So far most of my games have been very one sided with the Imperials winning the first 9 of 10 games. However, I was showing a friend of mine that had never played the game before a full 100 point game and I suggested to him that he might try running 4 ships instead of 3 like all of my previous opponents before him.

We played 2 games, me using my tournament squad and him just trying out units. I think it was Wedge, Gold Wing, Rookie Pilot and Red Squadron pilot with a couple upgrades like ion cannon and markmanship.

To be honest, I don't know what happened because at the end of both games I wasn't able destroy a single ship. The second game was alot shorter because my Backstabber was killed round one, Howlrunner and Academy Pilot went down round 3 and Mithel went round 7. Steele was ion cannoned into submission and destroyed without even putting up a fight.

What the crap! I have never seen the empire just completely pwnd before and to think it happened twice back to back games. I swear Rookie pilots are way better than everyone thinks. At range 1 they can drop any tie fighter.

I found the Imperials to be better at first but now the rebel's have won more games, generally due to poor die rolls and fortuitous positioning. A big part of this game comes down to the dice. I would say the rebels would have a slightly higher chance of winning the more ships you deploy, but generally the more the better applies for both sides.

I've begun to feel 90 points is a bit more balanced than 100 points. I haven't had the same issues with as many defeats, but still…

The key to Rebel Victory is play Rebel vs Rebel or small Imperial squads.

The rebels need to take care of the 2:1 TIE to rebel craft ratio. More ships, focusing fire, better maneuvering, whatever. It's important for the rebels to draw first blood and stay out of as many firing arcs as possible. This seems very basic, but those are two very good primary goals that can be accomplished together. 8 TIES is a lot to deal with. If you chase two rabbits, you will lose them both.

and make use of the obstacles. Any match with obstacles tend to swing the odds in favour for the rebels. That 1 rock can only deal 3 to 4 potential damage to an entire rebel lineup flying through it, but can deal about 5-6 or more damage to the imperials simply because it hits every ship that flies past it. multiply that by every rock and every imperial ship, you can start to see the numbers stacking up. Also, Rebels can fly slower, so they tend to be able to navigate the asteroids better than the TIEs

anyways, after a few more games, i've kinda realized that the luck on the dice rolls kinda play a huge part in the game. you could navigate through the battlefield and block him and whack his rear at range 1 with multiple ships all you want, but if you throw out 4 blanks with no chance of reroll that's pretty much it. Do that a few more times, and suddenly the battle becomes very very difficult, regardless of your build or your opponent's build or really anything else at all. I've had freak occurances where proton torpedoes one-shotted my darth vader (2hits 2 crits vs a very bad dice roll of all 3 blanks. Ok I can survive this….where did that direct hit come from?), I've managed to kill Luke+R2D2 on the very second turn shooting at him from range 3, I've seen that 1 rookie pilot who really should be dead like about 10 turns earlier but somehow keeps churning out double evades when he has only 1 hp left like it's some freaking pilot ability, and so on.

although some builds really do make life easier for you, I think ultimately you should just pick something you are comfortable with. Like right now I'm undecided between splitting my rebel team up into 2 pairs when dealing with TIE swarms, or pack them together in a close box and have all 3/4 fly around as if it's one big ship, shooting down planes one at a time., or even like whether 3 ships or 4 ships are better, especially when a rookie pilot can outlive Luke + R2D2

Numbers are key.

2 Ties vs an X is fairly balanced fight but leans slightly in the Imps favor. 3 ties vs that same X is a different story.

Sadly, the swarm tactics are the best for the Imps. Lots of ships. Lots of ways to block movement, flank and harrass multiple targets, focus fire heavily on a target, etc. The numbers also are a bit more forgiving to poor luck. Rolling all blanks on 1 attack roll isn't that bad when you have 7 other ships. When you only have 2 other ships, then it's pretty catastrophic.

I've found that by going with 4 rebel ships over 3, you increase a lot of good things for your team. You have more attacks. Thats more potential damage and more cusion against bad rolls. You have more health to survive attacks. An extra 2 shields and 3 hull will mean you can take more punishment and still be in the game. Sure, you can't take as many upgrades, but honestly, a lot of the rebel upgrades have as many cons as pros. D2 forces predictable movement and can still allow a one round kill with no aid. Torps are expensive and hard to hit against Ties.

My favorite anti-swarm is Biggs with R2F2, Wedge, and two rookies. Wedge is a solid attacker and can take ties down fast. Biggs is there to keep wedge alive. The rookies are there to add as much firepower as they can.

The Y-wing sucks against swarms. Too easy to hit, too little damage potential. With an ion cannon, it's just too pricey for too little. The Y's are great against Tie advances, but not great against tie swarms.

The sad part is since both sides do best with swarms, the game doesn't really promote the interesting parts of Star Wars. Unique pilots, special abilities, interesting secondary weapons.

I'll be very curious to see if tourney play churns out something other than swarms.

kmanweiss said:

When the A-Wing comes out, it will be cheap enough to allow 4 ship rebel lists with multiple named pilots.