Hi guys,

after showing off my total incompetence as a carrier commander in a few games over the last couple of days, there's one issue that vexes me: I can't find a good use for the Rebel aces. The Imperials I get, because their abilities scale quite well and provide bonuses to others, which is nice and forward. But why would I pay 6 points to reroll my maximum of two bomber dice when the enemy shields are down? Doesn't it make much more sense to use a normal B-Wing and put those points in capital upgrades? Same is true for the other Rebel aces as well. I just don't know how to use them. So, please, enlighten me

If you're talking Keyan: he's got 2 black instead of 1 blue/1 black. If you use him correctly, the enemy won't be having no shields on that zone when he starts shooting. So that's 2 rerollable blacks. Pretty awesome. And he's got 2 braces, so he'll live much longer than a standard Bwing.

You should also be using him with a combination of Independence, Adar Tallon and Yavaris.

And of course Keyan is cool with Rieekan.

Best case: Keyan is "killed", then goes on to shoot three times with a total of 6 rerollable black dice. It's a rebel kind of synergy

Just some examples.

So the one thing to keep in mind is that Rebel Aces dont have a lot of synergy between each other like the Empire ones but that doesnt mean they are not good. They all (with a few exceptions) are incredibly strong on their own without the need of other aces to buff them. I also feel that the rebel aces really shine with upgrades from ships like Yavaris, Rieekan and Flight Controllers. Rieekan is insane with named squadrons. The fact that aces can still tie up and potentially fire back at squadrons after they are dead has turned the tide of my games several times.

• Dutch and Wedge have the best synergy in the game (IMHO) as anti-squadron ships.
• Tyco is the best squadron in the game to tie up enemy squadrons.
• Keyan may not sound great to you but the ability to reroll black dice is huge. You could go from 2 blanks to 2 hit and 2 crits. Any time you have an upgrade or a squadron that allows rerolls in this game take it if you can.
• Luke is one of the few Aces that I dont like. He is awesome with Dodonna but he has disappointed me too many times to hype him up.
• Havoc is like Luke...he is too fickle for me. But when he works its awesome
• The Falcon is a great late game ship. He can jump and snipe wounded ships and squadrons before your enemy can do anything. Or tie up enemy squadrons like Rhymer (assuming he doesnt have a way to break away) before ship activation. This is great especially when you dont have initiative.
• Outrider is another incredible squadron and probably my favorite. His durability, move, and his rerolls (again rerolls are king) make him the best all around ship the rebels have.
• Moldy Crow - Incredible support ship. Pair her with generic escort ships like X-Wings and you have an incredibly cheap set of squadrons that can not only take a ton of damage but can dish it out.

I usually play empire but the following are how I have seen the rebel aces being used.

One of the keys to rebels is using squadron commands with Adar Tallon and Yavaris. Adar Tallon lets you deactivate a squadron. Yavaris allows you to perform 2 attacks with which ever squadrons you activate.

Luke: bypasses shields, so you basically do damage to a ship most of the time since he is a bomber. With dodonna on a crit, you can choose the affect. if you get Luke in front of a slow ship, he gets landed on and gets a free shot during each squadron phase.

Wedge and Dutch are great together. Dutch activates a squadron when he does damage, Wedge adds two dice when attacking an activated squadron. they make a breat 1-2 punch and also if you do not have squadrons to fight, are bombers.

Jan Ors is awesome when running with 2 x-wings cause she gives them her braces. So, she makes other ships last longer and makes all enemies heavy with intel.

Nym is also great against enemy ships in the fact that he gets to take away a defense dice on a blue crit. You get to choose the defense token.

Tycho is used for anti squadron and pretty much gets to do whatever he wants. Just watch out for IG-88.

Dash is surprisingly good being able to reroll at least one dice per turn if not more.

Han is great in that he can move last, shoot first and run away. he might be overpriced and his movement of 3 is not the greatest.

Keyan Farlander being able to reroll black dice, especially on an undefended side is something you do not want to understand. You almost have to run him with independence to get him position on an unshielded side and if you have adar tallon, deactivate him, then during squadron phase throw 2 black dice on the side of your choice.

The key to rebels, I feel is using your squadron commands and your ships. Yavaris, Adar TAllon, and Independence can create some awesome combinations that end up being scary. My opinion is Luke is almost a must have, especailly if running dodonna.

All my opinion, since I run empire. So, on my list of hate, luke is number one with Jan Ors at second.

Rebel aces are (as a general rule) super-powered versions of your generic squadrons. The important thing to realize with that is they're very squadron-command effective (as in each "point" of Squadrons commanded nets a substantial amount of things getting done, especially compared to Imperial mook-swarms) and they have a lot of synergy with any kinds of effects that allow individual squadrons to get in more attacks, such as the Yavaris title and/or Adar Tallon. You can also use Gallant Haven as a "bunker" for your aces, where due to abundant Brace tokens your opponent will need to inflict 3 or more damage on aces hiding in the bunker to have any effect (note: sometimes people over-rely on this and fly the Gallant Haven into the thick of it to keep the aces in safety, but that's generally a trap - the Gallant Haven is still an Assault Frigate and still explodes when it gets too close to serious opposition). There's also the obvious synergy with Rieekan.

A pretty easy-to-use combination for bomber Rebel aces requires the following:

• A source of Intel
• One ship with Adar Tallon
• One Yavaris Nebulon-B Escort Frigate

Make sure your Intel is keeping squadrons heavy near the intended target and then launch Nym/Keyan/Luke at the target with Adar Tallon's ship issuing a squadron command. Adar Tallon untaps the bomber ace. Then have Yavaris double-tap the same ace with a squadron command. You get 3 total attacks which can be a considerable amount of output from a single character ace.

Others have mentioned the Dutch+Wedge combination and that's pretty swell too. Dutch even by himself is pretty potent against Rogues, as they like to wait until the squadrons phase to activate but by then Dutch has already made them sleepy.

You are correct that the Imperial Unique Squadrons tend to be, on par, far better than Rebel aces. Rhymer is the most powerful fighter--if not the most powerful card overall--in the game. Any Imp squad taking any decent amount of fighters always brings Rhymer because his ability is so warping. Mithel is king of autodamage, especially with Intel around. Howlrunner makes little 8pts hit like freight trains, while also providing a ridiculous buff to anything with Counter (which thanks to Dengar, everything has now).


Rebels are a lot less Intuitive and also a lot less potent at their price range. In fact, they're unplayable given their high cost and so-so abilities. Luke's ability is great, but at least for now (pre-flotillas) there is no way to reroll his Bomber die so he's as likely to blank out as he is to bypass shields with a crit. Wedge is even worse, as his ability is nice but you'll want to be activating him with squad commands, which means unless you bring Dutch too, he's not likely to get that bonus very often. And so forth.


So how do you use the Rebel Aces ? Well, there is one thing that can make them worthwhile, and that's milking the Rebel squadron tricks. Keyan and Luke are not worth their points, but if you activate them two or three times a turn then they sure do become pretty effective. So you have to make use of Yavaris and Adar Talon , preferably on two different ships (Talon into position, unactivate, Yavaris double-tap). This lets you get three uses out of a squardon. So while Farlander might not be worth his points activating once a turn, he sure is ridiculously amazing when you manage to attack with him three times in a single turn (I've dealt out 8+ damage to an ISD before with just Farlander in a single turn). As far as Rebels are concerned, if you're not using Yavaris and Talon you should not be running the unique squadrons, period. They are just not worth their cost. I also suspect that the reason Rebel Ace Squadrons seem kinda "meh" compared to Imps is because they are designed with Talon and Yavaris in mind. As noted, if you go the unique squadron route, Reikaan starts to look like a pretty dandy admiral as well.

Rebels are a lot less Intuitive and also a lot less potent at their price range. In fact, they're unplayable given their high cost and so-so abilities.

I am not sure what your experience is playing them or against but saying that Rebel Aces are unplayable is unfounded. I would be curious to hear how you could back up this statement.

Rebels rely heavily on ship-based upgrades to make their stuff on par with their Imperial counterparts. Adar Talon, Yavaris, Indepedence, and soon to be Toryn Far are all great boosts to squadrons, but they're all ship based. To make Rebels Aces, and Rebel squadrons in general, worthwhile, you really have to focus your list toward accomplishing that goal. Where Imps can throw Rhymer in a ball of bombers and be content, Rebels have to make ships part of your squadron plan.

Take, for example, Wedge and Dutch. They are probably the best duo in the game and are one of the few syngeries the rebels have within squadrons themselves. However, Yavaris takes it to a new level. They can potentially activate two enemy squadrons and pump out 18 anti-squadron dice in a single Yavaris-boosted activation. Take Keyan as another example. At speed 2, he's hard to get into position. But add an Independence boost and Adar Talon, and now you're well in position and ready to shoot. Add Yavaris to that equation and you've got a 2 black double tap after the speed 4 move.

And then there's the Zombie Lord. Rieekan is a total jack ass with Aces. There is nothing more aggrevating than Wedge or Luke sitting around with no hit points and still forcing everyone and their mother to shoot at them. Jan getting to stick around for that last little bit of Intel can be critical.

Wings, I can get behind a lot of what you said when discussing how to maximise certain aces, but I vehemently disagree with the notion Yavaris and Tallon are a pre-req to taking rebel aces at all. However, the theme you hit on, that I completely support, is that the rebel squadron game is significantly boosted by their synergy with the rebel cap ships. And in the case of aces, Rieekan.

Jan Orrs does not need Tallon/Yavaris to be worth her points.

Dash/Han clearly don't, as at least part of their draw is flexibility in activation timing.

Dutch is worth his points with or without Yavaris, imo, in terms of his ability to shut down rogues and his synergy with Wedge. Certainly they benfit from Flight Controllers and will benefit from Toryn Farr, and as you pointed out Wedge/Rieekan is awesome.

Luke/Nyn, see green knights comments above.

Tycho definetely does not need yavaris tallon to be worth taking.

Also taking 2 sources of Intel makes rebels shine. Freedom to position escorts surrounding enemy fighter balls and forcing them to split their fire really pays dividends for gaining superiority.

Rebels are a lot less Intuitive and also a lot less potent at their price range. In fact, they're unplayable given their high cost and so-so abilities.

I am not sure what your experience is playing them or against but saying that Rebel Aces are unplayable is unfounded. I would be curious to hear how you could back up this statement.

Yeah sounds like limited experience. My rebel buddy won a store champs with his reikaan aces list and came in second at the one I won. It took a bunch of practice and a bunch of tweaking but he wrecks with it.

Rebels are a lot less Intuitive and also a lot less potent at their price range. In fact, they're unplayable given their high cost and so-so abilities.

I am not sure what your experience is playing them or against but saying that Rebel Aces are unplayable is unfounded. I would be curious to hear how you could back up this statement.

Yeah sounds like limited experience. My rebel buddy won a store champs with his reikaan aces list and came in second at the one I won. It took a bunch of practice and a bunch of tweaking but he wrecks with it.

I am curious what his build was...unless its a state secret for regionals.

Rebels are a lot less Intuitive and also a lot less potent at their price range. In fact, they're unplayable given their high cost and so-so abilities.

I am not sure what your experience is playing them or against but saying that Rebel Aces are unplayable is unfounded. I would be curious to hear how you could back up this statement.

Yeah sounds like limited experience. My rebel buddy won a store champs with his reikaan aces list and came in second at the one I won. It took a bunch of practice and a bunch of tweaking but he wrecks with it.

I am curious what his build was...unless its a state secret for regionals.

I've won consistently with my Rieekan Aces list which I'm happy to share (and is also likely to be seen at Regionals). I didn't start using it until after Store Championships, but I've won a spring tourney with it since. Here's my typical build:

MC80 Command Cruiser

-Rieekan

-Independence

-Boosted Comms

-ECMs

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate

-Yavaris

-Raymus

CR90A

-Jaina's Light

-TRCs

4x B-Wings

1x X-Wing

Wedge

Dutch

Jan

400/400

To add a lesser used one. I am running Luke alongside generics and Gallant Haven. The enemy MUST shoot Luke, and if they do anything less than 3 damage he simply braces it to nothing. Same thing could be achieved with Wedge or Jan and some X's.

After having been ripped to pieces again and again against combos like: Howlrunner (extra dice for all ), Mauler (damage others when moving), Soontir (damaging anyone who doesnt attack you) and Dengar (giving counter to all (boosted by Howlie) and heavy to Mauler allowing him to move) ... I have just given up on using squadrons as a viable way of spending points and just gone with the safe (but boring) selection of a core of 2 Assault Frigates mark A with gunnery teams. They can hose down most bombers at an OK rate if they both open up and keep a tight congo-line.

But it is a bit boring.. That combo above can wither any figther combo down rather quickly with auto damage from Soontir and Howlrunner and if you attack Soontir you get a lot of counter fire in the face (4 dice plus one re-roll).

Perhaps Solo could work if you can get the timing right - Going in last using rogue and only engaging a ship at the fringe and then going first the following round and run back into AA cover.. But with speed 3 the Falcon will easily get jumped first..

I am at a loss what to do .. Perhaps change to playing the imps..

.. Take one Assault Frigate A with Ruthless Strategists, and hose down all of the 3HP models in one, maybe 2 rounds of Shooting... And cleaning up everything else within a round or two more with your actual fighter cover...

Then completely dominate the rest of the Battle.

Rhymer Ball players cringe at certain combinations you never really see... Anything that doles out "Free Damage" (like Ruthless) completely negates them wanting to ball up together... As one well-placed fighter on your side is sacrifice to damage them all ...

.. Take one Assault Frigate A with Ruthless Strategists, and hose down all of the 3HP models in one, maybe 2 rounds of Shooting... And cleaning up everything else within a round or two more with your actual fighter cover...

Then completely dominate the rest of the Battle.

Rhymer Ball players cringe at certain combinations you never really see... Anything that doles out "Free Damage" (like Ruthless) completely negates them wanting to ball up together... As one well-placed fighter on your side is sacrifice to damage them all ...

I dont get it? For that to work i would have to engage the enemy squadron first and then my own squadron will take the same amount of damage?

AFMK-IIA spends 1 Squadron Token, moves one YV-1300 into Engagement. If you want, it fires, takes counter, etc, etc etc.

Then your AFMK-IIA Shoots its Double-Blue Squadron Dice at all of the Enemy Squadrons... This can force things like Scatter, etc, to be Removed...

Then, for every Squadron you attacked, that also happens to be in Engagement of the YV... You can elect to inflict 1 point of Damage to them... This damage cannot be stopped with a Scatter, as its not an Attack...

That's what I mean by guaranteed Damage... Properly applied, it turns any Rebel Squad into something very similar to Mauler Mithel with the damage...

It means that, even Howlrunner, protected by Escort, and by Scatter... Takes Damage. Guaranteed.

After having been ripped to pieces again and again against combos like: Howlrunner (extra dice for all ), Mauler (damage others when moving), Soontir (damaging anyone who doesnt attack you) and Dengar (giving counter to all (boosted by Howlie) and heavy to Mauler allowing him to move) ... I have just given up on using squadrons as a viable way of spending points and just gone with the safe (but boring) selection of a core of 2 Assault Frigates mark A with gunnery teams. They can hose down most bombers at an OK rate if they both open up and keep a tight congo-line.

Imperials have to invest pretty heavily into squadrons to get those synergies working together. Just Howl+Dengar+Mauler+Advanced is 63 points on it's own (equivalent to almost 6 A-WIngs). If you swarm it early, it dies pretty easily. This is the main reason I love B-Wings so much. They can contribute to the squadron fight if needed. If you concentrate your efforts, you can kill the Advanced and Dengar pretty quickly (and by quickly, I mean one turn), leaving Mauler and Howl pretty limited. The key is to nip them in the butt quickly. Mauler damage is manageable for a turn, but you really can't let it go longer than that. Either get him pinned down or gank him. Neb-B escorts are also great for getting cheap, but powerful AS firepower into the fight. Seriously, Yavaris is awesome. Not mandatory by any means, but it's just such an awesome ship.

Thanks for all the tips! I don't have Rogues and Villains, so no Intel, but that's ok because my opponent doesn't have it either.

Thanks for all the tips! I don't have Rogues and Villains, so no Intel, but that's ok because my opponent doesn't have it either.

It's frankly a must. Jan is critical to most of my squadron centric builds.

Not to mention, if you can snag it, before your opponent learns of its goodness ... You will have such the advantage as to be mocking upon high!

Overall, the Rebels have a weaker squadron force. One of the issues is they really need to take upgrades on their ships to hang: Yavaris, Expanded Hangers, Flight Controllers, and Rutherless Strategist. The worst part is the Rebels are playing to counter the strong Imperial aces which are priced too low with those darn scatters. Add in the fact that the imperials have such a massive threat range, if you don't have initiative you might as well count yourself down one squadron for the first strike.

My favorite combination is the following. It appears that you aren't maxing out the synergy of a few of the ships, but the protection offered by the 4 Advanced with counter 1 to a Ryhmer ball that can defend so well because you get eaten up by Soontir and Mith is what makes this work so well. The Advanced aren't just the shields due to Ryhmer.

X4 Advanced

Howlrunner

Mith

Soontir

Degnar

Rhymer

=133

To counter this lineup I can just bring 133 points worth of squadrons. I have to add two blue dice rolling ships, RS, Gallant Haven; or GT on a mark A with expanded Hangers; or Rieekan....plus definitely some HWKs etc. **** I hate having to use HWKs to get at Mith first and Soonir next before I am whittled down (before Rhymer because he is held just out of range all the darn time). The HWKs are slow like most of the hard hitting squadrons which makes jumping behind the shield difficult. A few A-wing are also key with Tycho being great. It cost the rebels so darn much to deal with imperial squadrons. Now is this OP? I have no idea and can't presume to answer because we don't have enough data to see the overall wins vs losses of the Rebels vs Imperials. People complain about Ackbar but forget they have Demolisher and imperial squadrons which synergies and tons of scatter. People can get a good sense where the Rebels will be going, but the imperials have greater flexibility due to their huge overall threat advantage. It can be down right difficult to avoid a coordinated first strike when imperials have both initiative for the Squadrons and the Double tap Demolisher. Just because of the squadrons alone, I find the imperial so much easier for new players to play.

It isn't that the Rebel squadrons aren't both interesting, powerful, and fun; it's that they fall short of the imperials, need fleet support, and also have to be flown much better than imperials because the margin for error with the rebels is smaller than the imperials.

To add a lesser used one. I am running Luke alongside generics and Gallant Haven. The enemy MUST shoot Luke, and if they do anything less than 3 damage he simply braces it to nothing. Same thing could be achieved with Wedge or Jan and some X's.

Sorry, but, uh, why MUST they shoot Luke? If he's not the only escort there, what's stopping enemy squadrons (to say nothing of enemy ships) from shooting at the generics?

To add a lesser used one. I am running Luke alongside generics and Gallant Haven. The enemy MUST shoot Luke, and if they do anything less than 3 damage he simply braces it to nothing. Same thing could be achieved with Wedge or Jan and some X's.

Sorry, but, uh, why MUST they shoot Luke? If he's not the only escort there, what's stopping enemy squadrons (to say nothing of enemy ships) from shooting at the generics?

I assumed "generics" meant "non X-Wing non-ace squadrons." It's not very clear, however.