So,

I've played quite a few games now and I am really liking the Imp's ability to out manuvere the enemy.

So, I came up with the flying circus.

No one expects the Imperial Inquisition!!!!!!

Sorry, I was a little disappointed after reading the thread title.

Anywho, high pilot skill? Not by a long shot. Your 7, 6, 5, 4, 4 will be going after my 9, 7, 6, 6, 1 for the most part. Turr will be your opponent's target, as I have found when running Turr as my highest pilot skill ship. He's your big hitter, and when he goes down, you're going to be pressed for effective attacks.

Personally, I'm more of a fan of Draw Their Fire on Black Squadron pilots. A 15 point bodyguard can be nice, and very useful in Imperial squads because TIEs don't have shields. I've never really been a fan of Expert Handling, but that's my own preference.

Honestly, what I learned yesterday is having a mid-range pilot skill squad is a neutral advantage in combat, but is a disadvantage during setup. The squad I ran yesterday, I had a setup that I thought would work well, but my opponent who had higher skills just set up in the opposite corner of some of my ships. That left me to have to run across the board in order to attack, which took some of my ships out of the fight for a few rounds. Being able to set up after your opponent does can be a very effective tool in your overall strategy.

For instance, after yesterday, I made up a Wedge/Tycho/ORS squad that i think will be effective. ORS sets up first, my opponent tries to figure out what I'm going to do and sets up, then my 8 and 9 set up afterwards, which will allow me to stick with my original strategy or to change it on the fly. There are advantages to setting up after your opponent. And with your squad, I would assume my opponent will bring a 9, or at least an 8, which will be setting up after you. Just something to consider.

You raise an excellent point and as I was being racked in the comfy chair :-) This was my other take on the Circus. Still highly manuverable and fairly hitty. High Pilot skills to counter exactly what you say.

I gotta agree with Hothie. I think more and more high pilot skill is going to make or break squads. The ability to set up last and shoot first is worth so much more in the game now with the variety of pilots. I played a game were all my pilots were 8s and 9s. My opponent set up in two sets of three in each corner. I was able to put down ALL of my ships after my opponent. This allowed me to shoot down all three of my opponent’s academy pilots before engaging his named pilots. Now if I was looking at a bunch of low pilot skill named pilots with upgrades I'm still going to shoot before most of them and if I set up after you I can pick which one I'm going to shoot down before he gets to shoot at me at all. If I roll well and you roll poorly I could smoke two of your fighters before they get to shoot. AT ALL. I've seen GREAT rebel players use this tactic to destroy Imps all day long.

Night beast is "Vader light", as long as you can do the green maneuvers!

it may be the case with the imperials that low pilot skill hamstrings you, but i've been playing and winning with the low skill rebel pilots for quite sometime now. wave 1 i had a 4Xwing rookie/torpedo list that devastated many lists in friendly and organized play (4 kessel run wins). now i'm running 2x2a with torps and homing missles/sealth device that are rank 2 and 1 pilots respectively and still wrecking most anything that shows up. setup and iniative are important for sure but you can still mitigate them both with smart play and the luck of the dice.

just a thought

ReaverRandall said:

So true! When your opponent sets up after you, and you don't like where they set up, select a turn maneuver for your first activation and run across your side of the the board to make them work for it. I've done this twice, and while it didn't completely hamper my opponent, it gave me just the edge I needed to keep his heavy hitters off of my heavy hitters.

Of course, in timed matches this can take precious minutes, and come back and bite you. In one of my games we played for an hour with neither side losing a ship. Still, it was a LOT more fun that lining up across from eachother and driving straight ahead, guns blazing. It makes the games more about maneuvering, and less about dice rolls. If I want a dice rolling game, I'll pull out Starship Battles .