After gencon meta shows true rock paper and sharp implement mentality - Swarm, Phantom and Falcons of various fat levels. I had a long brainstorming session trying to find list having at least fighting chance vs all 3 of them, and decided to go back to basics - X-wings en masse.

My idea is this.

It is not a bad list but in the curret meta, if your opponent focus fires Roark, then I predict that it will be arc-dodged and torn to shreds.

For that last point Id take nien nunb on roark so he can keep up with the x/z when you need to go fast.

But really id scrap the bandit entirely and increase the potency of your other ships.

If you really want to piss of the phantom player you use Roark to boost someone who can induce stress so he cant recloak and your entire squad can fire at him.

Roark can stay way back and still use its ability, its one of best points of all named HWK, it can be usefull from very far away.

List is designed to max out damage die you are rolling, to eat falcons fast enough, and outshoot swarms, so removing ships to add upgrades is counterintuitive.

It is not a bad list but in the curret meta, if your opponent focus fires Roark, then I predict that it will be arc-dodged and torn to shreds.

Plan for this. Since Roark's ability is Range 3 and he moves so slow, keep him back and force your opponent to pass your X's. Maybe consider changing a Rookie to a Blue Squadron and keep him Range 2-ish from Roark, and if you get a good ion hit, use the Blue's 1-turn or 2-k to capitalize on disabled ship.

As mentioned, it might be worth dropping the Bandit and adding FCS to the B, and maybe a shield to the HWK and a Hull to each X.

Gotta love the HWK!

Increase in damage die doesn't necessarily mean increase in damage or effeciveness.

If you're interested; this is what I've been playing for the last few weeks, it's been very effective against a variety of squads locally.

Tarn Mison, R7

Gold, IonCT, R3-A2

2x blue, AS

These ships give you a great deal of control over your own and your opponents ships. Most squads cant focus 1 ship down in a single turn while you usually have enough freedom of movement or a turret to pour all your firepower into your preferred target.

Your biggest issue is that you need to protect Roark and by keeping him out of the fight his ion isn't useful. I find that with turrets, particularly ions, you need to be up in their faces to give your non-turrets room to maneuver. With Roark that is likely to get him dead pretty quick.

For your original list I would consider dropping one of the X's and using 2 Tala's and use something like the following.

Roark, ion turret

Tarn Mison, R7

Red Squadron, R3-A2

2 x Talas

With everyone and their dog running 3Z's you want to out PS them to counter them. It also helps against predator, but that is less of an issue. This also helps versus the swarms who are switching towards obsidians over academy ties.

I'm not really a fan of X's in the current meta. They aren't tough and they aren't maneuverable either.

Keeping Roark out of the fight is a big waste of points. You could bump 2 Rookies to Wedge and Luke +VI for 17pts, twice the effect, 7 points saved.

Ok. lets list facts. No 4 ship rebel list did well in Gencon, if it did't have falcon in it, other tournaments also wasn't nice to lists of that type And most of sugestions I see is for going from 5 ships to 4 ships. Try to see logical error..

On downgrading one of X-wings to Z-95 it has potential, as you can add named pilot to the mix or even two, but you loose firepower and survivability in return

Ok. lets list facts. No 4 ship rebel list did well in Gencon, if it did't have falcon in it, other tournaments also wasn't nice to lists of that type And most of sugestions I see is for going from 5 ships to 4 ships. Try to see logical error..

On downgrading one of X-wings to Z-95 it has potential, as you can add named pilot to the mix or even two, but you loose firepower and survivability in return

Saying 'no 4 ship rebel builds did well at gencon, therefore 4 rebel ships = bad' is erroneous. Fact is, if none of the 4 ship rebel builds @ gencon did well, its most likely that it was due to those particular players being outplayed or their particular lists getting hard-countered. Although obviously this is a very generalized statement and there may be other reasons, but I don't think 4 ship rebel builds have suddenly become totally irrelevant because of phantoms/falcons...

After gencon meta shows true rock paper and sharp implement mentality - Swarm, Phantom and Falcons of various fat levels. I had a long brainstorming session trying to find list having at least fighting chance vs all 3 of them, and decided to go back to basics - X-wings en masse.

My idea is this.

99 points

Pilots

------

Rookie Pilot (21)

Rookie Pilot (21)

Rookie Pilot (21)

Bandit Squadron Pilot (12)

Roark Garnet (24)

HWK-290 (19), Ion Cannon Turret (5)

Its got 5 ships , lots of attack die, 15 hull and 9 shields to soak damage, and Roark to have a chance vs Phantoms. You can even modify it, by changing bandit to tala, or 1 rookie to blue. No playtesting yet, so waiting for expert opinion.

I have been riggity rekt multiple times by a guy at our store who runs:

Rookie x2

Blue Squadx1

Bandit Squadx3

It's 30hp, 11Defense Dice, 17shields, and 15atk

Biggest counter is highly maneuverable ships, ie: interceptors, phantoms, and e-wings.

Finally took my list from first post on a test drive, only diferrence was tala in place of bandit. opponent was using echo and few friends, but he was new to game, and couldn't get hold on echo's movement most of the time. I also did mistakes, like starting way to wide (two of my x-wings in different corners of map), but oponent had assault missile on his bomber.

Thoughts after game. List is simple, but needs some better piloting, if I want to catch well piloted phantom, more layers of arcs, to get at least one ship facing it every time. The amount of staying power is great, loosing x-wing or few still leaves you enough dice to be dangerous. Tala seems great choice with more and more predators around