Double Post. Sorry!
So while I am a "buy every expansion" kind of guy, I almost exclusively play Empire. Occasionally I will fly a Scum list, but I find it more challenging and therefore more fun and fulfilling to fly Empire. I never use my Rebels. A lot of people at my FLGS play Rebels and Scum so I do get a chance to play against those factions. I've been playing the game since Wave 1, when my brother and I decided to go in halves to collect each release, with him "owning" the Rebels and myself "owning" the Empire, but he has since traded me all his Xwing stuff for 40k stuff(who really needs 10,000 pts of Ultramarines that I never use anymore anyway) so now I own it all and have, of course, bought all the Scum ships. Even though they are now "100% mine", six months have past and I still never play my Rebels. That all being said, I recently decided to actually use 2/3 of the ships I own. So I decided to play with my Rebels. I instantly decided the best way to do that would be to use some "under performing" and "not points efficient" and "severely lacking" T65 Xwings. Therefore, my list would have at least 3 T65s and it would not have Biggs. After about 10 mins of deliberation, and deciding that I wanted a "historical" list, this is what I came up with.
Garven Dreis + R2 Astromech + Integrated Astromech
Luke Skywalker + Expertise + R2-D2 + Vectored Thrusters
Wedge Antilles + Veteran Instincts + R5-P9 + Vectored Thrusters
The idea was that every turn Wedge and Luke would try to barrel roll out of arc if possible and TL if not possible and use their innate/EPT abilities to help them shoot better(Wedge's -1 agility ability and Expertise on Luke) and Garven would focus and stay close to Wedge and pass him his focus so Wedge could Regen with his Droid. A very basic plan and I didn't think I would do well, but I wanted a change, so what the heck, let's do it. I played 3 games last night. 2 against guys I've played many times each and once against a guy I just met last night. Here's what happened.
Game 1- versus my buddy Mike who plays exclusively Scum
Mike almost always runs a double aces(Fenn and Talonbane) Mindlinked list with one or two small ships also with Mindlinked, so that is what I was expecting to face. Instead, Mike plunks down a naked Dengar, Bossk, and a low PS Lancer. That's over 30 hit points to chew threw. I was not very happy. So I tried to make a fairly dense asteroid field in the middle of the board and hoped I could fly ships I've never really flown before through them better that he could large bases. My strategy worked. After drawing him into the asteroid field, I manager to block Dengar on a few different rocks for a few turns and then blast him away. The Lancer did an unusual kturn that left it's arc facing the wrong way and I was able to burn it down. And finally, I was able to out fly Bossk and get behind him with Luke. Bye, bye Bossk. First game 100-0. MVP: Luke What I would have changed: Garvin - I felt he didn't directly affect the game as much as another pilot may have. Not much offense and not enough defense to warrant his enclussion.
Game 2 - versus my buddy Cory who usually flies Empire and his dial Phantom list with escort beat me the last time we played.
I wasn't surprised to see Echo in Cory's list. In fact I would have been surprised not to. He uses him all the time and he's good with him. Echo had Kallus on board as well as VI and Advanced Cloaking device. He also had Omega Leader and Soontir Fel with all their normal fixings. Well since his list was 100 points like mine we rolled for initiative. I won. I chose to move first, shoot first. I once again put a rather dense asteroid field and decided to fly through them. He came up one side with all of his ships, kturned, and went straight back towards his deployment zone in an attempt to get me to commit and fly through the rocks. I obliged him and rocketed in and through the rocks. On turn 3 or 4, I set up a kill box with a wide range of arcs to catch Echo as he tried to decloak and move within the asteroid field. But since he didn't know where Wedge would end up, he chose to barrel roll around a rock and out of Luke's firing arc. Unfortunately for Echo, I had done a 4 straight and then used my own barrel roll to get a range one shot on the uncloaked Echo with Wedge. Roll the dice, 3 natural hits and 1 crit. His now 1 evade dice rolled an evade. 2 hits and a crit. Hits to shields. Crit - Can't shoot at your next opportunity. Echo cannot shoot and cannot recloak with Advanced Cloaking device. Womp womp womp. Garvin shoots at him and finishes him off. Omega leader plunks away at Garvin taking all his shields and Soontir Fel fires at Luke and takes a shield, but the wind is out of my opponent's sails. He flys Fell all around the board while Wegde and Luke chase him, before finally making a huge mistake and flys him into a position that leaves him with no move next turn and Feel flys off the board. OL has been shooting up Garvin, but with one hull left, I soon away, while re-engaging with Luke and Wedge. He can't keep both of them TL'd and while it does take me forever to kill OL, I finally do. Second game: 100-0. MVP:Wedge and Luke. What would I change: Once again Garvin. He just feels really underpowered and doesn't contribute much.
Game 3- versus a guy named Brister, who I just met that night and said that he had only played a handful of games. He had a core set, Imperial Veterans and a few other Empire ships.
He was running Ryad with Tie/D with Ion Cannon, a Delta with Tie/D with Ion Cannon, a Black Squadron Tie fighter with crackshot, and an Academy Pilot. I figured it worked the first two games, so I once again made a dense asteroid field and counted on my (hopefully) better/more experienced flying ability over a new player to get an advantage. I flew through the the rocks. I am not used to flying against Tie/Ds. They hit like a truck and quickly were Ionising and shooting my Xwings to pieces, and I ended up losing Garvin pretty quick, but not before I focused down Ryad. Then the Delta was able to Ion Luke and then Kturn behind him. It was a pivotal moment in the game. If the Delta could continue to Ion Luke, he could ride him until he died. I got a little bit of luck at the right time and I was able to evade his two hits with his second Ion attack. Next turn I Kturned with Luke and was able to focus down the Delta with Luke and Wedge before he could shoot again. At this point it was two Rebel Aces who were pretty banged up against two untouched low PS Ties. After some dancing around I managed to kill the Black Squad pilot and knock one hull off the Academy at the cost of Wedge and Luke down to one hull. By this time though, R2D2 had Luke back to full shields and we settled in to a Kturn dance that I was sure to win due to higher PS, more hit points and Expertise. It actually took several turns, but I pulled it out and won. Third game: 100-62. MVP: Luke Thing I would have changed: my strategy of flying through the rocks was a mistake in this game.
Take aways:
Luke with R2D2 and Vectored Thrusters and Expertise is so much fun to fly and a very good use of 38 points as long as you control the engagement and don't allow yourself to be focused down. If you can hit hard, then run away a bit and Regen some shields, you're golden.
The Xwing is not as bad as everyone says. That said it does feel a little underpowered in the current state of the game. The main issue I see is the dial isn't that great. It has no 1 hard turn and only 3 greens. If I had faced stress control, it would have been a totally different night. A T65 title take makes their dial better in some way is how I would "fix" them.
Anyway, I had a couple of fun games and used some of my ships.
Edited by JJFDVORAK