While I'm sure most of us have a stack of lists we thought would be great but turned out to be underwhelming - have you ever flown a list that you didn't have particularly high hopes for, that turned out to be rather good?

Last night I flew

3 blue squad Bs, 1 with accuracy corrector, E2 and 3po, 1 with FCS E2 and Jan, and 1 with Adv Sens E2 and Recon. Plus a Proto with Refit to fill up the last 15 points.

I wasn't expecting much from it as we've got a tourney on Sunday so I was expecting everyone to bring their toughest lists to practice with, and I ended up facing what has been up until now, my nemesis, twin Iggys (B and C) flown by a very good player.

First game was a pretty solid win thanks to a little early good fortune with the red dice, second game was closer and the advantage was with my opponent for most of the game, but the consistent 3-4 attack dice and ton of hit points on the Bs finally closed it out for me - although had it been a 60 min timed game I think I might have been behind at that point.

So, enough of my rambling, what lists have you guys found that have surprised you with their effectiveness?

Anything with a shuttle... boy was I wrong. The doom shuttle is just nuts.

4 Z-95s plus 2 Y's with Ions (one with stressbot). I was expecting a throwaway swarm and came second in a store champs with it.

A Y-wing and 2 HWKs

For fun, I put together the following:

Kavil+Blaster Turret+R4+Predator

Dace+Ion Turret+K4

Palob+Blaster Turret+Predator+Moldy Crow+Rec Spec+HU

It performed MUCH better than I thought it! I think with a little more tinkering, this could be a tournament ready list.

Good thread idea! Especially on a Friday.

I was trying to think of a way to use Fleet Officer when I came up with this list. It uses Tie Fighters as I started back in Wave 1. I loved playing Tie Fighters....but not in some Howlrunner swarm. I was quite effective with playing with the named guys and actually swarming my opponents. It takes a bit of practice to move all your guys, but is worth it in the end.

Space Cowboys - (since they escort the space cow)

Omnicron w/ Fleet Officer, Adv. Sensors, and Anti-pursuit Lasers

Dark Curse

Backstabber

Night Beast

2 x Academy

Very straight forward list, but it has done surprisingly well. The Shuttle dishes out 2 Focus a turn before doing a green move. This can be done to help whomever is going to be shot at that turn. Night Beast can actually end up with 2 Focus and an Evade! Dark Curse is really hard to kill, especially if he gets free focus actions. Sometimes I move my Academies up and Evade, then throw the Focus on them. They are actually, hard to kill.

I found that I could use their other actions a lot more when I was able to throw out the Focus. I could Barrel Roll into better positions or even just stay alive with Evade.

I played a game or two against people's tournament lists and won so far. I've used it as a fun list, but it actually does really well.

Every list I play and win with...

I'm pretty much an Imperial Player, though I collect both sides. I tend to fly 5-7 ship lists, usually all relatively low pilot skill, sometimes with a star, like howlrunner or Turr phennir.

Last night was casual gaming at the store, and I made up my mind to run rebels. First list was

Wild space fringer

Prototype A-wing w/ refit

Gold squad w/Ion

Etahn E'baht

I was trashed by a Wedge/Wes/Rookie/Bandit list.

I went against my instincts and changed to

Leebo w/ determination, Outrider HLC, recon spec

2 blue squad w/fire control

I have an aversion to hlc outrider builds, have never liked b-wings, and only running 3 ships makes me all squirmy on the inside. But I ended up really liking it! The guy I played against was new, and also only running 3 ships (Keyan w/ kyle, FCS / Nera w/ protons, apt's, VI, FCS / and rookie w/ R2D2), so I'm not going to say my list is the best, but suddenly learning how to fly B's right, and getting a chance to field the outrider was a load of fun

In time for a Store Championchip, scum had just dropped and I had a repaint of Kath Scarlet that I wanted to show off.

I didn't want to fuss over too many ships or think too hard - I brought 2 ships: Guri and Kath.

There's only so much you can put on Guri, and I left the torpedo slot empty. I loaded Kath with 67 points I think. It was ridiculous. HLC, Proton, Proximity, Opportunist, K4 Security Droid, and other stuff I don't recall. Truly a fiasco.

I made top 4.

Anything with a shuttle... boy was I wrong. The doom shuttle is just nuts.

Huh I can never get it to make it worth the points.

I ran this mess at a Christmastime tournament with every expectation that it would be awful. It was meant to be more thematic than competitive, working in every Rebel character from Star Wars. I called it the Holiday Special, meaning something that took things we liked and used them in probably not the best way. It ended up going 2-1 and taking third place in the tourney.

The M3-A. I was surprised by how hard 4 of them are to kill with Stealth Devices, and how hard they hit with Mangler Cannons.

edit: For lists that I have actually built and flown, I tend to build lists thinking they are going to be a competitive powerhouse that I can finally replace Dash+Corran with, only to of course be let down (although most of the time they're close, just not quite as good). My very high expectations for lists that I build means I'm not often caught off-guard by the hidden power of my lists.

I am constantly being surprised by how strong other people's lists are against me though, which is why I have learned never to underestimate or hold back against any player or list, no matter what my preconceived notions are.

The M3-A. I was surprised by how hard 4 of them are to kill with Stealth Devices, and how hard they hit with Mangler Cannons.

Try on 4 TIE Interceptors some time, for a similar effect

I

The M3-A. I was surprised by how hard 4 of them are to kill with Stealth Devices, and how hard they hit with Mangler Cannons.

Try on 4 TIE Interceptors some time, for a similar effect

I just ran 5 plain tie interceptors and they kick butt. Even against Whiper and Decimator or the Whisper and two named tie interceptor list.

I didn't think the dual Aggressors would be very powerful, given the expensive of the ships and front-only arcs on large bases.

Rexler/Carnor/Royal Guard.

Threw it together because I wanted to use the Defender I bought, took it to a Store Championship on a whim after only flying it three times, made the final table.

I'm yet to lose with this odd-ball list! It even uses torpedos!!

35

Xizor (31)

VI (1)

Viagro (1)

FCS (2)

37

Drea Renthal (22)

Ion torpedo (5)

Proton torpedo (4)

Munition failsafe (1)

Autoblaster turret (2)

R4-B11(3)

2 x

14

Pirate (12)

Feedback array (2)

Drea is a beast, albeit don't ever expect actions again after you launch your first torpedo as you'll be rocking 2-3 stress minimum from that point on. The combo of ion then proton pretty much guarantees you get to fire both munitions and refilling your Attack dice and forcing the defender to reroll successes with R4 means you almost always hit. Munitions failure is there simply to allow you to abort a torpedo attack if your dice totally fail on you, often meaning you can avoid picking up excess stress. Even when you are munition-less and stressed to your eyeballs, the autoblaster turret still means you're a threat that can't be ignored. This usually means Xizor makes it to the endgame at ps9 and mops up.

I really just wanted to try Drea when I built his list, but like I say I've yet to lose. The feedback arrays and auto turret dealing with arc Dodgers, the ion torp and ps 1 bandits helping va swarms and the sheer number of target locked dice or auto damage per turn bringing fatties down fast. It's a real all-rounder.

This one time my friend ran Han and 3 Z-95s, craziest build ive ever seen!

Last night my opponent didn't expect Guri, Palob, and Torkil to do well . Wuahahahaha devilish laugh.