A fellow X-wing player and I recently encountered each other and immediately shoved our ships together until they were all exploded.

I played the world’s winning Dengaroo list for our first two games, with the hope of having both of us learn how to deal with it in the future. He ran Rey with Finn, Kanan, EU, Sloop Title and VI, with Miranda equipped with TLT, Advanced Slam and C-3P0.

Earlier games had led to sooner engagement than I had initially anticipated, which made triggering Lone Wolf or just not getting in each other’s way challenging, so this time I decided to start Manaroo on the left corner, angled toward the center. Dengar was placed closer to the middle of the board. My game plan in both games and one that achieved moderate success was to keep Manaroo on the outer-edge, traveling counter-clockwise so that she could always push the limit to Gonk and Focus, while Dengar charged for the main enemy.

I also chose large debris for my obstacles, as Manaroo would probably never interact with them and Dengar would have Tycho levels of stress tokens anyways, so it wouldn’t hurt him. That worked well for me.

The first game led to an early engagement against Rey and Dengar in turn 1, but a skillful 2-sloop and obstacle placement ended up with him right behind her by the second round of shooting. Following that it went downhill as Manaroo just kept slipping further away from conflict and Dengar stayed on Rey’s tail, oftentimes avoiding her firing arc entirely. While Manaroo and Dengar took some damage, both managed to survive by the end of the game.

The second one was much closer as his approach with Rey led to pretty much just a slugfest between the two, with Manaroo and Miranda reduced to skirting the edges and taking small potshots, while regenning shields. The big play ended up when I used Countermeasures on a 1-health Dengar and that extra die led to him surviving Rey’s shot, so he was able to double-tap and kill her, and then surprisingly survived Miranda’s TLT, even when he spent a shield to roll 4 dice for just that one damage.

Dengar didn’t live too long past that, and Miranda and Manaroo spent a while slowly plinking at each other, while regenning. Despite several (we’re talking 8+ rounds of back and forth here) shots exchanged, the countermech only triggered once, and after such a long exchange of virtually no damage being dealt, we called it a draw. Technically I won by 3 points, but it was likely he could have scored half-damage on Manaroo soon, so yeah, I’m lucky to get the draw on that one.

We did learn a lot though- Both Manaroo and Dengar are somewhat predictable in movement. Manaroo seems to really want to circle counter-clockwise and that’s easy to cut off. She’s able to turn in easily, and the ability to boost/barrel roll makes her harder to catch than it might seem. Feedback array and the countermech are well-designed to make high-agility, low health aces a bad choice against her, although a beefy enough ship like the falcon or ghost won’t even care.

Dengar can get very predictable as once he gets stressed down, he can’t barrel roll anymore, so he’s stuck with what he picks, but his dial is full of enough not-red that he can pretty much point where he wants to point. The key thing is he won’t be able to avoid your shots either, and unlike Manaroo he can’t regen. Honestly, I think the key to taking down this list is to go for Dengar early. Manaroo can be hard to pin down and Dengar pumps out more damage anyways. He can’t regen the damage and he doesn’t roll much defense, nor does he have a ton of health (just a K-wings), so an early focused assault from 3+ ships will take him down quick. Heck, Rey was able to almost trade, I just got lucky.

Also, asteroids are a good choice for obstacles, big meaty ones. Stopping ships like Dengar from being able to attack, or forcing him to avoid lanes can really help.

The last game featured me running x/7 Defenders- Vessery with x/7 and Juke, Countess with x/7 PtL and Mk2 and Backdraft with FCS, title and Adaptability, while my opponent ran a palpshuttle, Vader with ATC and Predator, and Vessery with Tie/D, Ion Cannon and Trick Shot.

I’ve had good success with this list before, but I haven’t had a chance to try it against a palpshuttle. I banked in early while he Manaroo’d with his shuttle. Vessery came head on and Vader flanked. First round of shooting Backdraft was just out of range and Vessery and the Countess weren’t quite able to do damage to Evil Vessery.

Next round I tried to be sneaky and dialed in 5-straights with my Defenders and a 4 with Backdraft. I blasted past his ships, catching the fleeing Palpshuttle at range 3, while Backdraft was in position to catch Vader and Evil Vessery with his dual arcs. And this is where things started to go bad.

He barrel-rolled Vader out of Backdraft’s arc and pumped a good chunk of damage into him, also Ioning him. Backdraft, even with rolling three dice and adding an auto-crit wasn’t able to do any damage to Vessery and the damage on the shuttle was minimal.

Following that I was just forced into bad plays just to stay in the game, with Backdraft dying next round to a brutal Vader shot (three hits and a crit, man Predator did some work) and my defenders did light banks to stay on the shuttle as it turned the corner, but Vessery bumped, probably because of me not being careful enough when I moved my ships, which not only prevented him from snagging a focus token but kept him just out range of the shuttle. Small changes add up…

Anyways, between ioning and forced into slow maneuvers, my Defenders rarely got tokens and he shredded me. I managed to take down the shuttle, but that was it. It was my first loss with that team and it was decisive.

I learned a lot from it though- I should have just hung back and jousted with Evil Vessery. My three ships would have overpowered Vader and Evil Vessery and jousting with the two of them would have let me build up my token stacks. If he was content keeping the Shuttle out, I should take advantage of the extra firepower that lets me bring to bear.

Good games and I think I have a better grasp of how both defenders, palpshuttles and Dengaroo want to fly and what to do well and how to counter those things. Also, Ion Cannon Vessery is so mean.