Hi all, there's a local event coming up that is limited to only the contents of Wave 1, the starter set and Saw's Renegades. I'm leaning towards X-Wings and Y-Wings, but I'm unsure how effective Ion control will be this time around. A tie Swarm might be a nice change of pace. Any ideas for me?

Wedge, thane, biggs, dutch + ion cannon. Leaves you 4pts for whatever. I toss selflessness on thane and crack on wedge. Have done predator on both wedge and thane and that was ok as it helps when dutch eventually goes down.

Xwings are cheap and perfectly fine naked. Thanes ability is killer midgame. Dutch gives wedge full mods early game letting him one shot TIEs.

One of the best things about 2e so far is that, if you limit it to wave 1 only, I think every single ship is viable for a competitive list.

That's a great place to be in, but it can make it hard to actually decide which way to go.

I'm an X-Wing nut, so the vast majority of my first lists are going to be featuring them heavily.

6 hours ago, wurms said:

Wedge, thane, biggs, dutch + ion cannon.

This is mad. I'm still not used to the idea that you can run two X-Wing aces and Biggs and still have room for a fourth named pilot. I think Wedge and Thane are going to be capable of great things together, and Dutch appears pretty frequently in my list building too.

I'm yet to be convinced by ICT, though. Relying on 2 hits from only 3 dice to get that ion feels shaky to me, and I don't know yet how good the Y-Wing is at finding range 1. I've said every time that Dutch's ability means he wants torps of some kind, but of course you can't afford protons here and ICT is almost certainly better than APTs.

It's also going to be a long time before I'm happy leaving astros off the X-Wings. R4 and R3 are so good for their cost.

I do really like that list, though.

And yeah, I'd probably go for Crack on Wedge too. With his ability, Dutch passing him target locks and a 4 dice range 1 shot, he's basically an alpha strike all by himself. 4 dice with full mods vs 1 fewer agility and one cancelled defence dice is massive.

Thane's ability is fantastic for dice economy too. Just take a target lock every single time, and if you're left with an eye after your re-roll, cancel it to flip a damage. So long as he's not shooting first, he's otherwise completely self-sufficient.

How are you managing Dutch's arc? Is it a case of just keeping it forward, replacing his primary and effectively treating him as a jouster, or do you actually rotate it and shoot out the sides for more coverage?

10 hours ago, GuacCousteau said:

How are you managing Dutch's arc? Is it a case of just keeping it forward, replacing his primary and effectively treating him as a jouster, or do you actually rotate it and shoot out the sides for more coverage?

Pretty much like asajj. Just keep it inside, rotate when you need too. You really want him locking everytime, not rotating arc, so if ya have to use primary, so be it. His main benefit to the squad is giving a lock to the 3 dice xwings.

One game my opponent didnt go for dutch first and that was a mistake as my squad can kturn and get blocked and still get locks. Another game went for dutch first, but biggs ability just took way too long to finish dutch. Opponent eventually got Biggs and Dutch but thane and wedge were full health endgame.

Been liking the squad. Going for wedge means thane and biggs are splitting fire.

All Xwings, baby

Go zoom with the "largely ignores servos squad"

Predator Wedgev// Predator Kullbe // Thane /) Garven

Joust with the Biggs Blob

Elusive Wedge // Elusive Garven /) Biggs // Selfless Vet

I'm really not big on Ys:

1.)ICT is fine but their primary is garbage and they can't supplement it with Barrage rockets

Torps are expensive and need TL, making low Initiative Ys pretty crappy

2.) Not having boost is basically begging for death by TIE swarm, mini or otherwise

Thanks all, that's certainly given me some options to try out. I want to make the Y Wings work, but I'm not convinced by ICT at this point either. Biggs has always been a favourite of mine, I even have an X-Wing that I painted a flaming magnet on the nose, just for him

Any reason Trick Shot wouldn't work on the ICT of a Y Wing? Could be good

I'm thinking this right now;

Wedge Antilles (52)
Crack Shot (1)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)

Thane Kyrell (48)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)

Biggs Darklighter (48)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)

"Dutch" Vander (42)
Trick Shot (1)
Ion Cannon Turret (6)
R4 Astromech (2)

Total: 200

3 hours ago, Rat of Vengence said:

I'm thinking this right now;

Wedge Antilles (52)
Crack Shot (1)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)

Thane Kyrell (48)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)

Biggs Darklighter (48)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)

"Dutch" Vander (42)
Trick Shot (1)
Ion Cannon Turret (6)
R4 Astromech (2)

Total: 200

I've been tinkering with similar lists as well - here are some ideas:

• Consider changing Trick Shot and R4 on Dutch for Selfless for additional help with spreading out the damage
• This list has four different PS levels so might be hard to fly in formation (!)
  • Spreading the ships in two pairs makes this easier, but it's still not easy (and reduces the value of Biggs)
  • Biggs having the lowest init means he will likely need to fly in the front row, which is not ideal
• One idea would be to replace Thane with a Selfless Red Squadron Veteran (I3, 46 points) or Leevan Tenza (I3, 46 points) or Kulbee Sperado (I3, 48 points) and fly that ship in front of Biggs
  • A list with Biggs and 2 other pilots with Selfless would make it pretty hard for the enemy to remove a ship in the first round of fire

Hey all. The tournament was on Saturday, and I did reasonably well, 3 wins 3 losses. I ended up modifying the list and ran with;

Some reflections;

Trick shot is situational, but GLORIOUS when it comes off. 5 dice Proton torps? Yes please! 1st round I had a 4 dice primary weapon shot!

PS4 on Dutch isn't enough to reliably push forward and pass locks for torpedoes. Lots of high PS ships in the tourney, and he got wiped before firing one game. When it does work I usually have the Gold with a focus and target lock, pretty effective

Wedge hits hard, but is fragile.

Thane's ability is nice, but too situational. He'd be a terror to any larger ships, but I didn't face anything bigger than a U Wing.

Still, I never found myself feeling totally outmatched list wise, so I'd rate this as 2nd tier. A better player than me would probably get more out of it

I have played this list, which I call "First-Strike Rebels", three times and won every time
With Luke firing at Init 7 and Wedge at Init 6 (6 point bid) you kill one small ship in the first engagement and if you attack a medium or large ship, it most times will be killed by Thane.

Luke -Protons, S-foils, Heightened Perception - 74
Wedge -Protons, S-foils, Crack Shot - 62
Thane -Protons, S-foils, Crack Shot - 58

194 points

FULL MODS ALL SHOOT AT I4

Benthic Two Tubes - (47)
Advanced Sensors (8)
Perceptive Copilot (10)
Pivot Wing (Open) (0)

Dutch Vander - (42)
Expert Handling (2)
Ion Cannon Turret (6)
Proton Torpedoes (9)
R4 Astromech (2)
Proton Bombs (5)
Veteran Turret Gunner (8)

Garven Dreis - (47)
Swarm Tactics (3)
Proton Torpedoes (9)
Servomotor S-foils (Open) (0)

Total: 198/200

I5/6 FUN TIMES!

Wedge w/ swarm tactics, shield upgrade and s-foils (61)

Thane w/ swarm tactics, shield upgrade and s-foils (57)

Blue Sq. Escort (41) x2

Could also drop shields to upgrade to reds w/ swarm tactics and everyone fires at 6. Could give Thane something else then like trick shot (196) or elusive (198)

Numbers over named pilots.

2x ywings with Ion turret

3x X-wings with servo motors.

Heavy firepower and will eat up most everything.