First impressions and experiences

By Kdubb, in X-Wing

52 minutes ago, jwilliamson12 said:

Yeah, that is a viable strategy. Though it's really difficult to rely on SLAM to hit and run. Dual turret lits are pretty common, which is one problem I ran into with them. It's hard to get out of range of two TLT ships or run away from higher PS ships like Dash who can barrel roll back into range with the HLC.

Well the idea is that the opponent will be pulled in multiple directions. The ship he is trying to focus on isn't necessarily the ship that's attacking him. You act like a swarm of wasps stinging the enemy from multiple angles so he is tempted to switch targets. And maybe if he is focusing on one ship, you pull away and make him chase you to stay in range. At which point your other ships might be behind him and can ion him off the board.

12 hours ago, Malasombra said:

Yup. I'm a bit displeased with FFG decision of giving the imperials the 30 points minimum black whale-bat (and big base) and the rebels the 15 points support ship.

Let's hope for a generic crew that gives the action.

But probably it'll be a 1 point Scum Only. ;)

Did you guys miss System, Tech, double Crew, 12 health and frickin FOUR attack dice?

Rebel Shuttle is nice, but it's also taking away the invested points from doing any significant damage.

The bat-whale gets Coordinate as a bonus, not primary focus.

The upsilon isnt a bad ship. Its just not a good Coordinate user because its priced high enough where it HAS to pull its own weight.

The 15pt bug which routinely will be 22-24pts after being set up for stress attacks does not need to pull its weight. Its almost half the price of an Upsilon thats trying to do anything other than just coordinating.

I've never been able to get the Upsilon to use coordinate without basically screwing itself over due to not boosting, focusing, or whatever action crew i got instead of coordinate.

10 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

The upsilon isnt a bad ship. Its just not a good Coordinate user because its priced high enough where it HAS to pull its own weight.

The 15pt bug which routinely will be 22-24pts after being set up for stress attacks does not need to pull its weight. Its almost half the price of an Upsilon thats trying to do anything other than just coordinating.

I've never been able to get the Upsilon to use coordinate without basically screwing itself over due to not boosting, focusing, or whatever action crew i got instead of coordinate.

Another point is that Rebels can now pull PS9 (or PS11) Coordinate for 21 points, while the previous top was 35pts for PS6 (or PS8).

Incidentally the only time I found Upsilon's Coordinate being useful was in early days when I was running a naked Upsilon whose job was to provide Coordinate and soak up crits via DTF.

On 08/12/2017 at 4:13 PM, Embir82 said:

Does Vassal games count?
If so here is the list I played a couple of times already on Vassal - all games were victories, with only one loss where only ships left were full health Poe and Kylo and we called time (opponent had more points in Kylo):

Fenn Rau (Sheathipede) — Sheathipede-class Shuttle 20
Veteran Instincts 1
Inspiring Recruit 1
R2 Astromech 1
Vectored Thrusters 2
Ship Total: 25
Poe Dameron (PS9) — T-70 X-Wing 33
Veteran Instincts 1
R2-D2 4
Advanced Optics 2
Autothrusters 2
Black One 1
Ship Total: 43
Wedge Antilles — X-Wing 29
Veteran Instincts 1
Flight-Assist Astromech 1
Integrated Astromech 0
Ship Total: 31


Fenn is great little supporting ship, especially in this configuration; he works as swiss army knife - provides debuff and stress and damage protection.

Just to follow up on this list...

I ran it 5 times at game night tonight and went 5-0. It's A LOT of fun. I made a few changes - VT onto Wedge to help with arc dodging (only really applied 1-2 times) and tried some different crew on Fenn - Jan and tactician (forgot tactician and Jan didn't really help). Might use Cpt Rex or go back to tactician. Not sure I need Inspiring Recruit, although would be good in a control meta (and reduce me to 99 pts)

Seems a solid list, Poe is especially good as people go for Wedge and Fenn first. Both a surprising tanky as Fenn can limit dice coming their way very well. Poe usually makes it to the end game, where he's tough to finish off. I'm looking forward to running it at our monthly tourney next week...

3 hours ago, Vineheart01 said:

The upsilon isnt a bad ship. Its just not a good Coordinate user because its priced high enough where it HAS to pull its own weight.

The 15pt bug which routinely will be 22-24pts after being set up for stress attacks does not need to pull its weight. Its almost half the price of an Upsilon thats trying to do anything other than just coordinating.

I've never been able to get the Upsilon to use coordinate without basically screwing itself over due to not boosting, focusing, or whatever action crew i got instead of coordinate.

No, it is.

It's got 4 attack dice, but only one arc and no turret and no ability to turn round. It is likely to get one or two shots, then never ever shoot again and die.

It's not worth its points, I've never fought an upsilon that got more than 2 shots in a given game, that I didn't let it get for some competitive advantage.

There are some tricksy trap builds but I wouldn't expect them to work twice.

It's almost a shame the Imps got Coordinate first, because now they know how to price it for standard play when it's in the Rebels.

13 hours ago, Mef82 said:

Did you guys miss System, Tech, double Crew, 12 health and frickin FOUR attack dice?

Rebel Shuttle is nice, but it's also taking away the invested points from doing any significant damage.

The bat-whale gets Coordinate as a bonus, not primary focus.

As @Vineheart01 said it's not good for coordinate. I prefer an small, cheap ship who can follow my main ships.

Not an improved Lambda, who takes half of your list.

Today, thinking about the budget Nu Gunboat seen in Austin(?) (Harpoon + LRS) = 22p

Has anyone tried the budget Rho Gunboat similar to this? (Harpoon+Deadeye+GC) =26p? Or it gets too expensive?

On December 12, 2017 at 2:48 PM, Mef82 said:

Did you guys miss System, Tech, double Crew, 12 health and frickin FOUR attack dice?

Rebel Shuttle is nice, but it's also taking away the invested points from doing any significant damage.

The bat-whale gets Coordinate as a bonus, not primary focus.

It's also able to use Recon Specialist with Weapons Guidance and consistently get 4 hits every round.

I probably should order 2 more GUNBOATS to try all these ideas out.

A few loose thoughts after last night's testing:

- Advanced Optics is so far the highlight of the new wave(s) for me as far as the upgrades go. It's absolutely stellar on Poe (as expected), significantly reducing his greatest weakness - not being able to dish out consistent damage. What's perhaps less obvious is how useful AO is on Kylo Ren. Considering the hit-and-run nature of Kylo, you end up having lots of "dead" rounds where you neither shoot nor get shot at. This allows you to bank focus and then pull off some crazy double repositioning / single repositioning into white manuever / single repositioning and target lock shenaningans. Since AdvS Kylo performs his actions before moving, I never felt the need to use Primed Thrusters on him, so paying an extra 1 point for what was effectively an extra action on the subsequent round(s) was a steal. Without it I'd sometimes have to choose between getting where I want to be and getting the modifications I wanted. With it, it's much easier to set up good attack runs. I haven't run into any stressbugs yet though, so I might change my mind about Primed Thrusters.


- Kylo requires absolutely masterful flying to earn his points but I think the fears that he might be **** were unfounded. He does require something to draw attention away from him though. Something dangerous enough that the enemy can't afford to ignore it (and capable of punishing him if he does try to go after Kylo first) but tough or slippery enough to make sure he can't quite kill it too quickly. Double TLT aggressors seem to do the job just fine and they thrive amongst dense asteroid fields that Kylo also likes. I think double gunboats might do the job too, but haven't tested it yet.

- Quadruple missile gunboats are legit. They can wipe out a crucial ship quickly. They do find it problematic to shake a mobile ace off their tails and organize another missile run but in tournament games they can usually win on points anyway since it's really hard to finish off more than one while dodging his friend's harpoons. They're cheap too, so killing one doesn't give very many points.

- 22 point harpoon Nu is a terrific filler. You can set it up in a flanking position and catch the enemy during or right after the first engagement, then peel off and throw another 4 dice later into the game. It's also a decent blocker with SLAM and at a pinch it can do some work with the primary in R1. It's not a ship you'd want to build your strategy around but it remains a constant threat to the enemy and it's not trivial to get rid of it. It's very presence often forces the opponent to make suboptimal choices.