Prince Xizor is an interesting pilot. His Highness' ability is outstanding at face value, but any further examination reveals a serious flaw.

His Grace can shunt hits that are not cancelled to his faithful companions. Combined with a bulky, inexpensive, and loyal companion such as the Syndicate Thug, this is a potent combo. You use His Excellency's three defense dice to cancel results, and hits that are not cancelled are absorbed by his true and loyal companion, the Syndicate Thug.

However, this assumes that the enemy will have the gall to target His Royalness, instead of focusing their attacks on his companion. Instead of His Grace's three defense dice, the Syndicate Thug is now protected by one defense dice, and will surely be destroyed.

How can the Noble and Just Prince Xizor make use of his ability, if the enemy is given an obvious route to counteract it?

The answer is that His Worshipfulness must exploit the enemy's reluctance to target him directly and punish them for it. His Highness' ability alters the natural target priorities of the enemy, and this is the effect that we must exploit to truly unlock His Highness' power.

We must turn His Grace into a monster.

By over-powering his Highness through upgrades, we can punish the enemy for attacking the Prince's companions instead of him. The key is to turn Prince Xizor into a threat that should not be ignored - because the enemy cannot efficiently focus him down.

His Highness could be made into an early or late-game threat. Here are two examples:

Early Game Threat:

Here, His Worship is outfitted as a super-maneuverable late game killer. The effectiveness of a very similar setup, for IG-88D has been explored by SableGriffon.

Here, His Grace is supported by his faithful Syndicate Thug companion, and the deadly Boba Fett.

In both cases, the lists exploit the inability of the enemy to effectively directly address His Highness Prince Xizor. They must either waste their fire directly attacking Prince Xizor, or waste it attacking his companion directly. In either case, His Highness is afforded protection. By avoiding enemy fire, His Grace can either deliver a punishing blow early on, or survive to the late game where His domination will be complete.

I wish I didn't hate the way that ship looked quite so much

I'm not convinced that Xizor has to be that bulked up to be un-ignorable, and MW revitalises Y-wings so well that running him with 2-3 of them should be viable, which mitigates a lot of the target selection as Xizor is pure murder even with limited upgrades.

Give him HLC. Easiest way to get him shot.

Ignore me!

yeah, this is true of the entire slate of S&V - I think they just look stupid. :/

I'm just going to go ahead and get this started - the StarViper and Aggressor are prettier than the X-wing and Firespray respectively.

Back to the actual topic at hand: I wonder if you'd be better off running him with an Ion Torpedo over APT. Sure, you lose damage output directly, but it makes your opponent stop bunching so he has more trouble focusing any one ship down, and the more spread out the enemy is vs. any Xizor list, the better.

I'm not convinced that Xizor has to be that bulked up to be un-ignorable, and MW revitalises Y-wings so well that running him with 2-3 of them should be viable, which mitigates a lot of the target selection as Xizor is pure murder even with limited upgrades.

I think that running more Y's with him would be fine, but the naked Thug is the most cost-effective damage sponge to follow Prince Xizor around.

As for bulking up Prince Xizor, I think that he screams for lots of upgrades. Normally ships loaded up like this don't see play because they are focused down. But the shift in target priority give His Highness protection from being focused down the same way. That means that he can survive long enough to make good on the upgrades.

Without upgrades increasing lethality, His Grace's ability is wasted. The specific upgrades that make Him a threat are of course variable, but we should feel comfortable spending more on Him than we normally would on other ships.

As if I needed an excuse to run Starvipers, Prince Xizor's ability is great. And I happen to think S&V is by far the prettiest faction, especially the Starviper.

Actually, maybe not by far, a lot of the Imp and Rebel ships are gorgeous, I just really like the general aesthetic of Scum. And the Starviper.

Never did get that Starviper toy I always wanted as a child.

...I think I might be a bit obsessed with Starvipers. Even moreso than using Slave 1 in every Imperial list I run or fielding every A-Wing and B-Wing I can with any other Rebel ships.

Don't know if they trumpt he Defender as my favourite starfighter, really I only know them aesthetically, but I do like their statline and abilities and upgrades we've seen so far in X-Wing.

I'm not convinced that Xizor has to be that bulked up to be un-ignorable, and MW revitalises Y-wings so well that running him with 2-3 of them should be viable, which mitigates a lot of the target selection as Xizor is pure murder even with limited upgrades.

I think that running more Y's with him would be fine, but the naked Thug is the most cost-effective damage sponge to follow Prince Xizor around.

As for bulking up Prince Xizor, I think that he screams for lots of upgrades. Normally ships loaded up like this don't see play because they are focused down. But the shift in target priority give His Highness protection from being focused down the same way. That means that he can survive long enough to make good on the upgrades.

Without upgrades increasing lethality, His Grace's ability is wasted. The specific upgrades that make Him a threat are of course variable, but we should feel comfortable spending more on Him than we normally would on other ships.

I'd probably run Thugs with Unhinged Astromech, just so they can keep up with Xizor, but yeah, they're definitely the best sponge choice. First build that comes to mind for that Thug variant is your first Xizor build with IonTorp instead of APT

The conundrum in not shooting at him is you leave an agile, high attack ship on the table that will be difficult to defeat in the late game for many squads.

I don't see a problem if the opponent decides that his ability makes him a worse target than attacking the Thugs directly. At that point, the Thugs are basically acting like Biggs. Xizor goes from redirecting a single damage to the Y-Wing to redirecting all damage to the Y-Wing. If they roll three hits and Xizor rolls blanks, he'd take two damage. If they attack the Y-Wing, he takes zero while dealing way more damage.

Essentially he can roll into range 1 and get a 4 dice attack and ignore the bonus dice coming back at him (because that potential hit is shifted to a mook). If you keep his meat shields behind him they will be at range 2.

You just need to look at the power of Biggs to see that his ability is great. The major difference is that that Biggs can protect anyone but tends to die fast. You do need to make Xizor a threat to capitalise on your opponents ability to deal with him, but at 3/4 attack dice that is not difficult for him to be a significant threat.

I posted a theoretical build called "Enter Sandman" awhile back before we knew as much about S&V...time to revisit?

I'm still assuming near interceptor (Ewing-ish) dial with the addition of the S-loop. I think the trouble is going to be keeping the ship you want near enough to him. Still waiting on the Syck. Xizor + Serrisu to buff whomever is getting shot makes for two higher PS ace "interceptors" with points left over for at least 2-3 more ships and reasonable upgrades.

I'm eagerly awaiting when we know more about the ship and what Guri is capable of. Also, since we know the effect of Bodyguard(grant an extra evade to ships of higher PS near you) we can assume she also has something crafty going for her with Xizor in mind. For now, I agree that Xizor should be run to look like the thing you want to kill first.

Wasn't there some card that lowered your agility but made your attack rolls go up by one? Maybe that's a good idea! ;3

I'm eagerly awaiting when we know more about the ship and what Guri is capable of. Also, since we know the effect of Bodyguard(grant an extra evade to ships of higher PS near you) we can assume she also has something crafty going for her with Xizor in mind. For now, I agree that Xizor should be run to look like the thing you want to kill first.

Wasn't there some card that lowered your agility but made your attack rolls go up by one? Maybe that's a good idea! ;3

Tuesday preview, maybe?

Expose on Xizor would be suicide if he was targeted, though. You want as many layers on him as possible to ensure letting no more than a single hit through, he's not all that tough physically especially if he takes a crit too many.

He's already 3 atk so it's not like your opponent can just ignore him- even naked he can bring some pain. Predator and Outmaneuver seem like a good fit. Also potentially give Xizor Bodyguard, and his bodyguard Decoy for some agility boosting shenanigans...

Give him HLC. Easiest way to get him shot.

Ignore me!

Crap didn't Star Lord kill this jerk!?

He's certainly on my radar. I would like to know more ASAP about both star viper and Scyck. Way less interested in IG-2000 but know it will be a powerful ship.

I don't see a problem if the opponent decides that his ability makes him a worse target than attacking the Thugs directly. At that point, the Thugs are basically acting like Biggs. Xizor goes from redirecting a single damage to the Y-Wing to redirecting all damage to the Y-Wing. If they roll three hits and Xizor rolls blanks, he'd take two damage. If they attack the Y-Wing, he takes zero while dealing way more damage.

The thing is that the ideal situation is that dice are thrown at Prince Xizor, he cancels results, and a good portion of what gets through you pawn off on his pals. It's like you have a 3 agility ship with the bulk of a Y wing. The problem is that most people would rather just shoot the y wing than shoot at His Highness, and see hits canceled or sent to his buddy. Which is OK, but not ideal I think. It's best if His Grace is such a big threat that people take the bad bet and shoot at The Prince.

I'm going to be trying out this list at my local game store, should be quite fun even when expecting tractor Ds.

His Highness (40)

- •Virago

- Advanced Sensors

- Push the limit

- Autothrusters

Syndicate buddy (20) x3

- Autoblaster Turret

But seriously, that looks like a solid list.

oi oi

I've been repeating this for as long as Xizor's been spoiled not even out

IF Xizor's ability means he's not being targeted it means you've replaced it WITH THE VASTLY SUPERIOR INVERSE-BIGGS ABILITY

your opponent is counteracting it, he's actually playing right into your hands

literally all you have to do to use it well is to be aggressive

and Ys are competent (As opposed to Zs ), but what you really want are jm5ks. They get **** done

What is this necromancy?

they really need to make the dates more prominent

opps

I'm going to be trying out this list at my local game store, should be quite fun even when expecting tractor Ds.

His Highness (40)

- •Virago

- Advanced Sensors

- Push the limit

- Autothrusters

Syndicate buddy (20) x3

- Autoblaster Turret

Good hunting! Not where you dug up this old fossil, but hopefully it does you some good. I'd been flying a variant of this list recently that replaced the Y-wings with Z's with feedback arrays in the vassal league and doing all right with it. Watch out for alpha strike lists that can punch through Xizor's defenses on the first pass, though.