So I have seen and played several games since Saw's dropped and I have yet to see something that can beat 5 X-Wings. I was skeptical at first but now I am a true believer. What do y'all have that can beat them?

5 PS3 Tie Strikers

Good play. Don't get in too many arcs, focus fire heavily on single ships.

There really aren't that many tricks to it, keep out of their arcs, get them into yours.

Harpoons are also good, if they're flying en masse.

Have you heard of our lord and savior Director Krennic and his optimized prototypes? (hint highly mobile aces with passive mods and plentiful token stacks do well)

Throw some red dice on the table.

5x U Wings?

1 hour ago, AngryAlbatross said:

So I have seen and played several games since Saw's dropped and I have yet to see something that can beat 5 X-Wings. I was skeptical at first but now I am a true believer. What do y'all have that can beat them?

You don't. You get down on your knees and thank Davies for finally fixing them.

Five Alpha Interceptors with Autothrusters.

1 hour ago, viedit said:

Have you heard of our lord and savior Director Krennic and his optimized prototypes? (hint highly mobile aces with passive mods and plentiful token stacks do well)

Optimized Ryad scares me.

1 hour ago, Boom Owl said:

5 PS3 Tie Strikers

This does not work as well as you might think. You can never recover from a round of bad dice.

3 ps3 xwings, 1 awing blocker to jam them up and a Tala with cruise/harpoon does alright.

18 minutes ago, Hawkstrike said:

Optimized Ryad scares me.

OP Juke Ryad is a legit terror.

Nym/Miranda with the usual works well.

Took an absolute battering with Proton Bombs going under shields, Harpoons, TLTs and of course, Sabine.

There's two phases to beating a 5 X-wing list: kill two X-wings, and then have a ship still alive that can take 3 of them alone. Dash and a tanky escort works well. Kylo and a pair of extra munitions + harpoons gunboats is just as good. For scum, Fenn Rau, Asajj and some PS 1 blocking filler is a strong choice.

Alternatively, you can go full on with a joust and take 3Nu + QD and hope to alpha two things off the table.

Well here are some methods.

• Bring in a prenerf Jumpmaster (or 3). Now that all errata will be managed on an app for 2.0 the print stuff can be played as printed.
• Use the prenerf decloak action card so Whisper can decloak before you flip the dial.
• Play 2.0 as your competitive format because 1st edition was set up to leave X-wings under-costed (which is why they were 21 points at launch and not 20 points).

Five....Cartel....you know the drill.

4 Focus/Target Locked shots can do nasty things, and the ability to then K-turn and target lock again with one set of thread tracers and contraband cybernetics means that you can actually win a joust against the heavier T-65s.

But, yes. 5 strikers can work - has worked, in fact, in my experience. Agreed bad dice can hobble you but in the game I played against them, I can confirm that:

• Flight Assist Astromech is a lot less useful than you'd hope when there are enemy ships all over the place but moving after you.
• Massed Strikers with higher PS are surprisingly capable of arc-dodging the worst of the X-wing's fire. When you break up the fight into 'take whatever shots you can get' where shots are distributed across both squads relatively evenly instead of 5-on-1 vs 5-on-1, the agility-based defences of the strikers come into their own versus the shield tokens of the X-wings.

Ultimately, a heavy swarm is a swarm - and whilst Flight Assist astromech is nice, it's more for 'strategic moves' (before the shooting starts) than for 'tactical moves', because once people are within range, since the Rookies move first they tend to not get their free boost or barrel roll - it can't be used for arc dodging or to close the range if you have a shot at all.

So splash damage, dense obstacles, and especially efficient arc-dodgers.

I strongly recommend trying Starviper MkIIs, as well. Those things can dance like nothing I've ever seen, and trying to keep the (relatively unwieldy) T-65 pointed at them takes some doing. A trio of aces (say, Tweek/Guri/Dalan) lets you pack the action economy into upgrades to allow you to use that awesome barrel roll, and unlike against most aces, Tweek and Dalan have the PS advantage and are using those barrel rolls and talon rolls reactively, not pre-emptively.

14 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

5 PS3 Tie Strikers

Yep, we were going to set that match up just for fun but then we went around my group there wasn't anybody who didn't think the Strikers would walk it with their higher PS and better repositioning.

You won't 'walk it' unless the X-wing player screws up by the numbers (dodging one arc is easy, but dodging 5 is hard), but the Strikers definitely have a the edge.

Note from our game - randomly, one of the most useful advantages the X-wings have is the ability to close s-foils. Strikers have an awesome red dial once you take ailerons into account, but their ability to recover from stress is freaking awful (It's why Adrenaline Rush is such a great option for Duchess).

Losing an attack die isn't too bad a deal when it turns off lightweight frame as a result, and those green speed 2 banks are a godsend, especially with Flight Assist potentially throwing a free boost or barrel roll on top without costing you your focus token.

Worth playing then, you think?

My Corran/Ahsoka/Jake list has done pretty well against multiple generics several times. You just need to be very patient and not walk into too many arcs at the same time. Double tapping Corran at R1 with a Focus+TL should leave an X-wing very damaged, if not dead. Ahsoka enjoys these kind of matchups!

15 hours ago, JasonCole said:

5x U Wings?

Yeah,

This is my plan!

panic...

Corran Poe.

Kylo Vynder

quad ion turrets

A lone academy TIE

http://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Galactic Empire&d=v4!s!78:27,44,262:-1:9:;79:27,36,142:-1:9:;10::-1:1:&sn=Unnamed Squadron&obs=

30 minutes ago, Ravncat said:

Corran Poe.

Kylo Vynder

quad ion turrets

I wouldn't walk Corran into that mess without Ahsoka's help. A blocked Corran is a dead Corran.

AS/PTL Kylo could solo many generic lists if Vynder has done its job before dying.

Not really sure about the Ions... it would take forever to kill a ship

Advanced sensors Corran is pretty good against it.