Ok, first off I apologise that this might be a wall of text.

I’m going into my first store Tournament in a few weeks and I’m having real trouble deciding what list to take. This is becuase its the first X-wing tournament held at our local store so there isn’t an established meta to influence me as far as what I’ll be facing.

My collection is listed in my sig so please keep this list in mind if you suggest any changes.

Here are the squadrons I’ve come up with so far:

Bounty Hunters
36 Krassis Trellix* (Firespray)
5 Gunner
4 Shield Upgrade
7 Heavy Laser Cannon

38 Kath Scarlet* (Firespray)
5 Gunner
4 Shield Upgrade
1 Determination

Basically these are the only Imperial ships I own, and that’s only because I want them for my Scum faction. I also have a soft spot for large base ships (as you’ll see) and thought this might be a bit of a curve ball to throw at the tournament.

Pair of Pancakes
42 Chewbacca* (YT1300)
1 Nien Numb*
1 Millennium Falcon*
3 Kyle Katarn

34 "Leebo"* (YT2400)
5 Outrider*
7 Heavy Laser Cannon
3 Proton Rockets
1 Determination
3 Recon Specialist

Mainly because I have a soft spot for Freighters and Scum, but also because these are some of my favourite characters and ships.

Falcon and A-wings
44 Lando Calrissian* (YT1300)
1 Nien Numb*
1 Millennium Falcon*
1 Veteran Instincts
4 Shield Upgrade

26 Tycho Selchu* (A-wing)
-2 Chardaan Refit
3 Push the limit

24 Jake Farrell* (A-wing)
-2 Chardaan Refit

I thought the mix of the though YT and the fast and nimble A-wings would give a balanced list

Falcon and Z95’s
44 Lando Calrissian* (YT1300)
1 Nien Numb*
1 Millennium Falcon*
1 Veteran Instincts
4 Shield Upgrade

17 Lieutenant Blount* (z95)
5 Assault missile
1 Veteran Instincts
4 Shield Upgrade

19 Airen Cracken* (z95)
3 Stealth Device

A more action economy/firepower focused version of the list above

YT2400 and A-wings
34 "Leebo"* (YT2400)
5 Outrider*
7 Heavy Laser Cannon
3 Proton Rockets
1 Determination
3 Recon Specialist

26 Tycho Selchu* (A-wing)
-2 Chardaan Refit
3 Push the limit

22 Gemmer Sojan* (A-wing)
-2 Chardaan Refit

My first ‘fast’ list, trying to balance speed and firepower

X and 2 Y’s
29 Wedge Antilles* (X-wing)
3 R5-P9*
1 Determination
3 Stealth Device

23 "Dutch" Vander* (Y-wing)
3 R7-T1*
4 Shield Upgrade
5 Ion Cannon Turret

20 Grey Squadron Pilot (Y-wing)
4 Shield Upgrade
4 Blaster Turret
1 R2 Astromech

My first attempt at an all small base list, the idea is the Y’s tank and Wedge covers them

Speed
32 Etahn A'baht* (E-wing)
3 Stealth Device
1 Determination

35 Corran Horn* (E-wing)
2 Fire Control System
3 Stealth Device
4 Expose

22 Gemmer Sojan* (A-wing)
-2 Chardaan Refit

I’m not going to lie, this list only exists because I wanted to fit two E-wings in a list but hate heavily loading small ships.

Mini-swarm
29 Keyan Farlander (B-wing)
1 Determination
1 Bwing E/2
3 Kyle Katarn
3 Advanced Sensors
7 Heavy Laser Cannon

17 Lieutenant Blount* (Z95)
5 Assault missile
2 wingman
4 Shield Upgrade

12 Bandit Squadron Pilot (Z95)
3 Proton Rocket
1 Munitions Failsafe

12 Bandit Squadron Pilot (Z95)

Trying to mix firepower and numbers

Full Swarm
12 Bandit Squadron Pilot (Z95)

12 Bandit Squadron Pilot (Z95)

12 Bandit Squadron Pilot (Z95)

17 Protoype Pilot (A-wing)
-2 Chardaan Refit

17 Protoype Pilot (A-wing)
-2 Chardaan Refit

18 Gold Squadron Pilot (Y-wing)

16 Rebel Operative (Hwk-290)

Quantity having a quality of its own?

So any thoughts would be very welcome.

Regards

Surak

On your first list I'd suggest Recon Specialist & Engine up grades on your firesprays.

Hi SirPickles,

I keep being told to switch from the Shield Upgrade to the engine upgrade, could you shed some light as to the reasoning behind the suggestion? It may be because I'm primarily a Star Trek Attack Wing player but I always try and maximise the survivability of my ships, and an extra Shield seems like a pretty simple way of doing it.

As for Recon Spec over the Gunners, I can see why but I have a feeling I'm going to be dealing with at least 1 TIE swarm, and another list that will be mostly, if not all A-wings, so I thought the Gunner stacked nicely, especially with Kath's stressing abilities.

Regards

Engine upgrade over shield upgrade, because what is better than having extra health to shoot through is not getting shot in the first place.

Bonus points on the firespray because a boost can dramatically effect your fire coverage.

Engine Upgrade lets you dodge some arcs and also helps line up the Firespray's rear arc when you move past them. Generally, if you can dodge a couple of attacks in a match, the Engine Upgrade did more for you than the Shield would have.

Recon Specialist works well on the Firespray (and the YT-2400) because having a focus token on a 2 agility ship lets you avoid some damage.

You may want to consider VI on Kath, that will get her to PS9 which will help a bit in dealing with Phantoms, and will have her moving after a lot of the the popular Outrider and Decimator builds.

And I would probably try to work in Fett over Kath, whose Imperial version I'm not much of a fan of. Fetts better, and if you throw on veteran instincts you can harass Whisper.

More thoughts...

In Full Swarm, the HWK is wasted points. Really needs a turret to do anything.

In 1 X and 2 Ys, I'd drop the Grey Y for Biggs. Used the extra points to get Wedge a better EPT.

Id probably drop stealth devices all around as they tend to be pretty flaky.

Chewie w/ Experimental Interface, Marksmanship, Lando, Nien Numb, MF Title Leebo w/ Determination, HLC, Outrider Title.

They both reduce what damage you take. (Chewie takes no crit damage and Leebo can effectively remove two crits with determination.) They both have good damage output as well.

Ok,

I’ve collected a few of the ideas people have thrown around here and on other forums and updated my lists. It looks like I’ll get some playtest time in on Sunday, so before that point I’m looking to narrow this down to 4 lists. I’ve already dropped the Imperial list as there seems to be a surplus of Imperial players, and my second Firespray is unlikely to arrive in time for the Tourney. Sorry if this is another Wall of Text.

Pair of Pancakes

42 Chewbacca (YT1300)

1 Millennium Falcon*

4 Engine Upgrade

34 "Leebo" (YT2400)

5 Outrider*

7 Heavy Laser Cannon

3 Proton Rockets

1 Determination

3 Recon Specialist

Dropped Nien and Kyle for an Engine Upgrade on the Falcon, otherwise it’s unchanged.

Falcon and A-wings

44 Lando Calrissian (YT1300)

1 Nien Numb*

1 Millennium Falcon*

1 Veteran Instincts

4 Engine Upgrade

26 Tycho Selchu (A-wing)

-2 Chardaan Refit

3 Push the limit

24 Jake Farrell (A-wing)

-2 Chardaan Refit

Only change here is to swap the shield upgrade out for the engine upgrade

Falcon and Z95’s

44 Lando Calrissian (YT1300)

1 Nien Numb*

1 Millennium Falcon*

1 Veteran Instincts

4 Engine Upgrade

17 Lieutenant Blount (Z95)

5 Assault missile

1 Deadeye

4 Engine Upgrade

19 Airen Cracken (Z95)

3 Marksmanship

Ok a few more changes in this one, Shields out for Engines, veteran instincts out for deadeye on Blount (to hopefully allow him to benefit from Crackens extra action), and Stealth Device swapped out for Marksmanship on Cracken

YT2400 and A-wings

34 "Leebo"*

5 Outrider*

7 Heavy Laser Cannon

3 Proton Rockets

1 Determination

3 Recon Specialist

26 Tycho Selchu*

-2 Chardaan Refit

3 Push the limit

22 Gemmer Sojan*

-2 Chardaan Refit

No change on this one – so I’m either happy with it or it’s so fatally flawed that it can’t be saved J

X and 2 Y’s – has now become a Y and 2 X’s

29 Wedge Antilles (X-wing)

3 R5-P9

1 Veteran Instincts

4 Shield Upgrade

23 "Dutch" Vander (Y-wing)

3 R7-T1

4 Shield Upgrade

4 Blaster Turret

4 Proton Torpedoes

20 Garven Dreis (X-wing)

4 Engine Upgrade

1 R2 Astromech

R7-T1 acts as an almost-engine upgrade so I kept the shield upgrade on him, the Proton Torp is a bit of a gamble, but I couldn’t think of another option that didn’t leave points in the wind. I’m also keeping the Shield Upgrade on Wedge to make the most of R5-P9’s shield regeneration ability.

Speed

32 Etahn A'baht (E-wing)

3 Stealth Device

35 Corran Horn (E-wing)

2 Fire Control System

4 Engine Upgrade

22 Gemmer Sojan (A-wing)

-2 Chardaan Refit

4 Engine Upgrade

The quick have become quicker (engine upgrades). I only have 2 engine upgrade cards so Etahn is sticking with the Stealth Device as I would want him hanging back a little anyway.

Mini-swarm

29 Keyan Farlander (Bwing)

3 Push the limit

1 Bwing E/2

3 Kyle Katarn

3 Advanced Sensors

7 Heavy Laser Cannon

19 Airen Cracken Z95

1 Veteran Instincts

13 Tala Squadron Pilot (Z95)

4 Engine Upgrade

13 Tala Squadron Pilot (Z95)

4 Engine Upgrade

Ok this one has seen quite a few changes. Keyan has dropped Determination for PTL, Blount has been swapped for Cracken with VI, and the Bandits have been upgraded to Tala Squadron and given engine upgrades. I’m a little worried it might have issues against a swarm however.

Full Swarm

12 Bandit Squadron Pilot (Z95)

12 Bandit Squadron Pilot (Z95)

12 Bandit Squadron Pilot (Z95)

18 Gold Squadron Pilot (Y-wing)

18 Gold Squadron Pilot (Y-wing)

4 Blaster Turret

22 Blue Squadron Pilot (B-wing)

2 Fire Control System

The Swarm has been tweaked. All of the pilots are now skill 2, the HWK has gone and a Blue Squadron B-wing with a Fire Control System has replaced it. A second Gold Squadron Y-wing with a blaster turret has replaced the 2 A-wings. Hopefully an easier to fly list (all same PS and similar Dials), and hopefully a bit tougher with more firepower (Y’s and B’s over A’s).

As always comments are welcome.

Regards

Surak

I have been playtesting hard my 2Y list, built around the double-ion turret tactic against large base ships, and settled on Wedge as the third ship. I was gratified to see someone else had arrived at the same conclusion.

I plan on posting a new thread devoted to YY(X?) theory soon.

Back with an update…

Ok, so I finally got a practice game in on Sunday night, and I decided to take the mini-swarm lead by Keyan for a spin. My opponent was using a 2 A-wing ( PTL Tycho and PS3) and an E wing (Etahn). The game ended in a win for me by the simple fact that I didn’t lose a ship. Part of this was down to my opponent spreading his fire across my squadron, and part of it was some very lucky rolling from my point of view. The only casualty in the game was his Etahn, which I gunned down in two rounds of fire from Keyan. I nearly killed his PS3 A-wing as well but I couldn’t quite get its last hit point before the clock ran out. In return I took 4 shield damage across the squadron, 3 on Keyan and one on Cracken (which was self-inflicted thanks to an asteroid).

Here is the list I used repeated for simplicity.

Keyan-swarm

29 Keyan Farlander (Bwing)

3 Push the limit

1 Bwing E/2

3 Kyle Katarn

3 Advanced Sensors

7 Heavy Laser Cannon

19 Airen Cracken (Z95)

1 Veteran Instincts

13 Tala Squadron Pilot (Z95)

4 Engine Upgrade

13 Tala Squadron Pilot (Z95)

4 Engine Upgrade

I enjoyed flying this list, though I did find the Z95’s lacking in firepower when it came to dealing with the A-wings, fortunately I managed to neutralise his E-wing quickly enough that he ended up with the same firepower problem.

As a result of the game I have done two things; The first is to make a variant on the Keyan swarm to try and boost its firepower. The second is narrow my original list of squadrons I want to play down to 5. I have listed them below;

Modified Keyan-swarm

29 Keyan Farlander (Bwing)

3 Push the limit

1 Bwing E/2

3 Kyle Katarn

3 Advanced Sensors

7 Heavy Laser Cannon

23 Tarn Mison*

1 R2-D6*

1 Veteran Instincts

19 Airen Cracken (Z95)

5 Assault missile

1 Deadeye

4 Engine Upgrade

Pair of Pancakes

42 Chewbacca (YT1300)

1 Millennium Falcon*

4 Engine Upgrade

34 "Leebo" (YT2400)

5 Outrider*

7 Heavy Laser Cannon

3 Proton Rockets

1 Determination

3 Recon Specialist

Falcon and 2 Z95’s

44 Lando Calrissian (YT1300)

1 Nien Numb*

1 Millennium Falcon*

1 Veteran Instincts

4 Engine Upgrade

17 Lieutenant Blount (Z95)

5 Assault missile

1 Deadeye

4 Engine Upgrade

19 Airen Cracken (Z95)

3 Marksmanship

Speed

32 Etahn A'baht (E-wing)

4 Engine Upgrade

35 Corran Horn (E-wing)

2 Fire Control System

4 Engine Upgrade

22 Gemmer Sojan (A-wing)

-2 Chardaan Refit

3 Stealth Device

I’ve got a few more practice games lined up for this week and this weekend. But obviously feedback would be welcomed.

Regards

I’m back again,

I managed to get two practice games in last night, against two very different lists.

My first opponent had Boba Fett, Night Beast, and a Black Squadron Pilot. Only upgrades that I can remember him using were and Ion Cannon on Fett and Veteren Instincts on the Black Squadron Pilot, but I know he had loaded Fett up quite heavily and the other two were pretty basic.

Against this I ran my Keyan + 3 Z95 list that I used previously;

29 Keyan Farlander (Bwing)

3 Push the limit

1 Bwing E/2

3 Kyle Katarn

3 Advanced Sensors

7 Heavy Laser Cannon

19 Airen Cracken (Z95)

1 Veteran Instincts

13 Tala Squadron Pilot (Z95)

4 Engine Upgrade

13 Tala Squadron Pilot (Z95)

4 Engine Upgrade

This ended up being a very close game, in the end it was decided by 1 point. Cracken spent most of the game out of position due to the Ion cannon, and eventually this lead to his death. One of my Tala squadron pilots was eventually brought down by massed firepower, and the second Tala pilot and Keyan were both down to their last shield when the clock ran out. In return I killed Night Beast and the Obsidion Squadron pilot, but failed to put any damage on Fett. Keyan spent the last 2 turns of the game blocking Fett (mainly thanks to Barrel Roll) while the Z95’s mopped up the TIE’s, but I’ll be honest and say that was a fairly desperate set of moves and if it had gone to another turn I’m pretty sure Fett would have broken free and then I would have been in trouble as I’d singularly failed to put any damage on him.

All in all I’m starting to wonder if Airen Cracken is worth the points in this list, he’s now spent two games, against very different lists, doing basically nothing except providing a target. Keyan and the Tala pilots seem to be doing their jobs very well, although I am wondering if the HLC on Keyan is worth the 7pts.

The second game was a very different game indeed. I was up against another imperial list, but this time it was;

Carnor Jax with a shield upgrade, Rexlar Brath, and Night Beast with a shield upgrade.

Against this I took;

36 Krassis Trellix* (Firespray)

5 Gunner

4 Engine Upgrade

7 Heavy Laser Cannon

38 Boba Fett* (Firespray)

5 Gunner

4 Engine Upgrade

0 Slave 1 (because Fett not being on Slave 1 just doesn’t feel right)

I picked my list before I knew what the opponent was taking, and the main reason I took it is my second firespray had just turned up - about 2 weeks early. The game really didn’t go well; my opponent is a very experienced Imperial player and didn’t pull a wrong move all game, where as I was still learning the Firespray’s dial and as such made several errors in the early turns. This ended up costing me Krassis in the second turn as the entire enemy squadron managed to get him in arc, but kept out of my arcs. Fett managed to hold out for another two turns, being chased around the battlefield by the entire enemy squadron. Eventually my opponent managed to get Carnor Jax into range 1, denying me the evade token and range that had been helping keeping Fett alive, and my opponent secured a clean sweep with no losses to the imperial fleet (I’d managed to drop Gundark to 1 hull and remove a shield here and there but that was about it).

With both my firespray’s now arrived I’m going to go back to my original plan of taking one Imperial and one Rebel squadron to the tourney and deciding on the day which one I fancy flying. However, I feel that the dual Firespray list (my only Imperial ships) is going to need some work.

After the second game I sat down with my second opponent and one of the other guys who was around (both these guys have been friends and regular opponents on the table for many years, so they have a pretty good handle on my play-style) and decided to explore my options with the dual firesprays. We each came up with an alternative list, the only restrictions being it had to be dual firesprays, and it could only use the cards I currently owned, here is what we came up with;

From my second opponent (Andy)

38 Kath Scarlet* (Firespray 31)

2 Wingman

3 Proximity Mines

1 Intelligence Agent

4 Shield Upgrade

39 Boba Fett (Firespray 31)

3 Push the Limit

4 Shield Upgrade

5 Autoblaster

1 Intelligence Agent

0 Slave 1

From the other gent helping with this mental exercise (Ben)

38 Kath Scarlet* (Firespray 31)

2 Wingman

3 Proximity Mines

3 Proton Rockets

3 Recon Specialist

39 Boba Fett (Firespray 31)

3 Push the Limit

0 Slave 1

3 Proton Rockets

3 Proximity Mines

3 Recon Specialist

And my attempt at something different

33 Bounty Hunter (Firespray 31)

5 Assault Missiles

3 Ion Cannon

3 Proximity Mines

2 Mercenary Copilot

4 Shield upgrade

33 Bounty Hunter (Firespray 31)

5 Assault Missiles

3 Ion Cannon

3 Proximity Mines

2 Mercenary Copilot

4 Shield upgrade

I was pleased to see that both of the guys had taken my idea of having Fett on Slave 1 even if you weren’t using the extra upgrade slot and kept it. In the cold light of day I’m also thinking that my twin bounty hunter list probably isn’t a very good idea.

But as always I’m really interested to hear what you people have to say, both with the firespray’s and with an alternative to the 20pts that Airen Cracken is currently using in my Keyan+3 Z95’s list.

Regards

On the Falcon and A-wings list I'd say drop the Engine and put PtL, A-wing Test Pilot and VI on Jake. That way you will get a lot more mileage out of him. He is nearly impossible to kill if you end up in a 1v1 situation late game and he can outmaneuver high-PS targets such as Soontir, Vader or Phantoms with ease.

A couple of things for you.

a) Giving Keyan Farlander the crew Kyle Katarn is redundant. Keyan sheds his stress when he shoots, so you'll only get Kyle's focus AFTER shooting, which is when you'd want it. Save the points for something else. Give him an engine upgrade, tactician or C3PO.

b) Who is Airen Cracken trying to give free actions to in this build? He will be shooting first, so he can't give his action to Keyan, who will not have shed his stress yet. The only choice will be the Talas, who, only having 2 dice, will not get a huge benefit from tl/focused shooting. They will make good use of the Engine Upgrade here, but i think you're falling into the trap of putting extraneous upgrades on your grunts. You could take out Cracken, the Engine Upgrades and downgrade your Talas to Bandits, and buy a 2 more Bandits, which is a much more intimidating swarm.

c) Giving Gammer Sojan, an A-wing who has a native boost Engine Upgrade is redundant. EU is critical for high PS or large base ships and I see why you want to throw them on anything with wings, not here. Gammer could do super well with PTL for a guaranteed turtle every turn, or a stealth device for 5 green dice at range 1 and 3, not counting if you maneuver well behind asteroids.

d) HLC is worth it. 4 dice at every range for Keyan is pretty devastating.

Thanks for the feedback;

Narcoleptic,

I'll have a look at those option in the Falcon+A-wings list, but to be honest I'm probably going to be dropping this list - the A-wings are too fragile and the falcon needs a little bit of support.

jberrysf,

point a) I'll agree that kyle isn't entirely useful on Keyan, I was trying to boost his survivability by having the focus for defence - but it doesn't quite work out. Unfortunately I have used both my engine upgrades on the Tala squadron pilots, and I don't have C3P0 or Tactician - so whilst I agree that dropping him might be a good idea I'm not too sure what to replace him with.

Point b) Airen Cracken is mainly in this list to give me a PS10 ship, his action giving is very much secondary to that. Unfortunately he has been pretty useless so far, he hasn't given ANYONE a free action yet nor has he actually managed to score a point of damage on anytihng.

point c) I think an earlier poster mentioned that the Engine upgrade was redundant on an A-wing, I will probably swap it out for a Stealth Device.

Point d) Nice to know, they aren't very properly around here and I keep being told that 7pts is too expensive, but I'll stick with it.

Thanks for the onging help with this thread people, not only has it been a great help in sorting my squadrons its been quite a good idea-sharing thread as well.

Regards

Hi all,

First off a massive thank you to everyone who has posted here, even if I didn’t directly reply I’ve taken your ideas on-board at some level. I’ve done some thinking this weekend and it’s time to start narrowing down my, frankly ridiculous, collection of lists so I actually know what I’m going to use by the 22^nd.

As much as I like my freighters I’ve decided my rebel squadron will be some variation on the Keyan+z95 list that I’ve been testing, despite the fact I’m still not 100% happy with it.

Here is the list as it stands at the moment;

29 Keyan Farlander (Bwing)

3 Push the limit

1 Bwing E/2

3 Kyle Katarn

3 Advanced Sensors

7 Heavy Laser Cannon

19 Airen Cracken (Z95)

1 Veteran Instincts

13 Tala Squadron Pilot (Z95)

4 Engine Upgrade

13 Tala Squadron Pilot (Z95)

4 Engine Upgrade

Now while it has performed OK on the table so far, 2 wins to 0 losses, the second win was by a single point and Airen Cracken has proven to be next to useless other than as bait. With this in mind and taking a few of your comments on-board I’ve come up with a few varients;

Variant 1

29 Keyan Farlander (Bwing)

3 Push the limit

1 Bwing E/2

2 Dash Rendar

3 Advanced Sensors

7 Heavy Laser Cannon

19 Airen Cracken (Z95)

1 Veteran Instincts

3 Stealth Device

12 Bandit Squadron Pilot (z95)

4 Engine Upgrade

12 Bandit Squadron Pilot (z95)

4 Engine Upgrade

Keeping with the same ships, dropping the more-or-less useless Kyle Katarn for the cheaper Dash (no more hiding behind asteroids when I’m shooting you with the HLC), swapping Tala’s for Bandits to fit a Stealth device to Cracken to try and keep him alive longer.

Variant 2

29 Keyan Farlander (Bwing)

3 Push the limit

7 Heavy Laser Cannon

13 Tala Squadron Pilot (Z95)

4 Engine Upgrade

13 Tala Squadron Pilot (Z95)

4 Engine Upgrade

25 Horton Salm* (y-wing)

1 R2-D6*

1 Veteran Instincts

This list was to try and find a different high PS ship instead of Cracken. As I’ve said before I don’t really like taking Y-wings without turrets, but I just didn’t have the points left. I was considering moving one engine upgrade to Salm and dropping the second one to put a blaster turret on the Y-wing but I’m not too sure on this one.

Variant 3

25 Horton Salm* (y-wing)

1 R2-D6*

1 Veteran Instincts

4 Blaster Turret

23 "Dutch" Vander* (y-wing)

4 Blaster Turret

3 R7-T1*

29 Keyan Farlander (Bwing)

3 Push the limit

7 Heavy Laser Cannon

Variant 2 taken to extremes, hopefully a fairly synergistic squadron but to be honest it’s mainly on here because I have a soft spot for the Y-wing. Keyan is still meant to be the heavy hitter, with the Y-wings covering his flanks. Hopefully PS10 and a blaster turret on Salm should be enough to keep arc-dodgers under fire, and Dutch should be able to give everyone target locks to improve the damage output.

As usual any thoughts?

Regards

Ok I had two games last night, and I think I’m finally getting closer to my final list.

Both games were against lists that I’ve already mentioned here, but with slight changes to my list.

The first game was against the following list;

Green Squadron A-wing with Push the Limit and shield upgrade

Tycho with Push the Limit, Prototype Pilot, Daredevil, and shield upgrade

E-wing with Proton Torp and R2 astromech

Or at least that’s what actually got used on the table top.

I ran this list;

29 Keyan Farlander (Bwing)

3 Push the limit

1 Bwing E/2

2 Dash Rendar

3 Advanced Sensors

7 Heavy Laser Cannon

19 Airen Cracken (Z95)

1 Veteran Instincts

3 Stealth Device

12 Bandit Squadron Pilot (z95)

4 Engine Upgrade

12 Bandit Squadron Pilot (z95)

4 Engine Upgrade

The short version is – I pulled off another win. I lost a bandit but managed to down Tycho in a very lucky round of fire. I managed to block him with both bandits so he had to bump one of them, leaving him in the sights of Keyan, Airen, and one of the Bandits pretty much regardless of what he did. The Heavy Laser Cannon proved very useful this time around but again Cracken wasn’t very useful, his high PS is nice, but he lacks the firepower to do much with it. He hasn’t managed to pass out a single free action in 3 games now, so I finished this game deciding to try one of my other variant lists for the second game of the night.

My second game was one I had very low expectations going in to. I was playing against almost the same Imperial squadron (and player) that had ripped my dual firespray’s apart without much effort;

Carnor Jax with a shield upgrade, Rexlar Brath with a concussion missile, and Winged Gundark with a shield upgrade.

Against this I took another of my variants on my Keyan list;

29 Keyan Farlander (Bwing)

3 Push the limit

7 Heavy Laser Cannon

13 Tala Squadron Pilot (Z95)

4 Engine Upgrade

13 Tala Squadron Pilot (Z95)

4 Engine Upgrade

25 Horton Salm* (y-wing)

1 R2-D6*

1 Veteran Instincts

I kept the Tala squadron pilots close together on one flank, with Keyan slightly in-table of them (almost head—to-head with Gundark). My opponent then setup his defender and interceptor on the other side of the table to try and out flank my formation. To counter this I decided to use Horton as a ‘goalkeeper’ moving behind the formation to make sure I had something to greet the flanking force. My hope was that Keyan and the two Z95’s could kill gundark and reform in time to meet the other TIE’s as they closed in, with Horton doing everything he could to slow the imperials down on their way in. The plan, more or less, worked perfectly. The Z95’s moved quickly up the board whilst Keyan slowly crept forwards to take full advantage of the HLC at range. The end result was on turn 2 I had flanked Gundark with the Z95’s, managing to strip his shield, and by turn three he was point blank with Keyan and as a result dead. Meanwhile Horton faced off against Jax, managing to take out the Interceptors shield before I had to break off to turn back into the fight. Seeing what I’d setup my opponent moved Rexlar in through the middle of the table to try and take advantage of a gap in my fire arc’s. This worked to a point, however by the time Rexlar arrive I had finished Gundark off, killed Jax off thanks to pinning him with z95’s and then shooting him with everything else, and managed to turn to face the Defender with most of the squadron. By the time the clock ran out Rexlar was all that my opponent had left, and I hadn’t lost a single ship. I had taken damage - Horton had taken a critical and the rest were either out of shields or down to their last shield. I’ve got to admit, my opponent’s dice had deserted him in this game, and had his rolls been more average I would have definitely have lost both of the Tala squadron ships (one survived a round of range one fire from Rexlar without taking a single point of damage thanks to him rolling 4 blanks twice due to his target lock).

All in all I think I’m going to be using the second version of the list, despite Horton having the same firepower and a worse dial compared to Cracken he is so much tougher and his pilot ability was actually useful. I’m not sure if I should drop Veteran Instincts and R2-D6 as PS8 is probably high enough for most things, which would either put me at 98pts to attempt to bit for imitative, or I can drop the Tala squadrons down to Bandits and put a Blaster Turret on Horton.

Any thoughts?

Regards

I've just skimmed through these last few posts, so I'm not sure why you want EUs on the Bandits, but if you were to take those away and remove Cracken you'd have 31p to spend on another ship. If you want a ship with high PS you could go for Luke or Wedge with VI, they'll bring some extra punch as well. If you want more control then you could take Dutch with ICT and some droid. That's what I'd recommend at least.

I've just skimmed through these last few posts, so I'm not sure why you want EUs on the Bandits, but if you were to take those away and remove Cracken you'd have 31p to spend on another ship. If you want a ship with high PS you could go for Luke or Wedge with VI, they'll bring some extra punch as well. If you want more control then you could take Dutch with ICT and some droid. That's what I'd recommend at least.

Hi Narcoleptic,

The main reason I'm keeping the EU's on the z95's is it makes them so much more unpredictable. On several occasions in all of the games i've played with this list the boost move on those basic z's has allowed them to get into a firing position when my opponet has assumed they would be out of arc/range. It has also allowed me to arc-dodge a few times, turn a little tighter/further, and move a little quicker. I'll admit that I have tried taking thme off, but it does seem to have an adverse effect on the z95's performance.

Also, thanks to little sleep and a stressful day at work my mind has been wondering in strange places.

such as;

19 Airen Cracken (Z95)

1 Veteran Instincts

3 Stealth Device

13 Tala Squadron Pilot (Z95)

3 Stealth Device

13 Tala Squadron Pilot (Z95)

3 Stealth Device

34 "Leebo" (yt2400)

7 Heavy Laser Cannon

1 Determination

3 Stealth Device

Or

19 Airen Cracken (Z95)

1 Veteran Instincts

3 Stealth Device

12 Bandit Squadron Pilot (z95)

4 Engine Upgrade

12 Bandit Squadron Pilot (z95)

4 Engine Upgrade

34 "Leebo" (yt2400)

7 Heavy Laser Cannon

1 Determination

3 Stealth Device

Or

19 Airen Cracken (Z95)

1 Veteran Instincts

3 Stealth Device

12 Bandit Squadron Pilot (z95)

3 Stealth Device

12 Bandit Squadron Pilot (z95)

3 Stealth Device

34 "Leebo" (yt2400)

7 Heavy Laser Cannon

1 Determination

3 Stealth Device

2 Dash Rendar

Regards

An option then would be to swap those for Prototypes with Chardaan Refit. You'll have the same number of hitpoints, same attack, better dial (unless you like 1 straight and 1 bank) and access to both Boost and Evade natively. It'd save you 2 points. You'd pretty much have a speedier Z-95 with an extra agility.

An option then would be to swap those for Prototypes with Chardaan Refit. You'll have the same number of hitpoints, same attack, better dial (unless you like 1 straight and 1 bank) and access to both Boost and Evade natively. It'd save you 2 points. You'd pretty much have a speedier Z-95 with an extra agility.

Hi,

I looked at the A-wings - and I keep forgetting they have a native boost action - and I discounted them for z95's on the basis that I make a lot of speed 1 moves once the fighting gets close. A Bandit squadron with an engine upgrade is the same cost as the prototype with the refit, and has a better pilot skill. Having said that my PS4 Tala's have generally been the lowest on the table anyway so maybe I'll give it a try.

Perhaps I'll try something like this over the weekend, test all my strange changes in one place

The good thing about having Cracken in that list is that if you end up in a bad situation with Leebo or a Prototype and are in Range 1 then you can have them reposition during Combat with Barrel Roll for Leebo or Boost a Prototype.

The good thing about having Cracken in that list is that if you end up in a bad situation with Leebo or a Prototype and are in Range 1 then you can have them reposition during Combat with Barrel Roll for Leebo or Boost a Prototype.

That's the hope, the list started out as an attempt to find a (hopefully) tougher platform for the HLC, but now it has become the melting pot for all of my test ideas.

I'll let people know how it flies once I get it on the table.

Regards

Hi all,

just a quick line to say that the tourney is now done, and I came 11th out of 16 (which I can live with for a first attempt). Thank you to all of you who commented on the thread, your advice was invaluable.

The list I eventually went with was;

29 Keyan Farlander (Bwing)
3 Push the limit
2 Fire Control System
7 Heavy Laser Cannon

25 Horton Salm* (y-wing)
1 R2-D6*
1 Veteran Instincts
4 Blaster Turret
4 Shield Upgrade

12 Bandit Squadron Pilot (z95)

12 Bandit Squadron Pilot (z95)

Now for the real surprise - it turns out our store meta is a bit odd. The was only one phantom in use across all 16 lists, the top three were all flying double TIE defernder lists, and there wasn't a Super Dash or Fat Han in sight.

I discovered (the hard way) that my list didn't have enough firepower to deal with a TIE swarm in the 60min round, as my first two games were against TIE swarms. The first swarm was Echo, Backstabber, and 5 basic TIEs - I wiped Echo off the table in turn two, and eventually chased Backstabber down, however the dice rolls on both sides were truely aweful and the game ended with me losing all 100pts and my opponent having a single TIE left standing. The second swarm was another 5 basic TIEs backed up by Howlrunner and Turr Phenir. Again I managed to take out the high PS, high mobility ship with relative ease - Turr died on turn 2 - however the game was as bloody as the first with it being decided by the last shot, which brought down Keyan leaving me with just Horton and a bandit and a minor loss.

The third game was a bit strange. I'd played my opponent and his list (Fett with all the toys and 2 PS 5 TIES - night beast and an Obsidion Squadron Pilot) several times in pratice games, and every time he had wiped me out with minimal losses. So understandably I was expecting my run of losses to advance, how wrong I was. I decided from the outset to use the Z's to bait slave 1 into the sights of Keyan and Horton and then focus everything on killing the Firespray, and to my surprise it worked. I managed to trake my opponent clean off the table with the loss of only 1 Z95.

My last match sent me into the unknown, a completely new opponent and a list I'd never played. My opponent was running Captain Oicunn, Howlrunner, and Obsidian Squadron Pilot, and 2 Academy Pilots, all with minimal upgrades. This game was the closest of the Tourney according to the stewards, running to time and being decided in my opponents favour by 1pt. He was left with 1 Academy Pilot and his Obsidian Squadron Pilot (both on 1 hit) and I was left with the two bandits (also on 1 hit). Keyan dealt with Oicunn quite well, simply hammering his rear arc at range 2, however Horton died early to some bad rolls which left me with too few ships to cover Keyan's back so he eventually went down to massed TIE fire.

All in all it was a very relaxed event where everyone had a good time, and we are now all looking forward to the next one.

Regards