So old X-wing is leaving the building, lets go out with a bang :G. This list is really a version of BBBBZ with less shields, more green dice and few tricks up the sleeve.

100 points

PILOTS

Rookie Pilot (21) x 3

Roark Garnet (25)
HWK-290 (19), Twin Laser Turret (6)

Bandit Squadron Pilot (12)

Is it better or worse compared BBBBZ belongs on oposition, and skill

To be honest the T-65 will never die, a lot of it's named pilots are way too good. Wedge, Luke, Tarn, and Biggs are all really good despite their ship. Garven Dreis is making a bit of a comeback after the T-70 came out, to support Poe. The only weak links in the T-65 family are the generics, Hobbie, Jek, and Wes. All the rest more than have their place in numerous squadrons.

To be honest the T-65 will never die, a lot of it's named pilots are way too good. Wedge, Luke, Tarn, and Biggs are all really good despite their ship. Garven Dreis is making a bit of a comeback after the T-70 came out, to support Poe. The only weak links in the T-65 family are the generics, Hobbie, Jek, and Wes. All the rest more than have their place in numerous squadrons.

Hobbie and the generics are the only ones left out.

Porkin's built properly is the Rebel version of the TIE Defender and Wes will make a resurgence as Counter-Poe.

Ok, now something about the list

Not to sure how well the addition of a Z95 would be. I think that 12 might be better used in beefing up the X-Wings to better defend Roark.

Roark is clearly defined as the center point of the list and I think only having a single PS12 attack once per round might not be enough offense to prevent Roark's early exit.

Before TLT I had a number of successes running this list.

Roark Garnet — HWK-290 19
Nien Nunb 1
Ship Total: 20

Wedge Antilles — X-Wing 29
Swarm Tactics 2
Ship Total: 31

Biggs Darklighter — X-Wing 25
R2-D6 1
Swarm Tactics 2
Ship Total: 28

Rookie Pilot — X-Wing 21
Ship Total: 21

----

If you trade Wedge for Porkins, Biggs for Tarn or a Red and drop Nien Numb for TLT.

The Rook being 21pts means you could sacrifice his 3A for Cracken and Swarm leaving more wiggle room for your other X-Wing options.

To be honest the T-65 will never die, a lot of it's named pilots are way too good. Wedge, Luke, Tarn, and Biggs are all really good despite their ship. Garven Dreis is making a bit of a comeback after the T-70 came out, to support Poe. The only weak links in the T-65 family are the generics, Hobbie, Jek, and Wes. All the rest more than have their place in numerous squadrons.

Hobbie and the generics are the only ones left out.

Porkin's built properly is the Rebel version of the TIE Defender and Wes will make a resurgence as Counter-Poe.

Leaving out Hobbie?! Heresy! Hobbie with R3-A2 is awesome at piling on the stress. I use him in a couple of my 4 X-wing lists.

To be honest the T-65 will never die, a lot of it's named pilots are way too good. Wedge, Luke, Tarn, and Biggs are all really good despite their ship. Garven Dreis is making a bit of a comeback after the T-70 came out, to support Poe. The only weak links in the T-65 family are the generics, Hobbie, Jek, and Wes. All the rest more than have their place in numerous squadrons.

Hobbie and the generics are the only ones left out.

Porkin's built properly is the Rebel version of the TIE Defender and Wes will make a resurgence as Counter-Poe.

Leaving out Hobbie?! Heresy! Hobbie with R3-A2 is awesome at piling on the stress. I use him in a couple of my 4 X-wing lists.

Well there you have it. The T-65's named pilots all have their niches. The T-65 will never die.

4 ship list with HWK without turret? Heresy Roarks ability is purely bonus to list, not main trick. Its just mindgames with oponent, who needs to get through all those X-wing arcs. You could bo with 3 B,s z and stock HWK, but that would be less fun

To be honest the T-65 will never die, a lot of it's named pilots are way too good. Wedge, Luke, Tarn, and Biggs are all really good despite their ship. Garven Dreis is making a bit of a comeback after the T-70 came out, to support Poe. The only weak links in the T-65 family are the generics, Hobbie, Jek, and Wes. All the rest more than have their place in numerous squadrons.

Porkins is criminally underrated.

To be honest the T-65 will never die, a lot of it's named pilots are way too good. Wedge, Luke, Tarn, and Biggs are all really good despite their ship. Garven Dreis is making a bit of a comeback after the T-70 came out, to support Poe. The only weak links in the T-65 family are the generics, Hobbie, Jek, and Wes. All the rest more than have their place in numerous squadrons.

Hobbie and the generics are the only ones left out.

Porkin's built properly is the Rebel version of the TIE Defender and Wes will make a resurgence as Counter-Poe.

Leaving out Hobbie?! Heresy! Hobbie with R3-A2 is awesome at piling on the stress. I use him in a couple of my 4 X-wing lists.

Well there you have it. The T-65's named pilots all have their niches. The T-65 will never die.

T-65s are dead, already dead - just because of their cost.

They are expensive ships with low agility and very poor dial without any special actions on their action bar. T-65s are bad - sad but this is the way it is. I can't remember when I could watch at T-65 Xwings in competetive list. Why pay 21 points for Xwing instead of 22 for much better Bwing? Or 24 for Ywing with TLT? No matter the pilot, T-65s with their 2 Agility and lack of Autothrusters are going to be desintegrated with TLTs.

T-70s are looking how T-65 X-wing should look from begining.

Going back to the topic - I would pick BBBBZ list or YYYY with R2s and TLTs over any T-65 list all day long. Bwings have access to medicore dial but - a for me it's better than this one on Xwing + barrel roll, a lot of hitpoints... simply better. On the other hand 4x Ywing with TLT and R2 Droid are serious.... the firepower they provide is sick.

Honestly, the hyperbole surrounding this ship is craycray. It is in the same field of viability as the khiraxz, but there's only joy and pleasure in current discussions concerning that ship.

A well flown list with Biggs, Wedge and Tarn, loaded with alpha strike goodness (eg ion torp & predator for wedge, and proton x2), has a decent chance of burning down a tlt spam list ... I'd love to see a 'dead' ship list wipe out the current meta-bogeyman, it would be a beautiful sight...

It's not a perfect ship, of course it's not - it's far from touranement optimised - but it has some of the very best pilots in the game, and there are no doubt a few fixes on the way for it too, due in no small part, I suppose, to the years of 'x-wing fix' forum posts.

I'm really happy when I see Xwings against me They are nice if you are using 3 of them in Epic games, but in competetive enviroment... they are just a dead meat. Bad dial, lack of green maneuvers and no barrel or thruster. This is bad.

Bwing is far, far better ship.

Well in that case, let's see some fun things to try. Here's my proposals; feel free to nit-pick because I want them looking their best so I can play 'em tomorrow. Trying to focus primarily on numbers and secondarily on utility and a range of options.

The B-Side Boys: (100 points)

Garven Dreis

Hobbie Klivian (R3-A2)

Tarn Mison (R7 Astromech)

Rookie Pilot (R4-D6)

Harry Potter and the Absolutely Horrible Idea: (100 points)

Red Squadron Pilot (Experimental Interface, R2-D6, Squad Leader)

Rookie Pilot (R7-T1)

Rookie Pilot (R5-D8)

Rookie Pilot (R5-K6)

Idea here was to give everyone a range of defensive options and Target Lock Shenanigans with astromechs- there's a lot of potential mix-and-match and I've not yet decided on the best. "Harry" gives the pilots some other options by being able to potentially hand out two extra actions per turn. Thinking it'd probably be best to deploy the X-wings in a diamond with "Harry" toward the back and just ease into the fray real slow-like and focus fire on the biggest possible threat.

The Old One-Two: (100 points)

Wes Janson (Veteran Instincts, R2-D2, Stealth Device)

Jek Porkins (Opportunist, R5-D8)

Hobbie Klivian (R2-D6, Opportunist)

...mostly because I wanted to have Jek Porkins on the first list. If the opportunities for focused fire last long enough: Wes takes all the benefits away from the defender, and then Jek and Hobbie kick 'em when they're down. Hard. Might be a good idea to give Predator, Push the Limit, or maybe Outmaneuver to Jek and trade Wes's stealth device for a shield upgrade.

I dunno. Integrated Astromech does give you a reasonable argument against the B-wing boys.

A Blue Squadron takes 8 damage to kill and has agility 1, which means about half a hit stopped each time you shoot at it.

A Rookie with an R2 Astromech and Integrated Astromech takes 6 damage to kill and has agility 2, which means just shy of 1 hit stopped when you shoot at it.

That's about the same toughness - especially since you can 'save' the integrated astromech to use on a critical.

Yes, the Blue has Barrel Roll, but the Rookie has much wider swathe of green on its dial.

If you've got any more points to spend, I still think the Blue Squadron Pilot edges the rookie out - because of the system and cannon slots - but by the time you're spending that kind of money, you have to argue against the named X-wing pilots and named astromechs, whose abilities are **** awesome.

The Old One-Two: (100 points)

Wes Janson (Veteran Instincts, R2-D2, Stealth Device)

Jek Porkins (Opportunist, R5-D8)

Hobbie Klivian (R2-D6, Opportunist)

...mostly because I wanted to have Jek Porkins on the first list. If the opportunities for focused fire last long enough: Wes takes all the benefits away from the defender, and then Jek and Hobbie kick 'em when they're down. Hard. Might be a good idea to give Predator, Push the Limit, or maybe Outmaneuver to Jek and trade Wes's stealth device for a shield upgrade.

It's a nice list. Opportunist is a cool talent, and a nice way to up-gun ships without cannon slots.

Wes getting Veteran Instincts is a thing, but primarily (normally) so he can shoot before wedge. With Jek and Hobbie, he's shooting first anyway, and it's not like he can really take advantage of PS10 to reposition. Yes, at 'only' PS8, he may get shot first, but there's rarely enough raw firepower that far up the food chain to kill a ship - at least, not something with reasonable toughness, like an X-wing. Also, since the 'pack' doesn't need to do green maneuvers as they're good at eating their own stress, you may not get as much use out of R2-D2 as you want to. I'm not sure what you'd use the point(s) for instead, though.

I would rather straight swap stealth device for hull upgrade. Stealth device is awesome if you're already hard to hit. An X-wing....isn't.

Jek is nice, and R5-D8 is just his best buddy ever. Hobbie - using opportunist and his ability to shed the stress is a nice idea. It's refreshing to see him with something other than R2-A3.

I dunno. Integrated Astromech does give you a reasonable argument against the B-wing boys.

Unfortunately it's a bad fix...

First of all... it's not a title, it's a precious Modification slot... this is first bad thing about it. Second - Astromechs are one of few advantages on Xwings... so why sacrifice them? Most X-wing pilots are going to work only with Droids at their back.

If FFG wanted to fix Xwings, the card should say:

Integrated Astromech

X-wing only, Title

Reduce Astromech cost by 4 points.

Just look on TIE Advanced title! What a powerful card!! "get target lock, get free critical hit each round". You don't need to sacrifice anything, there is no need of using it each round as Target Lock remains in play... it was wonderful fix. Intergrated Astromech is just a bad, bad joke - and it's more a card for T-70s than fix for T-65s.

I'm going to pick Bwings over Xwings all day long. They are faaaar better.... and Ywings with TLTs are even better.

I dunno. Integrated Astromech does give you a reasonable argument against the B-wing boys.

Unfortunately it's a bad fix...

First of all... it's not a title, it's a precious Modification slot... this is first bad thing about it.

Wedge gets Engine upgrade.

Porkins gets a Hull upgrade.

No other X-Wing runs modifications well, though Luke often tries.

Second - Astromechs are one of few advantages on Xwings... so why sacrifice them?

The upgrade highlights this advantage, and adds additional weight to the cardslot.

Why sacrifice them? The astromech would be dead anyway, so you might as well save the rest of the ship.

Most X-wing pilots are going to work only with Droids at their back.

Porkins runs R5-D8

Tarn runs an R7 Astro

Biggs runs R4-D6

No-one else has a prescribed droid, though R3-A2 and the shield regenerators drastically change how the ship in question operates.

Still, if the Droid was going to die anyway, you might as well fart out a 1 hp X-Wing with the previous pilot's ability when it goes.

If FFG wanted to fix Xwings, the card should say:

Integrated Astromech

X-wing only, Title

Reduce Astromech cost by 4 points.

And it should be valid just for T-65s.

I rate current form of this card as a bad joke.

Just look on TIE Advanced title! What a powerful card!! "get target lock, get free critical hit each round". You don't need to sacrifice anything, there is no need of using it each round as Target Lock remains in play... it was wonderful fix. Intergrated Astromech is just a bad, bad joke - and it's more a card for T-70s than fix for T-65s.

Not all fixes should be identical.

In fact, none of them should.

The TIE Advanced had very different issues than the X-Wing, notably that it lost consistently to the X-Wing.

It needed a Damage and Utility boost, which the X already had.

The X, on the other hand, needed a Jousting boost for its generics, which this fix elegantly provided!

It's more powerful on Generic ships with Generic droids than it is on Unique pilots with Unique droids, and the latter didn't need as powerful a fix as the former!

still - it does not convince me that T-65s are worth fielding.

I strongly disagree with the OP's statement that the T-65 is on its way out. The week the Raider was released (and so almost everyone at my FLGS that week ran TIE Advanced squads), I went 2 from 2 with the following:

if I would go for X-wings, it would be such list:

https://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Rebel%20Alliance&d=v3!s!4:-1,77:-1:20:;83:49,-1,2:-1:20:;3:-1,2:-1:20:;66:19,53:-1:-1:

Biggs as cover for Jek, Jek as 5/6 damage dice firepower, Blount for auto 2 ION tokens on enemy ship, Rookie for keeping up with the rest and extra damage dice.

Biggs Darklighter

- Integrated Astromech

- R4-D6

Jek Porkins

- Integrated Astromech

- R-2

Lieutenant Blount

- Deadeye

- Ion Pulse Missles

Rookie Pilot

- Integrated Astromech

- R2

So what ideas do you have for a "fix"?

Taking into consideration what works well in the game already and what makes X-wings fun to fly in the first **** place, here's what I'd like to see:

-[0 points] Title: Equip two modifications. It's a safety choice, yes, but it'd go a LONG way and would give unnamed pilots extra utility.

-[0 points] Title: Equip a system upgrade

-A couple new System Upgrade cards. Still thinking about what would be useful as well as fun and have no specific ideas yet.

-Some more astromechs, named and generic. Astromechs are what make X-wings great

-Some more pilots. X-wing pilots have unique and excellent abilities and are one of the things that still set X-wings apart.

-A bunch of Scum and Villainy pilots, because X-wings would make GREAT pirate ships. S&V pilots would also be able to equip ILLICIT UPGRADES.

-A couple illicit upgrades that pander to the sort of pirates who'd fly a retrofit space superiority fighter.

-And last, some more salvaged astromechs. Those guys are hilarious. And useful.

Bundle it all together in one package with two alternate-scheme X-wings painted to look like really old, battered surplus Alliance craft so they'd look at home in any Rebel/S&V fleet, and you're done. It would help the people who want to fly X-wings competitively, as well as those who... just like X-wings and want to do more stuff with 'em. Also, Fantasy Flight would have an excuse to sell more models that they've already got molds for.

Now what do you lads think? Let's hear what you've got.

Edit: Suppose there should be something to put a little more green on the dial, akin to Twin Ion Engine Mk. II

Additional green maneuvers would be cool and this would help X-wing a lot. Just imagine how sweet it would work with Astromechs that get profits from green maneuvers, as well as new options for PTL or Engine Upgrade. Great idea.

or

We can move this way and add to the game 2 versions of X-wing Starfighter:

T-65D-A1. This version of the Incom X-wing starfighter was introduced about seventeen years after the Battle of Endor, it was more maneuverable version of Xwing, with advanced computer that replaced droids (astromech slot was removed).

Card name: T-65D-A1 X-wing starfighter

Type: Title, T-65 X-wing only

Card text: Action: Reply your dial move maneuver, after you perform this move assign stress token to your ship. You can't do it if your ship already have stress token assigned. Your ship can't be upgraded with Astro Droid.

Card Cost: 0 points

T-65A3 The T-65A3 X-wing was the starfighter flown by Rogue Squadron. It was outfitted with improved shields, targeting computers and laser cannons.

Card name: T-65A3 X-wing starfighter

Type: Title, Unique pilots only

Card text: This title provides additional System and Modification slot, if both are used in the same time, substract 4 points from their total cost.

Card Cost: 0 points