Hey. I'm new to X Wing, and I got interested in the game by watching Battle Reports (Please no hate). I've watched a lot of the championship matches, and I've noticed that recently, there's been very little TIE Punnisher,Phantom, and Bomber lists, and most Imperial lists seem to be Palp Aces, which I don't think I've ever seen work. Why aren't there many competitive Punnisher, Bomber, or Phantom lists? Are they banned? Do they exist and I've just never seen them?

There was a Phantom in the top 16 bracket of the 2016 World Championship . Whisper is still a competitive pilot.

Punishers and Bombers are just not quite cost effective. Guidance Chips and Long Range Scanners gave them a bump, but munitions needs slightly more potent special sauce before it become palatable in a competitive setting. For example: at the top table at worlds we saw a K-Wing loaded down with missiles and bombs. That worked out because of Sabine supercharging the bombs, Advanced Slam improving your placement options, and Miranda's ability gave the homing missiles with an extra dice. Oh, and the ship has a turret and regen on top of all of that. The Imperial munitions carriers don't have access to this potent toolkit, and so they under-perform in a competitive setting.

There are currently no banned cards or ships in competitive X-Wing. Watching battle reports from big tournaments will give you a good idea of what type of squadrons are used by strong players. Palp Aces is one of the strongest archetypes, so it's no surprise that you've seen it a lot.

There are competitive bombers and phantoms, though bombers aren't amazing still, they're a hair too fragile for their points, and usually very easy to focus fire on.

Punishers do universally suck though. 40 points 9 health 1 defence no regen is going to die before it can do much.

Bombers are slightly too fragile, 2 green Dice and no Shields can be horrible. Tomax is almost incredible with Crackshot, homing missiles, extra munitions and guidance chips, but can often die just slightly too early.

Phantoms (er, Whisper*, but she's always been the only truly competitive Phantom, this is not meant as a debate since there are showings of Echo in the top tables, but it was a much lower percentage compared to Whisper) are still viable. The nerf to them has made them very difficult to play well, but Phild0 has consistently shown that they are deadly. If flown correctly, their maneuverability cannot be matched, and the margin of error is very slim. But the fact still remains that a well flown Whisper can solo most lists if flown correctly.

As an Imperial ace, the non-AT aces are typically weak to TLTs, but Whisper has the best range control of any ship, so she can easily fly into the donut hole. All other Imp Aces are vunerable to bombs, but due to the decloak changes, it's next to impossible to land one on Whisper - Trust me, I played my Miranda/Kanan bombing list against Phild0 half a dozen times, and I don't think I got a single bomb on her.

But with all of that said, Phild0 is one of the best players in the game. My record against his Phantoms is something like 30% win rate, where as I sit on like a 70% win rate against other Phantom-based lists. They are extremely difficult to play, and demand tons of time playing to get to an effective level - Phild0 has essentially been playing RAC+Whisper for about 2 years now, just changing out the crew and EPT on RAC as the meta evolves.

As for Bombers - I think it's that people haven't tried them out. It took Defenders about 4 months to flood the meta, and took Sabine (crew) about 6 months before people decided that bombs themselves are viable. I expect that in about 2-3 months, you'll start to see some successful bomber lists.

Thanks for all of the replies! I'll have to try out a Whisper list sometime. Liking this forum.

I'll look at this list

I've wanted to make a Bomber list that was at least semi-competative for a while, as I just love the look of them. I played 3 games the other day with one (with the 3rd game being the list below after some tweaking)

Scimitar Sqd Bomber: Shuttle title, Fleet Officer, Systems Officer. Engine MK2
2x Scimitar Sqd Bomber: Proton Torpedoes, Proton Rockets, Thermal Detonators, Guidance Chips

2x Obsidian Sqd Pilot

It is very much based on how well you can fly the bombers, and picking your fights (especially your first engagement) VERY carefully. But if you can be patient and fly ships in formation well, it seems to work. I keep the bombers together, and have the two fighters on their own and the whole list (so far) seems to like doing a pincer maneuver. Plus you make your opponent pretty much have to go for the bombers first so it makes their moves predictable.


I am thinking of dropping the bombs (and maybe going to Plasmas) to trade the Obsidians for the PS2 Adv Prototypes with titles. But I'm mostly waiting for the Tie Striker article and I will be most likely swapping the Obsidians (and bombs) for the PS3 or 4 Strikers.

How is this a rules question?

Major Rhymer with APT, EM and possibly AHM is expensive, but for around 40 points he's incredibly strong. You just need to make sure he can get a TL and Focus each turn (PTL, Expertise or a support ship with FO), and his APT will give you 3 hits even if you roll 5 blank dice out to range 2. It's very possible to one shot an Xwing this way, because you will have 5 hits almost every time (and possibly a crit or two). Likewise, AHM is actually worth it on Rhymer because it becomes a range 1-3 instead of just range 2, and AHM can one shot ships with 2 or even 3 hull with the right damage card(s). There's nothing more satisfying than killing a ship that still has shields... with the possible exception of Rexy flipping 4+ damage cards. Finally, with EM you get up to two rounds of each. Absolutely devastating to low PS opponents.

I like keeping bombers as cheap as possible when I fly them, though I will freely admit that I have never taken a TIE Bomber into a competitive event. I usually go with Scimitar Squadron Pilot + Plasma Torps + EM + Guidance Chips, comes in at 21 pts and can either draw a round of fire or strip some shields. If it runs out of ammo without dying, it's an OK blocker.

Rhymer's not worth the points. He's 3 or 4 points overcosted.

I'd be doing much the same as the above, but with Homing Missiles rather than Plasma Torps because they;re a better attack, and because they're strong in the meta right now against Defenders.

Targeting Synchronizer might help out low PS ordnance carriers some. At 20 points, Epsilon Ace makes a nice ordnance spotter. The TIE/sf can use FCS with Targeting Sync to provide target locks for ordnance during the combat phase.

3 Reasons Bombers/Phantoms are not that effective

1. They cost a lot for what they bring to the table.
2. They are usually easy to kill
3. Imperials do not have acces to the Sabine crew upgrade card

I meanwhile think that Extra Munitions should be 0 points to make bombers (almost) competitive.

Its still that they get too fast too expensive - but not too deadly. So the points you invest in munitions won't pay off. It is better almost every time to invest the points in better or more ships.