I´m working on a 4-ship rebel list. Haven´t played much in awhile and want to bring something solid to the table that is forgiving enough to allow a couple of mistakes.

I played some Wedge and Luke when 2.0 first came out, I really like the revised X-wings. When list building Luke ends up eating up a lot of points though. Wedge is a bargain and you see him in a lot of successful rebel lists. I wonder what the verdict is on Luke, is he too expensive for a good 4-ship list? Seems like you can pack a lot of goodies in a list when you switch Luke out.

Here are a couple of different 4-ship rebel lists I´m considering at the moment. Which one do you think is more solid?

Wedge 52 pts, Luke 62 pts, Blue Squadron Scout (Leia) 45 pts, Gray Squadron (Ion turret, Veteran Gunner) 41 pts.

Wedge 52 pts, Braylen ( Jamming Beam) 47 pts, Dutch (Ion Turret, Veteran Gunner, Seismics) 52 pts, Cassian (Leia) 49 pts.

I read an article a few weeks ago that really crunched the numbers on top performing lists, and the author's analysis revealed an interesting point:

While a significant plurality of Rebel lists were running Luke, none of those lists placed in the top 8 of major tournaments. Instead, you know suddenly popped up? Biggs (alongside Wedge). The author's conclusion was that winning rebel lists ought to drop Luke in favor of Biggs, with upgrades to flavor.

That said, Wedge dies easy to focused fire and he needs someone to soak up the damage, so if you're running Wedge you need Biggs stapled to him.

That´s a good point about Biggs. One option would be to strip Dutch of the Seismics and give Selfless to Braylen. This way Braylen acts as a Biggs in a way, I noticed it´s somewhat popular actually.

I like Luke. He is a big part of my Wedge/Luke/two-tubes(u-wing) list. I run him with R2, shild upgrade, foils, and Heighten Perception. The being able to fire off at I7 helps. Dont use it often, but when it can happen, it is huge. No return fire at I5. Won a few games because of it.

5 hours ago, knute said:

I read  a  n article a few weeks ago that really crunched the numbers on top performing lists, and the author's ana  lysis  revealed an interesting point:   

Could you provide a link, please?

In my experience Luke is really worth the points! With the force he is SUPER resilient. (I was once attacked by 5 TIEs range 2: and took not a single damage because of the endless force...)

- Take a Lock and your shots are double-modded

- I learned to be LAVISH with his force: just spend it everywhere! Because if you really need it – you get it back. 😁

(unlike Vader... 😩 )

'Worth' he is, but if you want to run 4 ships he probably consumes too many points... crippling the 4th ship below efficiency.

I had decent success with Lando, Luke, Wedge recently: Wedge as a cheap punishing bait - Lando and Luke being tanky enough to last till the end. 🏆

@Tellonius

Thanks for all the great replies. I played a couple of games with the XXYU list and I discovered I really liked Luke´s resilience. In fact I like the X-wing characteristics better than the Y-wing due to the Y-wing´s lack of a range-3 double tap and the better dial of the X-wing. So, I will try to swap in a Blue Squadron Escort in place of the Grey Squad, which will enable me to fly the 3 X-wings in a 2-1 formation with Wedge in the back (since he is the most enticing target). If people decide to target Luke since he will be fronting the formation (with the Blue), they do so at their own risk. Luke can really soak up damage if he rolls paint. The Blue X can also act as a blocker because of the barrel roll and shares PS with the Blue Scout which gives some flexibility. 26 HP with 2 agility should provide some staying power and if either Luke or Wedge survives until the endgame the chances should be alright.

A chap just went top 2 at my local Hyperspace trial with Naked Luke, Naked Wedge, Naked Dutch, and a Renegade with Leia. He was the only person I lost to throughout 7 games, but I lost to him twice lol. So I think they can rock

I would say he is, especially because you can realistically just run him naked (other than S-Foils of course) and be perfectly fine. He doesn't strictly "need" any upgrades to be anywhere from pretty good to very good depending on your dice rolls. I've got him in a list with Corran and Norra (arc) and I'm highly considering taking it to a tournament. 62 points is a bit expensive, (considering you can take Wedge with some upgrades), but you also don't need to put anything on him to be good. Run him in your formation and have extra firepower and some survivability, or run him as a flanker and just largely avoid damage.

Really you're paying 62 points for an insanely consistent ship. He always has access to mods because you don't really ever need to worry about spending the force. No matter what, by the time you defend your first shot (if they shoot before you), you will always have two force (you always start with one from regenerating normally, gain an extra one from being shot).

This being said, he doesn't have the damage spike that Wedge does. Really it comes down to whether you want a ship that's really good early game and gets better as the game goes on if he doesn't take damage, or a ship that can absolutely shred at the start but will probably die way quicker. Both options are awesome, depends on what you want/need for your list.