So with the drop of the Rogues and Villains article ( https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/9/30/a-few-surprises/ ) and with their impending release in the stores, I am wondering if they will have an effect on the seemingly Ship-Heavy play styles that we have been seeing? Will they bring squadrons back into the fold somewhat?

Things like Bossk's ability to add an accuracy to his attack could help avoid defence tokens when attacking Ships or Squadrons with Scatter or Dengar's ability to increase the Counter values (or give a ship one to start) could make other squadrons stronger. I know many of the abilities are more directed towards squadrons but many of them seem quite interesting. I know I'll be picking up a pack and testing them out.

What does everyone think?

I think having a Rogue in your fleet will give you a lot of flexibility that the standard squadrons lack. Move and shoot in the squadron phase is huge, and means you are never 'wasting' the points.

I am thinking take Slave-I or Bossk for offensive duty, and a screen off TIEs for defence to chase after the Milennium Falcon! Can't wait for this pack to arrive, should be awesome.

I think it really makes the old standard squadrons pretty useless. =/ Also, mass squadrons of actual faction ships is like not a thing. =/ which makes me again sad.

why the **** do i care about more ******* ugly white cowboy rogue badboy flair. srsly. also dash.

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they should be good.

but they should also be significantly better than wave1 squads, which makes me kinda sad.

Its more options....

At one extreme, the "ship only" fleet will potentially have more threats to worry about. If a rogue heavy list style that can do enough damage to threaten a cap ship ends up being an efficient "meta", then ship only fleets will have another risk to contend with, and potentially, will lose viability if you won't realistically get through a tourney without facing them.

The advent of "intel" and "grit" means that taking a "token" fighter screen will be less effective as your token fighters will have much more trouble disrupting bombing runs.

So unless the overall "meta" (hate that term) settles on squadrons including rogues still not being efficient, then there will probably be a lot more variety in squadrons and squadron gameplay. None of the rogues and villains appear to be able to field the same attack power or hull points as effectively as basic squadrons do, but they do expand the options and threats quite a bit.

At the other extreme, and again, if the "meta" does decide that squadrons pose an efficient threat, then the defences against them will have to evolve. Simply engaging them may not be enough, we may find more points being spent on squadrons with the intent to engage and kill, rather than engage and tie up. Alternatively maybe specialised anti fighter raiders will see more action too and they won't be relegated to being assault concussion missile boats!

I just hope that people will get the nomenclature right.

People like Bossk and Boba Fett are not as loyal and Imperially minded as more ideal citizens should be. Thus they are rogues. However, traitors like Han Solo and terrorists like Dash Rendar are pure evil, and thus should be called villains.

I think it really makes the old standard squadrons pretty useless. =/ Also, mass squadrons of actual faction ships is like not a thing. =/ which makes me again sad.

why the **** do i care about more ******* ugly white cowboy rogue badboy flair. srsly. also dash.

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they should be good.

but they should also be significantly better than wave1 squads, which makes me kinda sad.

Couldn't disagree more. The old standard squadrons were already viable and non of the new squadrons invalidate any of the old ones. Rogue comes in to give you a choice with some models to spend either a few squadron commands during the game or spend 3 points for autonomy.

Some metas already were squadron metas or heading that way. Those shouldn't see a noticeable difference other than some players mixing in different options.

For the ship-only metas, the key squadron is the Firespray. It's a bomber that can fly autonomously and attack with Demolisher to shift the game in favor of the player that brings it. Even 1 or 2 will be enough of a threat to force reactions in other lists (and a Raider won't help). So once you need squadrons to counter the Firespray, you get a feedback loop pulling squadrons into the game. Of course metas being what they are, people could totally group-think there way to all ship again.

Been waiting for this thread... probably the most exciting aspect of Wave II for me (well, besides ISDs, of course...)

I agree with Tranenturm on the Wave I fighters. All of them are cheaper than all but one of the new squadrons (the generic Jumpmaster/HWK), so they'll continued to be favored by spam lists (12 A-wings or Interceptors/13 Y-wings/14 TIE bombers/16 TIE fighters). With the Boosted Comms upgrade and larger squadron command platforms, I fully expect them to remain competitive for those that already enjoy carrier lists, now that a dedicated squadron wing won't necessarily limit you to just 2-3 ships (and will probably pick up some extra enthusiasts on that score).

Beyond that, B-wings are still excellent on the Rebel side (the early consensus elsewhere on the forums seems to be that H-6s aren't an appreciable upgrade, and may actually be a poor replacement for B-wings overall), X-wings remain the more balanced source of Escort (same price as YT-1300, but better speed and anti-squadron capabilities), A-wings still have counter and are the only squdrons to move at speed 5 (and, along with the YT-2400s, are the only rebel squadrons that move faster than speed 3), and Y-wings still have the Bomber keyword on a cheap model (the other alternatives cost 13, 14, and 16 points). On the imperial side, Rhymer is only more potent with the release of R&V, Interceptors remain the only spammable source of speed 5 squadrons, Chiraneau + a squadron with Intel will free up imperial fighters significantly, TAs (still the only source of Escort ), are arguably even more important now that there are more expensive heroes to keep alive, you can still get two TIE Bombers for the cost of a single generic Firespray, and sixteen (16!!!) generic TIE fighters should pin down any squadron force you're likely to come across (especially if paired with a Raider or two). After all, Han may shoot first, but he still only activates once...

Been waiting for this thread... probably the most exciting aspect of Wave II for me (well, besides ISDs, of course...)

I agree with Tranenturm on the Wave I fighters. All of them are cheaper than all but one of the new squadrons (the generic Jumpmaster/HWK), so they'll continued to be favored by spam lists (12 A-wings or Interceptors/13 Y-wings/14 TIE bombers/16 TIE fighters). With the Boosted Comms upgrade and larger squadron command platforms, I fully expect them to remain competitive for those that already enjoy carrier lists, now that a dedicated squadron wing won't necessarily limit you to just 2-3 ships (and will probably pick up some extra enthusiasts on that score).

Beyond that, B-wings are still excellent on the Rebel side (the early consensus elsewhere on the forums seems to be that H-6s aren't an appreciable upgrade, and may actually be a poor replacement for B-wings overall), X-wings remain the more balanced source of Escort (same price as YT-1300, but better speed and anti-squadron capabilities), A-wings still have counter and are the only squdrons to move at speed 5 (and, along with the YT-2400s, are the only rebel squadrons that move faster than speed 3), and Y-wings still have the Bomber keyword on a cheap model (the other alternatives cost 13, 14, and 16 points). On the imperial side, Rhymer is only more potent with the release of R&V, Interceptors remain the only spammable source of speed 5 squadrons, Chiraneau + a squadron with Intel will free up imperial fighters significantly, TAs (still the only source of Escort ), are arguably even more important now that there are more expensive heroes to keep alive, you can still get two TIE Bombers for the cost of a single generic Firespray, and sixteen (16!!!) generic TIE fighters should pin down any squadron force you're likely to come across (especially if paired with a Raider or two). After all, Han may shoot first, but he still only activates once...

I might just try 16 tie fighters... That seems honestly potent. Maybe cut 1-2 out for rhymer, cause why not at that point.

I just hope that people will get the nomenclature right.

People like Bossk and Boba Fett are not as loyal and Imperially minded as more ideal citizens should be. Thus they are rogues. However, traitors like Han Solo and terrorists like Dash Rendar are pure evil, and thus should be called villains.

Do people think Bossk and Boba Fett are villains? They are legitimate businessmen, no? They operate within the confines of the law.

As you said, Han and Dash don't at all. Han was also involved in the mass murder of that planet miner's crew.

I think it's going to be very difficult to play zero squadrons with the inclusion of the generic firespray and the YT-2400. Both are purely independent platforms that can squish a token 1-3 fighter screen with equivalent numbers and are independently moving threats to ships.

In my view, the only viable zero-squadron fleets after this wave are going to be speed-focused fleets where the defense vs. squadrons is basically "%*!@ you, I'm going speed 3-4 the whole game" and reducing their attack opportunities by repeatedly running away is the real defense.

Or, perhaps, a very raider heavy imperial fleet, but one can look at the raider as a somewhat beefier squadron, in many ways...

I just hope that people will get the nomenclature right.

People like Bossk and Boba Fett are not as loyal and Imperially minded as more ideal citizens should be. Thus they are rogues. However, traitors like Han Solo and terrorists like Dash Rendar are pure evil, and thus should be called villains.

Mmmmm. Yummy stuff. 2 corvettes w/overload pulse, 1 MC80 home one, 1MC30 torpedo boat, and 3 rogues with Reiken can be a pretty devastating combo.

Why does everyone think that these will replace the old squads? I only see ways that these will help the old squads. The Falcon is okay, but 4 dice, 2 blues and 2 blacks with no counter or bomber title is decent I guess. I see him as more of a nice ship that can help escort the bombers and Luke into the firing lanes where now they get locked up so easy by the Imp fighters or by taking out Rhymer Ball there is no great strategy with Rebel bombers. Now there is. Plus the Falcon may one shot a tie fighter, but if you have a tie swarm and roll at least A hit each roll, you're looking at 4 damage on 7 hull. Are they good? Yes, game/squad breaking? Not at all.

I've been a big supporter of squadrons from the start. I'm excited that I can keep my current squadron build, and just throw in Dengar to exponentially increase its capabilities. I don't think they'll replace the Wave I squadrons at all, but the amount of additional options and tactics they add is invaluable.

I don't know that i'll ever bring a named pilot in to my fleet, even though they have some nice talents.

I think a named pilot just screams -- focus me first -- or requires a couple escort squadrons to guarantee (for a round or so) their survivability but then that's more points going places I don't want them to go and thus making me want to scrap the named pilot in the first place and get 2 normal squadrons instead.

I think the hwk and the jumpmaster will be quite important in making sure your squadrons aren't tied down.

All in all, loving this wave of ships/squadrons and how much it appears to be deepening the choices and tactical options of the game.

I'm not sure just how good some of the new squadrons are due to various issues.

The questionable:

Imperial

Boba - 26 points, 5HP. He may simply die before doing much.

Bossk - Very expensive, bad versus named squadrons (only one acc max so he'll always be braced, or even scattered if he hasn't taken damage), less damage than two tie fighters, weak anti-ship for cost, only one brace token means his 7hp is less than it looks. He's like a more expensive Wedge that is only good against generic fighters.

YV-666 - Slow (but moves itself), beefy, high anti-squadron damage, but it has heavy so it can't screen your fleet from bombing runs, which is what it really seems to want to do. Also because it's heavy, slow and has very weak anti-ship damage, it's not going to be a priority target. Thus, its 7hp is not particularly meaningful as its probably going to be the last thing to be shot at.

Ig-88 - Expensive anti-squadron assassin that doesn't really have much firepower compared to his cost. Only a single defensive die, so he'll die almost as fast as an X-Wing. He can however jump into a fight at the end of a turn and finish off a squad with counter without taking fire back.

Aggressor - seems to want to fill the exact same role as the YV-666, but is faster and lacks heavy, so it could theoretically be used as a screen. I'm simply not sure it does this role better than Ties and Interceptors, even considering the rogue keyword.

Dengar - Regular Jumpmaster could simply be better depending on how his ability plays out on the table.

Rebel

Han - Very expensive, low damage compared to cost, weak damage to ships for cost, only 2 blue dice so he'll have trouble killing named squadrons. Attacking at the end of a turn, then at the beginning of the next is still two turns of shooting.

Dash - Very expensive, low damage compared to cost, weak damage to ships for cost.

one thing people have to remember is that ships have a hell of a time killing squadrons by themselves

the less enemy squadrons you face, the (far!) more durable your squadrons will become (Especially if you do tricky stuff, like park squadrons in the same hullzone the enemy has facing your ships so they have to shoot at one or the other)

now Rogue is neat for its independence, but it is also hilariously inefficient relative to normal squadrons (has to be to not straight up replace them )

so far, though, the only truly "OMG" squadron of the pack is Jan imo. Give her some escorts and some bombers, and bam you've got a monster blob going.

I'm not sure just how good some of the new squadrons are due to various issues.

The questionable:

Imperial

Boba - 26 points, 5HP. He may simply die before doing much.

Bossk - Very expensive, bad versus named squadrons (only one acc max so he'll always be braced, or even scattered if he hasn't taken damage), less damage than two tie fighters, weak anti-ship for cost, only one brace token means his 7hp is less than it looks. He's like a more expensive Wedge that is only good against generic fighters.

YV-666 - Slow (but moves itself), beefy, high anti-squadron damage, but it has heavy so it can't screen your fleet from bombing runs, which is what it really seems to want to do. Also because it's heavy, slow and has very weak anti-ship damage, it's not going to be a priority target. Thus, its 7hp is not particularly meaningful as its probably going to be the last thing to be shot at.

Ig-88 - Expensive anti-squadron assassin that doesn't really have much firepower compared to his cost. Only a single defensive die, so he'll die almost as fast as an X-Wing. He can however jump into a fight at the end of a turn and finish off a squad with counter without taking fire back.

Aggressor - seems to want to fill the exact same role as the YV-666, but is faster and lacks heavy, so it could theoretically be used as a screen. I'm simply not sure it does this role better than Ties and Interceptors, even considering the rogue keyword.

Dengar - Regular Jumpmaster could simply be better depending on how his ability plays out on the table.

Rebel

Han - Very expensive, low damage compared to cost, weak damage to ships for cost, only 2 blue dice so he'll have trouble killing named squadrons. Attacking at the end of a turn, then at the beginning of the next is still two turns of shooting.

Dash - Very expensive, low damage compared to cost, weak damage to ships for cost.

Boba's 6 health with double brace, so he'll at least soak some hits, especially if you can get him an Escort. His ability cannot be tokened, which is unpleasant for Soontir Fel.

Bossk: 4 black dice means an average of 3 hits per attack against squadrons. Speed 3 with Rogue means a damaged Bossk will actually be a threat against ships, as he's effectively got an Accuracy plus a Blue and a Black for every attack.

IG88: Speed 5 plus Rogue will allow him to follow the same boom-and-zoom tactics as his X-Wing version. Get in, fire, then activate with a Squadron command next turn to finish the target and run out.

Dengar: Free Counter for anyone within distance 1-2, which pairs brilliantly with the TIE Advanced and Soontir Fel. Intel also helps him fit with Bombers, who also benefit from the free Counter.

Han: Close to Bossk in terms of regular damage output, but the regular YT-1300 will probably be the star as a B-Wing escort.

Dash: For all intents and purposes, he's a named X-Wing with Rogue. Fly him into a furball with some X-Wings to maximize his ace-killing damage output, and his ability also allows a free reroll on every bombing run.

Jan: Provides good insurance against those 6-attack Interceptors blowing up your X-Wings, and pairs well with YT-1300 Escorts. Will also work well with Luke.

Ship only fleets will probably have some issues with Rogues if you dont have your own fighters. Even as it is, 3-5 fighters that are free to hit a ship can cause pretty good damage but some ships can deal with them which makes them less effective in a sense.

The rogue ships are all pretty durable and unlike normal fighters, they almost all have Rogue which lets them move + shoot without Squadron command dials so they will take much longer to get away from them. I foresee one hell of a thorn if you dont have fighters to deal with them, or at least tie them up for a turn or two.

Quite frankly i despise ship only lists. It removes an aspect of the game that i find adds the most to the game in terms of fluff and fun.

Yavaris already deals with those

I guess Sprays will do similar for the imps. They're like bombers, but they'll free up your VSDs from squadrons and instead let you point your big-fat-front-arc at a GSD's face

then again, with Rhymer's range you could just fling them somewhere near the middle of the table and leave them turreting to their own devices

one thing people have to remember is that ships have a hell of a time killing squadrons by themselves

the less enemy squadrons you face, the (far!) more durable your squadrons will become (Especially if you do tricky stuff, like park squadrons in the same hullzone the enemy has facing your ships so they have to shoot at one or the other)

now Rogue is neat for its independence, but it is also hilariously inefficient relative to normal squadrons (has to be to not straight up replace them )

so far, though, the only truly "OMG" squadron of the pack is Jan imo. Give her some escorts and some bombers, and bam you've got a monster blob going.

Dengar adding counter 1 to a blob of 7 T/B and 2 T/A seems pretty awesome. Trying to kill those guys is going to be painful while you get countered all the time.

I'm pleased that we are getting Gunboats added to our game. Capitol ships, gunboats and fighters. Excellent! Now we just need to add some rules for lower level admirals and wing commanders in order to play ARMADA as a campaign game.

I want to be able to send snub fighter alpha strikes against destroyers like in TIE Fighter and XWing back in the day as part of that campaign.

Specifically, I want missions like:

A Wing Commander in a YT-1300 leading a flight of Y-wings to eliminate the Gladiator escorts from that Star Destroyer in order to make way for your Nebulon B's.

Would that not be awesome?

Wing commander is already an upgrade though...

I think that the new squadrons from Rogues and Villains will make the no-squadron build a very dicey proposition. The squadrons like Han Solo and Boba Fett can inflict a lot of damage on ships and with their hull values, and defense tokens, a no-squadron fleet will have a hard time killing them. You will see more of the regular fighter squadrons because a cheap squadron that can throw 3 or 4 blue dice at Han is going to be a lot more effective at countering him than costly ships who can throw only a couple of dice at him.

For example: Han Solo costs 26 points. He’s not a bomber but still he will move and attack every turn throwing a blue and a black die at your 110-point (without upgrades) ISD. Each turn that the ISD shoots at him it will roll a black and a blue die and only 1 out of 4 times is it going to roll an accuracy result. The most likely roll is 1 or 2 damage and Han will brace against 2 so you’ll average 1 point of damage a turn. He will probably survive the entire battle at that rate. During that same time he has probably been doing 1 or 2 points of damage per turn to you which at the very least is weakening your shields against the other enemy fire.

For just 22 points you can toss a pair of TIE Interceptors on him. They’ll each roll 4 blue dice with a re-roll for swarm. On average in a single turn they’ll each roll a couple of damage with a fair chance of getting an accuracy result as well. They will whittle down Han a lot faster than any ship-based anti-squadron fire. And if Han decides to shoot that them they have counter 2 so there is a chance of that much more damage inflicted on him.

Now is this actually the way it will work? I can’t say for sure because I haven’t tried it, but based on what I have read this seems logical. It’ll be fun to put it to the test.

I find a lot of the vanilla squadrons from Wave 2 actually work best when paired WITH Wave 1 squadrons instead of trying to replace them. Sure they don't all have Rogue, but they bring their own interesting options to the table.

YT-1300 can act as an escort for slow moving B-Wings, even draw fire away from sluggish Y-wings if needed. Or you can pair it with Independance for a chance to zip out at speed 4 and lock down enemy fighter proactively. Sure you can't attack for one turn, but you can still Counter. And Jan Ors gives its 7 Hull a lot of love by allowing them to use her brace tokens.

YT-2400 seems sort of like a bulked up A-Wing to me, complete with black anti-ship die. Maybe this one doesn't mix much with Wave 1 guys, but it can add some extra muscle and flexibility to the already versatile A-Wing wave.

HWK-290 makes a solid escort for A-Wings that want to be able to break away to pin down more important targets, or for Bombers that want to be able to beak away to MURDER more important targets. Without an Escort of its own the HWK probably won't survive the counter attack, but who wouldn't pay 11 points for an unencumbered round of shooting at enemy vital points?

Scurrrrrrrrrrrg H-6...well honestly I'm not sold on the vanilla version of this. Although it IS a faster, tougher B-Wing that cannot handle Squadrons as well. Might be intended to fly in with Escorts like X's or YT's, and then use Grit to bail away and keep making runs on ships. Have to see it on the board to really know for sure.

Firespray-31 - I'm far from an expert on Imperial fighters (spit) but it seems like a Firespray can play double duty around a bunch of TIE Bombers. It can hit almost as hard with Bomber and 2 Blues, without eating activation commands because it's Rogue. And if needed it can dogfight much better than Bombers, ideally long enough for rescue to zip across the board.

The Jumpmaster 5000 is solid with Intel for allowing your Bombers to run away and murder things, or your Interceptors to break away and snipe at important solo targets. But I think in this case it's Dengar who takes the cake since his ability makes everything around you more dangerous. Even a throwaway TIE squadron can throw a one die counter before dying, and that could give someone pause.

The Aggressor is sort of like a more offense oriented X-Wing to me. It drops the Escort for Counter, Bomber for Rogue and red anti-ship for black. Yeah it's expensive compared to its TIE brethren, but it could be a real headache since it doesn't take fighter commands to activate. And of course Dengar (you again) makes its counter respectable.

...okay I have to throw my hands up at the YV-666, I just don't get it. The only thing I can think of is like...an assassin? It could move away from one target (maybe other targets got picked off by TIEs) and engage a different target entirely with Grit. Don't get me wrong, it hits like a truck, but it flies like a pregnant yak in a shopping cart.