Hi all;

I have built myself a list that I would love to run, but alas I only own 2 X-wings (Yes I know, that's disgusting). The list is…

Luke Skywalker + Deadeye + R2D2 + Proton Torpedoes

Wedge Antilles + Draw Thier Fire + Proton Torpedoes

Biggs Darklighter + Proto Torpedoes

100 points

Now my problem, since I don't own 3x X-wings, and I hate to borrow/sub/etc I will have to change that list. (Trying to stay Trench Run flavoured). My thought was to go with Dutch Vander (yes I own 1 Y-Wing), but which X-wing should I drop?

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers

[EDIT] I should mention… the X-wing game group in my area consists of 4 players inc myself. 2 of the others have 2+ starter boxes and a smattering of Wave 1 stuff, only 1 other person has Wave 2 stuff. [/EDIT]

To put together a balanced 100 point rebel squad, you will really need another X-Wing, a Y-Wing or a couple A-Wings or maybe a YT-1300. Getting to 100 with 2 X-Wings is going to be tough. In addition it's a lot of point value in a small hull count. It's hard to get much donw with just two attacks per round.

Nothing about the game means you have t play 100 point games. Go with 60 (or whatever) point games until you get some more ships.

An absolutely nasty list is

Han Solo (YT-1300), Weapons Engineer, Millenium Falcon, Swarm Tactics, Chewbacca and 2 rookie X-wings with R2 units.

or

Wedge with R2-D2, Swarm Tactics and 3 Rookie X-Wings, 2 with R2 units

You can get to either list by spending $30 either on a Falcon or 2 more X-Wings

My preference is the Falcon build, it's brutal if played correctly.

DarkFather said:

You've got the basis of a solid little list here. A 4-ship list is a little more forgiving on the new player (you'll need to be careful not to get into collisions starting out), but you've got the core of a good list that can be pretty competitve if you can maneuver it properly.

If I could offer a couple of suggestions…

Luke's Pilot Rank is high enough that the game board is unlikely to change much from the time he declares his Action to the time he fires those Proton Torpedoes at somebody. As such, Deadeye has limited usefulness in his case. You might give some thought to an Elite Pilot Skill that would benefit him more- I'm personally fond of Swarm Tactics or Expose on Luke. In your specific case, I'd give some thought to putting Squad Leader on Luke (read on!)

Wedge, ideally, you want to survive as long as possible as he's one of the most offensive Rebel pilots in the game and will likely be your main damage dealer with Luke and Biggs playing more of a support or mop-up duty in your list. As such, I'd take Draw Their Fire away from him. Hopefully, Biggs will take a lot of the incoming fire for Wedge, so you might be able to get away with him not having a droid, but cagey opponents will key on him if they know the kind of damage he can do. With that in mind, I'd try to give him something that will help to keep him alive longer- maybe Luke's R2-D2?

Biggs is a pilot if you learn to use correctly can seriously disrupt Imperial players plans with his forced tanking. Especially if your opponent has a wide range of Pilot Ranking going on. Unless you work to actively keep him away from the fights though (in which case you may be better off with just a Red Squadron pilot) , he will definitely take hits, so you should probably look into giving him a droid to help mitigate the effects of those hits. Personally, I'm fond of R2-F2 on Biggs because upon activating the Action, it's in play for the entire game turn. Were you to use Squad Leader on Luke, Biggs would still be able to perform an Action even when he had R2-F2 kicked on.

If you're looking to save some points, consider dropping the Proton Torpedoes. Someone will come in here after me and start quoting stats math at you and conclusively prove Torps are no good. Me personally, I would suggest looking at specific application instances, but the point still stands- on an X-Wing that already gets 3 Attack dice, and 4 if you're in Range 1 (which since Imperials usually want to get right up in your face, usually isn't that hard to invoke), paying four points for Proton Torpedoes should be considered carefully; it's definitely not an auto-include, no-brainer type upgrade on an X-Wing.

Were you to change up and go to a 2 X-Wing, 1 Y-Wing list, I'd probably say drop Biggs. I know folks on here probably won't agree with that, but my thinking is Wedge pretty much HAS to be in a 3-ship Rebel list, and Luke is easier for a new player like yourself to keep alive. Therefore by process of elimination, it's Biggs that has to go.

If you do roll a Y-Wing though, and you want it to be Dutch Vander, you might to consider trading out Luke with Garven Dreis (leaving you with a Wedge, Garven Dreis, Dutch list) as Dutch and Dreis go together like peanut butter and jelly. Kool-Aid and sugar. Ham and burger. You get the idea.

If you're not 100% totally sold on Vander, take a look at Horton Salm too. A Luke, Wedge, Salm list could be pretty fun to play with the right upgrades. Just bear in mind that you really need to find 5 points for the Ion Cannon Turret upgrade for any Y-Wing. It increases their usefulness quite a lot and mitigates some of the inherent maneuvering limitations of the Y-Wing.

Good luck and have fun!

I won a tournament with this squad, which would fit your available models:

Wedge, R2 Unit, Expert Handling, Proton Torp
Luke, R2-F2, Determination
Dutch, R2-D2, Ion Cannon

Early in the game, Dutch passes a target lock to Wedge so you can have both target lock and focus when firing the torp. In general, Dutch heads 1 or 2 forward in the midst of asteroids, handing out target locks and ion cannoning enemy models. Luke spends most of his time using R2-F2 and spending target locks from Duth. Wedge goes last more often than not, and can stay out of enemy fire lanes pretty well due to expert handling. Any time you can stack target lock and focus with wedge, something gets hit and usually pretty hard.

Thank you for the replies and thoughts. Since posting this, I went back and looked over my options. I came up with 2x Rebel lists.

Wedge Antilles + R5-D8 + Proton Torpedoes + Swarm Tactics

Biggs Darklighter + R2-D2

Horton Salm + R5-K6 + Ion Cannon turret

99 points.

And just for something to try out (1st game with Falcon)…

Lando + Nien + Millenium Falcon

Dutch Vander + Ion Cannon Turret

Rookie Pilot + Proton Torpedoes

99 Points.

@ Cid_MCDP: I actually thought along the lines of some of what you mentioned (before reading your post even). You definitely touched on a few things there that I hadn't taken into account though. Thank you very much for your ideas and assistance.

Thanks again to those who replied. I realise a gaming group of 4 players is hardly worth anyone posting help for. But hey, gaming groups only need 2 players and an awesome game to get started. Hopefully over the next 2 days we 4 at our LGS will be able to bring a few more into the game.

Cheers

DarkFather said:

Hey, no problemo. Stop by the blog in my sig for EVEN MOAR ideas and assistance!

4 players is 4 players, man. Since my wife went back to working weekends and I'm on kiddo watch, my gaming group is 2 old friends I play with via Google Hangout. Even prior to that though, the group at my FLGS was small- about 3 regulars and a couple of +1's floating about the periphery who sometimes turned up and sometimes didn't. We make do with what we can, y'know?

If you have a Falcon and two X-wings, you can run a very strong Falcon list:

• Han Solo (46) + Luke Skywalker (7) + Chewbacca (4) + Millennium Falcon (1)
• Rookie Pilot (21)
• Rookie Pilot (21)

Try this random Squadron generator page. Just click on what you own and the point total you want and if you want regular set up, ship heavy, or upgrade (card) heavy, then click on genrate and it will give you a rebel and empire list.

http://fabpsb.free.fr/#etiquette