Need help making a 100 pt team to beat my friend

By voltagejim, in X-Wing

We play usually every Tuesday night and the last 4 months he has won every match we play. I usually randomly throw something together as Empire, usually a random 3 different TIE like a defender, striker, etc. He always uses Dash Rendar with Outrider, and a t-70 x-wing with R2. He also uses some upgrade cards that gives him 2 focus tokens on the outrider, and he can ignore all obstacles. So he never needs to worry about asteroids, and with his outrider, I am getting attacked from every angle.

Would like someone to suggest a good team for me to assemble that can beat him. Here is what I have

1 of all Imperial fighters minus the Imperial aces expansion, Decimator, and Lamdba shuttle

I humbly suggest that anything with Omega Leader should do you good. She can finish any list if you save her for the end. Heres an example of three ships your opponent cannot ignore

DerpDraw Leader (100)

Colonel Vessery (39) - TIE Defender
Veteran Instincts (1), Ion Cannon (3), TIE/D (0)

"Omega Leader" (26) - TIE/FO Fighter
Juke (2), Comm Relay (3)

"Quickdraw" (35) - TIE/SF Fighter
Trick Shot (0), Fire Control System (2), Pattern Analyzer (2), Lightweight Frame (2)

Edited by AngryAlbatross

You say he never needs to worry about the rocks, but he does .. Dash can ignore rocks during moving, but not when attacking

You can MAKE him worry about the rocks... find a way to cram seismic torpedoes on one of your ships and PELT him with those rocks! Ion cannons come in handy as well. If he's using rocks that much, use Trick Shot to add an extra attack die. I really think ion attacks are your strongest bet to strip him of his mobility AND those focus tokens.

I almost wanna say grab a Decimator as a hard counter. Why? Well, first off, Captain Oicunn. Basically, turn that ship into a fist with guns and RAM THE HELL out of The Outrider. It has a bomb slot, so you can drop a cluster mine or some other bomb to make his life that much more difficult (he can dance on rocks, he CAN'T do that on bombs). It also has 3 crew slots, so you can throw Mara Jade on there to stress the Outrider anytime it's in range 1. Use Tactical Jammers, keep the Deci between The Outrider and your other ships and it'll act as cover, allowing you to roll an extra green die. Oh, the Deci also has 6 more overall health than the Outrider. Slap Ruthlessness on there and you REALLY start to be a problem (keep your other ships clear, though... it can backfire). Grab a Recon Specialist to get you that additional focus token for yourself! Also, having a Rebel Captive on board will cause him nothing but problems.

I wonder if the OP is (partially) having so much trouble because he is thinking that debris and rocks work the same way for Dash's ability (You may ignore obstacles during activation and when taking actions)

Debris clouds makes you skip an action but asteroids mean you have to skip an action and an attack. Obviously Dash gets his action on both.

If he lands on a rock after moving he cannot fire unless he repositions off that rock with barrel roll (then you only have to worry about an unmodified attack)

Sorry if you're playing it right but I just wanted to check.

Edit - what JediRush said

Edited by Suhawk75
5 hours ago, voltagejim said:

We play usually every Tuesday night and the last 4 months he has won every match we play. I usually randomly throw something together as Empire, usually a random 3 different TIE like a defender, striker, etc. He always uses Dash Rendar with Outrider, and a t-70 x-wing with R2. He also uses some upgrade cards that gives him 2 focus tokens on the outrider, and he can ignore all obstacles. So he never needs to worry about asteroids, and with his outrider, I am getting attacked from every angle.

Would like someone to suggest a good team for me to assemble that can beat him. Here is what I have

1 of all Imperial fighters minus the Imperial aces expansion, Decimator, and Lamdba shuttle

Dash Rendar used to be a personal bugbear to face with a TIE swarm - he'd run away, pelting you with range 3 heavy laser cannon shots, and return fire did little because he gets 3 green dice to two red dice at range 3., and he can move just as fast as me - and fly across rocks.

Having a swarm of smaller ships in a "dragnet" across the width of the board rather than forming up into a close formation and trying to chase him seems to work well. TIE strikers are a good call, too - their adaptive ailerons title lets you keep up with the Outrider without losing your tokens.

Annoyingly, the ideal pilot to recommend is the one you've just said you don't have access to; Carnor Jax is the better interceptor pilot from Imperial Aces - he's fast enough and high pilot skill enough to get inside the Outrider's range 1 blind spot and stay there, and whilst he's there, the outrider can't spend its focus tokens - on him or anyone else.

The other trick that might be useful is stress - Outrider, much more than agility 0, million-hit-point tanks, is dependent on getting its actions. Blocking it (throwing an expendable TIE fighter in front in the way with intent to collide) is a good call, or stress tokens that deny it its actions. Rebel Captive is good - but I think limited to the Lambda shuttle. You should have a tactician card in the phantom, though. Also, consider Ion Pulse Missiles in the TIE Defender- one good hit, and the outrider's movement is predictable next turn, hopefully letting you gang up on it.

One of the problems i faced was chucking lists together that day and not thinking about it beforehand.

He has an advantage as he has flown the list a lot so knows its ins and outs.

now, Fast ships that can cause a bump and stop him rolling/stacking tokens or things that can stress him/ionise him work wonders.

do you proxy cards or play with all your cards on the table?

I'd start with something like this:

31 points • Major Rhymer - TIE Bomber - Extra Munitions - Advanced Homing Missiles - Ion Bombs - Trick Shot - Long Range Scanners

HLC is good against him but as it doesn't Crit its not too much of an issue, LRS gets locks outside of range 3, when you think you have a shot then focus for fully modified attacks then 1 face up damage card! (through shields) Rhymers ability means you can increase or decrease range on ordanance by 1 (so range 2 becomes range 1-3) Trick shot gives you an extra die firing through rocks and secondary weapon means no range bonus for Dash on Defence. (still gets obstruction bonus though)

i would then go

• Colonel Vessery - Tractor beam - Veteran Instincts - TIE/D - Twin Ion Engine Mk. II - Tied D is fund on this as although the tractor beam doesnt do much to large based ships it does drop the ability then with the title you can shoot your primary as well (useful for taking out pesky small based ships as well) tie mk2 gets him more greens and VI hopefully will put you above dash. Vessery doesnt need to worry about his own target lock too much (as long as someone else has the target locked he gains one straight after rolling dice) so is free to Focus, Evade or barrel roll

then lastly

• “Countdown” TIE Striker - Adaptive Ailerons - Hull Upgrade

its only 94 points though so feel free to tinker. I'm tempted to run this list myself and see what happens!!

If you have access to Vassal (or the squadron benchmark tool) then you can have a bit of practice flying it around and see how you get on with it. also don't set up as if you want to Joust, i normally set up at a bit of an angle (point to a corner from the middle) gives you more options than flying straight and is easier to keep arcs. Set up a load of rocks on the corner farthest from where you are set up so you can try and keep a nice open firing/k turn lane open.

most importantly fly the same ships a number of times so you get used to how they fly!! (i'm running K Wings and am almost there with them!)

Edited by taulover55

what does your friend fly? its easy to build a counter-list if you know in advance? try 4 tie advanced with AC and one naked Tie proto.. easy list to fly. just evade and try to keep in formation as 8 hits are guaranteed... use the prototype as bait/flanker...

Edited by Swedge

Rear Admiral C:
Veteran Instincts
Kylo Ren
Emperor Palpatine
Engine Upgrade
Dauntless title

Carnor Jax:
Push the Limit
Autothrusters
Royal Guard Title
Stealth Device

You won't be friends after this.

RAC is PS10 so moves after Dash and the T70 (except for VI POE). Ensure your first engagement happens at range 2 so you can use Kylo on Dash as well as Palpatine. That should net you two critical hits to trigger the blinded pilot.

Next turn, you should either be again at range 2 or both now range 1. Kylo/Blinded Pilot him again.

If you managed to have Carnor firing at him both rounds too Dash will be dead next turn having never fired a shot. If you are a capable pilot, your friend would have likely not been able to spend any of his focus tokens ether due to Carnor Jax ability.

With one ship gone and your Decimator potentially taking only six damage, it should be simple enough to mop up the lone T70.

Play "Easy Street" on your phone at this point and sing along as Carnor and RAC run rings around the X wing and destroy it in under twenty minutes.

1 hour ago, taulover55 said:

drop the ability

I'm certain you meant "agility".

4 minutes ago, BlodVargarna said:

I'm certain you meant "agility".

lol Yep.

Minimal chance to proof read at work with the Bosses wife constantly walking past you!! <_<

First thing to do is understand Dash needs to be off the asteroids before he shoots.

Second is to get in that range 1 bubble if he is doing the traditional HLC build.

Omega Leader w/ juke and comm relay will be hilarious against Dash. Vessery is a good choice anytime you have someone who takes lots of locks.

The main strategy is to either block Dash or to stay in tight where he cant hit you. Carnor would be hilarious if you got imperial aces, but isn't mandatory.

Thanks for the replies guys! He has been playing where Dash can shoot while on asteroids. SO that is incorrect? That is good to know. I usually just randomly throw a list together using whatever pilot and upgrade cards let me roll the most attack dice or change the most dice to hits or evades, never experimented with ion, tractor beam, and some of the advanced movement stuff. I couldn't go over tonight, but I will try out one of these lists next time I play him!

1 hour ago, voltagejim said:

Thanks for the replies guys! He has been playing where Dash can shoot while on asteroids. SO that is incorrect? That is good to know. I usually just randomly throw a list together using whatever pilot and upgrade cards let me roll the most attack dice or change the most dice to hits or evades, never experimented with ion, tractor beam, and some of the advanced movement stuff. I couldn't go over tonight, but I will try out one of these lists next time I play him!

Dash the pilot can ignore obstacles during the activation phase, not during the combat phase. Dash the crew member upgrade can ignore obstacles during the combat phase. Which is he using?

I think both? He is always landing on asteroids, and I'm pretty sure he is attacking me most of the time he is on them as well

Either way, he's doing something wrong. If he's using the Dash pilot, he can't use the crew. If he's using the crew, he can't use the pilot.

There's Trick Shot that lets you use an extra attack die, but that's about it.

You've been getting cheated, yo! (probably not intentionally, but still...)

4 hours ago, voltagejim said:

I think both? He is always landing on asteroids, and I'm pretty sure he is attacking me most of the time he is on them as well

Maybe he is landing on Debris Fields? They allow you to shoot (hand out a stress and only take damage on a critical roll as opposed to both a hit and critical).

AS a point, anything with a Dot in the card name is Unique so only one of that name can be used in a list (i.e Sabine wren crew/pilot, Dash crew/pilot, R2D2 Crew/droid etc)

latest?cb=20140811165408 latest?cb=20140807155228

and yeah, check out if its Rocks or Debris.

ok thanks for the heads up on that! Meant to reply to this a lot sooner, but got caught up in work at both jobs :( I plan on picking up an IMP veterans pack this week so I will have more options for pilot cards with that!

On 6/20/2017 at 6:46 AM, Viktus106 said:

Rear Admiral C:
Veteran Instincts
Kylo Ren
Emperor Palpatine
Engine Upgrade
Dauntless title

Carnor Jax:
Push the Limit
Autothrusters
Royal Guard Title
Stealth Device

I'd say there are HUGE problems with that suggestion. Namely this:

On 6/19/2017 at 9:17 PM, voltagejim said:

Would like someone to suggest a good team for me to assemble that can beat him. Here is what I have

1 of all Imperial fighters minus the Imperial aces expansion, Decimator, and Lamdba shuttle

RAC = Decimator and Jax = ImpAces. While not completely clear I generally would figure he's also missing the Raider.

I'd run, um; A) Vessery/D with Flechette Cannon, B) Ryad/X7,and C) Inquisitor/Title, PTL, VI, Autothrusters....I think, something like that ?

oh and I meant to say I DO have the Decimator and Lambda shuttle. They were out of IMP aces at the store I go to so bought the assault carrier instead

Omega leader is one of the best ships in the game Period. The ability to solo Dash makes her deadly.

Ryan Farmer from the My Podcast wrote very long article about the strengths of this ship.

"Omega Leader" (26) - TIE/FO Fighter
Juke (2), Comm Relay (3)

With the rest of the points this is what I would do ether one of these,

The Inquisitor (29) - TIE Adv. Prototype
Intensity (2), XX-23 S-Thread Tracers (1), TIE/v1 (1), Guidance Chips (0)

Valen Rudor (29) - TIE Adv. Prototype
Intensity (2), Cluster Missiles (4), TIE/v1 (1), Guidance Chips (0)

The last ship would be QuickDraw,

"Quickdraw" (43) - TIE/SF Fighter
Outmaneuver (3), Fire Control System (2), Homing Missiles (5), Weapons Guidance (2), Special Ops Training (0), Lightweight Frame (2)

Edited by Cubanboy

Run Duchess to beat Dash. You can hit the range 1 bubble with her better than just about any other ship.

Use Proton Bombs to beat a regenerating T70. Only 3 hits necessary (4 if he blows the astromech, but then regen is out). Bonus points for putting the proton bombs on a Kylo crewed Decimator who can hit hull on his attack, too.

If you know what you're facing, you can put some hard counters down, even if they're not good in general matchups.

Valen is so strong with Intensity, I also really like Vader without the Raider upgrade card it does limit him a lot.