So I ran a 1:1:1:1 rebel build last night that consisted of the following

Dutch Vander 23 pts

Blue Squadron (B-wing) 22 pts

Garvin Dreis 26 pts

R2-astromech 1 pt

Kyle Katarn 21 pts

recon specialist 3 pts

blaster turret 4 pts

I went surprisingly well, with the main focus of the squad being the capability of firing TL/F shots with almost every ship. The B-wing and Y-wing can soak a lot of damage when up front, and Kyle, Dutch, and Garvin just pass the TL and F all over the place to whoever needs them. It's not overly dependent on any one ship, so as the game progresses and ships are lost on the rebel side, the TL/F shots still happen frequently.

Thoughts or comments?

I like. You have synergy as each ship plays a role

seems pretty solid, but what i've found with most lists that run purely on synergy, is that once one of the key pilots fall, the list falls apart.. if i were up against this i'd gun straight for Garven, followed by the B-wing.. and now you have no firepower left

if i were to change anything, i'd probably drop dutch for a rookie x wing.. as even though passing target locks around are fun.. he has no real firepower, a terrible movement dial and not even an ion cannon to really make him threatening.

then upgrade the blaster turret to an ion cannon on katarn to make him a little more useful.. that should leave you with 1 extra point to maybe slap on an R2 unit on the rookie?

another solid option could be a prototype pilot with a homing missile instead of the rookie pilot with r2 unit.. and you will still be able to benefit from garven passing him a focus to help make that homing missile just a little more potent, and now that A-wing is still miles ahead of what Dutch brings to the table for your list

i hope this helps.

and may the force be with you

Here's my take on the "Alphabet Squad":

Green Sqdn Pilot (A-Wing) + Homing Missiles (24 pts)

Blue Sqdn Pilot (B-Wing) (22 pts)

Garven Dreis (X-Wing) + R2 Astromech (27)

Grey Sqdn Pilot (Y-Wing) + Ion Turret + R5-K6 (27)

Green has the maneuverability to flank or at least avoid enemy fire arcs plus has some long-range firepower. Blue is an "in-your-face" brawler that can survive to deliver some effective close-range damage. Garven is a solid, all-around asset and the R2 unit makes him more maneuverable (by more quickly recovering from stressfull maneuvers, etc...). Grey provides 360-degree fire plus Ion effects, while R5-K6 keeps him locked on target.

Chris

I keep circling back to a rather unorthodox build for this idea...

Red Squadron Pilot

Grey Squadron Pilot

-Ion Cannon Turret

Green Squadron Pilot

Dagger Squadron Pilot

-Heavy Laser Cannon

-Fire Control System

opponents do have ome obvious target in the form of the B wing, but everything operates independently of one another. the X and B are the obvious hitters, while the Y lines up shots and the A buzzes around finishing things off. the reason for taking the mid-grade pilots is so that despite not being pros, they still shoot before a true swarm. that, plus you never see the poor guys on the field otherwise...

seems pretty solid, but what i've found with most lists that run purely on synergy, is that once one of the key pilots fall, the list falls apart.. if i were up against this i'd gun straight for Garven, followed by the B-wing.. and now you have no firepower left

if i were to change anything, i'd probably drop dutch for a rookie x wing.. as even though passing target locks around are fun.. he has no real firepower, a terrible movement dial and not even an ion cannon to really make him threatening.

Even if you took out Garven, Kyle can still give a focus token to the B-wing, Dutch can give a TL to Kyle, and the B-wing has a TL for himself. So there's still a lot of damage output. Whereas if I traded dutch for a rookie pilot, or maybe a second blues squadron pilot, then the loss of either Kyle OR Garven severely hinders the squads purpose.

What are you thoughts on that?

Even if you took out Garven, Kyle can still give a focus token to the B-wing, Dutch can give a TL to Kyle, and the B-wing has a TL for himself. So there's still a lot of damage output. Whereas if I traded dutch for a rookie pilot, or maybe a second blues squadron pilot, then the loss of either Kyle OR Garven severely hinders the squads purpose.

there is a 50% chance to get hits on the attack dice and only 37.5% chance to get an evade

which is why this game favors heavy offensive play a lot more than it does defensive teams or even teams with high synergy..

the key is finding a healthy balance between the 3.. your list relies on synergy too much, has a terrible defense and only a mediocre offense..once your two big hitters are gone, you've lost

the free target locks are nice, but your list will do just fine without it

the way i always look at lists is as follows; if you don't have a strong defense you better make it have a strong offense otherwise your list will drop like flies

you can take my advice or not, that is completely up to you.

While not a rebel list (or necessarily a good list at all), it is interesting to note that if you take the base pilot for each ship with no upgrades at all you can field one of each imperial fighter and a firespray for exactly 100 points

seems pretty solid, but what i've found with most lists that run purely on synergy, is that once one of the key pilots fall, the list falls apart.. if i were up against this i'd gun straight for Garven, followed by the B-wing.. and now you have no firepower left

if i were to change anything, i'd probably drop dutch for a rookie x wing.. as even though passing target locks around are fun.. he has no real firepower, a terrible movement dial and not even an ion cannon to really make him threatening.

then upgrade the blaster turret to an ion cannon on katarn to make him a little more useful.. that should leave you with 1 extra point to maybe slap on an R2 unit on the rookie?

another solid option could be a prototype pilot with a homing missile instead of the rookie pilot with r2 unit.. and you will still be able to benefit from garven passing him a focus to help make that homing missile just a little more potent, and now that A-wing is still miles ahead of what Dutch brings to the table for your list

i hope this helps.

and may the force be with you

I would say change Dutch for a Gold Y-Wing with ion turret and R2 but that makes it a rather different list from what he intends to do.

What i don't like at all is Dutch on his own. Okay i see you don't have the points for a turret, but the strict minimum is an R2 unit. Because then the Y-Wing can quite handle itself in a fight.

Well no he has 3 pilots that can hand out extra actions so if you kill one of them he still has. 2 extra actions and so on. Plus if you do that you leave the main damage source - the B-Wing - on its own running berserk.

I would say change Dutch for a Gold Y-Wing with ion turret and R2 but that makes it a rather different list from what he intends to do.

Yeah that's exactly right. There's no good single target for the opposing side, because the rest of the ships function exactly the same with any given ship destroyed. I feel like Executor has a good point that synergy builds can be dicey, but this build would have to go all the way to the end game before the synergy was lost, and maybe not even then.

ForceM what do you think about switching the blaster turret for the ion turret on Kyle like Executor suggested?I haven't tried it yet, but it seems that the ion turret would make it easier to setup up attacks for all of the ships, and particularly Dutch who is the least offensive. However, even though the blaster turret takes a focus to use, I can still give Kyle a TL to go with it using Dutch. So Kyle can still put out some good 360 damage. So i'm not sure which one would be better to use.