So I'm entering the KRT (yay!) snd looking at taking one of the following lists. I have also provided a complete list of what I have for each faction (so that when suggesting modifications, you know what I have access to)

Imperial List

Darth Vader

Backstabber

Dark Curse

Winged Gundark

Academy Pilot x2

(I have 6x Fighters and 2x Advanced)

Rebel List

Horton Salm - R2-D2, Ion Cannon

Red Squad Pilot - R2 Astromech

Rookie Pilot x2

OR

Horton Salm - R2-D2, Ion Cannon

Wedge Antillies - R2-F2, Marksmanship

Luke Skywalker - R5-D8

(I have 4x X-Wing and 2x Y-Wing)

1) Winged Gundark isn't that useful, I suggest changing him for a academuy pilot, then slap marksmanship on Vader

2) I'd change red squadron pilot to gold Ywing + ion C, or to rookie pilot then R2 astromechs on all your Xwings

3) seems alright

I just played my Kessel Run event yesterday and got myself a Millennium Falcon. My 100pts Rebel squad that I used are ..

Wedge - R2 Astromech
Dutch - Ion Cannon
Rookie Pilot
Rookie Pilot

Its works really well again 3-ships Rebel build and TIEs swarm, all thanks to Dutch ability.

Ixamos said:

I thought all the KRT's were next weekend?

Duraham said:

1) Really? I haven't used him yet, so I believe you, but reading his ability I can think of many uses for it.

2) 2 Y-Wings in a 4 ship build?

3) I agree, I like this build, my only worry is it being a 3 ship build, so losing 1 pilot early is a disaster.

I have made some small changes to this build:

Dutch Vander - D2-D2, Ion Cannon

Wedge Antillies - R5-D8, Marksmanship

Luke Skywalker - R2-F2, Squad Leader

Basically downgraded Horton to Dutch in order to add synergy - this also allows Luke to pick up Squad Leader so Wedge can potentially take 2 actions per turn.

winged gundark doesn't give you more hits, nor does it change focus results to hits or anything like that. and his ability only triggers at range 1. at skill point 5, pretty much all other named pilots will be shooting before him too, and his ability is rather horrid too, if your opponent were to say cancel to the point where he only takes 1 hit, it would most likely already be a critical hit by itself naturally, with or without winged gundark's ability.

2 Ywings is alright, I'm running:

rookie Xwing / Garven / gold Ywing + ion C / Dutch + ion C + R5K6

myself for my rebel 4 ship build, and it's pretty potent.

godofcheese said:

1) Gundark is useful only when close, which makes it situational, and it's more valuable to increase your likelihood of creating a hit than to change a hit to a crit. Compare Gundark to Mithel or Backstabber, who get an extra attack die, or to Night Beast, who can do things like barrel roll and Focus in the same turn.

With that said, I think Duraham is slightly undervaluing Gundark--particularly in conjunction with Focus. I'm too busy at the moment to work on the math, but the expected number of crits clearly rises dramatically for him; Gundark effectively has a 75% chance to roll a crit on the first die, which is a nice effect against any unshielded target. Compare it to a Black Squadron TIE with Marksmanship, for instance: the attack outcomes are similar, but Gundark has a higher pilot skill and is still 2 points cheaper. He might make a great wingman for Mithel.

2) 2 Y-wings is actually an interesting build. I'm not planning to run it, but it's particularly nice in mirror matches: ion cannons are less likely to be dodged by Rebels, and having 2 ions per turn means you're potentially controlling half or even 2/3 of your opponent's force.

3) In a 3-ship build, you actually get penalized in two ways for losing pilots. Not only does each pilot takes a great deal away from your offense, but each kill is also proportionally more valuable to tournament opponents--losing Wedge + R5-D8 + Marksmanship is worth 35 points to your opponent, so you need to kill about 3 TIEs to catch up.

To put that another way, your opponent can win by killing 1/3 of your ships, and you need to kill half of his ships to catch up.

4) You can only use Squad Leader to give an action to a ship with a lower pilot skill, so while Dutch could pick up two actions in this list, Wedge can't. R2-F2 and Squad Leader also have poor synergy with each other, since you can only activate one of them on any given round.

Vorpal Sword said:

there is a issue I faced, where due to his low pilot skill, that focus token is often used to evade shots that would've outright killed him from higher skilled pilots, and by the time he is firing he is usually firing empty. Having howlrunner around is useful, but when her ability can only be used at range 1, and winged gundark needs to be at range 1 from his target too, it can get very very tricky to pull off, especially due to inevitable collisions and so on. just about the best thing you could do to help him would be to fly in with someone else with squad leader and give him an additional action (maybe for an evade token to tackle the first issue)

compare him with the other 15 pointer, night beast, where you had free focus actions if you force yourself to fly green maneuvers, and can be purposely rammed into things AND still get his focus action. combo it with an evade or barrel roll, he is actually a lot more offensive and defensive than winged gundark at all ranges, and his collision ruling can be abused pretty much at will

Now tossing up whether to take the 3 man super group, or a 4 man squad.

3 man squad:

Wedge Antillies - Squad Leader, R2-F2, Proton Torpedoes (This is alot of points in 1 ship, I would be relying on R2 or Focus early on to keep him alive)

Garven Dries - Proton Torpedoes

Dutch Vander - R2-D2, Ion Cannon Turret

4 man squad:

Dutch Vander - R2-D2, Ion Cannon Turret

Biggs Darklighter

Rookie Pilot - R2 Astromech

Rookie Pilot

Biggs and Garven should change place in your builds. that way your Wedge can stay alive for much longer, and your 2 rookie Xwings in your 4 ship build will have a lot more punch too

Duraham said:

You could be right.

To make that work, I'd have to lose the R2 unit in the 4 ship build. In the 3 ship build, that lets me have another astromech. R2 or R5? I'm thinking the R5 unit on Biggs, to give him that extra bit of punch. Otherwise, I'd give him R2-D2 in order to help keep him alive, and give Dutch a regular R5 unit.

godofcheese said:

personally, i run Garven / rookie Xwing / gold Ywing + ionC / Dutch + R5K6 + ionC, and it's the best Rebel 4ship squad I've played by a long margin. Since your squad looks very similiar, i wouldn't anticipate much problems from your 4 ship list. EDIT: didnt realize I'd already famewhored this build in an earlier post, im just simply too impressed and stunned by this build. it's….. beautiful *teardrop*

as for your 3 ship list, now that you have Biggs, you may want to shift R2F2 over to him. I feel that Wedge requires his actions for himself more than giving it to anybody else, so that you can fully make use of his offensive effect, so you may want to reconsider the squad leader on him, maybe try out swarm tactics or marksmanship or expert handling. I'd also put the set of proton torpedoes that isn't on Wedge on your Ywing instead, so that it can still somewhat participate in range 3 combat, and Biggs would be too busy using his action for R2F2 for you to gain a proper target lock.

The biggest issue facing three ship builds is the lack of potent upgrades. When nearly a 5th or so of your points are upgrades you need some whoppers that just aren't out there yet.

The 3 ship build I like is.

Wedge+Protons+R2+Swarm

Biggs+R2F2+Protons

Dutch+Ion+Protons

Get a kill in (at least) at max range, get Biggs behind some cover, set up Wedge with Dutch. Try to keep Biggs and Wedge on the same target as thier shots have a good chance to kill a TiE, so Dutch is free to be stratedgic with his Ion usage.

What about, for a 4 ship Rebel build, running this:

Garven w/ R2 astro (27)

1x Rookie Pilot w/ R2 astro (22)

2x Rookie Pilot w/ Protons (25)

Totals 99 points, for initiative

Garven shoots before your other pilots, so one of them should get a focused torp off on the first round of fire, the other can either shoot w/o focus or hold it for next turn. Garven and his R2 wingman can do K-turns more reliably because of their droids

Just an update to the above, ran that list against Wedge (Proton, Marksmanship), Biggs (R2-F2), and Horton (Ion, Proton, R5-K6) and didn't lose a ship. It didn't help that her wedge hit a rock twice and lost his perfect, 1-range shot both times (due to landing on the rock), but it was also my first time with asteroids and I lost Garven's action three times do to crashes, so neither of us were at the top of our game. Biggs went down in the first round of fire, then Horton fell to a few turns later, leaving just Wedge against my full squadron (except for my torps - 1 went to Biggs, 1 to Horton)

Still no idea on how this squad would handle swarms, but it looks promising. One option to combat them would be remove both R2-astros (they didn't do a lot that game) and upgrade the Proton-less X-wing to a Red pilot. That ups one of my guys to about Garven's level, and leaves the two junior guys with the Torps, so that each ship is roughly a quarter of my squad (2 exactly, Garven 1 point over, the Red 2 points less).

Eruletho said:

try to squeeze a Biggs in, and down ships one at a time. if you can do it fast enough, the swarm will lose its offensive power quickly.

I could easily drop 1x Rookie with Proton torps to add in Biggs. The problem I run into then is the lack of punching power to use against shielded enemies / big HP targets like the Y-wing. The idea of this squad is to shoot 2 rounds of Torps, one after another, both being target locked and focused (first round due to Garven, the second either due to Garven or a remaining target lock and a new focus)then focus down whatever didn't die in the initial onslaught. With Biggs, I'll basically lose an X-wing right off the bat, since there's no way to convince my opponent to go for closer, theoretically better targets and spread the damage out, it'll all just flow to Biggs the first few rounds. My own squad proved that Biggs dies fast by killing the crap out of him in the first round of fire.

you only have 1 set of torps that is neither on wedge nor on horton, nor do you have anybody with anything resembling 2 actions nor someone else with squad leader to pass him the additional action. Hence, your torps is actually not much of a difference as compared to rerolling your dice with the target lock anyway, and in fact is a much safer option, in case of anomalities like 4 blanks or 1-2 hits after torp's modifier. Sides, you only have 1 set of normal torps, that's like only an additional 1 point of damage for 4 squad points under the most realistic situation. torps are not bad if you have 2 or more, or if they are on wedge or horton, but 1 piece by itself, I would suggest you spend the points elsewhere, like R2D2

Biggs will draw the majority of the fire, and if you do it correctly, draw them at range 3. Yes, they are rolling 2x8 attack dice for all 8 TIEs, but people keep forgetting that you are also rolling 3x8 defense dice on your end too (4x8 if you have R2F2). Even under the most idealistic of situation, they are still exhausting a lot of effort and attacks on him alone, so he's not that bad against swarms. Yes, he will be the first to kick the bucket, but if you can position him correctly, you can pretty much exert a small amount of control over your opponent's final position and attention up till the point Biggs die

So, dropping the entire Torpedo beta-strike idea, how about:

Wedge (Swarm Tactics) - 31 points
Biggs - 25 points
Red Squadron Pilot - 23 points
Rookie Pilot - 21 points
100 points

That one is 100 even, but has a PS 9, a PS 5, and the ability to gain a second PS 9 from one of the mooks. Alternatively, I could drop the Red to a Rookie and drop Swarm Tactics to get R2-F2 on Biggs at 99 points total. But, that's a carbon copy of another squad I've seen. I think the 100 point version is the better version, becuase of it's ability to drop 6 attack dice by the end of PS 9's round of fire.

I have a slightly different take of a 4 ship rebel squad, one which uses Luke. Why Luke, is because everyone guns for the named pilot first causing Wedge to go down pretty fast. But with Luke's ability, he will at least survive a bit longer while at the same time being useful.

SQUAD 1:

The idea with this squad is that Luke will give Swam Tactics to another Rookie on the first attack pass. Luke himself will take Target Lock, Dutch will also take Target Lock and give a free Lock to a Rookie Pilot who has taken Focus. That way, the first pass should give good firepower, even against rebel squads. And most importantly, Luke may actually survive where Wedge would probably have bitten the dust.

Luke Skywalker + Swarm Tactics

Dutch Vander + Ion Cannon + R5K6

Rookie Pilot

Rookie Pilot

(100 points)

OR

SQUAD 2:

This squad is lower skill pilots hence the intentional 99 points to possibily gain initiative. At first attack pass, Dutch will take a Target Lock and give a free Lock to the Rookie with the Torps, said Rookie would have taken a Focus. The main idea against a Imp squad is for both Proton Torpedoes to target different ships. With the remaining two Rookies helping finish off the damaged Imps. Against a rebel squad, both torpedoes will go against the highest ranked opposing pilot with the remianing Rookies finishing him off or attacking other targets of opportunity. Thoughts?

Dutch Vander + Ion Cannon + Proton Torpedo

Rookie Pilot + Proton Torpedo

Rookie Pilot

Rookie Pilot

(99 points)

Ixamos said:

godofcheese said:

Grave13 said:

Good luck and have fun, what will you be running … Rebs or Imps?

Ixamos said:

By the way, in the final round what team did you choose?