I'm going to remove the House Rules entirely for simplicity, and replace it with a "Competitive Level" ranking. Some of the older squads especially have not fared as well through the passage of time. And my House Rules need to be updated through wave 7-8, and they rarely get used them anyway.

I hope this doesn't mean removing some of the older lists completely. As someone who is more interested in casual play, those older lists are very nice for options to play some of those ships/pilots even if they aren't very competitive in a tournament type setting. If you are planning to remove them, any possibility that you could put them on a second list, just noting that they are no longer competitive?

I think I'm planning on keeping the older lists, and just assigning them a competitive ranking instead.

I'm specifically thinking of ranking each list on multiple criteria:

• difficulty
• overall competitiveness
• cost efficiency
• firing arc (i.e. turret / auxiliary)
• maneuverability / arc dodging
• pilot skill
• regeneration
• control / utility
• alpha strike

Each category will be assigned a score between 1-5, and it will be visually represented for an "at a glance" overview. I can do it on one line, with each category pictorially represented by a "symbol" that is also color-coded according to its score.

I.e. maneuverability is represented by the boost icon, cost efficiency by a currency symbol, firing arc the turret icon, alpha strike by a torpedo, etc. Maybe for overall competitiveness I can use a mini-icon of Paul Heaver.

Sounds Epic!

Majorjuggler:

Why haven't you considered doing a tiering system by pilot cards, instead of trying to do it by the constantly fluctuating current lists? It would be easier to maintain, and could even be automated somewhat if linked into the "Tournament result" tracking on your website.

A simple paragraph on each pilot, with a section listing common configurations, would be all it takes, and the process of kicking pilots up and down tiers could be done via usage stats from your listing - and individual pilot entries would only have to be changed when upgrade cards come out which affect that individual pilot, like how all ordnance carriers' stock have risen since the release of Guidance Chips.

Something like:

RANK S

Soontir Fel (TIE Interceptor)

Push The Limit, Royal Guard Tie, Autothrusters, Stealth Device (35)

Push The Limit, Royal Guard Tie, Autothrusters, Targeting Computer (34)

Soontir Fel turns Stress from a downside to an upside, gaining a free Focus for each Stress. This matches perfectly with Push The Limit, giving him three actions a turn for the 'downside' of one Stress, which when matched with Boost/Barrel Roll and the greens on a TIE/IN dial is hardly a downside at all. Combined with being one of six naturally PS9 pilots, he's a strong choice as an Imperial Ace. His (minimal) downsides are reliance on Agility dice and arc dodging for defense, and that his configuration is inflexible with PTL and AT being requirements, not options.

Or

RANK B

Omicron Group Pilot (Lambda Shuttle)

Emperor Palpatine (29)

The Omicron Group Pilot excels at being a cheap Crew carrier, with its usual job these days carrying Emperor Palpatine as its sole upgrade to provide dice modification for Imperial Lists. While there is a lot of flexibility and open slots on the OGP (two crew also gives it more than just Palpshuttle possibilities, Engine Upgrade/Electronic Baffle for maneuverability, HLC/Mangler for offense, Sensor Jammer or Reinforced Deflectors for defense), it also has a lot of downsides. Agility 1 and 10 HP on a large base is not impressively durable, its dial is legendarily horrific, and PS2 leaves it shooting almost last and vulnerable to Predator. It's a fine support ship in a squadron, but by itself struggles to keep opponents in arc or keep itself alive.

I mean, I'm sure you're familiar with tiering lists, but a quick summary: Rank SS is for broken pieces, Rank S is for stuff is almost always good, Rank A is for stuff that's usually good but has weaknesses, Rank B is for stuff that helps as part of a team but has serious problems by itself, Rank C is for classically useless units that have very niche roles at best, and some people add a Rank F for "Fix This Devs, Seriously."

I've been considering spending some time on this m'self lately, probably starting a tier discussion on each ship in one faction, then moving it to a broader faction tier, and once one faction is done moving to the next, and THEN merging all three faction tiers into a single overall tier that could be moved around.

The main problem I've been having with it is, where does the list end up once it's created? I own no website space and certainly couldn't afford it - even if I am in an on-call position that gives me free time to write these up at the moment.

Majorjuggler:

Why haven't you considered doing a tiering system by pilot cards, instead of trying to do it by the constantly fluctuating current lists? It would be easier to maintain, and could even be automated somewhat if linked into the "Tournament result" tracking on your website.

FYI the ListJuggler website is operated by sozin, I was merely the inspiration for the name.

What you describe is really doing a review of every single pilot in the game, with common loadouts. This is basically the work that I did over in this thread . It's a more rigorous approach and therefore is more easily defendable than, say, a popular vote. That said, there's still several major holes in the public analysis, so it's generally most useful as a comparison between different generic pilots, without any fancy abilities.

I'm now internally onto version 3 of the analysis (that thread is version 2), which is significantly different under the hood. However for reasons posted on that thread and elsewhere, I have intentionally decided not to post the v3.0 methodology or even the results. The executive summary is that with v3.0+, the problem of designing balanced ships with a wide range of capabilities is essentially "solved", and I have no intention of giving FFG this IP for free.

That leaves this thread here, which I do still plan on occasionally updating. I recognize that I'm overdue for some updates. As far as ranking individual pilots is concerned, you should still be able to get an accurate sense for which pilots are good based on how often they appear and how their respective squads rank (in the next version anyway).

Hey guys, I'm a web developer and a big fan of Nova Squadron Radio. I'm happy to provide webspace and web app development if you want to make a database driven information repository.

Is Han Shoots First still a competitive build? I'm working on a tight gaming budget and only need a partner of ships to be able to do that build. What changes would you make to in it 2016?

Is Han Shoots First still a competitive build? I'm working on a tight gaming budget and only need a partner of ships to be able to do that build. What changes would you make to in it 2016?

Fat han will struggle vs tripple jumpmasters, crack swarms, 4xTLT and x7 defenders. I would give it about equal footing vs Imperial aces and 2 x Lothal+y. So, in todays meta it is not a particularily strong arcehtype. Not much that can be done to change this with the availible upgrades. With your choice of supportship(s) you could get a leg up on one or two of the meta-lists, but hardly all.

All that said, it's still pretty solid. Just don't expect to win any bigger or more competative tournaments.

I just started playing this game a week ago and I found this list when looking to build a more competitive squad for my local gaming store. However, this list of squads looks terribly outdated. I'm not even seeing lists with T-70 X-Wings, or FO TIE fighters... is there a more up to date repository that I can go by?

I love this.

I printed this and two other guides. I'm not in to squad building and prefer something prebuilt. I can had the book to a player and say pick one. If it is a new player I can easily pick a squad from a side I don't often play.

MJ said he would update this without house rules, rather saying how competitive and difficult was it.

I am definitely looking forward to the new one, through Wave IX hopefully. I'm good with that.

I just started playing this game a week ago and I found this list when looking to build a more competitive squad for my local gaming store. However, this list of squads looks terribly outdated. I'm not even seeing lists with T-70 X-Wings, or FO TIE fighters... is there a more up to date repository that I can go by?

Yeah, basically... consider this thing dead for right now. It's way too out of date - it's current as of Wave 6 almost two years ago! No Palpaces, no Rebel Regen, no Dengaroo, no Double VCX, no Imp 4-Ship, no Triple Defenders, no updated Biggs Walks the Line, no K-Wings, no Party Bus...

It's an interesting snapshot of where lists were at that time, but for right now it's awful.

I was, at one point, working on a tier list of pilots (what's good, what's bad, what's barely average) based on tournament Top 8 placing to help new players separate wheat from chaff, but too many people started to complain so I pretty much shrugged and gave up - I didn't need hate for saying truths like Echo is worse than Whisper.

Unless you are talking about tournament play I definitely would not consider this dead or even awful just because it don't have current ship.

There are some fun builds in there even without the house rules.

If you are talking competitive over casual, then sure. You may want something up to date. But as I said, I use this and a couple others, one of which is far out of date but still fun.

I just started playing this game a week ago and I found this list when looking to build a more competitive squad for my local gaming store. However, this list of squads looks terribly outdated. I'm not even seeing lists with T-70 X-Wings, or FO TIE fighters... is there a more up to date repository that I can go by?

Yeah, basically... consider this thing dead for right now. It's way too out of date - it's current as of Wave 6 almost two years ago! No Palpaces, no Rebel Regen, no Dengaroo, no Double VCX, no Imp 4-Ship, no Triple Defenders, no updated Biggs Walks the Line, no K-Wings, no Party Bus...

It's an interesting snapshot of where lists were at that time, but for right now it's awful.

I was, at one point, working on a tier list of pilots (what's good, what's bad, what's barely average) based on tournament Top 8 placing to help new players separate wheat from chaff, but too many people started to complain so I pretty much shrugged and gave up - I didn't need hate for saying truths like Echo is worse than Whisper.

Ok, good to know. Is there another repository somewhere that keeps up with tourney lists so that I can look at them for ideas. Looking at this PDF, I want to play a rebel X-Wing aces list with the new characters, or even an Ace with some B Wings. There are people like me who won't have all the baggage of the first 9 waves, and we won't really care if you say that Echo is worse than Whisper. So your effort at creating a new list wouldn't be wasted on us newcomers at all. We'd appreciate it.

Unless you are talking about tournament play I definitely would not consider this dead or even awful just because it don't have current ship.

There are some fun builds in there even without the house rules.

If you are talking competitive over casual, then sure. You may want something up to date. But as I said, I use this and a couple others, one of which is far out of date but still fun.

I know what you're saying, and I agree that these lists aren't dead for casual play, however, my local gaming store is ultra competitive in every game whether it's 40K, Warmahordes or X-Wing so if you bring an 8 Academy Pilot TIE swarm then you'll literally get laughed at with "That's an antique list you got there" and then they'll mercilessly crush you. That's why I'm looking for something more up to date and competitive, but yeah you're right, there's still some fun lists in this file for sure like the TIE advanced with Vader.

Here is a good list of current builds and tournaments.

http://xwing.miniranker.com/

[Edit]

You can choose your favorite ship and look for squads, if available, or just see the top 100 squads.

Even check the tournaments and see that squads that played and won there.

It's supposed to be a competitive listing, though, and fails on that account.

Actually, Hourglass, 8 TIES is still surprisingly competitive, it's just exhausting to play - and has evolved somewhat with the addition of Youngster. Brobots is still a thing. Vader is (with the TIE/x1 Title) a serious threat to this day. Biggs was (until VERY recently) a mandatory part of Rebel squads. So some components of the listing are still accurate, but the mechanics ...

As far as where to start building Rebels, there's a thread in this section about "Return of Rebel Regen" which talks about a lot of key pieces that Rebs have. Two of them (R2-D2 and Miranda Donei) aren't hard to get.

I'm glad this still sees some interest!

And yes it is out of date, and I do want to update it without House Rules, instead adding indicators for how competitive each list is. With Worlds right around this corner, the next few weeks would be an ideal time to finally get around to updating it again. I just have a lot of things in my queue right now. In roughly ascending order of required time commitment:

• Update this Guide
• Finish writing an applied mathematics article based on balancing combat in gaming systems
• Overhaul next version of MathWing to make it more modular and scalable
• Finish designing and developing my own game for fun
• Design my own powered home theater speakers
• Determine business viability of starting a HiFi home theater company

Finishing the Guide should probably only take a couple of weeks, so I should work on that first.

I'm glad this still sees some interest!

And yes it is out of date, and I do want to update it without House Rules, instead adding indicators for how competitive each list is. With Worlds right around this corner, the next few weeks would be an ideal time to finally get around to updating it again. I just have a lot of things in my queue right now. In roughly ascending order of required time commitment:

• Update this Guide
• Finish writing an applied mathematics article based on balancing combat in gaming systems
• Overhaul next version of MathWing to make it more modular and scalable
• Finish designing and developing my own game for fun
• Design my own powered home theater speakers
• Determine business viability of starting a HiFi home theater company

Finishing the Guide should probably only take a couple of weeks, so I should work on that first.

I would be interested in seeing the updated version, especially with the changes.

Please keep the difficulty rating if possible. I have handed this to newer players and let them pick their own squad so the difficulty rating is extremely helpful. I do think how competitive it is would be an awesome addition.

Very excited to see the next version.

Thank you for your work.

Yes thank you indeed ! It shows straight away to any new player the great diversity And complexity of the game

I'm just getting into X-wing. I found this guide through reddit and found it to be extremely helpful.

I'm trying to build some "duel decks" aka at least somewhat balanced teams for my family to use during our game nights. None of us has any interest in the team building side of this game. I don't care if the lists are tournament worthy. It's just for casual, balanced, thematic play at home. We just want to pick teams and go.

Does anyone know if this guide has been updated to current times anywhere on the web?

I'm mostly interested in original trilogy stuff (maybe including Rogue One), so bonus points if someone knows of a guide like this featuring original era expansions only.

Thanks for the guide, and thanks in advance for any replies!

Have you considered updating? Would be very interested.

The "List of useful links" states that this is outdated but i say its not really. I just used the fat han (with a few modifications because i don't have all the cards and just salted to taste) and just a thrown together hwk 90 (nothing from this list just something i threw together once again to my liking) against my brother's ghost/attack shuttle squad and honestly stomped him in our first few games. I simply looked at this as a "Here's a starting point to make your own squad" something to inspire builds of individual ships or mix and matched squads. I'm literally only 3 games in and this list has given me a jumping off point to help start making my own custom squadrons and make it a little less overwhelming.

It is for that reason and the fact that i couldn't find a current or updated list that would make this one oudated that i say that the "list of useful links" has this named incorrectly

oh and thanks for helping me crush my brother! bwuhahaha (i casually enjoy star wars movies, hes a mega fan so extra humiliating!)

On 11/27/2017 at 1:02 PM, StandingBy said:

I'm just getting into X-wing. I found this guide through reddit and found it to be extremely helpful.

I'm trying to build some "duel decks" aka at least somewhat balanced teams for my family to use during our game nights. None of us has any interest in the team building side of this game. I don't care if the lists are tournament worthy. It's just for casual, balanced, thematic play at home. We just want to pick teams and go.

Does anyone know if this guide has been updated to current times anywhere on the web?

I'm mostly interested in original trilogy stuff (maybe including Rogue One), so bonus points if someone knows of a guide like this featuring original era expansions only.

Thanks for the guide, and thanks in advance for any replies!

Hmm, to my knowledge no it hasnt been updated and im unaware of any other comprehensive lists, that being said i do believe (with this list being as old as it is) this should only have original era ships (predating the force awakens) And this list should fulfill your needs in regards to specific era ships and sticking to the medium and lower difficulty squads should help keep things balanced for "duel deck" builds however Thematic play would require more of a customization approach on your part. That being said the core and expansion sets come with mission booklets that have squad build suggestions for each mission allowing for thematic play (PLEASE correct me if im wrong!) and if I'm wrong then simply avoid the First Order and Resistance ships and only use the Galactic Empire and Rebellion ships.

My knowledge of star wars ships is limited but seeing as episodes 4,5,and 6 (original trilogy) and episodes 1, 2, and 3 occurred within a short time span the ships should be relatively unchanged and you should be fine, buying guide is simple: buy only red labled ships and expansions, avoid blue labled ships and expansions. The blue labled ships are from The Force Awakens movie and as such belong to the First Order and Resistance sub groups and feature new ships not in the original trilogy as well as newer models of older ships such as TIE/fo fighters and T-70 X-Wing (the x-wings in the original trilogy were the T-65 model) with newer technology their older counterparts didn't have stock (and require upgrades to get) to represent the passage of time. (Much the same way as modern cars come with many things stock that older cars buyers had to pay extra for) If you are trying to avoid ships from episodes 1, 2, and 3 you're going to have a hard time as in general ship models don't die out, and as such ships featured in episodes 1, 2, and 3 will appear in episodes 4, 5, and 6 as they are a prequel to the original trilogy and the time span between the two is less than the lifespan of most ship models and some ship models have been in production for more than a century And many ships are used long after they are out of production.

P.S. After a few games your family will probably want to modify the ships in the squads or even change ships in and out of the squad to suit their personal tastes and strategies and as long as they are around the same points value squads are generally balanced, it depends more on the skill of the player and what strategies they use vs the individual squad build.

Thanks, I appreciate the help!

Would love to know if there has been any movement on an update as well. I am trying to teach new players and these squad lists with the details and explanations are incredible.

This is incredibly useful!

Great work, and thanks. A lot of hard work has gone into this.