Totally new player to the game and I need some help. I played one game and I have 4 TIE fighters (my friend and I both got the starter set. Traded the models we didn't need). Super fun but at the same time, I need to make a good list. My friend will be running two X Wings, hwk 290, and the milennium falcon. Thinking about taking The Imperial Aces and maybe toss in some TIEs as meat shields. Would love to have an elite force of fighters. Would this work or fall apart?

Keep in mind, I only have the starter kit plus two normal TIEs and read some articles online.

not possible. if we are going by points, your list would be short of 60 (around 55 is already a very generous estimate, since your TIEs are all from the core set), while your friend's list will be around the neighbourhood of 120 points. And bear in mind the 55 point estimate is inclusive of stupid things that will not work, like Black Sqd TIE + marksmanship for 17pts per piece

simply put, his 1 falcon is fighting on par with all 4 of your TIEs. Taking into account that 1 Xwing can roughly fight 2 TIEs, and you can quickly see where we are going with this. Moreover, since your TIEs all come from the core set, you do not have the better pilots from the TIE expansion pack, which further limits the strength of your builds.

Even after taking imperial aces into account, the lack of important upgrades (eg. stealth device, other supporting ships eg. shuttle, DrawTheirFire on a TIE, Turr Phennr and Soontir form the normal TIEint etcetc) means that your builds will be sub optimized and not very strong.

tl;dr, you need to buy quite a bit more stuff if you plan on not getting your arse kicked in that often. Such is the sad life of an imperial player. rebels do not need to spend as much since they have lesser ships, and the upgrades are a bit more unique to the exact ship

Once Wave 1 gets reprinted, get the Tie Fighter Expansion.

...

No, seriously. You're not getting it for the 5th Tie Fighter (though that will come in handy). You're getting it for Howlrunner, the best Tie Pilot in the game, and one of the most ridiculously good pilot abilities that Fantasy Flight has printed.

She lets allied pilots at Range 1 re-roll up to 1 attack die. All of them. For no penalty or action loss. They just automatically get the better half of a Target lock for being near her. Oh, and unlike a Target Lock, you don't need to call your shots beforehand, so you've got that half-target-lock on EVERYTHING. And she's a level 8 pilot, with an Elite Pilot Talent, for only 18 points.

Stick her with a Stealth Device, and never let her take an offensive action, 'cause she deals her massive amounts of damage through the rest of your ships.

The expansion also gives you Backstabber, a level 6 pilot for 16 that gains a bonus attack die when shooting from outside the defender's firing arc (and yes, the YT-1300 has a firing arc), which makes it arguably better than Mauler Mithel.

You also get Winged Gundark, who at Range 1 will turn one hit into a crit. And yes, that can be a hit that used to be a focus result. For 15 points, that's a pretty darned good ability.


If you're in a position where you're even running 3 Tie Fighters, one of them probably ought to be Howlrunner. If you're running 4, then it's pretty much a requirement.

After that, you can pick up a sixth ship of your choosing. I might even suggest a Lambda Class Shuttle, so you can get Col. Jendon and the Madboys going on.

Col. Jendon can actually pass out Target Locks, even to ships that don't have the "Acquire Target Lock" ability. Like Tie Fighters. If he gets the ST-321 Shuttle Title, he can acquire a Target Lock from anywhere on the board, regardless of range. If he gets a Weapons Engineer, he gets them 2 at a time. If he gets a Fire Control System, he gets them without an action if he shoots at something. For best results, have him fade sideways at battle's start, rather than forward.

Adding Howlrunner (for when you want to shoot at something you've not target locked already) and 4 Academy Ties brings you to a 100 point fleet, with a lot of crazy-stupid "Tie Fighters shouldn't be able to do that!" interactions.

my suggestion would be (in this particular order)

> get a TIE expansion. immediately. it's not exaggerating to say that imperials are utterly unplayable without this expansion

> when you get your imperial aces, get a normal TIEint pack as well. Even with all the new fling flangs, Soontir is still the best TIEint pilot, followed by Turr, then finally the other 2 named guys in the aces pack

> get a Slave I. this gives you the most good upgrades that are relevant for a relatively low $$$ cost. Things like stealth device, veteran instincts, etc that compliment TIEints are in it.

> get a TIEadvanced, because Darth Vader, and because expert handling helps the Slave I a lot (I expect you to complain about how un-flyable the Slave I is about this point in time, and expert handling helps a lot)

> get a shuttle, the effects help your royal TIEints do their jobs a lot better, although the shuttle itself is extremely difficult to fly. you may want to leave this for last

> get 3-4 TIEbombers in one go. 1-2 TIEbombers by themselves is relatively useless. 3-4 together and they are extremely scary

I disagree with Duraham's analysis by a couple of points. Any 6th ship is a good option, as it pushes you into Swarm territory, and I've actually had a lot of success with 4 ties and 2 bombers.

Secondly, I'm assuming you have full access to upgrade cards you don't actually own. Otherwise, you're pretty much SOL, as some of the best Imperial upgrades come from Rebel expansions. Soontir Fel, for instance, is absolutely in love with Push the Limit from the A-Wing expansion.

I would go with a Large Base ship second, as Tie Fighters are typically either a Swarm Fleet, or a portion of a swarm alongside a large threat (Semi-Swarm or Swarmlet). My Jendon fleet is effective because Jendon is a support ship, and the more ships you're supporting the better a support ship is. You could also run a bunch of ties alongside, say, a Firespray-31 with Gunner. In that instance, one of those ties ought to be Howlrunner.

The Tie Advanced is, sadly, the least played ship in the Imperial arsenal. Darth Vader essentially comes with Push the Limit already on board and can get pretty nutty with Squad Leader, but all of the Tie Advanced pilots are fairly brutally overcosted. Get it last, unless you really want to play with Vader.

Secondly, I'm assuming you have full access to upgrade cards you don't actually own. Otherwise, you're pretty much SOL, as some of the best Imperial upgrades come from Rebel expansions. Soontir Fel, for instance, is absolutely in love with Push the Limit from the A-Wing expansion.

Definitely use the squad builders in a friendly game.

Here are two, there are a lot more.

http://x-wing.voidstate.com/build

http://fabpsb.free.fr/mindex.php?lng=en

If you're not playing in a tournament it's worth playing with the ship models you have and not worrying about the cards you actually posses, otherwise you need to purchase multiples of ships that you are just not going to use. I have two A-wings (which is currently the only way to get a push the limit card) but the people I play with, we generally end up having 5 or 6 of that card on the table at a time.

An easy way to complement your four ties is to get the firespray/slave 1. There are a handful of decent squads you can make with that ship and a few ties.

Don't think of TIEs as just a meat shield. Used in mass they can do a lot of killing. They are particulaly good at killing low agility, high hitpoint ships, like the YT-1300. One really good way of using TIEs is to put a bunch of them together, then put a something like a TIE Interceptor or TIE Advanced with engine upgrade off to the side to flank down the side. The real threat is the mass of TIEs, but your opponenet will pay too much attention to the flanker (Vader works really well here)

I love the firespray, so that was my first purchase after 2 cores (I was buying enough so my friends could happily play without collecting, cos then I have enough ships for anything and also have opponents to play against!).

I next bought the x wing and tie expansions, to give me the cards. I then had 3 x wings, 5 ties and a firespray, which I thought was a **** good start

Personally I think the firespray is one of the best big ships, with the highest agility and the ability to fire backwards (also evade as standard). I now own 2

If you are just playing with your friend I would suggest proxying the cards. So just writing them down on a scrap of paper Imperials are generally cheaper, being able to run 8 ships at 100 points, while the rebels can max out at 5 (6 if they used the cheapest hwk -209, but its a support ship not a fighter). There are a few costly pilots out there for the empire, so we do have options

I'd suggest some interceptors, cos I love them (my 2 favourite pilots in the game are Fel and Turr, though combined and upgraded they cost 62 points heh) and Darth vader in his tie advanced is also good.

Thanks everyone for the help!

As an update, my friend just picked up a B Wing and from my understanding, they are hard to kill without any upgrades. Never knew that I would have so few points compared to him. I play warhammer 40,000 so I had an idea of the bigger stuff cost more. The thing I'm worried about is that **** falcon.

Thanks everyone for the help!

As an update, my friend just picked up a B Wing and from my understanding, they are hard to kill without any upgrades. Never knew that I would have so few points compared to him. I play warhammer 40,000 so I had an idea of the bigger stuff cost more. The thing I'm worried about is that **** falcon.

if you swarm the falcon it will actually die rather quickly. there have been a few debates regarding wether or not to go for the support ships before the falcon. Once you have enough ties for a swarm the falcon will go down (it only has agility of 1) and against like 7 or 8 ties it isn't going to last long.

The imperial aces pack will come with push the limit so don't worry about having to pick up an A-wing for it. I would pick up the imperial aces pack like you intended and add your 4 ties to that. 6 ships, with 2 being named pilots in Interceptors should put enough together for a squad. It may not be a tough enough squad for what you are looking to do but play with it and see what it needs.

Procure a TIE FIGHTER pack for the better pilots.

Procure a FIRESPRAY (SLAVE 1) for cards and a cool empire ship. Bounty Hunter with a HLC eats falcons and B-wings for breakfast.

Planning to pick up a TIE fighter tomorrow. Think there was at the local game store waiting for me. From what I learned in 40k is to always go after the big stuff (most of the time) first stuff. The plan is to swarm and over take the Falcon first off. I doubt the 290 will do any heavy damage so that will be put off to the side.

Plus, with the regular TIE Interceptor pack, you get the Alpha Squadron Pilot, which isn't to be underestimated.

Planning to pick up a TIE fighter tomorrow. Think there was at the local game store waiting for me. From what I learned in 40k is to always go after the big stuff (most of the time) first stuff. The plan is to swarm and over take the Falcon first off. I doubt the 290 will do any heavy damage so that will be put off to the side.

As a 40K player, playing Imperials for the most part feels like you're playing Dark Eldar.

You can find out what I mean here:

http://lkhero.blogspot.com/2013/11/x-wing-rebels-observations.html

I'd look at some mission setup like rules for the time being - being badly outnumbered point wise - you have a couple options - you can go with reinforcements for your ties as they are destroyed. Otherwise see if you can agree on point values...

The HWK can be an offensive powerhouse - it depends alot on how it is being run (what upgrades it has). Dark Curse is really good at countering the "blaster turret" though

just a word on backstabber and the millinium falcon.

the falcon does have a 45 degree angle fire arc that faces forward, but that is for secondary weapons only. its primary weapon is a 360 degreee turret, so you will never be out of fire arc with backstabber aginst the falcon.

anyother ship and your example would have been correct.

just a word on backstabber and the millinium falcon.

the falcon does have a 45 degree angle fire arc that faces forward, but that is for secondary weapons only. its primary weapon is a 360 degreee turret, so you will never be out of fire arc with backstabber aginst the falcon.

anyother ship and your example would have been correct.

This is not correct. If you examine the rules insert for the Falcon, the YT-1300 has a Firing arc. Period. Also, its primary weapon can fire both inside and outside that arc. (360 degrees). So Backstabber does have the bonus against the Falcon.

just a word on backstabber and the millinium falcon.

the falcon does have a 45 degree angle fire arc that faces forward, but that is for secondary weapons only. its primary weapon is a 360 degreee turret, so you will never be out of fire arc with backstabber aginst the falcon.

anyother ship and your example would have been correct.

This is not correct. If you examine the rules insert for the Falcon, the YT-1300 has a Firing arc. Period. Also, its primary weapon can fire both inside and outside that arc. (360 degrees). So Backstabber does have the bonus against the Falcon.

Magadizer is correct. Backstabber gets a bonus against the YT-1300, which is the reason that the Falcon has a firing arc printed on the ship to begin with.

just a word on backstabber and the millinium falcon.

the falcon does have a 45 degree angle fire arc that faces forward, but that is for secondary weapons only. its primary weapon is a 360 degreee turret, so you will never be out of fire arc with backstabber aginst the falcon.

anyother ship and your example would have been correct.

This is not correct. If you examine the rules insert for the Falcon, the YT-1300 has a Firing arc. Period. Also, its primary weapon can fire both inside and outside that arc. (360 degrees). So Backstabber does have the bonus against the Falcon.

Magadizer is correct. Backstabber gets a bonus against the YT-1300, which is the reason that the Falcon has a firing arc printed on the ship to begin with.

Well, it's also for missile firing.