long enough to fire off both Proton Torps for 3 hits/1crit each time (using ability to reroll blanks). EU gets you out of trouble and still manuverable to use R2D2 to keep him alive longer.

I personally would love to see a Y-wing with the one droid from the Transport that can keep the damage down to 2. Sure, it will be stressed. But a Phantom that needs 4 turns to kill a Y-wing is frustrating.

My favorite rebel list is XXBY. Customize the ships however you want. I usually run Garven+Ducth together or Wedge and lower skill for the rest. XXBY just always seem to be tough to bring down at 26 hits and 12 attack dice.

"Still"???

I don't want to say that you can't do great things with Y-wings. I have a friend who loves them and he flys them all the time without ion turrets.

But a list of a lot of Y-wings relying on their 360 firing arc with their ion turrets, has been shown to do damage too slowly, and this was about the first month the game came out.

Y-wings are still awesome. Especially against Phantoms. Ionizing or better yet ionizing and stressing phantoms ruins their day.

Y-wings have always been, IMO, and still are very solid support ships. If anything with the new emphasis on stress, I think they are better now than when they first came out.