I got 2nd in a 20 person store championship with this list yesterday:

Cavern Angels Zealot (22)
Selflessness (1)
Renegade Refit (-2)
R4-D6 (1)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)
Integrated Astromech (0)

Cavern Angels Zealot (22)
Crack Shot (1)
Renegade Refit (-2)
Flight-Assist Astromech (1)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)
Integrated Astromech (0)

Cavern Angels Zealot (22)
Crack Shot (1)
Renegade Refit (-2)
Flight-Assist Astromech (1)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)
Integrated Astromech (0)

Cavern Angels Zealot (22)
Crack Shot (1)
Renegade Refit (-2)
Flight-Assist Astromech (1)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)
Integrated Astromech (0)

Bandit Squadron Pilot (12)
Harpoon Missiles (4)
Guidance Chips (0)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Breakdown of Swiss:

• Quickdraw, Backdraft, Blackout -> won 100 - 0 | He didn't setup the first engagement very well and was never able to consistently get shots on my ships
• Nora w/ expertise, Red Squad Vet w/ R2D2 crack shot, fenn rau -> won 100 - 42 | We jousted, he took out 2 x-wings and I took out nora and fenn. my remaining 3 ships chased R2D2 for a while but took him out
• Lone Wolf/Stealth Ryad, PTL/Adv Sensors Kylo, Academy Pilot -> won 100 - 21 | I was very nervous coming into this one as my opponent is a very good player. I went after Kylo first and kept my arcs very wide so he was never able to be out of arc of everyone. After about 4-5 rounds of shooting Kylo died and I had either my entire list or had lost 1 x-wing. I then went after Ryad and when she died the Academy was on 1 hull and he called it.
• Quickdraw, 2x Silencers with adapt/fcs/optics -> lost 33 - 100 I didn't spread out enough on the initial joust and he was able to arc dodge most of my ships with his silencers. I was behind most of the match but concentrated on 1 silencer to make sure I had the points to get into the cut.

Top 4 (placed in 3rd):

• (Top 4) Poe/Dash -> won 100 - 12 | I felt very confident coming into this one. I've played quite a bit of Poe/Dash so I know it's not keen on jousting lists. I come in fast, figure I'll take out Dash first before he can build up too much focus on Rey. The first round of shooting I have 2 Crack X-Wings shooting at Poe. The first gets 3 hits vs 3 blanks on Poe, he uses autothrusters and I spend crack shot. The second gets 3 hits and Poe rolls blank focus, he uses Pocus and I crack shot that.....dead Poe. Three rounds later Dash is dead and I had only lost my Z.
• (Finals) Miranda/Lowhrrick/Strezra -> The first round of shots was at range 3 and I got 1 damage into Miranda's hull while losing 1 x-wing and taking harpoon splash on everyone else. The next round I kind of turn away, expecting he'll do the same but I guess wrong on the direction he went and didn't have many shots. In retrospect I should've just got 1 forward with everyone. I was basically behind the entire match here and only took out Ezra. My match up against this list is tough but I think it's doable.

Conclusions:

• I didn't use R4-D6 once in the entire tournament. Every time I took more than 2 damage, there were only 2 regular hits and the rest were crits.
• Selflessness is GREAT in this list. All the ships are firing last so spending selflessness to keep a ship alive to get one last shot can make a big difference.
• I didn't get a lot out of the Harpoon. Often, the Z couldn't get the TL on the first round of engagement. I think I shot the harpoons.....3 times?
• Crack Shot is amazing. It just is.

I typically run my formation like this:

X--X--X

-X---Z-

The Z is on the inside of the formation and the X-Wing in front of the Z has selflessness. The FAA X-Wings are on the outside since they're faster and more maneuverable. I think placing the Z in front of the Selflessness X-wing MIGHT help with getting target locks but still it's a PS2 and getting that lock will always be difficult. My other options would be to switch the missiles to thread tracers and remove my dependence on the target lock. This takes away the threat of harpoons but would really help my 4 follow up shots from the X-Wings. This leaves me with 3 points to play around with, R2D2 on the selflessness X-Wing? or maybe M9-G8?

What I'm scared of:

• Ghosts! In testing I played against a ghost and it's just bad news. It can take out any 1 of my ships in a single round.
• Maybe Miranda/Nym (haven't played against it yet). Yes, bombs and harpoons are scary for swarms. BUT my list can take out a 1 agility ship really fast (see Nora from round 2 who died on the 2nd round of shooting).
• Miranda/Low/Sheathipede. I lost to it in the finals, but I think I have a puncher's chance against the list. I mean the guy I lost to is like top 7 in the world so not every match against the list will be that hard right?......right?

3 hours ago, imrandy85 said:

• Miranda/Low/Sheathipede. I lost to it in the finals, but I think I have a puncher's chance against the list. I mean the guy I lost to is like top 7 in the world so not every match against the list will be that hard right?......right? 

I think you spelled USA wrong.

2 hours ago, beardxofxdeath said:

I think you spelled USA wrong.

They always do. ?

Excuse me for forgetting that the rankings only take into account US events. It doesn't change the point I was trying to make as an aside in my post. Thanks for adding a lot to the conversation.

Ran Luke, Wes and 2 Crack Zealots (all crackshot and all FAA except Luke with R2). Took 2nd at a store champs. Lost in the last round mostly because of dice. 2 of the crack zealots put 3 damage on Ryad at long range (easy to underestimate crackshot) then lined up a nice joust with Ryad at range 1 of 3 ships, Wes and Luke who still had their crackshots and a zealot with 2 target locks between them. She only took 2 damage because Wes rolled 0 results on four dice with a lock and when the Zealot rolled into 2 hits and 2 crits onto a tokenless Ryad she hard rolled 3 evades.

Other than that, the list was pretty ball busting. Burns down even durable targets very fast on the initial joust, then uses Talon Rolls and FAA maneuvering to turn circles around people. Very happy with it.

5 Rookies with FIRS (Flight Assist, Integrated Astromech, Renegade Refit, Servomotor S-Foils) did pretty well in our game night kit yesterday. The player took a couple of games to get his eye in, but the raw firepower of the squad was very impressive.

Please, somebody win something with 4 X.........before 2.0.

Two rookies, Luke and Wedge.

Hello?

Hellooo???????

ANYONE?!?!?

I'm trying to squeeze Hobbie (Targ Astro), Tarn (r7), red (faa) and wedge (PTL BB8) into a list and I'm almost happy with it

1 hour ago, Shoulder of Orion said:

I'm trying to squeeze Hobbie (Targ Astro), Tarn (r7), red (faa) and wedge (PTL BB8) into a list and I'm almost happy with it

Sounds good.

One suggestion? For the price of the Red Squadron Pilot, you could pack in a Cavern Angels Zealot with Intimidation. That makes for a very, very nasty blocker - PS1, and anyone blocked loses a green die (another green die in the case of Wedge)

On ‎6‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 4:12 PM, imrandy85 said:

Conclusions:

• I didn't get a lot out of the Harpoon. Often, the Z couldn't get the TL on the first round of engagement. I think I shot the harpoons.....3 times?

How about thread tracers instead of the harpoon? Doesn't need a TL and whatever you trace is getting lit up by those Xwings. The three points saved could probably upgrade an astromech or two.

On ‎6‎/‎28‎/‎2018 at 7:00 PM, Magnus Grendel said:

Sounds good.

One suggestion? For the price of the Red Squadron Pilot, you could pack in a Cavern Angels Zealot with Intimidation. That makes for a very, very nasty blocker - PS1, and anyone blocked loses a green die (another green die in the case of Wedge)

It doesn't quiiite fit (a Zealot is only the same price as a rookie if you run without an astro, which is not ideal).. but some fiddling got me this 100 point list:

I haven't flown 5 X-wings, and probably never will, since heavy swarms aren't my thing. I have, hovever, flown fat turrets against them 3 times now, and come out on top in each engagement. They're only scary on the initial joust, but after that they're so squishy and sluggish without FAA that they become easy pickings.

I'm not concerned about 5 X-wing lists, but Luke, Wedge and Tarn alongside an intimidating zealot is something I'm intrigued by.

5 hours ago, Astech said:

I haven't flown 5 X-wings, and probably never will, since heavy swarms aren't my thing. I have, hovever, flown fat turrets against them 3 times now, and come out on top in each engagement. They're only scary on the initial joust, but after that they're so squishy and sluggish without FAA that they become easy pickings.

I'm not concerned about 5 X-wing lists, but Luke, Wedge and Tarn alongside an intimidating zealot is something I'm intrigued by.

Agreed, with caveats. It's why I think rookies are a much better choice than crack shot zealots.

My experience (which is, admittedly, just personal experience) has been the reverse - heavily upgraded turreted large ships are something that gets eaten by heavy swarms like a lamb shank by a hungry spaniel - BUT the important caveat is that in my case it's adaptive aileron strikers.

A large base ship already has a speed advantage over a small ship, and if the large ship also has boost and/or barrel roll and you don't (without giving up focus tokens, anyway), you can find yourself hopelessly outmanouvred. Add in the fact that massed primary weapons fire really loses a lot of bite at range 3, and you need adaptive ailerons, flight assist astromech, something, to hang onto chiraneau/dengar/dash's coat-tails. Normal ships with just their dials cannot chase you effectively.

this goes double because you're not just trading flight assist for crack shot - you're trading flight assist AND integrated astromech. 6 hits instead of 5 is quite likely to let you live long enough to get another shot, or to make your opponent 'waste' another shot finishing off a wounded T65, which is far more useful, and a big, big deal when an enemy squad gets super-duper double modified attacks, but only two of them a turn...

Those heavy swarmers with secondary weapons (unguided rocket scimitars or mangler cannon spacers) can attack effectively at range 3, so might be able to fight a big ship without repositioning abilities, but I've not much experience with that style of heavy swarm.

31 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Agreed, with caveats. It's why I think rookies are a much better choice than crack shot zealots.

My experience (which is, admittedly, just personal experience) has been the reverse - heavily upgraded turreted large ships are something that gets eaten by heavy swarms like a lamb shank by a hungry spaniel - BUT the important caveat is that in my case it's adaptive aileron strikers.

A large base ship already has a speed advantage over a small ship, and if the large ship also has boost and/or barrel roll and you don't (without giving up focus tokens, anyway), you can find yourself hopelessly outmanouvred. Add in the fact that massed primary weapons fire really loses a lot of bite at range 3, and you need adaptive ailerons, flight assist astromech, something, to hang onto chiraneau/dengar/dash's coat-tails. Normal ships with just their dials cannot chase you effectively.

this goes double because you're not just trading flight assist for crack shot - you're trading flight assist AND integrated astromech. 6 hits instead of 5 is quite likely to let you live long enough to get another shot, or to make your opponent 'waste' another shot finishing off a wounded T65, which is far more useful, and a big, big deal when an enemy squad gets super-duper double modified attacks, but only two of them a turn...

Those heavy swarmers with secondary weapons (unguided rocket scimitars or mangler cannon spacers) can attack effectively at range 3, so might be able to fight a big ship without repositioning abilities, but I've not much experience with that style of heavy swarm.

Would agree on the ailerons. Biggest issue with FAA isn't Dash, it's the wingman blocking the FAA trigger when you're trying to play catchup. Statistically, even with a tough chase you're fine, but if you don't deal expected damage on the chase with 5X you lose the attrition battle. Gotta be extremely careful on the approach. Rey is a pretty straight-forward matchup because she actually has to point at you to make up her points, but Dash is much trickier.

34 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Agreed, with caveats. It's why I think rookies are a much better choice than crack shot zealots.

My experience (which is, admittedly, just personal experience) has been the reverse - heavily upgraded turreted large ships are something that gets eaten by heavy swarms like a lamb shank by a hungry spaniel - BUT the important caveat is that in my case it's adaptive aileron strikers.

A large base ship already has a speed advantage over a small ship, and if the large ship also has boost and/or barrel roll and you don't (without giving up focus tokens, anyway), you can find yourself hopelessly outmanouvred. Add in the fact that massed primary weapons fire really loses a lot of bite at range 3, and you need adaptive ailerons, flight assist astromech, something, to hang onto chiraneau/dengar/dash's coat-tails. Normal ships with just their dials cannot chase you effectively.

this goes double because you're not just trading flight assist for crack shot - you're trading flight assist AND integrated astromech. 6 hits instead of 5 is quite likely to let you live long enough to get another shot, or to make your opponent 'waste' another shot finishing off a wounded T65, which is far more useful, and a big, big deal when an enemy squad gets super-duper double modified attacks, but only two of them a turn...

Those heavy swarmers with secondary weapons (unguided rocket scimitars or mangler cannon spacers) can attack effectively at range 3, so might be able to fight a big ship without repositioning abilities, but I've not much experience with that style of heavy swarm.

Crack Shot Zealots are fantastic, but you have to compromise on the 5th ship down to something like Intel Agent + R3-A2 AP-5 , in order to give the X-wings those critical droids.

FAA is an amazing upgrade, the trouble is that it's entirely useless when chasing a turret around an obstacle field - it either doesn't trigger or triggers ineffectually. So an X-wing swarm will effectively be limited to the 4-straight, whereas Dash goes 5, thus keeping half the ships out of his range. Ailerons Strikers are entirely different - they require just as many shots to kill in most circumstances, but have massively increased speed and agility going through obstacle fields.

I also haven't tried the unguided rockets swarms, but I feel like they're easy pickings when they can't spend focus on defense, leading to 2-hit kills of TIE Bombers with Dash's HLC instead of 3 shots on an X-wing. Manglers would be nicer, but Scyks are well in the 1-shot range of Dash, and will reliably die in 2 hits to most fat turrets, so it's a tricky trade-off.

6 minutes ago, RampancyTW said:

Would agree on the ailerons. Biggest issue with FAA isn't Dash, it's the wingman blocking the FAA trigger when you're trying to play catchup. Statistically, even with a tough chase you're fine, but if you don't deal expected damage on the chase with 5X you lose the attrition battle. Gotta be extremely careful on the approach. Rey is a pretty straight-forward matchup because she actually has to point at you to make up her points, but Dash is much trickier.

Agreed on Rey - a heavy swarm will eat her for breakfast, regardless of what type it is. Same goes for raging Chewie, RAC, Dengar, Asajj and probably Ketsu (at least without glitter + CM combo). Anything trying to outright joust heavy swarms with fat ships is asking for trouble.

I think the biggest issue with Dash is the Rey token bank - even when he's blocked, the nature of the heavy swarm means he'll always have a 3-4 damage shot coming through, and won't normally take that much in return.

On 6/24/2018 at 6:18 PM, acegard said:

After playing it a couple times (5 Rookies with FAA), it is joyous to fly but will take a lot to really bring it to the top tables. There is so much that hunts swarmy lists now: ultra-powerful bombs with Trajectory Simulator, Harpoons, super-alphas in general... It makes almost everything an uphill battle.

Well, yes and no... This list gets 0 internal synergy for sticking together. The only reason why you need to keep them somewhat together is in order to get some focus fire going. So AoE mechanics are not strictly a counter to them.

If you are very good however, you can fky 5 different trajectories to target, and get your fire focused exactly the moment you need it. And that’s where i agree. Managing FAA movement and Servomotors correctly is the key here. You need to be very good to fly this at a high level, both knowing your movement potential exactly and predicting the enemy correctky.

I ran 5x Rookies with FAA at an Objectives tournament yesterday and won. Dice were hot and cold throughout the day. Z-95 at range 1 of three and range 2 of two X-wings survived the round. Then Brobots go down 100-0 in 4 rounds. Had a lot of trouble with Vader, Quiz and a Krennic Reaper but went 100-60 with the last two x’s riding on one and two hull. They were fun to fly! I’m anxious to see how they are pointed in 2.0 to see if five will fit in 200 points.

I've been running 3 FAA rookies and PS 8 Poe with adaptability, R2d2, Black One, AO, and AT.

It's exhilarating to be pulling all those barrel roll turns and off target boosts.

Poe definitely appreciates the blocking and raw firepower of the rookies as a distraction.

That said, the rookies are **** fragile and likely to be at least on fire by the end. Losing the astro hurts a lot.

Vs another 3x + ace miniswarm, the PS advantage over Cavern Angels was pretty key at cutting down incoming fire.

Vs a Rey list, the raw firepower is **** fierce, especially when you can block so many of her maneuver options. The only thing I've seen do that much damage to such a beefy target outside of ordnance spam is a 100 point Norra build with a Raging Lowie w/ Finn+Chop.

Double post.

Double post

I may try this list next casual game I play:

4x Rookies

Rookie Pilot (20) - X-Wing (T-65)
Flight-Assist Astromech (1), Renegade Refit (-2), Servomotor S-foils (0), Integrated Astromech (0)

Plus AP-5 with M9

•AP-5 (20) - Sheathipede-class Shuttle
•Bodhi Rook (1), •M9-G8 (3), Multi-spectral Camouflage (1)

9 hours ago, Astech said:

I also haven't tried the unguided rockets swarms, but I feel like they're easy pickings when they can't spend focus on defense, leading to 2-hit kills of TIE Bombers with Dash's HLC instead of 3 shots on an X-wing. Manglers would be nicer, but Scyks are well in the 1-shot range of Dash, and will reliably die in 2 hits to most fat turrets, so it's a tricky trade-off.

Two focused green dice is as near as dammit the same as three unmodified ones - both have 6 hits, and with a heavy laser cannon criticals shouldnt be a huge thing. That said, in both cases whilst it's possible to survive two heavy laser shots, I think the odds are agin ye of surviving to need a third as a killshot, with rey/lone wolf/dash landing four hits more often than not, and dodging two hits with either defence roll is unlikely.

I'm trying 3x FAA Rookies with 3x Tracer Bandits.
Ran that list couple of times naked back when Integrated Astromech and Tracers etc weren't in the game yet. Now with Renegades you can fit FAA's and Tracers there too.

That 5 Rookie / Zealot has to wait a bit. I'll probably try it in my next tournament ?

I'm honestly not scared of Dash at all with my 4 crack zealot + Harpoon Z list.

Quote

(Top 4) Poe/Dash -> won 100 - 12 | I felt very confident coming into this one. I've played quite a bit of Poe/Dash so I know it's not keen on jousting lists. I come in fast, figure I'll take out Dash first before he can build up too much focus on Rey. The first round of shooting I have 2 Crack X-Wings shooting at Poe. The first gets 3 hits vs 3 blanks on Poe, he uses autothrusters and I spend crack shot. The second gets 3 hits and Poe rolls blank focus, he uses Pocus and I crack shot that.....dead Poe. Three rounds later Dash is dead and I had only lost my Z.

Dash was only able to build up 2 focus on Rey because I came in fast, using FAA boost. He was able to completely dodge all my shots once by using Glitterstim and Countermeasures in the same turn. Sure, Dash can try and run and puts a beating onto the X-Wings. However, Dash has 2 green dice and I've got crack shot. That Dash is going down fast.