Well I know I am going to be playing both Rebels and Imperials, (which I am surprised to see so many people playing Imperial only) so I will report on my findings as time goes on.

But curious question, why do players only want to play one side? I understand the cost of keeping up both as the game gets bigger but right now until wave 2 it would be easy to play both without playing Keeping-up-with-the-Johnsons. I personally like the Art of War approach where if I can understand how both sides play personally I can be a better Admiral.

Ties dont actually have to kill these xwings to get value (even though its all but a foregone conclusion if they get the jump). All they need to do is delay the xwings by about 2 rounds which is easy to do unless you are absolutely asleep at the wheel.

The reality of the situation is that in both a deathmatch and mission based scenario the rebels are better off putting another ship into play than investing in fighters.

Are they though? Since, like there's not that many missions where the Victory points a Rebel player is garunteed to get from objectives are more than that you'd get for a ship kill.

The only Red objectives that really favours the Rebels outright over the Imps (When the Rebels are Precision Strike (If you run Dordonna's Pride), arguably Most Wanted since they get more die out of it (But the Imps ship can deal with two/three extra die better than the Rebels will deal with that one going at them. Given the issue is they are made of paper as it is, and thus the extra die gives more threat). And maybe Opening Salvo if you can keep your ships from being damaged (Otherwise, it's even/in Imperial favour).

Of the Blue objectives; Well Dangerous Terrain is only really going to give a 30 point advantage to the Rebels at best. Simply because given you can set at least 1 objective per ship to be within easy range of the Imp ships. (In the 180 point game, you can only have 4 objectives, so Imps get at least 1, and Rebels get the others). And 30 points gets washed away by a ship kill of any kind.

Intel Sweep - Probably an auto win for the Rebels, unless the Imp player out plays you, or you misplay.) So build won't matter as much for Rebels there.

Minefields - Standard VP game. Which means without fighters you have to pray that you don't lose a ship, or else you outright lose with no way to make the Tie's commit.

Superior Positions - One of the more even games, but probably favours the Rebels, due to them being better at getting behind. But again, you have to pray that you don't lose a ship, otherwise it's going to mean you have to do at least 3 bits of back damage (More if you lose a Nebulon). Which can be hard given you'll only get 3ish rounds at it.

And finally Yellow (The hardest to evaluate);

Fleet Ambush; Hurts the Imperials more than the Rebels. Given the Imps would then lose the turns of steady advancement, and tus the Rebels get 5 turns of fire as opposed to 3-4, which with 3 ships is more threatening. But still not as threatening as with X-Wings that don't have to deal with a Tie Screen in front of the VSD.

Fire Lanes; The major Objective game that favours the Imperials. Given they can bully you off of 1 with a VSD, and bully you off of a second with Tie's (Since you know that's about 5 battery die, which means you have to commit two ships to bully the Tie's off. And even then, you'd have to kill all of them, or else one just sits on the token and goes Lalalalala. It's a much harder scenario without the addition of X-Wings to mop up the Tie's more quickly. (And proper dependant on the deployment of the objectives, it's possible for the VSD to control or contest multiple.) Whereas X-Wings in this scenario would let you contest both of the other objectives more easily imo.

Hyperspace assualt; Not played this enough to judge on it.

Contested Outpost - Again an Imp favoured scenario regardless of what happens. Since to contest the station, you have to be in firing range and arcs of the VSD. Which is painful.

So really, there's hardly any scenarios that the Rebels can win just off of objectives, or have to couple that with practically perfect positioning if they can't claim Tie-Fighter VP's. And perfect positioning is much harder with 3 ships than with two, because regardless of who has priority, at least two ships will move after the VSD, which gives the VSD more potential fire openings.

So again; I think X-Wings are a necessity atm, because you need to be able to threaten a kill on the VSD, and force the Tie's to be a part of the game so that you have multiple avenues of victory available.

I actually think you'd have a sizeably better shot at destroying the VSD at the current point level by going 3 ships and really forgoing many if any squadrons.

My reasoning is that 2 Rebel ships are going to be really hard pressed to bring down the VSD. Trying to do so likely means you'll lose a ship. If the VSD isn't on it's way out in your next activation it likely isn't going anywhere since it can outpace the damage output with repairs.

Now clearly the Rebel Squadrons are meant to pick up that slack and put a hurting on the enemy ships. Presently though you max out at 4 Squadrons, don't have dedicated Bombers, and don't have the Squadron related upgrades.

With only 4 Squadrons attrition is going to wittle you down even if you take the Squadron battle handidly and you don't have ways to make your remaining Squadrons hit harder like you will Wave 1. Even in a good scenario in the end you are probably only going to get 5 or so rolls on the VSD. I think another ship could put more dice on the VSD over the course of the game/it's life.

I'm going to give 3 Ships a try Thursday. At this oddly skewed low point level with limited available upgrades I really do think it is the better option for actually attempting to kill the VSD.

I think you will find it pretty much the case at all points levels. Ideally the imperial player will want 3 ties for every vsd to optimise their squadron commands. This is only 24 points which is marginal considering that the cost of a vsd is well into the 100 points zone. And even if you bring along enough fighters to clear out the tie tarpits you will have at most 1 or 2 turns of proper shooting with your squads. Not a good expenditure of points imo.

Well I know I am going to be playing both Rebels and Imperials, (which I am surprised to see so many people playing Imperial only) so I will report on my findings as time goes on.

But curious question, why do players only want to play one side? I understand the cost of keeping up both as the game gets bigger but right now until wave 2 it would be easy to play both without playing Keeping-up-with-the-Johnsons. I personally like the Art of War approach where if I can understand how both sides play personally I can be a better Admiral.

The main reason I am focusing on rebels and hoping to do imps someday is simple. Cost. Each expansion pack will eat up a sizable portion of my fun budget for a month so I'm going to build up the fleet I will have the most fun with first then build up the other when there are no rebel ships I want more of out or I have extra money.

Going back to the X-wings for the moment is that I see them as providing cover for Y-wings or B-wings, as they have the Escort function. The idea is that the X-wings can keep them safe until they deliver their payload against whatever ship they're plodding towards. Plus the X-wings themselves can also bomb capital ships, albeit less effectively than either Y-wings or B-wings...

They are there to act as your space superiority fighter that just so happens to not be ineffective against ships.

I thing the X-wings in the core game have a big chunk of their capability overlooked precisely because they're not flying with non-escort squadrons, they will really start shining when Wave 1 hits.

I thing the X-wings in the core game have a big chunk of their capability overlooked precisely because they're not flying with non-escort squadrons, they will really start shining when Wave 1 hits.

I think they're already very useful on their own, but escort will make things fun. Honestly, it'll probably be the only way to get B-wings to safely go...anywhere? I'll be trying them with Ys first, though.

Compared to the bomber and tie fighter, X-wings aren't bad at pinging capitals and Y-wings aren't utter trash at hitting fighters (especially not Dutch, no sir!)

We will see later on. I actually think the CR90s are really good ships, surprisingly. I am thinking about lists out of 1 core that could deal with the VSD + Tarkin.

I played a few more games today and it's getting better, but i really need to learn to fly my Neb-B better, and in the fourth game i had today, i didn't take down the VSD, only because i forgot two times about Dodonna's ability (got him down to 2 hull points, and i did 2 crits where i didn't use the ability, which could had been gamechanger, if not completely win me the game).

Tomorrow i will continue to try out stuff within the 1 core, i am thinking about this list.

CR90 B , Leia Organa, Overload pulse @ 53

Neb-B, Dodonna @ 76

Xwing @ 13

Xwing @ 13

Xwing @ 13

Xwing @ 13

Total 178

If you use concentrate fire, it's actually very common to get to use overload pulse on the VSD, which allows to have a much easier time to get damage through, I will try this out tomorrow to see how it goes, but if i could, i would play 3 CR90s as a 180 force or 2 CR90s and 1 Neb-B, they are just that good at that point level, and with the core the empire doesn't have bombers so the times aren't really a threat except for your Xwings.

It's just regular target saturation, if your opponent brings guns to deal with fighters and some guns to deal with ships, if you only bring ships the guns against fighters will be useless, so a full ship is probably better with the core.

At 300 points i can see CR90B with overload pulse being quite standard to focus fire targets ^^