So it was becoming apparent that I would need to do some reevaluating in terms of Rebels in X-Wing 2.0. I wasn't that I had no success, but Scum and Empire was significantly better in key areas and it was hard to overcome the problem when confronted with a skilled player using that toolset. In short it was time to analyze and identify the problem. Part of it was that I was not flying great, so I trying to put together something basic and something that I could fly in a wave restricted event.
Rebel Synergy is Dead- for now, at least, Rebel synergy is DoA. Some of it is costing, but really, it's just a case that it frequently requires maintaining a semi-predictable formation and often being forced into a joust, but not quite being good enough to win the joust against squads built for it mostly because of how much weaker the defensive tech in Rebels is now vs. 1.0. Rebels also have some really anomalous holes in capabilities such as the lack of way to buff the attacks of cheap generics that every other faction currently has (in some cases multiple options).
Rebels don't have a super ace- The closest you really get is Luke, maybe Wedge, but X-Wing isn't quite good enough to allow these aces to carry the way you need a super ace to carry. The I6 offerings are pretty weak. Wedge is decent enough for his cost, but not spectacular, Han is amazing, but probably over half your list, Fenn Rau is comically overcosted to the point of unusability (wohoo, 52pt support ship!).
In short, the prospects for really interesting combos that can't just be casually torn apart by a skilled player was very lacking and there really wasn't a pilot that I was confident is just dumping upgrades on to carry the team outside of Han, but he's a lot of your list. So, back to basics. I started breaking what was and wasn't working on a much more fundamental level.
The winner is- looking at the numbers the various jousting options for rebels were throwing up, there was a clear winner and not by a small margin. A Y-Wing with Proton Torpedoes and an R4 Astromech. It beat basically everything and it's performances weren't sporadic with some great and some terrible games. It was very consistently good with the occasional amazing performance. This puzzled me, because the first list I threw it in was a lark, but I dropped it in a few more just because I had the Y's on hand. Clearly, scientific method, see if the performance of the Y-Wing was an anomaly or if it was actually the strongest generic platform in the faction.
This, naturally raises the question of "what list do I put it in". All Y-Wings has a lot of problems, and they're very similar problems to the all TIE bomber or whatever lists, in that you're very inflexible, your options are limited and you don't have an end game. Since the points worked out perfectly, the best wingmen seemed to be Luke and Wedge. The justification was very straightforward: Both Luke and Wedge could present problems late game if the opponent left them alone and their higher Initiative with more reposition access added key flexibility to set up the joust I wanted. I didn't have points for anything but the free S-Foils on them, but my concern level about that was pretty minimal since my personal observation is that these pilots are super strong if kept cheap, but will struggle to justify their presence the more points you dump on them simply because Wedge has no defensive tech whatsoever and Luke is solid defensively, but suffers if he's confronted with I6's or I5's with a larger bid and good reposition options. In short, a pair of pocket closers, ships that can end the game, but that you don't suffer too badly if they're lost.
| Luke Skywalker — X-Wing | 62 |
| Servomotor S-Foils | 0 |
| Ship Total: 62 | |
| Wedge Antilles — X-Wing | 52 |
| Servomotor S-Foils | 0 |
| Ship Total: 52 | |
| Gray Squadron Bomber — Y-Wing | 32 |
| Proton Torpedoes | 9 |
| R4 Astromech | 2 |
| Ship Total: 43 | |
| Gray Squadron Bomber — Y-Wing | 32 |
| Proton Torpedoes | 9 |
| R4 Astromech | 2 |
| Ship Total: 43 | |
So the experimentation began. I tried to play against a little bit of everything, Rebel 4-5 ship lists, scum jank, various flavors of imperial efficiency and aces and a wide array of different skill levels including some of the strongest players in the local meta. Game after game, those Y-Wings were just brutally effective. A huge part of it was the torps naturally turning a hit into a crit, so those faceups become a problem really fast and the "salt in the wound" is getting a Fuel Leak from the first torp that the second torp is almost garaunteed to trigger before you can do anything about it. They have a solid amount of hp, the torps hit unbelievably hard and the addition of Barrel Roll adds a lot of utility to have them function as blockers. The biggest feature that differentiated the Y-Wings was that I basically never had to debate whether I wanted to fire a torp. They have Reload, there's always more torps. Spends them like it's an Olympic event. I've dumped torps into Academy pilots on at least 3 occasions and the accademy pilot regretted it's poor life choice every time. You can also fly to engineer a block while reloading or just reload if you're down a torp while blocking because you're not contributing damage anyways. And with the R4, you're not worried about clearing the stress. So far the list is undefeated which I find hilarious because it basically has no gimmick or super efficiency buff. It's not trying to do anything crazy, it just has good and reasonably well costed platforms.
I've been refining my approach in terms of tactics and how to split the enemy joust or force them to commit to one element and have the other drop in behind. I've also refined a lot of when I spend locks. Unless I really need a kill shot and the extra dice will make the difference, I'm pretty confident not spending on 2 hits, and I almost never spend on 3 unless I'm going to have to start reloading anyways. Keeping your locks allow for a lot of versatility and a hit +crit is a perfectly acceptable result for a low 40s jouster in 2.0 especially if it's a range 3 that they aren't getting the extra die against. It's almost certainly not the best 2.0 list out there (god I hope not), but most of the games haven't been that close. I had 1 where Luke was the only ship left, at full health against 2 enemy ships at 1. He killed both of them without taking damage. I also had a game where a Y-Wing finished off a Reaper the same turn it killed Luke, but the Y-Wing was still almost at full health behind the reaper and the Reaper had just slooped, so it was definitely taking a torp next turn even if it survived. In short, it was probably dead even if the Y-Wing didn't score a full string with a Direct hit. I've had 2 games where I tabled my opponent without losing a ship.
It would be more than appropriate to say, I've been impressed by the versatility and hitting power of the Y-Wing with torps, which is why it absolutely amazes me that nobody is talking about it. It might be a relic of 1.0 where players only ever really used Y-Wings orbiting around the battlefield firing turrets and where the torpedoes were really crap and expensive and you only had 1 of them, maybe 2 if you took extra munitions, so this type of Y-Wing even being playable, much less good, was absolutely unheard of.
TL:DR- Y-Wings with torps and an R4 are a remarkably solid contender for the best generic in faction for it's points
