I tried out the four TIE/ln pilots of Inferno Squadron today, and I am deeply impressed with their interaction and how their abilities, while simple, work beautifully and give them a very fun twist on how TIEs usually fly. My list was simple:

Iden Versio w’ Marksmanship

Del Meeko w’ Marksmanship

Gideon Hask w’ Marksmanship

Seyn Marana w’ Marksmanship

2x Scimitar Squadron Pilot w’ Bomblet Generator

I was up against a Scum list based around dropping bombs and rigged cargo around, using Jabba to regenerate charges, and just plain hitting hard. It had Trick Shot Han Solo, Crack Shot Dalan Oberos and Sol Sixxa with Bomblet Generator. All had a bunch of other upgrades as well.

My bombers went up the flanks, with the Infernos in the middle-left. Han and Sol came down opposite the Infernos, while Dalan duelled with the other bomber. The opening engagements were calamitous, reducing both bombers to a handful of hull, though I did manage to burn through Dalan’s shields and strip some from Han.

Bombs went down, along with some rigged cargo, and the frantic manoeuvring began. The Scum came off worse, with Han bumping and taking damage from two bomblets, while Dalan took some hits as well, and Gideon lost one hull. In the ensuing engagement phase, I lost one Bomber, but Seyn got a crit and used it to push a damage card through Sol’s shields, leaving all three Scum ships with damage and vulnerable to Inferno Squad’s abilities.

Over the the next few turns, the second Bomber went down, but Inferno Squadron were able to focus fire on Sol and take him down, before splitting up and destroying Han while reducing Dalan to one hull - at which point the timer went off and the game ended with all four Inferno Squadron pilots still on the table.

Lessons learned:

- I got lucky. My opponent made some manoeuvring mistakes which I was able to capitalise on, effectively neutering Han for most of the game.

- The new damage deck is brutal. Han ended up with -1 red and green dice, while one of my Bombers nearly killed itself when I forgot that a K-turn doesn’t count as a straight manoeuvre...

- Bombs are great, as much for herding your opponents’ ships into arcs as for causing damage.

- Sometimes it’s good to keep things simple. Rather than loading up on lots of upgrades with interactions, as I’ve done with other lists, I kept this light and was able to focus on flying well.