I'm hoping to attend a small local store event at the beginning of March and wanted to toss out the list I'm considering taking. I recently played a version of this list in a casual game and I really liked the way it worked. What I can't decide on is two options for the list so I came here for a little advice.

Option 1 : I recently played against Norra and and was extremely surprised at how difficult she was to take down. Since the points drop, Leia is one of my new favourite upgrades (I'm certain she'll go back up again 🙁 ... ) and she worked great with E-wings. The ARC can take a fair bit of punishment, and the E-wings are pretty resilient with their 3 defense dice. R4 vastly improves their dial, and Leia allows them to keep actions after pulling K-turns or S-loops. The Z-95 is just filler for a fourth target to block or take pot shots at things.

Option 2: Basically the same premise, but I drop the Z-95 for a couple more upgrades on the others. The z-95 adds in a 2 die attack and a total of 4 HP to the list. By removing it and adding in Vet tail gunner and R5-D8 and shield upgrade, I get basically the same gain for fewer points (another arc with 2 attack dice and essentially 4 more HP for the ARC between Shield and R5-D8). It's arguable that with good positioning, Vet tail gunner may actually net me more bonus shots our the rear arc than a single Z-95 would get throughout a game just because the ARC, especially Norra, is significantly more survivable than a Z-95. That leaves me with 9 points to throw Elusive on the E-wings, and Selfless on Norra for a little more durability. I've found Elusive is really helpful on a 3 defense die roll, and Norra doesn't care about tanking a few crits if one sneaks through on the E-wings because of R5-D8; alternatively I can drop Selfless for a 3 point bid OR trick shot and a 1 point bid. The only major downside is that I don't have a 4th base to move around and block with or use as a distraction target.

TL;DR - I can't decide between a stripped down version of the list that gives me an extra ship to move around, or a list without the extra ship but a few upgrades that add the same total HP and firepower with a little added durability. Right now, I'm leaning towards bringing the upgraded list. I really like the way Elusive plays out on the E-wings, and being able to extend the life span of the ARC seems more valuable than adding in a Z-95 to me.

I do like the first squad, although I'd drop to Knaves so you can get R3 Astros, so useful with FCS on these guys!

25 minutes ago, FriendofYoda said:

I do like the first squad, although I'd drop to Knaves so you can get R3 Astros, so useful with FCS on these guys!

I've played around R3 on E-wings, and I can't say they aren't good. They really are, especially with FCS when you can nab two target locks from across the board. But I just can't get away from using R4. It improves 6 options on their dial, making two banks blue, two hards blue and 1 hards white. No matter how much I like the target locks, being limited to 1 bank and straight blue moves makes them really predictable. With R4 I find I'm able to maneuver better so I don't need the target locks in advance because I can get one on turn one, focus on bringing that ship down and then move on to the next one; with better maneuverability I haven't had a problem grabbing a lock when disengaging. And with Elusive, I have found disengaging to range 3 (if I can't get out of arc) means I can grab the lock, and I roll 4 dice (5 with an obstacle) and get a reroll so they can generally afford to take that risk. I want to take R3 on these guys, I just can't justify it when I compare it to the cheaper R4 and the benefits to the E-wing dial.

I also like the Rogue Squadron pilots because although they aren't shooting before aces, they are shooting before the majority of generics or at least at the same time, and they can take talents. I may be over-valuing Elusive based on my own experience with it (I know it's only a single reroll and needs to be recharged with a red move) but I've found it has saved my E-wings at a couple key moments. I do have a version that uses knaves, R3, and ion torpedoes, but they aren't going to fire before being shot at most of the time. I'd say it would do well in a casual game, but I think one of the first two lists will do better in a competitive setting. That said, the local "competitive setting" is only marginally more competitive than casual, and the guys are all really friendly and not power-gaming to win. The last event had a lot of creative and risk taking lists trying out new things.

28 minutes ago, Unit34 said:

being  limited to 1 bank and   straight blue moves makes them r  eally pred  ictabl  e.     

I mean, only when stressed. And that’s part of why you have Leia on the Arc right? Use Leia on your red maneuvers and keep your full dial open.

1 minute ago, kempokid said:

I mean, only when stressed. And that’s part of why you have Leia on the Arc right? Use Leia on your red maneuvers and keep your full dial open.

This is true. I did mean only when stressed. And you're correct in saying that is entirely the purpose of Leia. She makes using the red moves on the E-wing a lot easier. R4 was always just a safety net because Leia can only trigger every 3 turns.

Ok, so how about 2 Rogues with FCS and R3 escorting Norra with Leia, trick shot, R5-D8, Hull upgrade and tail gunner. That leaves 6 points... ion torpedoes on Norra, Elusive on the E-wings, or possibly daredevil? Trigger Leia, dial a 1 hard, boost 1 hard for a very short 180 turn?

I think there are a lot of variable options for this list, all with generally positive effects and useful in different circumstances. There are a lot of talents that work well on any of them, and several mods that help the ARC. I guess my biggest dilemma right now is do I bring 3 heavily upgraded ships or 4 more stripped down ships with only a few upgrades?

Nice lists, I feel like I have to take Ptorps on Ewings or you're not using that ship ability you're paying dearly for to enough extent. You can fit them in the Z-less list.

I'm using 2 Rogues (one with Swarm Tactics), R3 and protorps next to a Swarm Tactics Wedge, and it's working pretty well

I haven't used too many torps with this list just because I need to give up a lot of the upgrades that make it work the way I want it to in order to make them fit. I'm not denying the strength of Ptorps, but 12 points is a little too steep for me. Taking into consideration some suggestions here as well as trying to keep the list in a state to have it work the way I planned, I've come up with this:

ARC still has some added HP from R5, and some added punch in a scrum with Tail Gunner. As mentioned above, I can get rid of the R4 safety net on my E-wings and let Leia do her thing to keep my dial open after red moves. The Ewings have ion torps and R3, along with FCS. They give up Elusive/Daredevil but remain Rogue Squadron in order to keep their shots ahead of generics. If I bring ordnance it'll likely be in the form of ion torps (or possibly ad ptorps because E-wings don't have a hard time getting to range 1).

No one has really come out and said it, but from the responses I've gotten I'm getting the sense that dropping the Z-95 in favour of ordnance or other upgrades to the ARC and E-wings seems to be the way to go. That's the way I was leaning but wanted opinions on bringing 3 ships with upgrades or 4 ships with fewer upgrades.

46 minutes ago, RoockieBoy said:

I'm using 2 Rogues (one with Swarm Tactics), R3 and protorps next to a Swarm Tactics Wedge, and it's working pretty well

That sounds pretty brutal. Fly in formation and chain swarm tactics so they all fire at I6? I may have to try that out sometime, but right now I'm nowhere near skilled enough to keep them in formation throughout the game to keep it working. I'm getting better, but I don't think I'd be able to pull it off. I wouldn't want to fly against it in the hands of someone skilled though!

If you really want to get crazy with manauvering. Sloop one turn, then next turn use Leia/Kanan combo to sloop/k-turn and follow it up with an action.

I would give another vote to R3/FCS Knaves as the base for the E-Wings. However, I would propose an alternate Norra: Magva and ExHan. Makes her a much worse target and a BRUTAL endgame piece. Yes, you do lose Leia...but wise flying should make up for that. It leaves 15 points for upgrades/Rogues

Adding Magva is interesting. And definitely makes her harder hitting. That's something I'm going to consider adding.

I’m in the R4 boat myself, but ask yourself if it might be worth the five points to bump one of to Gavin? Super strong ability, considering it works for other friendlies’ attacks as well.

Torps are great but not necessary.

Norra is fun, great ability. I’ve enjoyed Zebtimidation on her, R5s are great on her, and Leia’s always good for 2 points. I also like Juking with her, though. It requires Jyn somewhere in the list, and she prefers to take PerCop if Jyn can be hanging around nearby, but. Just another thought.

The only issue I see with your list is that Norra wants to park herself in the middle of things, keep herself at r1 of enemies. E-Wings like to float around, not tie themselves down to that.

That said, it could be worth it for the initial engagement if nothing else. I’d be interested to see how it works out.

Yeah I'm considering options and I definitely do see the value in both R3 and torps, but 3 dice primaries are nothing to turn your nose up at and the nice thing about them is that I don't need a target lock for them to work so my target can change if a better opportunity presents itself. I also hate the feeling of rolling crap dice with torps after paying for them,or even worse getting knocked out before they fire. I know they can pack a mega punch, but they also make ships a higher priority target themselves. Glad to hear you like the R4 too. It just makes the E-wimg dial sooo much better. I like using red moves with the Ewings, especially the s-loops. I've definitely found Leia is incredible at helping them line shots up after the initial pass, but after that they tend to break formation and often need a red move before Leis is recharged. R4 means they can pull a hard 1 without leia's ability which has come in handy. I'm also really liking the idea of daredevil + R4 instead of using elusive. It's essentially a 180 turn barrel roll which isn't something you see often. And it means I can turn around and not trigger Leia on the first pass. I did something similar with a different list and it threw my opponent off when I didn't trigger Leia on that pass. Same idea could apply here.

I'm really hoping and planning on my final list including an R5 on Norra. It's essentially 2x or 3x hull upgrade for 4 or 6 points. Sure you need to use your action to use it, but that's a fair trade if I'm making my opponent punch more holes in my ship for about half the points. Plus it keeps those pesky crits flipped down so she can function optimally even when damaged.

I hear you about Norra wanting to brawl and the E-wings wanting to keep their distance. But, I really enjoyed flying them together (E-wings slightly behind and to either side of Norra) and then once in range of the first engagement slowing Norra to block (her rear arc means I'm not too worried about ships that kturn over her) and peeling the E-wings off to either side with s-loops (triggering Leia) to set up a kill box on my target. The first time I pulled it I had a range 1 fully modded shot with one of the e-wings. After that they broke and I sort of used Norra as a focal point to "slingshot" my E-wings around keeping her in the action. Not sure if it'll keep working or not..... but it's worked really well so far.

I'll make sure to come back here and post the final list I decide on and how I do. I'm still pretty new at anything competitive so I'm still learning the ropes in a timed environment. Any issues I have are more than likely my own misrakes and not necessarily an indication of the list itself one way or the other. I think I've decided on Norra and 2x E-wings (scrapping the z-95) and just have to make a final decision on water equipment to bring along.

I liked your suggestion of adding in Gavin. Came up with this. R4/daredevil on Gavin so he can more easily keep enemies in my other arcs in his own, and R3/predator on the other rogue.

Nice, I like it. I tend to mirror my Rogue’s upgrades with Gavin’s, but that doesn’t mean anything, really 😂

13 hours ago, Unit34 said:

The  first time I pulled it I had a range 1 fully modded shot with one of the e-wings. After that they broke and I sort of used Norra as a focal point to "slingshot" my E-wings ar  ound keeping her in the action. Not sure if it'll keep  working or not..... but it's worked really well so far  .  

Hm, part of me wants to try this. I guess it’s not too different build-wise from my Wullff build with the pair of E’s, excepting I have Lone Wolf on Wullff, so I’m not trying to fly in formation.

I think it’s a good list for me, if for no reason other than the fact that I need more practice flanking. Having the Wookiee slow-rolling at them from one side while the E’s sprint down and around works pretty nicely. And if they turn to engage the E’s they’ve left their back open to a Wookiee, so 🤷‍♂️ 😂

31 minutes ago, SpiderMana said:

Nice, I like it. I tend to mirror my Rogue’s upgrades with Gavin’s, but that doesn’t mean anything, really 😂

Hm, part of me wants to try this. I guess it’s not too different build-wise from my Wullff build with the pair of E’s, excepting I have Lone Wolf on Wullff, so I’m not trying to fly in formation.

I think it’s a good list for me, if for no reason other than the fact that I need more practice flanking. Having the Wookiee slow-rolling at them from one side while the E’s sprint down and around works pretty nicely. And if they turn to engage the E’s they’ve left their back open to a Wookiee, so 🤷‍♂️ 😂

Honestly... it was hard not to put the same upgrades on them. But that says more about my OCD-like tendencies in trying to make my lists "symmetrical". Most of the time if I have 2 f the same ship in a list, I like to have two identical ships. I'm trying to move away from that way of thinking because sometimes it doesn't make for the most functional lists.

I found the "slingshot" idea works fairly well with the ARC and the E-wings. The ARC has a front and rear arc so it can sort of direct the movement of the engagement a little and the E-wings use their S-loops, K-turn and hard turns to sort of orbit the ARC and try to get crossfire on priority targets. It's worked out because they can usually overlap one of the ARC's firing arcs and typically (in my experience) ARC's are chosen as a target over the E-wings because they only have 1 agility and higher HP. I'm really not sure if this tactic will continue to hold up, but it's been alright and that was before I really started trying to tweak the list. With how difficult Norra is to take down, if she can tank hits while the E-wings get to shoot in relative safety, I'll keep it up till it stops working.

Store event was today. For anyone interested this is the final list I ended up bringing with me:

Ended up in third place out of 12 players who attended with a record of 2-1.

The list worked out really well. I ended up losing my first match because of some early errors on my part. I made a few mistakes with actions and maneuvers and forgot to use Gavin's ability a couple times.

My second two games were much better and I scored 200-0 and 200-35 with my last opponent getting half points on the generic rogue pilot.

I found the key to making this list work was keeping both E-wings on the same target and flying them in formation. As soon as one gets isolated it allows the enemy ships to pick them off. Formation flying isn't my strong point but I did reasonbly well keeping them together in my second and third games. Gavin with daredevil really helped, being able to hard 1 as a white move and then hard 1 boost for a 180 turn saved him and kept him on target a couple times.

I also found lining Norra up for the first approach so she was shooting through a debris field worked well. She can get really close to them to trigger her trick shot ability and then on the next turn there's less risk flying through the debris than over an asteroid. Fire control system along with Gavin making my hits crits was a really deadly combo too. Between Norra landing a 4 dice attack with 4 natural hits, and Gavin and the rogue using fire control to land crits, I took out a fully kitted Dash on turn 3 of my last game (granted he kept blanking out with his green dice).

Overall I really liked the way the list worked out.

3 hours ago, Unit34 said:

Store event was today. For anyone interested this is the final list I ended up bringing with me:

Norra Wexley — ARC-170 Starfighter	55
Trick Shot	2
Leia Organa	2
R5 Astromech	4
Ship Total: 63
Half Points: 32 Threshold: 5
Gavin Darklighter — E-Wing	61
Daredevil	3
Fire-Control System	2
R4 Astromech	2
Ship Total: 68
Half Points: 34 Threshold: 3
Rogue Squadron Escort — E-Wing	56
Elusive	3
Fire-Control System	2
Ion Torpedoes	6
R4 Astromech	2
Ship Total: 69
Half Points: 35 Threshold: 3

Ended up in third place out of 12 players who attended with a record of 2-1.

The list worked out really well. I ended up losing my first match because of some early errors on my part. I made a few mistakes with actions and maneuvers and forgot to use Gavin's ability a couple times.

My second two games were much better and I scored 200-0 and 200-35 with my last opponent getting half points on the generic rogue pilot.

I found the key to making this list work was keeping both E-wings on the same target and flying them in formation. As soon as one gets isolated it allows the enemy ships to pick them off. Formation flying isn't my strong point but I did reasonbly well keeping them together in my second and third games. Gavin with daredevil really helped, being able to hard 1 as a white move and then hard 1 boost for a 180 turn saved him and kept him on target a couple times.

I also found lining Norra up for the first approach so she was shooting through a debris field worked well. She can get really close to them to trigger her trick shot ability and then on the next turn there's less risk flying through the debris than over an asteroid. Fire control system along with Gavin making my hits crits was a really deadly combo too. Between Norra landing a 4 dice attack with 4 natural hits, and Gavin and the rogue using fire control to land crits, I took out a fully kitted Dash on turn 3 of my last game (granted he kept blanking out with his green dice).

Overall I really liked the way the list worked out.

Congrats and well played!

3 hours ago, Unit34 said:

Overall  I rea  lly liked the way the list worked out

I might try something similar. I’ve been looking at flying Gavin/Rogue with Wullff (Kanan, Leia, Lone Wolf) for Adepticon, but for his points, Norra might have more value.

I've been wanting to put this on the table, but worried I'll get shredded by aces

'Triple E-Wings'

(56) Rogue Squadron Escort [E-wing]
(3) R3 Astromech
(2) Fire-Control System
(5) Juke
Points: 66

(56) Rogue Squadron Escort [E-wing]
(3) R3 Astromech
(2) Fire-Control System
(5) Juke
Points: 66

(56) Rogue Squadron Escort [E-wing]
(3) R3 Astromech
(2) Fire-Control System
(5) Juke
Points: 66

Total points: 198

1 hour ago, FriendofYoda said:

I've been wanting to put this on the table, but worried I'll get shredded by aces

'Triple E-Wings'

(56) Rogue Squadron Escort [E-wing]
(3) R3 Astromech
(2) Fire-Control System
(5) Juke
Points: 66

(56) Rogue Squadron Escort [E-wing]
(3) R3 Astromech
(2) Fire-Control System
(5) Juke
Points: 66

(56) Rogue Squadron Escort [E-wing]
(3) R3 Astromech
(2) Fire-Control System
(5) Juke
Points: 66

Total points: 198

I like the look of it. R3 should let you get locks on most if not all of the enemy ships outside of full swarm lists and then fire control system works really well at pushing through extra damage and it's great not to have to keep locking. Juke seems pretty awesome on them, I never really considered it but it would probably work well.

It might be worth locking the same two or three ships with all of them too - my experience with just the two of them was whenever they split off to hit different targets they struggled. Together they hit harder if they fire at the same target and they are harder to approach without being in at least one of their arcs.

Aces may give you trouble, but at the same time the E-wing dial is really good. With three you could use one to try blocking and the other two to put your arcs where the ace will end up. In my game against dash I used Gavin to block; we were along one board edge so Gavin did a straight 5 to get in close. My rogue stayed a little behind (can't remember the move... a straight 3 I think). The rogue ended up behind Gavin but there wasn't enough space between them for a large base in case Dash tried to get past Gavin so if Dash bumped he would be forced to stay ahead of Gavin (in his arc for the bonus). Dash ended up turning, but with the large bade still ended up having a corner of his base in both arcs.

With three e-wings you could do something similar. Lead a little with one and hang the other two back a bit. Hope to block with the lead one and cover the area with the other two. It might be worth trying daredevil on the lead one - I think juke is a strong option, but if you try blocking and the enemy ship gets past your lead e-wing, you've got to do a speed 3 or 4 move to turn around - with daredevil you'd be able to turn a lot faster. You'd need to do a hard 2 (unless you have R4) in order to do it, but it's a faster turn that keeps your e-wing closer to the action if it doesn't get the block.