Alright! not going to do a full bat rep, but wanted to let you know that I went 3-3 at my first regional! it was so much fun! i started of 3-0 and made it all the way to the 2nd table! then i lost out the rest of my matches! upon reflection, having a SOS of 5.9 i'm claiming it as a good day lol. things i will say to ghost flyers:

1. Be aggressive out the gate! in at least 2 of the matches i lost i kinda turned away from the fight. this did two things.. the first was it put bigss too far out of range so the ghost took all the damage in the first round. secondly, it reduced my potential damage output because i wasnt getting shots with biggs and negated my primary arc as a option for attack.

2. Use the Evade token!!!! i lost a super close match and soon afterwards realized that if i would have evaded instead of focused, i would have had 1 hull left, which meant i would have killed his tokenless defender at the end of the round. easily puts me at 4-2! you live and you learn.

3. We auto lose to scum ordinance lol - my worst loss was to N'dru, Tel, and a contracted scout. because of the faq, he completely ignored biggs and it went something like.... PLASMA, PROTON, PROTON, PLASMA, CLUSTER MISSILE HAHAHA LOL. the guy was super cool, but he kicked my ass lol. I should have tried to stay range 1 as much as possible, but it is what it is!

4. I kid yall not, there were like 20 VCX lists there!

It was a fun day i got to meet sable gryphon (mark fletcher) and a couple of guys from the kessel run podcast! I also got a free playmat! thanks jeff for helping me with this list. i made sure to name drop when people said, "R3-A2 on biggs? aw ****! lol"

Fly Casual

Congrats Bothan, I'm glad you had fun with it and did well. When I get the time, I'll do a write up on my regional this past weekend as well. I ended up 5-1 in swiss and lost my top 8 match. Both losses were 100% my fault though, which I find to be a better learning experience than the wins (or my loss to Phil which I just can't beat that guy no matter what I do). I kinda disagree with what you say in #1 & #3 though, but I can't emphasize #2 enough. There were more VCX's at the Ohio Regional than I've ever seen at any other event, so it's possible that it's finally catching on. Though almost all of them were Kanan (and can you blame them?). I suppose it's a rare ship that there are two top pilots.

I tried the VCX + Miranda build and the problem is Scum ordnance. It's almost an alto-lose. Against the rest, you can win a lot of matches.
The main problem that I face with non scum ordnance lists is the fact that you're only using 2 ships so, every shoot count and it only takes a bad shooting roll from the vcx for you to lose the advantage and eventually lose the game.

Congrats Bothan, I'm glad you had fun with it and did well. When I get the time, I'll do a write up on my regional this past weekend as well. I ended up 5-1 in swiss and lost my top 8 match. Both losses were 100% my fault though, which I find to be a better learning experience than the wins (or my loss to Phil which I just can't beat that guy no matter what I do). I kinda disagree with what you say in #1 & #3 though, but I can't emphasize #2 enough. There were more VCX's at the Ohio Regional than I've ever seen at any other event, so it's possible that it's finally catching on. Though almost all of them were Kanan (and can you blame them?). I suppose it's a rare ship that there are two top pilots.

Man i think your a better pilot than me! so my take aways could be flawed based on my perceptions. anyways, i'm glad you did so well! i look forward to reading your batrep!

So I headed out to the Ohio Regional with the same list. I will say that I didn’t actually plan on staying for the elimination rounds on Sunday. I drove down that morning, which was the first time I drove in the morning. I’ve always decided against going down the morning of because I’m of the opinion that it makes for a really long day, and leads to mistakes while playing. But I ignored my own advice because I just wanted a quick day of X Wing without any real planning. And with that, on to the matchups.

Round 1

Colonel Vessery w/ TIE/x7, Juke, Twin Ion Mark II Engines

Countess Ryad w/ TIE/x7, Push the Limit, Twin Ion Mark II Engines

Delta Squadron w/ TIE/x7

You know, I had never faced triple Defenders before this matchup. I have played plenty of games against Palp Defenders, but never against three. And after this game, I know why. He gave me Init, and I setup in the bottom left, directly across from the Delta, and Ryad was placed with him. Vessery setup in the middle lined up over the rocks. So I went straight up the side, totally willing to joust the two of them. The first round of engagement had Kanan at R2 of both, and Biggs at R3. I took 2 shields off of Ryad, along with a double stress from stressbot. Meanwhile, Kanan’s ability coupled with the R3 shots left Biggs untouched. The next round he charged 5 forward with Ryad, I suppose to pull her from the fight to allow her to pull the second stress off. Meanwhile Kanan ran into the Delta. Vessery was at R3 of Kanan, and out of range of Biggs. Kanan’s shots left Ryad at 1 hull, and Vessery did 2 shields to Kanan. The next round I blocked Vessery with Kanan, and had a R3 on the Delta. Another 3 shields on the Delta in exchange for 2 shields on Biggs. Ryad got back in the fight after circling around the rocks, and between Vessery and Ryad, Biggs finally went down. But I knocked off Ryad that round, and did another hull to Vessery. From there, I played keep away from the Delta, and knocked off Vessery the next round. From there, I just kyted the Delta around, maintaining my half points on Kanan.

1-0, 100-27 Win

Round 2

Miranda w/ Twin Laser Turret, Sabine, Conner’s Net, Ion Bombs, Extra Munitions, Advanced Slam

Dash w/ Heavy Laswer Cannon, Outrider, Lone Wolf, Rey

Up next was the new meta hotness of Miranda/Dash. I was pretty confident in this match up as long as I could keep Miranda from bombing me. Since we both had Rey, we were both content vying for position and storing up focus tokens. I knew this was giving me the advantage as I had every intention of killing Dash first, so the fact that he had 8 tokens on his Rey didn’t mean anything. Meanwhile, Kanan would stay alive until the end. So we circled around for awhile, and I let him catch up to me, which put Miranda behind me, neutralizing her bombs for the first few rounds as I dealt with Dash. My opponent was extremely good at keeping Dash at R3 so I couldn’t use Kanan’s ability. Which also meant that he wasn’t taking any action besides barrel roll, but he also kept using the rocks to get a 3^rd die against the TLT. Extremely good flying of Dash, but it left him keeping the Rey focus token for defense instead of spending it on the HLC. I believe he ended up blocking 3 TLT shots, but took 3 damage from a primary at one point, so 3 rounds of shooting from Kanan knocked him out. But not before he got Biggs. From there it was a 100% position battle, and the engine upgrade was amazing in this matchup. I relied upon my Kanan/Miranda knowledge to keep Miranda in a position such that she couldn’t bomb me. It took about 15 minutes before we got any shots though, as he kept slamming into my R1 blind spot. It had me thinking that he was going to stall and then get half credit at the last moment (shields were down, so 1 round of TLT would give him half credit). Running through the math, I killed 52, and half credit on Kanan plus Biggs puts him at killing 54, for the win. But thankfully there were still 45 minutes left to go, and it would seem that either he didn’t want to do that, didn’t think that it was going to work, or just failed at executing it. But regardless, with the engine upgrade, I put him in a position where he couldn’t get into the R1 blind spot. So eventually he got the half credit on Kanan, and I killed off Miranda.

2-0, 100-54 Win

Round 3

Colonel Vessery w/ TIE /x7, Juke

Countess Ryad w/ TIE/x7, Push the Limit, Twin Ion Mark II Engines

Omicron Group Pilot w/ Palpatine

Round 3 had me setup against ParaGoombaSlayer and his 100% meta list. I setup across from the Palp shuttle on the left side of the map. He bumped the shuttle into Ryad, and the 0 stopped, leaving Ryad out in front. I double stressed her and did 2 shields (his dice blanked out on the primary shot, allowing both TLTs to go through on a trickless Ryad). The next round he setup a pick to bump Kanan, so I moved Biggs in first, and then bumped Kanan into Biggs. All 3 ended up having shots that round, and Kanan only had 1 focus token due to the bump. But he made it work well by taking a R1 TL+F shot on Ryad for some real damage. Vessery took a shield from Biggs, and he totally forgot to shoot with Ryad stating that Ryad was bumping Biggs and had no shot (even though Kanan was right there), and then push 2 more damage through with the shuttle. Kanan’s TLT did 1 damage onto Vessery. The following round had a lovely 3 bank that threaded between 2 rocks, the shuttle, and Vessery, and Biggs bumped into the shuttle. Vessery bumped into Kanan and took a 2 dice shot onto Biggs for a damage. Biggs shot back with the stressbot, leaving Vessery to choose between getting a shot next round and getting an action. Kanan knocked off the shields on the shuttle, and Ryad finished off Biggs. The next round Vessery cleared the stress, and pushed 3 hull onto Palp. Ryad came back into the fray the next round, allowing me to kill her off, and then the end phase TLT onto the shuttle for a double kill. From there, I disengaged from Vessery to generate my stock of focus tokens, and then when we reengaged, Vessery was unable to push any damage through, especially since he was saving his focus for defense.

3-0 100-54 Win

Round 4

Kavil w/ Twin Laser Turret, Unhinged Astromech, Predator

Palob w/ Twin Laser Turret, Adaptability

Bossk w/ Zuckuss, Dengar, Greedo, Adaptability

This was an interesting list, he chose to make Bossk and Palob both PS6s. I setup in the bottom left, and he setup in the top right. I made the decision to go up the side, and he delayed with Bossk while cutting through the rocks with the TLTs. He managed to get Biggs just in range of Kavil’s TLT on the first round of engagement. I was hoping to isolate just Bossk, but ended up having to take shots from both of them. Biggs was brought down to just 1 hull and the droid before I even shot, Kanan managed to roll all 4 hits on his primary, but only pushed three damage through due to an evade. End phase TLT knocked off 2 more shields. The next round found Bossk at R1 out of the rear of Kanan and R1 of Biggs. Palob was left without a shot because he ended up bumping into Kavil. Thankfully, Biggs was able to live through one of the TLT shots, so Bossk was left shooting at Biggs instead of at Kanan. Bossk took the full 5 damage from Kanan, including 2 semi useless crits. The next turn Kanan was heading towards the top right corner, Kavil was in the bottom left heading up, Palob was bottom center, and Bossk was on Kanan’s tail. I boosted to prevent Palob from having a shot, and used a stored focus from Rey to only take 2 shields from Bossk. Meanwhile, I killed off Bossk. From there, I utilized my speed and engine upgrade to isolate both of his slower ships, killing Palob off at R3 in 2 rounds prior to Kavil getting a single shot at me. Then it was just a few more rounds of slow moves allowing Kavil to catch up in my rear arc, and then that was game.

4-0, 100-54 Win

Round 5

Old Teroch w/ Attanni Mindlink, Advanced Proton Torpedoes, Concord Dawn Protector, Guidance Chips

Fenn Rau w/ Attanni Mindlink, Plasma Torpodoes, Concord Dawn Protector, Guidance Chips

Manaroo w/ Attanni Mindlink, Gonk, R5-P8

Not like it was a surprise, but they posted the placements after round 4, and I was in 6^th place out of the 8 4-0 players. This list just bleeds MOV with Biggs and half of Kanan getting lost almost every match. So I knew that I had to win one of my next two matches to make the cut. Or I could win both and go 6-0 again =P. Regardless, I was a bit nervous facing this list – it’s obviously effective, the guy had gone 4-0 with it, so I was planning on caution. Without autothrusters equipped, I figured that these Fang Fighters wouldn’t be that hard to deal with, so I wanted to pounce on Manny. I started in the bottom left, with Manny starting in the top right, Old Teroch across the rocks, and Fenn overtop of me. So I cut across the bottom edge, and found myself with an interesting opportunity – so I turned into the rock field, and caught old Teroch at R1… Except I totally forgot that this wasn’t a standard Old Fennaroo list. And I forgot about Old Teroch’s ability, so I lost all 3 of my focus tokens. Since I had turned in, Fenn just barely had his plasma’s on Kanan, so he knocked off 5 shields, and then Old Teroch knocked another 5 damage through, with 2 crits, Direct Hit and PS0. Without any modifiers, I decided to have Kanan shoot at Manny, figuring 4v2 would be more likely to do damage than 5v3. Plus I would have a TL for the TLT on Manny. I believe I did a single shield. Biggs then decided to take a R2 onto Old Teroch, managing to push a PS0 crit through as well! I think in the 3 years I’ve played this game, this is the only time I’ve seen both players have the PS0 crit. The next round Kanan took advantage of his PS0 to block Manny onto a rock, meanwhile OT had to veer away from the fight to clear stress and not land on a rock himself. Kanan took 4 TLT shots and managed to push only 1 damage through. Biggs pushed some damage onto Manny, leaving her shieldless. Fenn was now getting dangerously close to R1 to Biggs, who lost both shields in the engagement. The following turn I was faced with the decision to let all 5 dice go through onto Biggs or just 4 and pray I get lucky. I decided to pray, and it paid off, with Biggs living with 1 hull and no droid through Fenn’s shot. Old Teroch was still out of the fight, and Manny’s single die shot couldn’t kill Biggs, and between the TLTs and Biggs shots, Manny died. Faced with a decision to press the attack, or to regroup and come at me at once, but allow me to store up some focus tokens (which I hadn’t been able to do since wasting my single Rey token on Old Teroch’s ability). He chose to keep pressing the attack, polishing off Biggs, but getting tapped for 3 hull from Kanan. At this time, Kanan was at the top of the field moving left, Old Teroch was approaching up the left side, and Fenn Rau was catching up from behind. I forget the reason, but Old Teroch did not take a focus action (perhaps he K turned), so Fenn was left with the decision to boost into R1 or stay at R2 with a focus, he chose to boost into R1, pushing through 3 hits, leaving Kanan at 4 hull, but Fenn died to the 5 dice TL+F return fire. With 4 hull left against 2 hull on Old Teroch, I knew this was going to come down to the wire. The interesting this is we were both at PS0, so those crits actually mattered. We engaged at R3 head on, and I failed to do any damage with the TLT, he managed 2 hits and a crit – another direct hit to kill Kanan, so Zeb deployed with 1 hull damage, and no end of combat TLT. The next round we exchanged meaningless fire, and then we spent 2 or 3 turns dodging each other’s arcs and forcing bumps before we both finally decided to just K turn, setting up the last round of combat. Now I totally 100% forgot about Chopper, and I’m not entirely sure it would have been the right call, but as it happened, I rolled hit focus focus, and he rolled 3 blanks, so I pushed one damage through, and a focus token via Chopper would have killed him. In return, he managed to roll 3 hits to 0 greens, killing Zeb, and costing me the game.

4-1, 66-100 Loss

Round 6

Manaroo w/ Push the Limit, Plasma Torpedoes, Gonk, R5-P8, Feedback Array, Engine Upgrade

Dengar w/ Lone Wolf, Zuckuss, Overclocked R4, Glitterstim, Punishing One, Counter Measures

Ahh, the first Dengaroo matchup of the day. Sadly, it was against another Rook Squad player, meaning that one of us was going to get eliminated – but at least one of us would advance. This matchup heavily favors Kanan/Biggs, and the match was over quickly in my favor. I’ve played this match up so many times that they all start to run into each other, but the general thought is to line up across from Manny, forcing her to run away, so she won’t add her 2 dice to the battle. Then it’s all about making sure Kanan is R2 for the first engagement so he can reduce both attacks, limiting Dengar’s damage to 2 on each ship at most, attack with Kanan first to ensure the revenge shot goes onto him – if it doesn’t, then don’t shoot with Biggs. This matchup had Dengar blowing Countermeasures on the first round of engagement, which was an interesting choice as there was no TL to get rid of at that point. But it did minimize the damage as I believe he only took 2 shields. But from there, it was 5 damage the next round, and 2 more damage spread out on both of my ships, and then the sloop block from Biggs, and out of arc 2 damage shot on Kanan, but Kanan’s shot finished off Dengar. Then it was all about keeping Biggs out of it for MoV, while Kanan chases down Manny. She was stocking up on Shield tokens on Gonk, but I was okay with that as I was stocking up focus tokens on Rey. Eventually our two ships engage, and Kanan takes her down to 1 hull before she breaks off to regen her shields, while she ends up getting in a long shot on Biggs to finish him off. She regens all 4 of the shields to be at 5 total health to Kanan’s 10 hull, but alas it is to no avail. Kanan pushes 3 damage through with his primary, taking none from her 1 die attack due to the lovely evade token, and then finishes her off with an end of combat TLT.

5-1 100-27 Win

Top 16

Contracted Scout w/ Plasma Torpedoes, Intelligence Agent, R4 Agromech, Attanni Mindlink, Feed Back Array, Guidance Chips

Contracted Scout w/ Proton Torpedoes, Intelligence Agent, R4 Agromech, Attanni Mindlink, Guidance Chips

Contracted Scout w/ Proton Torpedoes, Intelligence Agent, R4 Agromech, Attanni Mindlink, Guidance Chips

So after going out for drinks with most of the top cut, I was left wondering how the heck I was going to go against this list. I was debating between it being a nightmare scenario for me, or an easy match up. JM15Ks were difficult match ups that were winnable, but I haven’t gone up against them since either the Deadeye nerf or the Biggs “nerf,” so I wasn’t sure how it was going to play out. Regardless, the match started with him lining up with two on the top left, and one over the rocks, I setup on the bottom right, knowing that taking all 3 torpedoes at once could be devastating. I played with my speed, going slow for the first two rounds, drawing the two setup on the side deep into the rocks, with the 3^rd cutting across the top of the rocks. I then took advantage of the separation by going 4 straight with both ships, ending out of range of the bottom two, fire was exchanged, and 3 of his shields were stripped in exchange for 1 of Kanan’s. The following round he managed to get his TL on Kanan, and I continued to fly quickly to keep the bottom two out of the fight. Kanan suffered 4 more shields from the plasmas, but the Scout was left with only 1 hull. Kanan did a 3 bank to round the top right corner, and I had Biggs do a 4k, planning on having him finish off the 1 hull scout and stressing all 3 ships via R3-A2. But that scout landed on a rock killing itself, and one of the bottom two did a 2 right sloop, stressing both of them anyways. I’m not quite sure what he was thinking with that sloop, but it left me one on one with the other scout, who didn’t have a TL, so 4 more shields were lost on it, in exchange for the final shield on Kanan. The next round Kanan turned towards the rocks, no longer protected by Biggs, and Biggs managed to clear his stress while lining up a shot on both of them. Between Kanan’s R1 and Biggs’ R2 primary, the 2^nd scout died before getting to shoot off its proton torps. At this point, we both knew the game was over – he’d be able to do 2 damage with his remaining torpedo, but that was all he’d be able to push through Kanan’s ability plus evade token. During the clean up of the last one, he did not manage to get the torpedo off.

Top 8

Miranda w/ Twin Laser Turret, Sabine, Conner’s Net, Ion Bombs, Extra Munitions, Advanced Slam

Dash w/ Heavy Laser Cannon, Outrider, Lone Wolf, Rey

This was a rematch from yesterday. My opponent ended up going up against my list in R6 and decided to just stall and go to final salvo, knowing he was likely to lose (4 to 10), but gain 100 MOV. He indicated that he’d stayed up all night trying to figure out how to beat my list, knowing that he was likely to face one of the two of us running it in the top 16. I setup on the bottom right, and he setup right over top of me. Knowing that engaging him head on would put Miranda in the perfect position to bomb me, I 2 turned Kanan, and mistake #1 of the matchup literally happened on the first turn – instead of going 4 straight with Biggs, I went 2 bank. I was expecting a similar matchup where we both stored up several focus tokens on Rey before engaging, but this time he charged forward with a 4 straight from Dash and a 2 straight + 2 slam from Miranda to keep up. This already put me in a difficult position with Biggs trailing Kanan, so I picked up the speed hoping to avoid a round 2 engagement, Kanan did a 3 straight and Biggs a 3 bank. Sadly, this left Kanan about 2mm outside of both of them, and Biggs about 2mm in range. Biggs took 4 damage with no return fire. Knowing that I had messed up, and I couldn’t afford another round of that, I had Kanan 2 turn towards the rocks, so Biggs could go 4 straight behind him – requiring Kanan to have a shot if they were to shoot at Biggs. Thankfully, Miranda only managed to do 1 damage from her TLT, forcing Dash to use his HLC to finish off Biggs. Kanan managed to only do 2 damage back to Dash. Mistake #2 was turning Kanan towards the rocks – he didn’t seem to have a clear alley anywhere, any turn/bank to the right would certainly beach him, along with a 1 through 4 straight. The 5k would go right over a rock, but I wouldn’t land on it. I was pretty confident though that a 2 turn left would thread the needle between 2 different rocks. Sadly, I was about 2mm off again, and Kanan was left on the rock, allowing both Dash and Miranda do 5 damage to Kanan. I knew I was running out of opportunities at this point. He was playing much smarter this time around and not allowing me to separate Miranda from Dash, which shouldn’t be surprising, he never allowed me to get into R2 and activate Kanan’s ability last matchup. Having dealt 2 damage to Dash already, I knew my only hope would be if I could get all 4 damage though two rounds in a row, and even then, I would be in a tight position as two rounds would give him potentially 12 damage, leaving me with only 1 hull and all of Miranda to take care of. Ideally I needed to separate the two and limit the damage to just 8 damage, leaving me with 5 hull and the shuttle to take care of Miranda. I was capable of getting 4 damage through the next round, and only took 5 total damage, but I did not separate the two. The next round I was able to get 3 damage through onto Dash, but failed at getting a single hit on the end phase TLT, leaving him at 1 hull. And from there, it was just clean up to kill Kanan. I did deploy the shuttle and Zeb managed to kill Dash, but a loss is still a loss in elimination.

So there you have it – my second regional with this variant of Kanan/Biggs. Every game I play with it, I find more and more reasons to believe that it is a championship caliber list. I’ve decided that there’s no list that I’m particularly excited to see, and there’s no list that I’m worried to face. It handles everything well, and really comes down to which player is the better player. Dice are heavily mitigated by not having any real greens, and having FCS plus numerous focus tokens to modify attacks. The sheer health of the list and Kanan’s magnificent ability lends itself to having a very consistent amount of tabletop time, plus the list is at basically full power from start to finish, Biggs doesn’t really contribute to the fire power, and I’m 3-5 when Zeb has to deploy, so it’s basically lost when it comes down to that.

Have you never encountered the issue that Kansan gets blocked and your opponent then focuses down Biggs?

I am always afraid of this so I prefer advanced sensors over FCS.

Have you tried M9G8 on Biggs or is R3A2 just to important in "your" meta?

So my list looks like this:

(100)

"Zeb" Orrelios (18) - Attack Shuttle
"Chopper" (0), Phantom (0)

Biggs Darklighter (28) - X-Wing
M9-G8 (3), Integrated Astromech (0)

Kanan Jarrus (54) - VCX-100
Advanced Sensors (3), Twin Laser Turret (6), Jyn Erso (2), Rey (2), Ghost (0), Experimental Interface (3)

Jyn can also be used to grant more focus to Biggs if he gets focussed down (you should still have 1 focus from your action and 1 from Rey on Kanan and 2+ on Biggs) or Kanan is out of range for his ability.

Looking forward for your experience.

3 hours ago, 00supra00 said:

Have you never encountered the issue that Kansan gets blocked and your opponent then focuses down Biggs?

I am always afraid of this so I prefer advanced sensors over FCS.

Have you tried M9G8 on Biggs or is R3A2 just to important in "your" meta?

So my list looks like this:

(100)

"Zeb" Orrelios (18) - Attack Shuttle
"Chopper" (0), Phantom (0)

Biggs Darklighter (28) - X-Wing
M9-G8 (3), Integrated Astromech (0)

Kanan Jarrus (54) - VCX-100
Advanced Sensors (3), Twin Laser Turret (6), Jyn Erso (2), Rey (2), Ghost (0), Experimental Interface (3)

Jyn can also be used to grant more focus to Biggs if he gets focussed down (you should still have 1 focus from your action and 1 from Rey on Kanan and 2+ on Biggs) or Kanan is out of range for his ability.

Looking forward for your experience.

I haven't really encountered that issue. For most engagements I'm skirting around the perimeter and forcing my opponents through the rocks. But even on the engagements that there are some head to head passes, what I'll do is have Biggs activate first so Kanan bumps into Biggs and everyone bumps into Biggs or themselves. I'd say about 1-2 times a tourney I'll resort to doing this. I believe it was in my 3rd match last weekend that I did this, and Ryad bumped into Biggs, everyone else bumped into Ryad, Kanan was the only one with an action (go go Rey + FCS), and Ryad paid big for it.

As for M9-G8, I am truly interested in trying it, but there are two problem I can't overcome putting it into a list. 1) Where do I get the point from? and 2) what do I do about FCS? I almost feel like you still have to maintain FCS since 3/4 of the battle is done after Biggs dies. So then it's almost useless in the first 1/4 of the fight. Don't get me wrong, as I said, I think M9-G8 is very intriguing, I just can't find a way to fit it in. So the logical place would be looking at the crew or the EU. I suppose I could downgrade Recon to Jyn, and perhaps if the meta shifts to more 3-4 ships instead of 2-3 I might give that a try. As it is though, I like not having to worry about arcs at all, so it would suck if that ended up being needed. As for EU, I have found that there are specific lists that are basically auto lose these days if you don't have the EU, so while I might not use it every round, it's certainly worth its 4 points when I do use it. My R2 matchup against Miranda would be an example where EU was mandatory for the win, but the traditional example is against an imperial arc dodger that can just boost and barrel roll into that R1 blind spot at will.

I'm not married to R3-A2 by any means. He's a very situational card, but when he works, he's brilliant. I've often thought about going with R2-D6 and a 1pt EPT, perhaps Draw their Fire, instead of R3-A2. Often I let people shoot at Kanan first (and those with ordnance always want to shoot at Kanan first), which I'm fine with, until he draws a stupid crit, so DTF would protect him from an early round weapons failure or blinded pilot.

How does EU reliably help vs arc dodgers as you are out-PSed?

They should still get in R1 or behind R3 as you move first.

The only dangerous space is R1 on the sides, if they choose to run away, I'll just store a few more focus tokens before getting a better approach vector for another attack run. But when you're stuck with just a 4 straight or a 2 turn, it makes it super simple for them to boost and barrel roll into that blind spot. When you boost though, its the same as going upwards of 7 straight, or if you're doing the turn, provides enough lateral distance that they cannot get into the blind spot. If they want to end up at R1 in the rear arc, I'll gladly throw 5 dice with a TL+F (from Rey) at them.

Khyros what are your thougts about the Finn variant what showed up on US SoS?

Kanan+Finn,Rey,Fcs,TLT,Jammer

Biggs+M9-G8,IA

Zeb +Chopper

Looks viable (and it did pretty well) but do you thing such and "all in kamikaze" approach is viable or just pure luck?

3 hours ago, Vitalis said:

Khyros what are your thougts about the Finn variant what showed up on US SoS?

Kanan+Finn,Rey,Fcs,TLT,Jammer

Biggs+M9-G8,IA

Zeb +Chopper

Looks viable (and it did pretty well) but do you thing such and "all in kamikaze" approach is viable or just pure luck?

Without playing it myself, I would argue that it would play drastically different from my standard Kanan/Biggs. Finn doesn't help the defense at all, and he doesn't help the end of combat TLT at all, so he's literally just a single die on the primary attack. So you'd have to make sure you're utilizing that primary attack as often as possible. Which would also mean that you'd want to have a focus for your attack, which means that if you have a Rey focus, you could use it to defend Biggs, but otherwise, you're better off on the offense.

So obviously this build is built around Finn on a VCX throwing 5/6 dice. That itself is a viable list just due to the shear damage potential. But the rest of it could probably be better. Perhaps Hera would be a good use?

Hera w/ TLT, Cassian, Finn, FCS, Ghost

Zeb w/ Chopper, Phantom

Biggs w/ R2-D6, VI, IA

Now you out PS most ships in the meta right now, which is actually a big thing, and for those you don't, you have Cassian to help you figure out where to go. Sure, Hera's ability doesn't couple with Biggs very well, but he's really there for the first 2 turns anyways, and then it's all about the Ghost. And R2-D6 allows Biggs to equip VI so he moves at PS7 with her as well. I donno, it just seems that Kanan+Finn is a weird mix of offense+defense. I think if you're going with Finn you want to be all offensive.

Ty for input man, i appreciate your feedback. Time to take off some rust from my Ghost.

Thanks for a good read!

Do you still plan on playing this list with Parattanni all over the place and Rac with Kylo and carnor around? Or would you change something? Maybe switch the stress droid for determination on Biggs?

As a fellow Kanan/Biggs player (5 tournaments so far) I've found this thread a good read.

I'd never considered engine upgrade before but I'll be running it at Yavin this weekend. But I'll be using determination on Biggs to counter any Kylo Ren that appear.

Kanan - TLT, RecSpec, Rey, FCS, Engine & Title

Biggs - R2-D6, Determination & Intergrated Astromech

Zeb - Chopper & Title

1 minute ago, noxious said:

Thanks for a good read!

Do you still plan on playing this list with Parattanni all over the place and Rac with Kylo and carnor around? Or would you change something? Maybe switch the stress droid for determination on Biggs?

Paratttanni is a good match up for Kanan/Biggs. Fenn rarely gets his offensive bonus since he's forced to shoot at Biggs (who is behind Kanan), Asajj + Latts is a once per round use, so the fact that I'm throwing at least 3, often 4 shots into Asajj drastically minimizes the effect of Latts' free evade, and since I don't rely upon stress, Asajj's ability doesn't cripple my list at all.

Meanwhile, Fenn lacks the token stack to consistently survive 4 heavily modified TLT shots a turn - more often that not he will die prior to Biggs. Then assuming you can keep Asajj and Manny from focus firing (which really isn't too hard - most don't like to get Manny into the fight anyways), it's simple enough to deal with Asajj on her own. More than likely you won't have a huge store of focus tokens at this point, so you won't be able to evade, but at most you're taking 2 damage a turn from her 2 die attack, but even that is going to be 1 damage a turn more often than not. Meanwhile she'll likely evade 2 TLT shots, so you're probably only going to be putting 2 damage in a round onto her (Evade token and Stress token will likely save her 2 damage), so you should end up killing her off in 5 rounds, and you'll probably take 8 damage in return (assuming Biggs was equal exchange for Fenn), leaving you at 8 hull to take on Manny. Which you just turtle up the focus tokens for a turn or two, and then reduce her 2 dice down to 1, and use the evade token to prevent all damage from coming through. GG relatively easy win.

As for RAC w/ Kylo, I've given that quite a bit of thought, but have yet to play against it (I haven't played X wing at all since Ohio Regional). I've considered giving Biggs Determination or Draw Their Fire, but I don't think either one would provide consistently more support than R3-A2 does. But both are worth trying out imo. DTF protects Kanan not only from the stray Kylo attack, but also from Ordnance alpha strikes that can push through the dreaded Weapons Failure crit. And let's be honest, Kanan is the heart and soul of the list, and Biggs' sole job is to protect Kanan's soul (pun intended). But that situation is rather unique, relying on a massive alpha strike or a well placed RAC that gets Kanan in range but does not get Biggs in range. The more common occurrence is that RAC will either Kylo Kanan, but then have to shoot at Biggs, preventing Kylo from activating (at least until Biggs dies) or RAC Kylo's Biggs, in which case I don't really care because anything Biggs provides to the fight is just icing on the cake. Plus, shooting 2v3 without modifiers is unlikely to be able to push the crit through, even with Palp riding shotgun. Again, this is all theory crafted and not tested, but I don't really see a need to switch to DTF or Determination, but I will certainly experiment with both to see if they lead to more consistent wins in the W10 meta.

1 hour ago, Khyros said:

As for RAC w/ Kylo, I've given that quite a bit of thought, but have yet to play against it (I haven't played X wing at all since Ohio Regional). I've considered giving Biggs Determination or Draw Their Fire, but I don't think either one would provide consistently more support than R3-A2 does. But both are worth trying out imo. DTF protects Kanan not only from the stray Kylo attack, but also from Ordnance alpha strikes that can push through the dreaded Weapons Failure crit. And let's be honest, Kanan is the heart and soul of the list, and Biggs' sole job is to protect Kanan's soul (pun intended). But that situation is rather unique, relying on a massive alpha strike or a well placed RAC that gets Kanan in range but does not get Biggs in range. The more common occurrence is that RAC will either Kylo Kanan, but then have to shoot at Biggs, preventing Kylo from activating (at least until Biggs dies) or RAC Kylo's Biggs, in which case I don't really care because anything Biggs provides to the fight is just icing on the cake. Plus, shooting 2v3 without modifiers is unlikely to be able to push the crit through, even with Palp riding shotgun. Again, this is all theory crafted and not tested, but I don't really see a need to switch to DTF or Determination, but I will certainly experiment with both to see if they lead to more consistent wins in the W10 meta.

Thanks for your thoughts, given me some things to consider. I will see how my practice matches unfold this week

Thanks for your thoughts Khyros. Determination is situational, but so is R3-A2 in my opinion. It can be really good, or have no influence at all. So I think they have to be tested, just like you say.

1 hour ago, bwingstrike said:

Thanks for your thoughts, given me some things to consider. I will see how my practice matches unfold this week

Good luck! Looking forward to hearing about your experience with it.

So I runThis variant to Biggs and Kanan. I don't have anywhere near the number of games but I've had good success and lots of fun with this list:

Kanan-

FCS

Plasma Torps

EM

Rey

Jyn Erso

TLT

Tac Jammer

Biggs-

IA

R2-D6

Determination

Rex-

Sabines Masterpiece

Jan Ors

The object is keep Kanan out front yet in Range 1 of Biggs with Rex off to the side. Use Jyn and Jan to add Focus+Evade (maybe double Focus+Evade) to Biggs. If set up properly Biggs has 4 green dice (2+, range and TJ) with Evade and Focus. Then Kanan drops a Focus with Rey and now the attackers primary is 1 die less. After Rex adds Suppressive Fire the primary threat is tossing 2 less red dice. I call the list Biggs Lives! He usually dies but it takes a long time. I've found it effective and extremely fun.

32 minutes ago, charlesanakin said:

So I runThis variant to Biggs and Kanan. I don't have anywhere near the number of games but I've had good success and lots of fun with this list:

Kanan-

FCS

Plasma Torps

EM

Rey

Jyn Erso

TLT

Tac Jammer

Biggs-

IA

R2-D6

Determination

Rex-

Sabines Masterpiece

Jan Ors

The object is keep Kanan out front yet in Range 1 of Biggs with Rex off to the side. Use Jyn and Jan to add Focus+Evade (maybe double Focus+Evade) to Biggs. If set up properly Biggs has 4 green dice (2+, range and TJ) with Evade and Focus. Then Kanan drops a Focus with Rey and now the attackers primary is 1 die less. After Rex adds Suppressive Fire the primary threat is tossing 2 less red dice. I call the list Biggs Lives! He usually dies but it takes a long time. I've found it effective and extremely fun.

But wont you miss the double tap with the tlt from not having a shuttle? And Rex will only work after he shoots.

Yes Noxious both of those things are true. There are trade offs. But imagine Dengar in a Dengaroo squad with a 2 die attack followed by a 1 die payback attack.

On 2/16/2017 at 10:08 AM, charlesanakin said:

Yes Noxious both of those things are true. There are trade offs. But imagine Dengar in a Dengaroo squad with a 2 die attack followed by a 1 die payback attack.

Dengaroo is my favorite matchup as it is, I don't believe I've ever lost to it. Nothing like exchanging a 2v3 onto Biggs and a 2v0 onto Kanan for a 4v2 onto Dengar and two TLT 3v2 shots. I'm sure at some point I'll try out a Kanan/Rex build, but my intuition states that if you drop Zeb, you're going to lack the firepower to do anything useful, and if you drop Biggs, you're going to lack the survivability to get to the end game where both Kanan's and Rex's abilities shine.

At the end of the day, I don't think Rex and Kanan are going to go together well. There are also diminishing returns on reducing the number of dice, which is one of the reasons that 2 attack dice ships are basically useless these days. If you're struggling with following that - imagine that your wingmate is PTL Corran, stacking a F+E. A 3 dice TL+F attack has an expected damage of .313, and only a 27% chance of hitting. Reducing this to two dice via either Kanan or Rex has a dramatic impact - now he only has a 5% chance of hitting for an expected damage of .05. So a single reduction provides a 22% reduction in being hit, and a .26 damage reduction. Reducing it down to 1 die means that Corran won't be hit at all since he can always spend the evade token for an evade. So a double reduction on reduces it 5% and .05 damage, which is about 20-25% as effective as the first one.

Sure, I chose a scenario which favors my point, the opposite end of the spectrum would be a tokenless Ghost, where it comes from 3dice = 2.81 expected damage, and 100% to hit, to 2 dice of 1.875 damage and 100% to hit, to 1 dice of .9375 damage and chance to hit. This is the ONLY example where each die reduced is just as valuable as the last one, but ANYTHING beyond this has diminishing returns. And if you had to choose between a Kanan focus + Rex or a Kanan evade + Rex, the evade would net .875 damage vs. the focus of .9375.

How do you feel about this tweak, making Biggs more survivable with 3 (fickle) green dice and 1-3 Focus.

Of course it is much more predictable and lacks the EU.

(100)

"Zeb" Orrelios (18) - Attack Shuttle
"Chopper" (0), Phantom (0)

Biggs Darklighter (28) - X-Wing
R2-F2 (3), Integrated Astromech (0)

Kanan Jarrus (54) - VCX-100
Fire Control System (2), Twin Laser Turret (6), Jyn Erso (2), Recon Specialist (3), Ghost (0), Experimental Interface (3)

I would say there's some potential to it. You're still maintaining your offensive capability. Kanan is getting 2 focuses early game (instead of the 3 that he would with Rey), but presumably that will be offset by Biggs' additional agility and potentially more focus tokens. It'll definitely have a leg up on swarms, where you can potentially knock 5 of the attacks down to 1 die each. End game you can evade + Jyn to get the F+E token stack on Kanan without even needing Rey.

You've already identified its two weak points - the VCX dial only has 4 green maneuvers, so it's not the best at clearing stress, and there's no engine upgrade for the matches that require it. One other one that I'll point out is that with the dial being restricted to greens, you're going to want to stay away from the rocks so you can just make big looping turns, but then you might find yourself struggling to keep things in arc to activate Jyn. I would give it a go though. I might also consider putting R2-D6 and Wingman on Biggs - allowing you to give Biggs numerous focus tokens to start with and end without a stress, but that comes at the expense of an additional green die.

What twist will you incorporate to account for wave 10?

On 2/17/2017 at 9:49 AM, Khyros said:

Dengaroo is my favorite matchup as it is, I don't believe I've ever lost to it. Nothing like exchanging a 2v3 onto Biggs and a 2v0 onto Kanan for a 4v2 onto Dengar and two TLT 3v2 shots. I'm sure at some point I'll try out a Kanan/Rex build, but my intuition states that if you drop Zeb, you're going to lack the firepower to do anything useful, and if you drop Biggs, you're going to lack the survivability to get to the end game where both Kanan's and Rex's abilities shine.

At the end of the day, I don't think Rex and Kanan are going to go together well. There are also diminishing returns on reducing the number of dice, which is one of the reasons that 2 attack dice ships are basically useless these days. If you're struggling with following that - imagine that your wingmate is PTL Corran, stacking a F+E. A 3 dice TL+F attack has an expected damage of .313, and only a 27% chance of hitting. Reducing this to two dice via either Kanan or Rex has a dramatic impact - now he only has a 5% chance of hitting for an expected damage of .05. So a single reduction provides a 22% reduction in being hit, and a .26 damage reduction. Reducing it down to 1 die means that Corran won't be hit at all since he can always spend the evade token for an evade. So a double reduction on reduces it 5% and .05 damage, which is about 20-25% as effective as the first one.

Sure, I chose a scenario which favors my point, the opposite end of the spectrum would be a tokenless Ghost, where it comes from 3dice = 2.81 expected damage, and 100% to hit, to 2 dice of 1.875 damage and 100% to hit, to 1 dice of .9375 damage and chance to hit. This is the ONLY example where each die reduced is just as valuable as the last one, but ANYTHING beyond this has diminishing returns. And if you had to choose between a Kanan focus + Rex or a Kanan evade + Rex, the evade would net .875 damage vs. the focus of .9375.

The problem with your math is that Horn isn't your wingman, Biggs is. And Biggs doesn't get 3 green dice plus Focus and Evade so his math has no relevance in this specific discussion. The question, and only question is: Is Rex and his Suppressive Fire, his TIE, Jan Ors and the added defense for Biggs is worth the double tap?

My list was created with Kylo RAC in mind. With an Evade on Biggs and a Focus on Kanan RAC using Kylo is 100% ineffective outside of range 1. With a 2 dice attack even with double blanks on green dice he can spend his Evade to block a hit and let the Kylo crit through and simply discard it with Determination. This method also prevents Gunner from working

This doesn't include Focus(es) from Jyn, TJ, long range or Suppressive fire which can be used against another opponent ship. Vs the same matchup the math is Kylo RAC 2 dice shot with ability vs 2 green dice plus likely Focus Biggs. Still good odds to get the crit through. If that happens 0 dice for Biggs on the BP. That's diminishing returns.

With all that said my list does give up the likely double tap at the end. For me considering the Biggs math it's worth it.