I haven't been on here much of late since I started my new job but I played this list last Sunday for 2 victories that were very sound.
List is as follows;
Ten Numb
-B-wing E2
-Jan Ors
-Fire Control System
-Marksmanship
Dagger Squadron
-B-wing E2
-Recon Specialist
-Fire Control System
Dagger Squadron
-B-wing E2
-Recon Specialist
-Fire Control System
It worked extremely well against an AZZYX list as well as a shuttle double defender stress ion list.
Ten looks a little swarm-vulnerable and Jan is once per round. Other than it's pretty neat.
How do you mean swarm vulnerable? No criticalness meant just don't follow your meaning.
I realized that Jan was only once per round but after playing it I don't really use it too much after the initial encounter when I forced my opponent to choose between the closer B-wing or the range 3 B-wing with double focus.
I would reconsider Recon specialist on the daggers. The B-wing likes focus tokens for attack dice, since it gets 3 of them, and there's plenty of chances for an eyeball to come up. But there's not a good chance you'll see an eyeball on your defense dice (2/8 chances if I remember right). So the extra focus die has a good chance of going to waste, which is not good because you're paying 4 points for it.
I suggest looking at other crew. Dash Rendar, Solo, Lando, tactician, Intel Agent... there is a long list of good B-wing crew. But Recon specialist is not a good fit, I think.
How do you mean swarm vulnerable? No criticalness meant just don't follow your meaning.
I realized that Jan was only once per round but after playing it I don't really use it too much after the initial encounter when I forced my opponent to choose between the closer B-wing or the range 3 B-wing with double focus.
Having 3 x 1 agility ships that are somewhat reliant on getting their actions is pretty bad vs. a swarm typically. I say typically because Dice are ficle but usually that fights going to end badly for the B-Wings.
I gotcha now. I was worried going against the AZZYX team but he just couldn't get enough into my bwings to kill them. In both games I lost a Dagger mid game.
I would reconsider Recon specialist on the daggers. The B-wing likes focus tokens for attack dice, since it gets 3 of them, and there's plenty of chances for an eyeball to come up. But there's not a good chance you'll see an eyeball on your defense dice (2/8 chances if I remember right). So the extra focus die has a good chance of going to waste, which is not good because you're paying 4 points for it.
I suggest looking at other crew. Dash Rendar, Solo, Lando, tactician, Intel Agent... there is a long list of good B-wing crew. But Recon specialist is not a good fit, I think.
One of the big points behind Recon Specialist here is getting a double evade at a key point on one of the Daggers. I agree it's less useful for defense however I ran into the situation of overkill. I almost always got a target lock and focus for every attack roll on the Daggers and the most shots any one ship received was 4. Which was his A wing naturally, the game came down to Ten Numb and a Dagger chasing a certain PS5 A-wing pilot around for 7 rounds.
Howlrunner Swarm will put a lot more hurt on than random mix rebel swarm so thats a totally different matchup.
Secondly Im pretty sure that even with recspec you still only get 1 focus 1 evade with jan, not 2 evade.
Howlrunner Swarm will put a lot more hurt on than random mix rebel swarm so thats a totally different matchup.
Secondly Im pretty sure that even with recspec you still only get 1 focus 1 evade with jan, not 2 evade.
Right; but focus+evade is really quite good for a b wing. Jan is once per turn, so maybe just one recon specialist would be better.
Howlrunner Swarm will put a lot more hurt on than random mix rebel swarm so thats a totally different matchup.
Secondly Im pretty sure that even with recspec you still only get 1 focus 1 evade with jan, not 2 evade.
And yes, I would expect this list to crumble before a Howlrunner Swarm or even a Z 95 swarm. I have the advantage of knowing nobody locally has the ability to run either, nonetheless I would relish a chance against both with this.
Edit; Babaganoosh, I actually had a couple moments were I regretted not doing Evade/Focus as it would have meant killing a target sooner over double Evade
Edited by Dagger SquadronFAQ not out on Rebel Aces yet.
After rereading Recspec and Jan it seems pretty clear, Recspec is a separate ability that assigns you a focus token whereas Jan is a replacement effect so only 1 evade and 1 focus not 2 evade.
The part that makes me question the absolution of it is the word assign. I feel it needs clarification by the powers that be however I am inclined to agree with you that since Jan states once per round and Recon Specialist is worded as an additional focus is assigned.
I knew I should have paid more attention in English....
I would reconsider Recon specialist on the daggers. The B-wing likes focus tokens for attack dice, since it gets 3 of them, and there's plenty of chances for an eyeball to come up. But there's not a good chance you'll see an eyeball on your defense dice (2/8 chances if I remember right). So the extra focus die has a good chance of going to waste, which is not good because you're paying 4 points for it.
I see this thought bandying about quite a bit. Typically posited as "Focus is useless on B-wings for defence", only it really isn't. Yes, the probability of the focus converting a focus to an evade on any single roll is low, however, the B-wing also has a lot of health so takes more shots than many other ships. So low probability x many opportunities, is approximately similar to high probability x few opportunities (bear in mind this is a gross oversimplification). In fact by successfully converting the times you do roll a focus to an evade you extend your survivability even more by increasing the number shots you have to take to be destroyed.
Compare the cost of recon spec (+1) and hull/shield upgrades and the recon spec might actually come out ahead (to be fair the variance will be much higher than those options). The combo with Jan Ors certainly helps out by removing the randomness of it, and still giving you the offensive boost.
That seems to be what I've experienced with the list. It makes any one ship just that much harder to kill and any way you slice it the B-Wing's get three actions worth of tokens out of one action.
Two weeks ago my opponent ran Farlander with push the Limit and Kyle Katarn. I think I finally chewed through his shields by the time he finished off the XXBB list I was using.