Outer Rim Smuggler + Intelligence Agent + Anti-Pursuit Lasers

Blue Squadron Pilot

Blue Squadron PIlot

Garven Dreis

100pts

i went 4-0 with this squad at my local GS to place first in a 6 player event.

Round 1 I beat Luke + Wegde + Horton (rookie player, took down wedge early, full win)

Round 2 was a much closer match versus 2x Dagger/Adv. Sensors/Ion + 2x Gold Squadron Y-Wings with Flachette Torps (interesting squad, id have put ions on his Y-Wings end dropped the flachettes and ions on the B-Wings but this was still a ver close match and i squeeked out a mod win)

Round 3 was versus 3 ship imperials: Vader + Krassis/HLC + Sabre Squadron Pilot. I targeted Krassis early with everything. He got off 2 shots with the HLC before getting destroyed. From there i took out his intercepter and then vader, dont think i lost a ship this match.

Round 4 was the final versus a 5 ship imperial swarm. Howlrunner, Jax, Sabre with VI, Dark Curse, Academy Pilot. This was a scary match. I deploy with everyone except Garven facing east edge of the board and 2 sharp turn into a slow rolling formation with ORS at the front, both B's just behind ORS and garven holding the left flank within range to pass focus tokens to the best placed ally. He rushes in and engages at top speed. i get a break by him parking Jax on an asteroid. He gets plenty of shots into my ORS but its survives. BBX backup unleashes and takes out both his intercepters (jax took a damage from the rock). Next turn Howlrunner gets flanked at close range by a B-Wing and goes BOOM! I win this one without losing a ship. Sweet victory.

WHAT I LEARNED

* ORS is a nice damage sink that gets 3 red dice most of the time anyway when u put it in the front ranks. Its a very underrated rebel ship imo. INtel agent was used every game and it was actually a nice addition to the sqaud. Anti-Pursuit lasers did not get used once but i guess having it as a deterrent is some use? i think id run with C3-PO over intel/APL next time.

* The close range movement options of the B-Wing are good enough to match even the agile ties. Even tho i didnt roll very good defense dice it didnt matter because my attacks dice were white hot.

Nice win and nice report! I'm surprised you didn't face any super falcons or phantoms in this tournament?

Nice win and nice report! I'm surprised you didn't face any super falcons or phantoms in this tournament?

wave wave3 no wave4 allowed but next time wave4 will be allowed

Thanks for the report! I've often wondered about the utility of the Rim Smuggler. Saving 15 points over Chewy is just very very tempting and allows for more varied builds. Do you find that it's harder for people to block you since most of the time, the Rim Smuggler is moving first?

Also, could you give an in-game example of how the intel agent helped? I'm curious.

Thanks for the report! I've often wondered about the utility of the Rim Smuggler. Saving 15 points over Chewy is just very very tempting and allows for more varied builds. Do you find that it's harder for people to block you since most of the time, the Rim Smuggler is moving first?

Also, could you give an in-game example of how the intel agent helped? I'm curious.

Yeah in all honesty ORS was my MVP. Id tested quite a bit with Chewie and 2 B-Wings but i just wanted more ships incase Chewie got taken down fast (i knew there was a good swarm player at my LGS - expected to meet him in the finals, if i made it that far and sure enough i did!).

Id say in most cases you want to lose initiative with this squad so that u can move b4 their low PS ships. I think if id had different matchups with Academy hvy imperial squads or played versus more rookie x-wing pilots the ORS with APL would have been even more useful as a blocker. Most of my games played out with ORS was a front line beefy tank with 360 firing arc and good firepower in close. They got punished if they focused on it due to its high durability and allowing my other 3 ships to hit them hard AND they got punished for ignoring it - allowing ORS to sit at close range and fire away at any wounded ships

intel agent let me set up the B-Wings as either blockers or flankers but letting me decide whether to barrel roll or not/ Most of the game i kept the B's pretty close together allowing concentrated fire on an enemy so even once iv planned where theyr going for any given round i get the luxury of picking off one of his ships that is moving near my ORS and position both B-Wings in a good spot.

In my semi-final game versus vader i peeked at vaders dial and saw he was 3 banking into the asteroid field and successfully anticipated that my own B-Wings would be at close range or blocking, so one B blocked and the other target locked him. I did something similar in the final match with his Sabre Squadron and got a good close range hot at it with one of my B-Wings.

Definitely a ship I'll be considering after reading this. On the Imperial side, I used to use Krassis and HLC all the time, but recently, due to needing points to fit in the phantom, I'm actually learning how to use a naked bounty hunter (33 pts) quite well. I still want to throw a Recon Specialist or maybe even Intel Agent on him, but haven't figured out if I need it yet.

Definitely a ship I'll be considering after reading this. On the Imperial side, I used to use Krassis and HLC all the time, but recently, due to needing points to fit in the phantom, I'm actually learning how to use a naked bounty hunter (33 pts) quite well. I still want to throw a Recon Specialist or maybe even Intel Agent on him, but haven't figured out if I need it yet.

sometimes i wish the firespray had 2 crew slots

rebel captive is nice, esp with the drift towards high PS pilots like echo, whisper and han. stressing their top pilot is very good.

im not a big fan of recon specialist - u cant use it in the same round as target lock (sure take 2 turns to set it up but thats restrictive). in theory u have focus for attack and defense but sometimes it still goes unused.

i prefer tactician for 2pts right now (over recon spec). Gunner is the BEST option of firespray but finding those 5pts is often hard.

sometimes i wish the firespray had 2 crew slots

rebel captive is nice, esp with the drift towards high PS pilots like echo, whisper and han. stressing their top pilot is very good.

im not a big fan of recon specialist - u cant use it in the same round as target lock (sure take 2 turns to set it up but thats restrictive). in theory u have focus for attack and defense but sometimes it still goes unused.

i prefer tactician for 2pts right now (over recon spec). Gunner is the BEST option of firespray but finding those 5pts is often hard.

Same here, though maybe it would be too powerful with 2 crew slots? Granted, for a ship that big, you'd think they have 2.

I haven't been a fan of recon specialist just because i've *never* used up the 2nd token, and the times I needed both those tokens are the times when I lost my action.

Not sure about tactician, because it's so situation dependent. Though I guess with the large arcs of the Firespray, you can also find a ship at R2 to fire on. Downside is that it tempts you to fire at the wrong person because of targeting priority.

Agreed that Gunner is the best, but can't find 5 pts right now.

What about:

Echo+VI+ACD+RC (38)

OGP + Vader (24)

BH + Gunner (38)

100 pts

Downside is that at 100 pts, I most likely won't have the choice of initiative.

Or swap Gunner out for:

BH + Tactician (35)

Add FCS to Echo for more accurate shooting

99 pts

Thoughts? Anything else I can put on Echo or BH to make them more survivable? BH for getting focus fired upon, Echo for surviving random pot shots when I roll 5 blanks (which happens way too often for me).