Friend is getting into X wing and wants a S&V squadron. What do you recommend he buy for a competitive group that also doesn't break the bank.

brobots

Here's my simple, wave 6-7 tech stuff that still held up a good fight against even Triple scouts:

Torkhil Mux 19

TLT 6

Zuckuss 1 (optional)

Syndicate Thug 18

TLT 6

Unhinged Astro 1

Syndicate Thug 18

TLT 6

Unhinged Astro 1

Binayre Pirate 12

Binayre Pirate 12

99 pts (100 with Zuckuss crew)

It's incredibly hard to decimate the entire list in a 60 min game. Trick is to fly very, very tight in first rounds of shooting and break formation once you're closing in. Zs make perfect blockers while Ys and Torkhil do the punching.

Dengar Bossk.

Pretty much every competitive list at this point draws from many expansions and theyre all equally expensive basically

Brobots would be cheapest, but sort of depends on meta at your gaming store and whats about. Current list sort of shut brobots down a bit.

Double ig-88s.

Two jumpmasters, a most wanted and then a ship of your choice (if he's done rebels before a HWK could work well as palob, else a Hounds Tooth can be fun!) and you're meta-current at a bargain price.

It's almost a good thing that so many scum ships are marginal-to-mediocre, eh?

(No, it really isn't.)

I agree that Bro Bots is probably the cheapest and competitive thing he could buy. If he wanted some illicits, he would need to buy Most Wanted....or go the single cards online.

Overall, though, there are many effective S&V lists that are possible.

I'm not so sure a Brobots list is the cheapest. When you round out the amount of stuff needed for a proper Modern Brobots, it goes waaaay beyond "get 2 Aggressors, profit".

I'd say get Most Wanted, Wave 8 ships, a K-Wing (for TLT) and either a Firespray or a Hound's Tooth. Something good is bound to break out of it.

Yeah, brobots can be pricey, but this list (or a variation) could work:

IG88 B&C

Both with Crack Shot, Heavy Laser Cannon, Glitterstim, Fire Control System, Autothrusters, Title

For that you need:

2 Aggressors

1 StarViper (autothrusters)

2 Khiraxz (crack shot, glitterstim, also gets you the VERY nice predator ept)

The only problem is getting the cannons or FCS for a good price FCS only comes in the B-Wing and TIE Phantom, and HLC only comes in large ships. Luckily it comes with both the Slave 1 and Hound's Tooth, which are likely ships he will want in the future, but for the time being if he really wants to keep it cheap, I suggest the following:

IG88 B&C

Both with: Predator, Mangler Cannon, Glitterstim, Advanced Sensors, Autothrusters, Title

You need:

2 Aggressors

1 StarViper

2 Khiraxz

2 E-Wings (cheapest source of advanced sensors)

$150 at MSRP, you can drop it to $120 if you drop the advanced sensors and take seismic charges or something else that comes with the aggressor.