My buddy and I have been playing for a few months now. We don't have 2 whole collections but generally have enough to field whatever we want (or we seek out those last pieces we need). Here are some of the match ups from our first major playtest weekend:

Tie swarm vs. Luke, Y wing, rookies

The ties showed their disgusting #'s advantage. Went Mauler + swarm, Dark Curse + stealth, Night Beast, Black Squad + swarm, academy pilot, and an Alpha Squad interceptor (no tie booster to be found in 2 states). Took down the rookies really fast with some major focus fire and watched big wifs on Dark curse all day long. Abused Mauler's 4 dice at range 1 and was able to maximize swarm tactics.

Same tie Swarm vs. Luke, A wing with Assault missile, Y wing with Ion, Rookie

Tie swarm was missed by the assault missile and the game was pretty much over. After the rookie and A wing went down the next round. Y wing made it interesting by zapping a few ties causing them to asteroid crash but it was still a resounding victory for the Imperials.

Same Tie swarm vs. Chewie, Luke, Rookie

I don't know where things went wrong here... oh wait... I do. I him survive the first onslaught and then 3 ties completely 1 shotted with Direct hit crits. Still managed to kill off Luke and the Rookie but Chewie's crit proof and my crit prone = first tie swarm loss.

After this he decided he wanted to play the imperials and he grabbed Fett loaded to the gills an interceptor and some ties. I tried a Rebal swarm with Tycho + PTL + Clusters, A wing + cluster missiles, Y wing + Protons, rookie + protons. I watched the Tycho + A wing double cluster F#ck not take out a single ship. Tycho and the A wing both outlasted everything else I had and put big dents in Fett but couldn't close it out.

We took a break and went shopping. Picked up another Firespray and interceptor and came back to it the next day:

Game one: Fett + bounty hunter + night beast. Both Firesprays with loads of secondary weapons. I tried a Luke, Biggs, Y wing squad that just got demolished. No contest.

Game 2: Similar imperial list by him and similar luke/biggs/y squad with less munitions and more upgrades.

Held on a lot longer and it really came down to 2 early moves where I overlapped astroids by a milimeter or so 3 times in 2 rounds. I was trying the xwings like they were Ties and having not so much luck. Ended up going long so we called it with a full bounty hunter and hurt tie vs. Luke at full but cornered and out of muntions.

Game 3: Me: Vader + Cluster (not concussion) + Squad leader, Turr + PTL + Stealth, Alpha Squad, Mauler Vs. Luke, Biggs, Rookie, A wing.

Vader 1 shot 1 killed Biggs and the extra move granting Vader + interceptors was just stupid good. He gave in after the 2nd round of firing.

Game 4: Same Vader interceptor squad vs. similar squad with Biggs getting shield upgrade and R2 unit.

Rnd 2 saw Vader 1 shotting biggs again... except that 1 extra shield saved him. Vader proceeded to not roll a single evade vs. 2 proton torpedos and ate a direct hit crit for a 2 shot 1 kill. Mauler managed to be out of range 1 by about a millimeter to not finish off biggs. Turr was killing but the first shot on him, with stealth, and an evade token saw him roll all blanks on evade and lose his stealth. Managed to fly him perfectly pretty much the rest of the game but he rolled blanks again later to go down to 1 hull point. Mauler was out of play 2 full rounds including 1 asteroid hit. Turr did some stupid stupid stupid good piloting vs Luke at 2 and the remaining rookie at 1 after finally taking out Biggs and the regenerating shield R2 , for 3 rounds without getting hit but couldn't score a hit on offense to save his life (literally) and was eventually double crit double direct hit for like 5 damage in one round on ... you guessed it... all blank dodge rolls. I call this one a half loss. No way Turr ever ever ever rolls 3 full blanks in the same game... with a stealth to start...sometimes with focus... often at range 3. After he saw me put on my interceptor display game 1 his piloting was almost near perfect as well. BEST MATCH EVER.

So all in all we learned a lot. I learned the difference between 1mm and 2mm pretty much makes or breaks a game, it takes 2 ion tokens to do anything to a large ship, a single Pilot Skill 1 pilot is your best blocker and often your cheapest mvp, your best day of piloting will never beat the dice, Tie fighters bolow up just as easily and often as they do in the movies and yet, I love me some Imperial builds. The builds weren't optimal but we got a LOT out of what we had.

Happy flying. Now go do some Barrel rolls and ****

Your not giving a range bonus for the concussion missiles are you? Seems odd that Vader could one shot Biggs twice!

Just wondering.

Your not giving a range bonus for the concussion missiles are you? Seems odd that Vader could one shot Biggs twice!

Just wondering.

This is what I'm thinking too...or biggs just has the worst rolling luck ever.

It was pretty bizarre. 6 hits twice and poor dodges. I think there was a crit the first time. And I'm pretty sure it was cluster and not concussion... my bad. Just as bad as Vader rolling double blanks for dodges the 2nd time around.

Yeah, sounds like there's a bonus in there that shouldn't be. I can't think of any reason you should be rolling 6 dice! Do you mean you used Cluster Missiles, and rolled the 2 attacks of 3 dice and each one was three hits with no dodges? That's way out there on the statistical fringe, but not impossible.

happened 2 games in a row. Bizarre. But I guarantee my buddy unloads on Vader with cluster every single time with everything he's got. To be fair he had focus tokens both times too but still fringe.

happened 2 games in a row. Bizarre. But I guarantee my buddy unloads on Vader+ cluster every single time with everything he's got. To be fair he had focus tokens both times too but still fringe.

That would still only affect one of the two attacks. And cluster missiles against Vader (3 evade) is pretty poor odds. Really clusters are generally only worth it (compared to other missiles) against agility 1 (or 0) targets.

So just to be sure, you're doing the cluster missiles as two separate attacks of 3 dice each, one after the other, right? Cluster missiles are NOT a 6-dice attack!

Just to clarify: 6 dice, 2 seporate attacks, all hits (focus + direct hit crit) kills Biggs if he doesn't dodge well. Happened 2 games in a row, not something that is going happen, maybe ever again but certainly left a pretty big impression. Even dodging 2/6 hits or 3/6 leaves him open to any other tie being able to finish him off in the same round of combat.

And Vader is not getting shot at with cluster missiles, he's doing the shooting. **** rebels prefer Torpedos! I was the recipient of 6 direct hit crits that weekend so luck and statistics were definitely swingy all weekend.