First time list building

By Eternaldirge, in X-Wing Squad Lists

Wanted the communities opinion on my Republic list. New player, still learning list building.

New Squadron

(50) "Wolffe" [ARC-170 Starfighter]
(8) Perceptive Copilot
(4) Veteran Tail Gunner
(13) Proton Torpedoes
Points: 75

(48) Obi-Wan Kenobi [Delta-7 Aethersprite]
(9) R2 Astromech
(3) Heightened Perception
Points: 60

(44) Plo Koon [Delta-7 Aethersprite]
(9) R2 Astromech
(3) Heightened Perception
Points: 56

Total points: 191

It can be very difficult to actually line up a shot in both the front and back arc so you can use Veteran Tail Gunner, you could perhaps drop that for something else. It does have the potential to work well with Wolffe's ability, though.

Perceptive Copilot is generally a useful upgrade, but since you have torpedoes on Wolffe you may want to target lock instead of focus. R3 Astromech might be helpful as it allows you to lock two ships at once.

I don't think you will get a lot of benefit out of Heightened Perception. Plo and Obi-Wan both have quite high initiative already, and will often be better off spending the Force to modify a dice when they attack or defend or to use Fine-tuned Controls.

You may want to consider using the Calibrated Laser Targeting configuration on Plo and Obi-Wan. Your list doesn't have a huge amount of firepower and it will help them do damage, although lining up the bullseye can be a bit tricky.

EDIT: In terms of how you actually fly this, since your Jedi have R2 astromech, you probably want to be a little cagey with them and try to hit-and-run. Try to bring your ships in from different directions so your opponent has to commit to one, then run away with the ship they're targeting and attack with the others. A challenge you may have with this list is that Wolffe is much less maneuverable than Plo and Obi-Wan. Once he commits to a fight he may not be able to back out, but if you're too cautious he might not reach the fight in time, so it will be important to time your approach well.

Edited by Ysenhal
On 2/5/2020 at 10:19 PM, Eternaldirge said:

Wanted the communities opinion on my Republic list. New player, still learning list building.

New Squadron

(50) "Wolffe" [ARC-170 Starfighter]
(8) Perceptive Copilot
(4) Veteran Tail Gunner
(13) Proton Torpedoes
Points: 75

(48) Obi-Wan Kenobi [Delta-7 Aethersprite]
(9) R2 Astromech
(3) Heightened Perception
Points: 60

(44) Plo Koon [Delta-7 Aethersprite]
(9) R2 Astromech
(3) Heightened Perception
Points: 56

Total points: 191

Since you have some points available consider Syncronized console on your ships. Obi-wan or Plo can take a lock and use it first and then pass it to wolf for the torp shot on the target with the focus for offense and save the other for a defensive roll if needed.

In general, I think you've managed to avoid the pitfalls of a lot of people new to the game. You've identified three solid pilots, and nothing about what you've put on them is particularly egregious without experience of the game itself.

I'm going to echo what @Ysenhal said about the specific upgrades, but also add in a more general sense that X-Wing second edition generally doesn't favour adding lots of upgrades to one ship. That's something you'll only really learn with experience, but what you'll find as you play is that upgrades hit a point of diminishing returns. They can't make your ship invincible, and if you put too much on, you'll often find your ship is killed by someone who brought more guns before it's had chance to trigger even half the things you wanted it to do. Worse, the points you packed into it means you're now facing an uphill battle to bring the game back in your favour. You'll find you need to kill two or even three of their ships to make up the points gap, and now you've lost a significant part of your list it's even harder.

One approach to list building is to identify the specific purpose of an upgrade or ship within your list, and how it's going to help a specific ship fulfill its role, or help the list as a whole. It looks to me like you actually did that with the ARC. The ARC has two firing arcs. You want to make the most efficient use of those two arcs, so you bring an upgrade that lets you attack from both of them in a single turn. But a second attack isn't worth that much if you don't have a way to modify dice on it, so you also bring an upgrade that gives you a focus token for each attack. That's actually very sensible, and I get it. The problem, as @Ysenhal pointed out, is that it's obvious as ****. Your opponent will look at your ARC, at the upgrades on it, and immediately recognise that he's going to have a bad time if he puts his ships in front of and behind the ARC at the same time. Now, there's value in making your opponent think about where they're going, and in potentially forcing him to avoid an area of the board covered by your firing arc, but that value probably isn't worth 12 points of upgrades.

What will happen in practice is that VTG never triggers, despite your best efforts, and the extra focus from Perceptive Copilot won't mean much, because with only 1 agility the chance of that extra focus helping to mitigate damage defensively isn't great.

The other thing to bear in mind with list building is that, while not an absolute requirement, you usually want to spread your firepower around as much as possible. Trusting one ship to do all your killing is rarely a good idea. If I were to see your list across from me on the table, I would see two nimble ships that can dodge arcs with their ship ability, can mitigate a lot of damage with their three green dice and Force tokens and which will probably move after me, and move fast. They would be hard for me to kill unless I dedicated all my list towards removing them one at a time. But I'd also recognise that they are only two ships, both with only two red dice. They're not going to hurt me too much if I ignore them. So not only are they hard to kill, they're easy to ignore. So why would I even try? Conversely, that ARC is a big fat, scary target. It's got two arcs it can shoot out, it's got proton torpedoes so it can throw 4 dice at any range out the front and it's got a lot of HP. But it also only has 1 green die, it's on a bigger base so it's easier to catch in arc and it doesn't have a very maneuverable dial. It's only reposition action to try and dodge arcs will stress it, which will limit it next turn.

It's the ship that stands the biggest chance of hurting me, but it's also the easiest to kill. So I've got two ships that are hard to kill, but that I can ignore and one that's easier to kill but will hurt me if I ignore it. And on top of all that, it's worth the most points of all three ships.

So every single time, I'm going to focus everything I've got on getting rid of that ARC as soon as possible. It benefits me in many ways. You can be as cagey as you like with the Jedi, because once I've got those 78 points I'd be happy to just play the game out knowing it would be very hard for you to catch up.

Wolffe, Obi-Wan and Plo Koon is a great starting point for a list. They're strong pilots. But the way you've built them, while I can see the logic, isn't playing to their respective strengths and is focused far too much on one ship.

My take on the list:

"Wolffe" (50)
Seventh Fleet Gunner (9)
R4-P Astromech (4)

Ship total: 63 Half Points: 32 Threshold: 5

Obi-Wan Kenobi (48)
R2 Astromech (9)
Calibrated Laser Targeting (4)

Ship total: 61 Half Points: 31 Threshold: 2

Plo Koon (44)
R2 Astromech (9)
Delta-7B (19)

Ship total: 72 Half Points: 36 Threshold: 3


Total: 196

This should spread your attacking power around the list more.

The aim now is to get all three ships pointed at the same target in the opening engagement. All of a sudden, you're throwing a lot more red dice. Wolffe gets three out the front, Obi-Wan potentially gets 2 + a guaranteed focus (basically a guaranteed hit with all his Force tokens) if you got bullseye and Plo Koon is throwing 4 thanks to Delta-7B and Seventh Fleet Gunner. This is assuming range 2, by the way, obviously there's more if you get any of them to range 1. Plo shoots first, as he has the most dice, so that you're more likely to force the target to spend whatever tokens they have while still hopefully pushing damage through. That makes it more likely the weaker attacks will still push damage through after. Wolffe should focus and use his ability for a re-roll.

Your aim for the next turn is to run Wolffe past their ships. You want to catch the damaged or weakest target in his rear arc and trigger his ability again for an extra die. The ARC's biggest strength is that it doesn't have to turn around to stay in the fight.

Plo gets Delta-7B instead of Obi-Wan simply because he has fewer Force tokens. Obi-Wan is happier spending a Force on the ship ability to line up that bullseye, and he has extra Force to guarantee the eye result added by CLT becomes a hit. Plo having fewer Force also sort of means he cares less about having lower agility - there's less chance he'd have anything to modify on a defensive roll anyway.

The plan for the Jedi should still be to hit and run. Do what damage you can in the first engagement, run away to regen shields as soon as either of them take damage. After the initial engagement, try and rotate them if possible. If you can get one running away to regen and draw them out and one to turn in and fight, and keep alternating them in such a way that they can't focus down a target without ignoring a threat, then you're halfway to winning.

R4-P astromech is there on Wolffe for those two times a game where you desperately need to make a hard 3 turn or rush past with a 4 straight to overshoot the enemy, avoid a block and catch them in your rear arc. It means that you can do that without fear of losing dice mods. It's also the least necessary element of the list, however, and you may find that leaving it off and having the 8 point bid is more useful.

Personally I feel like R4-P makes the list a bit more beginner friendly, and you probably don't need to worry about super competitive bids yet.

I feel like a lot of the time ships have a this many upgrades, I start to wonder "Can I get another ship?"

That's 25 points of upgrades on Wollfe, and frankly he can probably be fine without any. Veteran Tail Gunner isn't that easy to use; I've very rarely seen it trigger. Having both Proton Torpedoes and Perceptive Copilot is going to be tough. Torpedoes require a Lock, Perceptive Copilot works on a Focus action, but Wollfe only gets one action a turn. Having too many points in upgrades which require different actions is often not great.

Three ways you could do it: keeping R2, or switching to the less-good R5, or eliminating the droids all together.

R2 Version:

  • Wollfe (-) 50
  • Plo Koon (Calibrated Laser Targeting, R2) 57
  • Obi-Wan (Calibrated Laser Targeting, R2) 61
  • 32 points remaining.
    • A generic Y-Wing would fit, but the best bet is probably a Torrent
      • Maybe that's Tucker at 29, who gets a bonus focus action sometimes.
      • Maybe that's a Gold Trooper at 25, to give a few points more for upgrades. R4-P does seem nice on Wollfe.

R5 Version: R5 isn't quite as good as R2, but it does make these Aethersprites tankier, and it costs a lot less.

  • Wollfe (-) 50
  • Plo Koon (Calibrated Laser Targeting, R5) 52
  • Obi-Wan (Calibrated Laser Targeting, R5) 56
  • 42 points remaining.
    • Best bet will be Ric Olie without upgrades, if you've got access to an N-1. Ric is a zippy ship which can punch-up.
    • Another strong option is Broadside with an Ion Cannon Turret at 41 points. Broadside is a potent control ship, and knowing that an opponent is doing a 1-forward is going to make lining up a bullseye shot on your Jedi a lot easier.

No Droids: The Jedi can't do anything to recover health, but in exchange you'll have a lot of points to play with for more ships.

  • Wollfe (-) 50
  • Plo Koon (Calibrated Laser Targeting) 48
  • Obi-Wan (Calibrated Laser Targeting) 52
  • 50 points remaining.
    • What opens up at 50 points is a pair of new ships - two torrents.
      • Gold Trooper (25)
      • Gold Trooper (25)

I'm firmly on Fig's side, especially his last suggestion

CLT Obi, CLT Plo, Naked Wolffe, with 50 points left...*chef's kiss*

While regen is cool, its expensive...I don't personally think its worth it. The Jedi could get more use out of R4s, though they don't need them. Force upgrades, on the other hand, range from hot $#!+ to playable, but not as good as more ships.

Wolfe, meanwhile, doesn't need anything per se. Cody is lame when the Jedi are higher I than him, VTG will rarely proc, droids aren't vital, PerCo is worthless without VTG.

I would round out those 3 with Broadside with an ICT. Super efficient boyo, there. That leaves 9 points...and you'll probably want some bid for those Jedi