First off, as the title says, I'm giving Picasso the credit for this list. He brought it to my attention on another thread, and I think this list is so good that it deserves its own thread. I'm kinda hoping this thread will evolve into a Wave 2 meta thread, but any meta talk must include this list, because it is just that powerful.

Han Solo
-Chewbacca
-Gunner
-Marksmanship

Rookie Xwing

Rookie Xwing

First the bad things about this list:

-58 points invested into the Falcon is a lot. Sorry, did I say that right? I meant, a LOT. If the Falcon goes down, you'll be hard pressed to win on points alone.
-in playing against this squad, the best result I could hope for was for him to do 1 damage on his first attack, so I tried to use my actions (focus and Evade) in such a way that I only took 1 damage if i could help it. So, if the defender can do so, you're not doing as much damage as you could be.
-Wedge hurts the Falcon, bad. Especially with Torps
- yeah, that's about all I can see for detriments.

I played this squad today, and i played against this squad today. Here's how it went:

the first game, i ran:

Fel's Wrath
Backstabber
Academy Pilot X5

Ziggy ran the Falcon, and he was honestly taking down a TIE per round. My strategy was to take the Xwings out first, so that he could only attack once per round afterwards. i managed to take the Xwings out, and I put a hurt on the Falcon (5 hull left), but it wasn't enough. The rolling and re-rolling was just so much that he was doing usually minimum 2 damage per turn, often more than that with Han alone. Then the Xwings would clean up before i killed them. Ziggy piloted the Falcon in such a way that it didn't matter much if I blocked him, because all that meant was that he couldn't use marksmanship. And honestly, Marksmanship is just the icing on the cake of this squad. It's nice if you get it, but it's not necessary.

The second game I played this squad against a Wedge/Dutch/Garven list. I lost 1 Xwing early to Wedge and a Range 1 primary attack from Dutch, but after that, I didnt lose another ship. Han did take a lot of damage, but he dished out a whole lot more. I even got the "If you hit something you take damage" crit card, but it was later in the game, and I managed to avoid hitting anything.

This list is ridiculously powerful, and definitely something to be reckoned with. I haven't played multiple Interceptors against it, but I have a feeling it will handle them without much difficulty. I would guess that the way to beat this squad is to just target Han with everything you have, but then even if you do, you still have 2 Xwings to deal with, and they are more than capable of doing plenty of damage by themselves.Even though I took out Ziggy's Xwings, I had lost so much by that time that I just couldn't hurt the Falcon enough to win.

Thoughts?

The forums (apparently) ate my long, thoughtful post. Here's the nutshell:

I've been wanting to run this list since December. The problem with running against it is that there's no good place to start: if you beat on the Falcon, you give the X-wings three or four rounds of free shots, which no list can deal with very well. If you start with the X-wings, Han gets to make accurate, early shots against anyone on the board.

You're right that the Falcon is going to be a serious obstacle in the meta: it's a damage sponge, it doesn't have a blind spot, and it doesn't particularly care if it misses an action. If I had to run against it, I would lean on secondary weapons as much as possible: multiple missiles or torpedoes, or a Heavy Laser Cannon if you can get two or three shots off against it.

I'd even consider Marksmanship, honestly (even without Gunner). Crits are much more useful against the Falcon than most fighters, since the effects stay around longer.

I guess I should talk about the strategy behind this squad:

Han is a PS9, if you have initiative, Han will always shoot first. (made that joke a lot today. If you can get your action, use Marksmanship. And remember, the Falcon attacks with 4 dice at Range 1, and it has a very large Range 1.
-First attack, if you roll crap, re-roll with Han's ability. Use Marksmanship as necessary.
-Defender defends. This is where, as the defender, I tried to only take 1 hit. If I managed to not take any hits, this happens.
-Gunner kicks in. Han gets to roll another attack. If you roll crap, Han can re-roll, again using Marksmanship as necessary.
-Defender defends, only now you've used up your Focus/Evade token, so you likely will get what you roll.

This equtaes to a lot of damage every single turn. And whatever is left can be cleaned up with the Xwings. Chewbacca allows the Falcon to take 2 more hits, which will be necessary, seeing as how the Falcon will be the main target.

The Falcon's 360 firing arc means, as Vorpal Sword says, it doesn't have a blind spot, so it will always have targets. And han will be picking them off quickly.

Maybe when I get the Wave 2 order I can start playing multiple Interceptors against this squad to see how they do, but I gotta believe this squad will take them out.

Hothie,

Thanks for the props.

You're welcome. What have you found with this squad? What am I missing? How do you beat it?

I expect to see this list all over the tournament circuit so here is how you take it out.

Slave One with a heavy canon with three to four support TIEs.

The Slave one is great with that Heavy canon.

Focus the Slave one on the Falcon and use the TIEs to scatter the X-wings. This does come down to your ability to fly the Slave One like no other but it works. Also Dark Curse will tie up the Falcon’s shooting for a short time and will stop Han from dropping your other TIEs.

I played against a guy at my LGS and crushed him the first game. I lost one X-wing. He asked me what I would do to defeat my list I gave him a few pointers and told him how I use my Slave one. In the second game before I knew it I had a crippled Falcon and all my X-wings were gone. I pulled out a win because I could fly a large base ship better than he could. I was in a position where I had to drop a TIE each turn and still deal with the Slave One with a heavy canon. THANK GOD FOR CRITS! I had five hits left against a clean Slave One by the Time I finished off the TIEs. I was able to maneuver a few rounds where he had no shot with the Slave One. I finally ate the shields and did a crit. Discard your secondary weapon. That was the game. I also forced him to choose between landing on an asteroid at range three or giving me his side at range one with no return fire. Again this came down to me having flown the ship since November.

Also yea I made a bunch of Han shot first jokes too.

I also think four A-wings with homing missiles and dead eye could get it done. you could in theory missile the Falcon to death in the first wave of shooting.

a cluster missile and ptl could do the trick but you could have 50% of your sqaud lost before they get a chance to shoot.

Also Squints don't work. not enough staying power. You will get either the X-wings or the Falcon. Not both. I plan on running four sqints against it on Tuesday but the best Falcon killer is the slave one.

This is a list idea I've been toying with for when my Firespray arrives:

Bounty Hunter (42)
Upgrades: Heavy Laser Cannon (7), Mercenary Copilot (2)

The two lists I want to try against it are the 4x Green Squadron + Deadeye + Homing Missile, and this:

• Krassis Trelix + Heavy Laser Cannon
• Howlrunner + Stealth Device
• 3x Academy Pilot

I know formations are generally out, but this squad has a very powerful first couple of rounds, which may be all you need. You can reasonably be able to take out an X-wing each round, which leaves the Falcon blasting TIEs while the Firespray creates enough distance to make its own shots count.

I've been running a variant of this squad, in part due to differing focus, but mostly because I do not have the Gunner upgrade yet (could only attend one Kessel and I took the Falcon with my first place).

Han -46pts (Chewie-4, Luke-7, Falcon Title-1) 58pts

Rooke Pilot- 21pts x2 42pts

You get the to take an Evade action at no real loss of offensive power compared to other ships, since Han/Luke make up for the lack of offensive actions. Evade makes Han even harder to take down, and I care even less about losing actions since Luke adds in there.

If you play tag with the X-wings for too long you will not have the firepower left to deal with Han, who will shred through damaged TiEs 1 per round. If you go head on with Han you take the full weight of the three ships for the time it takes to kill Han. It is a nice damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

Just whatever you do, don't go fly onto an asteroid with Han. Let a guy borrow my YT-1300, and his opinion after the game was there is no way it would ever be worth it's points. I asked him how many times he landed on an asteroid, he said 3. I shrugged and said "Well you could always try and not to do that ya know".

Learning to fly the Falcon takes practice. I flew this list all day on Saturday and I can say in five games, I overlapped a ship once and Never ended up on an asteroid.

I have one more list in my head that I could play against this, and feel like I have a chance. However I don't think it would hold its own against other lists.

@Vorpal Sword, I played a similar list on Saturday. I'd invest in mauler and backstabber over howler. Rolling more dice against the Falcon is key.

I thought about Backstabber, but I don't know about Mauler--I would think he'd be less useful, since there's no way for him to safely get his bonus dice. Does he usually survive long enough to make a Range 1 shot?

I know I shoot everything at mauler any time I see him. No I don't think he survives that long, however he survives long enough to set up your other ships for an attack on the Falcon. If he gets one range one attack off it would be worth it.

something to think about,

a seven tie swarm soaks 21 hits befor it is destroyed.

two x-wings plus Han soaks 23.

Also the biggest benifiet of the Falcon is that it takes away the maneuverability of the TIE fighter by using the 360 firing.

Given I have no experience with the Falcon (Wave 2 comes in Wed) I'm sure my thoughts have been considered months ago, but have you considered running expert handling instead of marksmanship on Han, and then upgrading the gunner to Luke? As already stated in this thread, I think missiles / torps are going to be one of the optimum way to take down the falcon, and expert handling would go a long way to limiting incoming missiles in the early game. Luke would help you to regain the extra hits generated by marksmanship and it works even if you can't take an action due to jamming. Of course, the problem is you can't quite make this swap as Luke + Expert handling costs 1 more point than Gunner + Marksmanship so something else in the list would have to give. Additionally, I just don't know how big the base is on the Falcon, so perhaps barrel rolls are just never going to happen given the required space. If we go with my idea, maybe you could end up with something like this:

Han
^Luke
^Chewbacca
^Expert Handling

Rookie X-Wing

Green Squadron
^Draw their fire

The green squadon can help soak some of the crits on the falcon onto its shields, and it makes a pretty elusive target itself, at the cost of the extra offense on an X-Wing.

Several people have mentioned that secondary weapons are the answer, and I agree. It's the best way to get damage on fast.

My answer to the X-wings: a Y-wing, specifically Horton Salm. If you give him 2 torpedoes to go up against the Falcon, and an ion cannon to hang up the X-wings after Han's gone, you stand a good chance of winning.

Wedge (Proton Torpedoes) 33 pts
Horton Salm (Ion Cannon Turret, Proton Torpedoes x2) 38 pts
Biggs 25 pts
TOTAL 96 pts

You can use the leftover points for upgrading as you see fit, like putting R2-F2 on Biggs. You could even drop a torp to add a stealth device to Biggs, if you're into that sort of thing.

I'd try to unload my Torps at Han ASAP. Biggs would be protecting both Horton and Wedge. Then have Horton spend the rest of the match tagging enemy X-wings to keep the heat off of his friendly X-wings. You could even try to put some ion tokens on the Falcon. Even if it has an evade token Horton's shots stand a good chance of getting through.

That's what I would try.

Picasso said:

With Chewie in a crew slot, they soak 25.

How could I forget about Chewie!!!!

also I played against a similar Horton list. Doesn't work. I Butchered it. Fast.

Picasso said:

Well, drat! If you know to gun for Horton, then that obviously ruins the squad. He's supposed to be the cleanup guy, and can't stand up to Han for long. Did the list you faced have lots of ordnance?

@Hothie: By the way, clever title for this thread. I like it.

So if the better threat to the Falcon is missiles/torps do you think more TIE/Adv. will see some play since they can carry a missle and have a tad more damage soaking ability?

While I realize part of this squad is 2 x-wing options to clean up falcon damages ships…

Wouldn't trading the 2 x-wings for another YT be a similar type of setup. Granted you loose one shot per round but do gain 360 and multiple shots via gunner.

Just a variation of same squad idea… I could see the 2 x-wings being critical in clean up. I guess it comes down to, how often do you need both x-wings to clean up a single ship?

Goldenfoon said:

It makes me tempted to try out Maarek with cluster missiles and Marksmanship, but I'm having a hard time getting a squad that I like. If I drop it to 4 ships, I get something like:

Maarek Steel, Marksmanship, cluster missiles
Tempest Squadron w/ Concussion Missile
Tempest Squadron w/ Concussion Missile
Black Squadron w/ Squad Leader

You would have to use the concussion missiles to clear the shields of the falcon, and then hope for a good run of crits from Maarek on the double cluster missile shot. If you could land 2 crits out of the cluster missiles, you might be able to either A, land 4 damage, or B, end up with a nice mix of damage effects that really slow down the falcon.

An alternative to the above list would be to drop one of the tempest squadons for a pair of Tie Fighters, but I'm not sure I love that option either.

He had four torps. I shot wedge down first then Horton. This left him with a lone Y-wing. Poor guy ran off the board.

At Goldenfoon,

I think missiles are the way to go. Either shoot down the X-wings or put them all into the Falcon.

@dandirk,

it is a points thing. The second yt100 won't be as good. X-wings are decent on their own.

@end game,

that is a list I'm thinking of trying. However I don't think it stands well against other lists.