Playing X-Wing is the most fun I've had while losing. I've been playing off and on since the Scum faction was announced. Skill-wise though, in many ways I'm still a beginner, loosing more games than I've won. These Battle Reports are my attempt to turn that around.

[cue training montage music, preferably something from the movie Rocky, maybe add some pew pew sound effects since this is Star Wars after all]

Stuff I Own

My Very Local Meta

I've recruited a lot of my friends into this game and they are who I mostly play against:

• The Trekkie - Fly's Brobots exclusively
• The Kid - Borrows my ships to play and mostly relies on me making him a list to fly, great raw talent
• The Cousin - Fly's Scum only, uses wildly unexpected/original lists, some more successful than others
• The Brother - The Dark side is strong with him, fly's Oicunn and Tie Swarms
• The Instructor - The man everyone is gunning for, with his Emperor and Vader list he currently has an 8 game winning streak going
• The Rules Guy - Mainly Rebel Ace lists but has recently been playing Brobots

My Play-style

• Thematically I prefer Rebels.
• I get bored flying turrets.
• In a match I will gladly block when the opportunity arises, but I don't care for lists that are based on blocking as a part of the strategy. Weird, I know.
• My inner hipster sabotages me and keeps me from playing perfectly good ships whose only flaw is being popular. I'm working on this.

In order to fly better I've decided to stick with a solid list that fits my play-style. I may make tweaks in upgrades, but my focus is more on flying better than list building.

My List

• Corran Horn (E-Wing) with R2-D2, Fire-Control System, Push the Limit and Engine Upgrade
• 2x Dagger Squadron Pilots (B-Wings) with Fire-Control System

I personally haven't seen this list before, but I'm sure it's nothing new and has been flown by plenty of others. Does anyone know if this list has a nickname? Anyone have a link to any battle reports of people flying Corran and B-wings? ( I tried searching but couldn't find anything)

A game of firsts! I went over to my Cousin's place yesterday 2-1-16 and faced off against his Z-95 Swarm:

• N’Dru Suhlak with “Hot Shot” Blaster, Marksmanship and Engine Upgrade
• 2x Black Sun Soldiers with Shield Upgrade
• 3x Black Sun Soldiers

This was my first time playing my list and this was his first time playing a swarm list.

He set up with 2 Z's on one side, his Ace Z in the middle and 3 Z's on the other side. I set up so I could focus all my fire on the 2 lone Z's on the side. I put the 2 B's in the center, but angled at the 2 Z's allowing me to use the asteroid placement as cover from the middle Z. Finally I set Corran straight across from the 2 Z's. I was able to use the B's barrel roll to approach in such away so they were out of his fire arc and barrel rolled Corran back just enough to stay out of firing range. I'm a bit nervous about flying Corran for the first time so I was playing it safe.

I damaged a Z badly but it was still on the board. Next round my B's took a pounding as his 2 Z's got them in fire arc and his ace came in behind them, 3 shields melted off the lead B. Somehow by pure luck I moved Corran into position almost touching the rear Z but Corran was still out of all enemy arcs. Corran made the Z pop, while my B's were too distracted by all the incoming shots and somehow missed their shots completely.

My B's k-turned, the first one blowing away another Z, leaving nothing for the second one to fire at. The other 3 Z's finally arrive and put some real hurt on my 2 B's, meanwhile my Corran stares down his ace just out of range 1. I considered boosting into range 1 but it would have put me in the other Z's firing arcs. His ace dinged me with a single hit to shields and I tore away into his hull. Now was my chance to finally use Corran's famed ability for the first time ever and I like it! Corran pulled N'Dru from the sky with nothing but hits staring up at me from those beautiful red dice!

His ships quickly changed strategy and as one all turned towards Corran, seeking vengeance, I kept Corran on the run, regening shields, pushing the limit to boost and barrel roll behind asteroids and focus on surviving while my two B's followed behind shooting down one Z after another all the way to victory!

In the end I had one B-wing with 2 shields left, another with no shields and the wildly regenerating Corran ended with one shield left and no hull damage. Both of us made plenty of mistakes I'm sure, since we were playing lists we weren't familiar with. I'm very happy with my list, I didn't get as much use out of boost as I thought I would, I only used it once, but it did get me out of 2 ships fire arcs the one time I used it. I loved being able to barrel roll with all 3 ships and got a lot of use out of it. Corran is a bit more fragile than I thought he would be (oh you fickle green dice!), but that R2-D2 droid is a beast! The only downside is relying on only green moves while on the run is difficult, I imagine that's where engine upgrade will come in handy in future games.

I had fun and got a feel for my list. Hopefully it was a fun read for you! On to the next game!

PS Oddly, sometimes I feel worse when I win than when I lose. I instantly feel apologetic to the other player and point out how things could have easily been different if the dice would have went the other way. Am I only one that feels that way or do you sometimes feel that way too? Maybe I'm just weird!

Sounds like a great game. I read something about Corran + Poe Dameron + a B-Wing working out well. Anyway, just something to consider.

I feel the same, the only way I have fun whilst playing is if I know my opponent is having equally as much fun. The first (and last) time I flew the Falcon I ended up apologising to my friend for ten minutes for making him fly against a Fat Han build.....never again.

My Play-style

• Thematically I prefer Rebels.
• My inner hipster sabotages me and keeps me from playing perfectly good ships whose only flaw is being popular. I'm working on this.

In order to fly better I've decided to stick with a solid list that fits my play-style. I may make tweaks in upgrades, but my focus is more on flying better than list building.

That sounds like my life in X-Wing...

@ RebelPilot2016 Thank you for the idea, but I'm going to try and stick with the E and B Wings for the moment and resist the temptation to change up my squad (though I did mess around in a squad builder to see what that list might look like, I couldn't resist!).

@ Thunderchild & Jiron Thanks guys! I'm glad I'm not the only one!

This past Sunday I played my brother and his fearsome Imperial squad. This is his first time playing again in months, but even then, he's no pushover. In the dozen or so games he's played he has yet to be defeated.

He flies a somewhat unorthodox build:

• Captain Oicunn VT-49 Decimator, Intelligence Agent, Mara Jade, Engine Upgrade
• “Redline” TIE Punisher, Enhanced Scopes, Extra Munitions, Flechette Torpedoes, Cluster Mines, Ion Bombs
• Academy Pilot TIE Fighter

I set up in the left hand corner while he fanned his ships out, Redline across from me, Oicunn in the middle and the Academy Pilot in the far corner. I cautiously moved my formation forward while his entire squad moved all out towards me, his Decimator just missing asteroids left and right while boosting towards me. Man those large based ships can move! Round two I ratchet up my speed to meet him. It was too late. Once again moving all out, Oicunn slams into my B-wings! Corran is blocked and has to be placed behind one of my stuck B-wings. Meanwhile Redline has dropped a trio of cluster mines behind the Decimator. All three of his ships light up Corran. Corran dodges both Redline and the Academy Pilot's shots but isn't as lucky with Oicunn as I see all blanks on the green dice. I did double tap with Corran and fired some shots with the B's but the results were less than lackluster.

It's the end of round two, my formation is a mess, all my ships are stressed from Mara Jade and lastly Corran has no shields left. It gets better! Thanks to the bombs, the huge ship sitting in my way and all the stress I'm not left with options for movement. My leftmost B goes forward narrowly missing the mines, while both Corran and the remaining B break to the right. None of these maneuvers allowed me to shed any of my stress and I was left with no targets to fire at in arc.

At this point I'd love to tell you how I pulled it back from the brink and squeaked out a win, or just took down a ship even. Nope, by the end of round two the game had been lost. Round three Corran exited the stage as my bro's three ships bared down on him. His B-wing companion soon followed. The last B got turned around and set up for an attack run screaming "FOR CORRAN HOORRRRNNN!!!!" as his ship turned to ash around him.

All told, I did a measly 6 damage total to his ships. Most of which was done in round two.

My brother's list is all about not letting you move where you want to. Doing damage is secondary. Rolling for hits he's as bored as can be, but when moving his ships his eyes light up with uncontrolled glee! It doesn't help that my brother has a spatial awareness that is completely unnatural. He doesn't hit an asteroid unless he wants to hit an asteroid. I swear, he doesn't need maneuver templates, he could plunk a ship down freehand and go "that's a 3 bank" and sure enough he'd be right. He's good and if I had to get beat so soundly I'm glad it was to my brother.

We played a rematch game right afterwards. I won't go through the whole thing. To sum it up, I lost. My brother is still undefeated, but I made improvement (I actually took out the Tie Fighter!). This time I spent more time on the asteroid placement, breaking from my original plan of following Heaver's placement strategy. I instead built off of where my bro was placing his asteroids keeping them close together and making sure there were no easy lanes for his decimator to fly through. As soon as the game started I made a bee line into the asteroids and kept as close to them as I dared. This forced Oicunn to fly around the outskirts only getting a few random shots here or there. Eventually he got me, but I had lasted much longer than before.

EDIT: I almost forgot the best part! At some point I sent Corran out of the asteroid field to play and he got a little too close to the edge. Next round I did a 3 hard turn, I knew it was going to be close with my maneuver template going off the edge, but I also knew Corran would get back on the playing field safe and sound. Before Corran could make his move Oicunn zoomed across the board, then boosted into position for the block. Thanks to the block a full health Corran was lost with just the barest of his ship base hanging off the mat.

I made a lot of basic mistakes too, forgetting to double tap with Corran and forgetting to get target locks from all my Fire Control Systems. I'm blaming it on being really tired at the time. Actually both of us were really tired by then. Actually I'm pretty tired right now. I'm going to wrap this up and go to bed. Later I'll write up my Monday game versus "The Kid".

Lastly, I'm thinking about tweaking my list a bit. I figure my squad has no real answer for when I eventually face an Ace list and Advanced Sensors would have helped a lot in the last two games, plus the Sensors would help shore up the B-wing's greatest weakness, it's dial. So my plan is, switch Push The Limit for Veteran Instincts on Corran and strip the B's of Fire Control Systems and replace with Advanced Sensors. What do you think, is this a good idea? Is Corran defective without PTL? Is the loss of firepower worth the added maneuverability of Advanced Sensors? Will I one day wake up from my delusions and replace one of my B-wings with a stresshog like any good X-wing player would?

I can't speak for what's best with Corron as I've never flown him, as for B-Wings it's advanced sensors every time. Being able to still get an action whilst pulling a 2k or a hard 1 maneuver is just the best.