Hello Folks,

X-Wing germany here!

I have been flying the squadron below in two tournaments, with mediocre results so far. I would like to to have your feedback, especially about the following topics:

• usefulness of chosen upgrades / better combos possible?
• What about this Wedge guy? switch to another pilot or upgrades on him?

The biggest problems I have had was against bbbz list and alike. I would appreciate if someone would give me advice how to approach those generic steamrollers.

What I really liked with this list is working with the five attack dice from Keyan. The benefits Wes hands out to Wedge and especially Keyan have helped me a lot.

So, I have marked the two upgrades which I am not so sure about. Are there better options available? I would like to stick with the whole Wes and Opportunist thing.

I know that maybe ads on Keyan would be a great thing but this woult kick Wedgs out of the trio...

Thank you for your time.

No need for VI on Wes in this setup, I'd say. Keyan has Opportunist and a lower PS. Forcing a stress onto Keyan is fun, especially since he can use it as a Focus and, with his current setup, can still do actions as normal. The problem here's going to be that when Wes dies, Keyan's Opportunist is going to be harder to use, and giving him a stress will be limited to some red maneuvers or hoping the enemy ships are dealing out stress. Pretty wholly unavoidable if that's what you want to run, however, so just hope Wes lasts! What about giving Wedge Lone Wolf or giving both an R2 Astromech?

Thank you for your ideas Gnoizic!

Now, after reading your words it seems like I´ve been running my Squadron the wrong way so far. No need for VI you wrote. I always thought that Wes with VI was inevitable to make this squadron work.

I will test your suggestions.

Wedge synergizes really, really well with outmaneuver. You can bring near anything to it's knees with wedge, plus calculation kind of sucks. Total waste of a focus token. As for Wes... Well. I don't know?

Wes has a general, useful abilty, but unless the second X-wing is a rookie pilot i tend to shy away from 2 X-Wing builds, first and foremost that X-Wings are 9 points more expensive than Z-95s but aside from astromechs, all you gain is one damage and one hull, not to mention that in my opinion missiles > torpedoes, and trade a 3 K-turn for a 4-K-turn. For the price of a Red Squadron, you can either field 2 Bandit Squadrons, which are going to collectively be...well, better, OR you can field Lt. Blount with 3 point missile and a 2 point elite talent. A PS 9 X-wing is the same price as a PS 7 B-wing. Kind of makes my point that X-wings are too expensive for what you get.

You can probably put together an XBZZ squad and still fatten up all of them to overcome the advantages lost from getting rid of Wes. Thats my opinion. Everyone has favorite pilots that they dont want to get rid of, mine was Wedge for a while and i still consider him to be great, but you eventually realize that some ships are just that much better than others. A Wes/Wedge/Keyan build i dont see myself having too much issue dismantling. A Wedge/Keyan/Bandit/Bandit build is a different story. You can have everything you already had, minus the calculation which is replaced with outmaneuver, and give one of the Zs a cluster missile set.

Thats my two cents.

And there goes my Squadron ;o)

Nice idea to come up with outmaneuver on Wedge. I have still a little fear about getting Wedge outside of other small ships firing arcs. Against big ships it is maybe more likely to happen, hm...

Bandit with cluster missile, sounds terrific.

I am not totally bound on Wes. My first idea behind that squadron was that it was meant to be a elite kind of wing. I will make some testfights next week with two Z`s instead of Wes.

Again, thank you for sharing your ideas with me.

Wes is kinda essential if running opportunist Keyan, so I'd keep him in if you want that EPT on Keyan.

Also, I am going to disagree with outmanoeuvre on Wedge. First off, its situational - needing to get out of arc is a tall order on a ship that has no movement actions. Secondly, Wedge's ability defeats all kinds of agility pretty good already - he does not 'struggle' against AGI 3 targets, so why double down on trying to take out something he's already good against, but won't help you against low Agility targets? Push the Limit + R2, or just predator by itself are very good on Wedge; he reduces enemy green dice by one and the EPT allows you to maximize your red dice.

Wes is kinda essential if running opportunist Keyan, so I'd keep him in if you want that EPT on Keyan.

Also, I am going to disagree with outmanoeuvre on Wedge. First off, its situational - needing to get out of arc is a tall order on a ship that has no movement actions. Secondly, Wedge's ability defeats all kinds of agility pretty good already - he does not 'struggle' against AGI 3 targets, so why double down on trying to take out something he's already good against, but won't help you against low Agility targets? Push the Limit + R2, or just predator by itself are very good on Wedge; he reduces enemy green dice by one and the EPT allows you to maximize your red dice.

I'm always a firm believer that instead of firing bigger guns at bullet-resistant vests - Just remove the vest.

Outmaneuver has been a life saver too many times to count. Get outside of a firesprays arc and whatever you roll, hits. Bring tie ships to 1 green. You could roll great with extra reds but if the enemy counters that with better greens, then it doesnt even matter.