In the second game that my friend Mike E. and I played Tuesday night at Empire Games in Mesa AZ, we switched and I got to pick the squads I wanted to play with and against. I had him play the same twin Firespray squad he had used in the last game, partially to save time but also because I wanted to test against it further.

My Squad: Prototype Pilot A-Wing * 2, Rookie Pilot X-Wing * 2, and a Gold Squadron Pilot Y-Wing w/Ion Cannon

Mike's Squad: Bounty Hunter + HLC * 2 and Mauler w/Stealth Device

First round was just movement - the Firesprays and Mauler came forward 4 and I slow rolled forward 2 (the minimum the A-Wings would go, speedy little devils). All of my ships move first, so the following round I took soft threes to the right and then boosted back to forward-facing with the A-Wings, hoping to catch the middle BH and Mauler by surprise (which worked). My X-Wings came forward 4 and the Y-Wing came up 3. Y-Wing got a hit on the center BH and partially ionized it, my X-Wings both used target locks and took the remaining shields off the middle BH, and then an A-Wing got into the same BH's hull with a double damage crit. Meanwhile the Y-Wing lost its shields to Mauler and one of the BHs, and the other BH took the shields off of an X-Wing.

Next round my X-Wings couldn't get far enough forward to safely K-turn behind the BHs, so they took hard 2's into the asteroid field betting on not being hurt too badly and being able to K-Turn on the following round and shoot at the BH's and Mauler, who I anticipated would K-turn and be coming back my way. The A-Wings k-turned and the Y-Wing bumped into one of the rookies. Since the X-Wings had no shot this round but felt somewhat safe, I risked taking TLs with them to set up a kill on the middle BH the following round, hoping the Y-Wing would get a second ion hit with the middle BH and cause him to move a white 1-forward and remain stressed, losing its actions for a second turn.

Combat this round could not have gone much better for me. Mauler and the middle BH both rolled one hit each on their four dice (and were stressed so had no modifiers). The Y-Wing got its second ion shot successfully on the BH, delivering another ding to its hull in the process (it now had 3 left). The only damage done to me this round was a regular hit on the shieldless X-Wing (the one in the middle of the combat photo below). This was the round I needed lucky green dice, and I got them, but his unlucky red dice also helped a LOT.

Next round's movement went as I hoped it would, with one minor exception. The A-Wings turned soft 2, removing stress and taking focus tokens - this also put the one farther to the edge of the board in the way of the uninjured BH who game forward 2 and bumped. My Y-Wing bumped into an A-Wing who he just barely missed clearing, which put him at range one of Mauler who floated up right behind him but did not bump (gulp!). My X-Wings K-turned but had those TLs from the round before, so were feeling good. And the ionized BH came forward 1 as anticipated.

During combat of the same round, Mauler got three hits on the Y-Wing, including a crit that caused its secondary weapon to be destroyed (farewell Ion Turret). The X-Wings used up their TLs and finally destroyed their target. At range 1, the A-Wing with a shot got three hits thanks to his focus on the other BH, stripping a couple of shields off successfully.

We had to call time, but the rebels looked to be heading to victory. This turned out to be a nice, easy rebel swarm to run with LOTS of options - blocking, ionizing, and still having some potent guns around on the X-Wings. Luck did not go Mike's way on some critical rolls though, and a couple of dice going the other way could have swung this back in his direction so I'm not yet convinced this is a tournament-worthy group of rebel ships. More practice with them to come, for sure though - it was a really fun and different sort of unit to play.