Hi all,

I've been perusing majorjuggler's excellent regional tournament statistics (and the results threads) for inspiration in crafting a new Rebel build. I don't play Rebels nearly as often as Imperials, but as I introduce X-Wing to more and more of my friends, I am finding more opportunities to play as the good guys. I would eventually like to play Rebels in a local tournament setting.

Unfortunately, most of the Rebel lists these days feature a Falcon (an astonishing 26% of Rebel lists at the Wave 4 regionals featured 1 YT, with another 5% featuring double YTs), especially the lists appearing at the top of the tournament leaderboards (the German Nationals, for instance, featured 6 Rebel lists in the top 8, all flying Falcons).

I don't want to fly the Falcon. I don't find it particularly fun for me or for my opponents. So, what to do?

What are you Rebs flying these days?

I'm trying to do the same thing. Perhaps we can work together? As an additional criterion, I absolutely refuse to use Z-95 Headhunters.

I had been working with this list:

Corran Horn w/ VI, FCS

Wedge w/ PushtheLimit, Engine Upgrade, R2 astromech

Tarn Mison w/ R7

So the idea here is Wedge is extra agile and very accurate at PS9, giving you the ability to dish out massive damage very quickly. He can catch the enemy off guard by flanking with his engine upgrade.

Corran horn makes up for some of the firepower lost by dropping a ship down to three. He can fire twice, 2nd time with a free TL so your focus fire is still fairly strong.

Tarn with R7 is one of my favorite pilot builds. He is probably the most survivable here when Corran is focusing on offense. The only problem is that he is the cheapest ship and most defensive so he tends to get ignored until the end, which means he is just an X-wing if he isn't getting shot. Biggs is probably a better choice, flying next to Corran or Wedge, depending on who flanks. I just don't like to fly Biggs.

Ha, excellent - I didn't want to scare people off in my initial post, but I also would like to avoid Z-95s. Call me a purist, but the Z-95 was not in service with the Alliance at the same time as more advanced fighters like the B-Wing and A-Wing.

I think Tarn + R7 is definitely a great choice in any small ship Rebel build, as he's quite versatile and cheap.

In your list, I would maybe lean toward loading up on upgrades for Corran instead of Wedge. Wedge is super dangerous with your loadout, but he's not very durable, and he's an obvious target.

If you put Push and an engine upgrade on Corran instead, Corran is the bigger threat, obviously, but he also is much more durable than Wedge (with focus + evade, or arc dodging). Wedge is plenty dangerous without any upgrades at all, of course, so any list where he isn't the #1 target is a good one.

I think you should wait for rebel aces and the yt-2400. I know you mentioned you didn't like the falcon so I'm not mentioning the yt2400 except for the stay on target card. Keyan farlander with adv sensors and stay on target will be beastly IMO. He can easily react to a phantoms move with that setup. The whole reason falcons are popular right now is because they are one of the only if not the only hard counter to a phantom. I see this bwing setup a new contender and adding it into a list will be a lot of fun.

Here's something I just spit out:

• Garven Dreis (26)
• Tarn (23) + R7 (2)
• Blue Squadron (22) + AS (3)
• Blue Squadron (22) + FCS (2)

That's 100 pts even, with good firepower and durability. I worry about the lack of high pilot skill, but it seems like this could be a pretty fun list to fly (every pilot has an interesting ability!) and maybe be reasonably competitive.

Okay, so I feel like I have to get this bit out of the way first.

Unfortunately, most of the Rebel lists these days feature a Falcon (an astonishing 26% of Rebel lists at the Wave 4 regionals featured 1 YT, with another 5% featuring double YTs), especially the lists appearing at the top of the tournament leaderboards (the German Nationals, for instance, featured 6 Rebel lists in the top 8, all flying Falcons).

The collected tournament threads are an excellent resource; they provide a list of squads that performed well, out of all squads that were entered in major and minor tournaments. What it cannot do is provide any estimate for the strength of squads that were not entered, and that's a critical point--because it means that you cannot treat the collected tournament threads as an exhaustive list of what's good in the game.

Or, to put it more simply: if a pilot or archetype is heavily represented among the collected tournament results, it's a strong element. But you cannot draw the conclusion that all strong elements are represented among the collected tournament results.

So, with that said:

What are you Rebs flying these days?

Headhunter mini-swarms can be pretty sexy, Dutch and Gold Squadron remain impressive if quiet workhorses, named X-wings and E-wings typically offer good value for their cost, and A-wings are about to get a giant shot in the arm. B-wings are waiting for Rebel Aces, too, but until then (like Y-wings) their generic pilots are solid choices. And lots of players don't like HWKs, but I've never been sorry about running one in a list.

So really, it's not a question of what you can run, but of what you like. Fast flankers? Tanky jousters? Tricky synergies?

I've still seen success locally with a variant on an old standby.

Wedge

-Predator

-R2 astromech

Luke

-Predator

-R5-P9

Biggs

-R2-D2

-Shield upgrade

The goal being to force my opponent to split their fire in the opening engagement; If Biggs makes it through the initial clash he'll likely be around for most of the rest of the match. I'm helped by no one locally quite having cracked how to fly the Phantom effectively, and the last tournament I flew in saw my two Predator X-wings up against a lot of Bandit Z-95s, Outer Rim Smugglers, and other PS2 or lower targets. I also like flying it because thanks to said tournament win I now have the full set of alt art cards for this squad, so it just looks neat having the cards out.

So tl;dr it may not work as well for you. I've just never been a fan of generic pilots, I'm here to fly the hero ships. I came just shy of top 16(I'm pretty sure they were doing rankings wonky, given one guy who claimed to have 2 fulls 1 modified wins got in while I was out with 3 fulls...) at the Florida regionals with:

Wedge

- PTL

- R2 Astro

- Shield Upgrade

Biggs

- Shield Upgrade

- R2-D2

Hobbie

- R2-D6

- PTL

Basically a variant on the theme. But hey, it works for me.

I like the rebels myself, if only because I hate fascism. I don't have much allegiance to the thematic consistency of mixin' Zs in and have found them to be pretty competitive. I am getting ready to run E'than w/a Z-swarm. Since I only have 4 zs the swarm is gonna be a bit small, and I was thinking I'd mix in some ordinance.

Okay, so I feel like I have to get this bit out of the way first.

Unfortunately, most of the Rebel lists these days feature a Falcon (an astonishing 26% of Rebel lists at the Wave 4 regionals featured 1 YT, with another 5% featuring double YTs), especially the lists appearing at the top of the tournament leaderboards (the German Nationals, for instance, featured 6 Rebel lists in the top 8, all flying Falcons).

The collected tournament threads are an excellent resource; they provide a list of squads that performed well, out of all squads that were entered in major and minor tournaments. What it cannot do is provide any estimate for the strength of squads that were not entered, and that's a critical point--because it means that you cannot treat the collected tournament threads as an exhaustive list of what's good in the game.

Or, to put it more simply: if a pilot or archetype is heavily represented among the collected tournament results, it's a strong element. But you cannot draw the conclusion that all strong elements are represented among the collected tournament results.

Right, I realize that. It can't tell us about squads that were not entered, and obviously the data set is not complete, since we don't have every list from every tournament - typically just the top 16-32, if we're lucky.

But, as an attorney, I appreciate your disclaimer.

Okay, so I feel like I have to get this bit out of the way first...

Right, I realize that. It can't tell us about squads that were not entered, and obviously the data set is not complete, since we don't have every list from every tournament - typically just the top 16-32, if we're lucky.

But, as an attorney, I appreciate your disclaimer.

Sorry, I should have been clearer: I don't think you're exhibiting the busted logic I referred to. It's that I see the busted logic handed around here fairly often in the form of "oh, X can't be any good because it isn't on The List", as well as "if X were any good, it would be on The List", and most frustratingly of all, "I was looking through The List and it seems like the only Rebel builds worth running any more are Falcons".

I was trying to short-circuit those as potential responses to your OP.

it is cool to see that you are also opposed to the Headhunters. I feel like I'm severely limited, as 2 bandits is so much more durable than even Tarn Mison with R7. I dislike the headhunters for similar reasons and in addition I dislike how they make the rookie X-wing less efficient for the points.

I see what you mean about Wedge with Push the limit. Switching that to Corran gives him quite a bit of power, and using R2-D2 instead of engine upgrade will make the list more resilient. I'll have to try it out. I liked him at PS10 to hunt Phantoms.

My critique of your BBXX list is the pilot skill. You will have difficulty catching a PS9 Whisper or even Echo at 8, which I generally worry less about due to the 8. You will have to coordinate a lot of movement to catch one, and even then you have to go through the green dice. That said, it seems like a good jouster with some action economy and tough pilots. However, your most expensive ship (not by much) and highest pilot skill guy just so happens to be the easiest to kill in this arrangement. (same problem with my list, with super Wedge).

To all the "wait for Rebel Aces" folks, I don't think this is the answer to the thread. I'm planning on a tournament this weekend, and the original post was searching for good lists in the current meta, not the Rebel Aces meta.

This question sort of fits here, so I'll add it instead of starting a new topic.

What's the deal with the X-wing? In the few months I've been playing, I've almost always had TIE fighters in my squads (I have them and they seem to fit my mentality really well). I'm accumulating a decent Rebel collection now, though, and I'm trying to figure out X-wings. I put them on the table, and all I can seem to think to do is run them straight at the enemy. It feels stupid and wrong, and has terrible results, but it's like they make me stupid.

What do you do with X-wings? They can't Barrel Roll to re-position, they can't 1-turn to do awesome close-quarters fighting. They do get the 1-straight, which is nice, but they sort of just feel like 3 red dice on a stick.

This question sort of fits here, so I'll add it instead of starting a new topic.

What's the deal with the X-wing? In the few months I've been playing, I've almost always had TIE fighters in my squads (I have them and they seem to fit my mentality really well). I'm accumulating a decent Rebel collection now, though, and I'm trying to figure out X-wings. I put them on the table, and all I can seem to think to do is run them straight at the enemy. It feels stupid and wrong, and has terrible results, but it's like they make me stupid.

What do you do with X-wings? They can't Barrel Roll to re-position, they can't 1-turn to do awesome close-quarters fighting. They do get the 1-straight, which is nice, but they sort of just feel like 3 red dice on a stick.

There's a certain degree of fairness to calling them 3 red dice on a stick, I think; the degree to which people like X-wings is, I'm pretty sure, directly proportional to how useful they find 3 red dice on a stick.

That's because it's true that they can't reposition, and the lack of a 1-turn option makes them less effective than most Imperial ships as knife-fighters. So what you really want to do is think carefully about your deployment and initial approach, because it's so hard to adjust that approach; breaking your list up into two units can help, because it means you can joust with one (or, better, feint as if you're planning a joust, then break off, then K-turn) while you flank with the other. It also means they benefit a great deal from successful pilot-skill bids, since the ability to react to your opponent's deployment (rather than the other way 'round) is so important for them.

My old tournament list was 2 blue squadron B-wings with FCS and 2 gold squadron Y-wings with blaster turrets and shield upgrades. The list performed pretty well and my cumulative record with it was something on the order of 15-3. But those three losses were to two falcon builds and a phantom build. The new meta made me change my strategy with list building (my old strategy was to throw as much hp on the table as possible: 34 with my old build). My current tourney list is Jan Ors with VI, Ion Cannon Turret, Recon Specialist, and Moldy Crow title supporting two blue squadron Bs with HLC and FCS. So far the list is 5-1. It's defeated both falcon lists it's come up against. Still waiting to run into a phantom list with it but I think it should work ok in theory. The only loss came to a mini Rebel swarm of a dagger B + FCS, tala Z, Tarn Mison + R7, green A + PTL, and a bandit Z. Bad rolls on my part but strong rolls on the opponent's part sent me packing (it took 4 HLC shots to take down the A-wing). He still probably would have won even if I had been rolling better but it would have been a better match.

This question sort of fits here, so I'll add it instead of starting a new topic.

What's the deal with the X-wing? In the few months I've been playing, I've almost always had TIE fighters in my squads (I have them and they seem to fit my mentality really well). I'm accumulating a decent Rebel collection now, though, and I'm trying to figure out X-wings. I put them on the table, and all I can seem to think to do is run them straight at the enemy. It feels stupid and wrong, and has terrible results, but it's like they make me stupid.

What do you do with X-wings? They can't Barrel Roll to re-position, they can't 1-turn to do awesome close-quarters fighting. They do get the 1-straight, which is nice, but they sort of just feel like 3 red dice on a stick.

There's a certain degree of fairness to calling them 3 red dice on a stick, I think; the degree to which people like X-wings is, I'm pretty sure, directly proportional to how useful they find 3 red dice on a stick.

That's because it's true that they can't reposition, and the lack of a 1-turn option makes them less effective than most Imperial ships as knife-fighters. So what you really want to do is think carefully about your deployment and initial approach, because it's so hard to adjust that approach; breaking your list up into two units can help, because it means you can joust with one (or, better, feint as if you're planning a joust, then break off, then K-turn) while you flank with the other. It also means they benefit a great deal from successful pilot-skill bids, since the ability to react to your opponent's deployment (rather than the other way 'round) is so important for them.

This makes sense. My normal approach is to spread 4 TIE fighters + something better across a pretty wide front, and attack the enemy formation through the asteroids, where limited movement lanes really make it a lot easier for TIEs to close in and get good shots. It's basically breaking up the enemy formation and then chewing up the individual pieces. It's worked so far, but I feel like I'm fairly bad at actually planning more than a turn ahead because the tactics are pretty reactionary. This is probably why I'm bad with X-wings.

If you were going to run 4 X-wings, would you try to spread your PS around all 4, or would you invest in one or two?

If you were going to run 4 X-wings, would you try to spread your PS around all 4, or would you invest in one or two?

Bringing the thread back around, even...!

The classic 4X build, which you may know and which I still like, goes like this. It has four points leftover for further upgrades or customization:

Wedge Antilles (29)

Biggs Darklighter (25)

Rookie Pilot (21)

Rookie Pilot (21)

Total: 96

In Wave 1 I ran two Red Squadron Pilots instead of Rookies, to beat Rookie Pilots and Gold Squadron in mirror matches; in Wave 2 I ran Push the Limit and an R2 Astromech on Wedge; in Wave 3 I stopped running 4X because I was bored with it. These days I'd be inclined to upgrade a Rookie to Tarn + R7, or to throw Predator on Wedge and take initiative for Phantom-hunting.

So I suppose my answer to your question is that I prefer in general to get one very reliable PS bid instead of spreading those points out--unless there's a particular reason I want to beat a particular metagame element.

However, it's worth pointing out that I almost never run "monoculture" lists these days, because I've come to the conclusion that (1) Biggs is a crutch, and (2) you can get better results with careful flying and by varying the texture of your lists than you can with Biggs. So, getting away from the 4X question and more toward the OP, I might do something like this:

Wedge Antilles (29)

Predator (3)

Etahn A'baht (32)

Push the Limit (3)

Advanced Sensors (3)

Prototype Pilot (17)

Chardaan Refit (-2)

Prototype Pilot (17)

Chardaan Refit (-2)

Total: 100

Etahn and the A-wings deploy in a reverse delta, with the E-wing at the back. Wedge deploys at the back of the zone at about Range 2 from the other ships and preferably on the other side of a couple of asteroids. Wedge approaches slowly while the E-wing and A-wings play aggressively, hoping for early-game shots to strip shields and set things up for crits once Wedge enters the fray. The other advantage of holding Wedge back is that you can afford to wait a moment to set up his true approach, so as to maximize his opportunities to attack while your opponent handles the slashing attack from your faster ships.

Of course no plan survives first contact with the enemy, but that's the kind of thing I like to do with X-wings.

4 Gsp's with proton rockets and Push. If you can get them into range 1 with a TL+Focus then you will kill things. I don't think any ship is gonna survive 20 red dice.

FYI, the Regionals thread now tracks "effectiveness" as well, which takes into account how often squads make it to the top tables vs how well they then further progress. As Vorpal says, it doesn't tell you everything because you don't know the opponent strength, but it is a starting point.

In general, I would recommend trying out a 5+ rebel ship build. More ships is better, and that archetype has done well when it appears at top tables.

By far the most cost efficient generic pilots are Z-95s and B-wings. Generic X-wings have really taken a back seat, and this shows in both the MathWing, and the Regional results - particularly their effectiveness, not just their appearance rate.

Okay, because I love this list--it's not always successful, but it's always fun--I'm just going to throw it up (without a lot of explanation, because I'm on my way out the door).

Jan Ors (25)

Decoy (2)

Ion Cannon Turret (5)

Nien Nunb (1)

Green Squadron Pilot (19)

Squad Leader (2)

Chardaan Refit (-2)

Blue Squadron Pilot (22)

Fire-Control System (2)

Blue Squadron Pilot (22)

Fire-Control System (2)

Total: 100

Thinking about:

Roark Garnet + Ion Turret + Intelligence Agent

Corran Horn + Predator and Advanced Sensors

Ibitsam + Predator and Advanced Sensors

Then just cruise around lol'ing at the phantoms who are too scared to come near them.

Thinking about:

Roark Garnet + Ion Turret + Intelligence Agent

Corran Horn + Predator and Advanced Sensors

Ibitsam + Predator and Advanced Sensors

Then just cruise around lol'ing at the phantoms who are too scared to come near them.

One of the guys locally plays something very close to it. I played a few games against him with Whisper + 5 Ties. Didn't end well. Guys, you overestimate the capability of shooting first against the phantom, when the most important thing is MOVING after him. If you can get him into arc, or stop him from shooting, you are golden.

Also the list has a lot of troubles against other stuff, like swarmy lists, or high HP lists due to the lack of firepower.

Thinking about:

Roark Garnet + Ion Turret + Intelligence Agent

Corran Horn + Predator and Advanced Sensors

Ibitsam + Predator and Advanced Sensors

Then just cruise around lol'ing at the phantoms who are too scared to come near them.

One Ion Cannon isn't going to make a Phantom quiver in its boots. You are going 3 dice against likely his 4, and even if you do hit, Decloak can help mitigate that lack of movement options. There's also the option to stay cloaked and turtle up instead. If you want a Phantom to be scared of Ion you need to Stress it also.

Okay, because I love this list--it's not always successful, but it's always fun--I'm just going to throw it up (without a lot of explanation, because I'm on my way out the door).

Jan Ors (25)

Decoy (2)

Ion Cannon Turret (5)

Nien Nunb (1)

Green Squadron Pilot (19)

Squad Leader (2)

Chardaan Refit (-2)

Blue Squadron Pilot (22)

Fire-Control System (2)

Blue Squadron Pilot (22)

Fire-Control System (2)

Total: 100

While I know that the OP mentioned that he doesn't want Z-95's, last week I came up with a list that's similar to Vorpal's and so far I'm 3-0 with it.

Blue Squadron Pilot (22)

Bandit Squadron Pilot (12)

Wedge + predator (32)

Ors + recon specialist + blaster turret + swarm tactics (34)

I usually fly the B and Z in front of the HWK in formation straight up one side of the asteroid field while Wedge starts slow in the corner at 45 degrees to keep options open. People are terrified of Wedge getting into range 1 with 5 attack dice but if they go for Wedge first then the HWK really shines with its buffs in the long run, and if they go for the HWK first then they have to make sure they can withstand Wedge coming in from the flank. If I were to play in a tournament I'd consider putting VI on Ors instead of swarm tactics and maybe upgrade the bandit to a tala.

Ors' effect also makes the Z-95 shoot like an X-Wing so that might make it more acceptable to the OP. I had fun today when attacking Mauler Mithel with 4 dice (with a bandit!) right after he did the same to finish off my B-Wing =).

I've been having some fun/luck with

B-wing + FCS + HLC x2

Bandit z95 x4

Block/deny actions with the Z's while keeping the B's in range 2-3 for the HLC damage.

Would a swarm of z95s work?