Hi, Im waiting for the starter game to arrive in my local shop, so i havn't actually played a game yet.

I have been however reading the rulebook and going through the list builders online, It seems though the standard to beat is the tie swarm ( please correct me if im wrong.) with four souped up rebels coming a close second. so heres my first list,Please critisize the hell out of it.

5x prototype pilots with stealth devices

The immediate thing that jumps out at me is a lack of firepower and the low pilot skill. This can be compensated by the high number of pilots, but you'll need to be able to get behind the other fighters and get within range 1 without them being able to get a decent hit on you.

But then, my personal preference is an offensive list. You can actually work with this list if you know how to play defensively, because this is a very defensive list.

Could be fun. I've heard good things about using an Outer Rim Smuggler (YT-1300) supported by 4 cheap A-Wings.

The statistics of this game favour the attacker over the defender. If you are looking for a list that will fly around and never get hit, that won't be the best choice. You are better off looking at a list that balances offence with defence, with slightly more in favour of the offence.

To apply that to your list, you should go with 4 green squad pilots, all with "push the limit" upgrade and 2-3 having missiles. Your pilot skill is 3 so you move after some ships and fire before lower skilled pilots. You get to choose to do an extra action (which can be for offence OR defence) and you have a couple ships with an extra punch.

Just be careful, your ships are squishy so you have to fly them a little conservatively. No head-to head stuff.

5x Prototypes + Stealth is a very Defensive fleet. Your 2 firepower will do a surprising amount of damage because you'll be so damned hard to kill.

More traditionally, though, you'd want to give your A-Wings an "Alpha Strike" (i.e. Missiles that you use the first round of combat to soften up the enemy fleet) to give your survivability and maneuverability the offensive edge.

I will also point out that one of the best fleets to go to the Worlds tournament this year WAS a 5 ship rebel fleet: an XXBYY

That is to say,

Rookie Pilot

[21]

Rookie Pilot

[21]

Blue Squadron Pilot

[22]

Gold Squadron Pilot

[18]

Gold Squadron Pilot

[18]

You don't always have to bring the cheap ship up to 20 points. You can simply use it to balance out slightly more expensive ships, while maintaining the number in your fleet.

5 Prototypes w/Stealth is not a good list, I assure you. I own 5 A-wings, but it's probably 3 too many for any serious list. 4 or 5 are a tremendous amount of fun to ply with though, and it's even possible you might win a game or two with luck or against a favorable match up.

Simply put you do not have enough red dice.

Everyone says you don't have enough firepower. Guess what, they are wrong. If you exclude large ships, only two of them have more than 2 attack dice.

Yes, if you play this list you will miss a lot more than say a X-wing x4 list. But you are very defensive. You are basically playing the TIEs at their own game. They have more ships, you have slightly more hits (but not by much). Your real advantage over TIEs is you movement dial. The A-wings have the best dial in the game. Having a good dial is great, but you have to use it right. You have to out-fly your opponents. That is hard against a skilled opponent with a swarm if he/she plays smart, but it can be done. What you would really be lacking is pilot skill. Pilot skill is one of the hardest things to measure its value, especially in the forums. But Trust me when I say that having a good dial is much better if you also have the piloting skill to take advantage of it.

I would also lose the Stealth Devices. They are really good, when they change your 4 dice to 5 (because you are at range 3) But with your 2 attack dice, you want to be at range 1. This is where all 3 attack dice ships thrive. You want to get in close, and stay there. You will have to fly smart and rely on your skill as a player and your superior dial to out fly your opponent. In that tight your stealth device will not last long.

If you are really focused on killing a TIE swarm give three of the A-wings Assault Missiles. There is nothing TIE Swarms like less than Assault Missiles. If you want your squadron to be more well rounded give them Homing Missiles, for that one round before the tight close quarters hair ball that you want.

I ran Tycho/PTL/Cluster + Green/PTL/Cluster + Green/VI + Green/VI over the weekend, Vs. a pair of shuttles and a pair of bombers..

Now, that's lots of hull points on the imperial side, but I still won, with 2 of the A-wings shot down, and Tycho down to one hull point, and the other green undamaged.. the three defense dice and green 5 straight maneuver on the A-wing are nothing to scoff at. They can be deadly if you maneuver well, make your actions work for you, stay out of firing arcs or out at range 3, and don't run over bombs (like I tend to). They're tougher than they look.

(the clusters were there because.. well.. Sable and his shuttles. )

Everyone says you don't have enough firepower. Guess what, they are wrong. If you exclude large ships, only two of them have more than 2 attack dice.

X-Wing

B-Wing

Interceptor

Any ship with a Turret slot

Everyone says you don't have enough firepower. Guess what, they are wrong. If you exclude large ships, only two of them have more than 2 attack dice.

X-Wing

B-Wing

Interceptor

Any ship with a Turret slot

Sorry counted wrong. 3 ships (turrets that either cost your focus or can not do more than 1 damage don't count)

I am not going to say that the A-wing is better than the X-wing. But I don't think it is crap either.

I see stats as the following for attack and agility

1- this is pretty bad

2- fair

3- really good.

So I would say that A-wing have a fair attack and a really good agility. Ships with the same attack dice

TIE, TIE Advanced, TIE Bomber, Y-Wing - all these ships have underrated primary weapons in my opinion.

I personally like Stealth Device a lot, but I'd drop one of those ships out for some more pilot skill and missiles. Tycho is superb, and Push the Limit can make your enemy rip their hair out when you maneuver into a good spot which A-Wings are perfect for. They are the Rebel interceptor craft, so they're designed for getting behind things and blasting them.

So let's say Tycho Celchu with three Green Squadron Pilots. 80 points to start, and you could put a Stealth Device on all four of them if you really wanted to. Green Squadron Pilots are great though because you can give them Elite Talents, and many people seem to overlook the option of the Expose card, effectively turning you into an X-Wing with a better movement dial and you can still use Evade tokens.

I like that LeoHowler

Green - expose - concussion missile

Green - expose - concussion missile

Green - expose

Green - expose

100 points.

PS 3
2(3)
3(2)

2
2
A wing maneuver wheel

I need to buy some more A's and give this a try.

The question I have is:
Which is the better use of your action
2 red dice with TL or Focus
or
3 red dice via Expose?

Well see that's the beautiful part: you can target lock the round before, and THEN use Expose and combine the two, and if you're in range 1? 4 attack dice!

But a more straight up answer would be to get a target lock early, continue to use Focus actions and occasionally Evade, then when you're reletively or completely out of danger of being fired on or you'll get 4 dice then use your Target Lock and engage Expose.

Could be fun. I've heard good things about using an Outer Rim Smuggler (YT-1300) supported by 4 cheap A-Wings.

Mom and her chicks works very well...had a lot of fun playing this for fun

Everyone says you don't have enough firepower. Guess what, they are wrong. If you exclude large ships, only two of them have more than 2 attack dice.

Sorry counted wrong. 3 ships (turrets that either cost your focus or can not do more than 1 damage don't count)

I am not going to say that the A-wing is better than the X-wing. But I don't think it is crap either.

A-wings are not crap, but 4 or 5 of them simply do not form a competitive list, with the possible exception of 4 As + ORS.

As I have posted several other places, I think 3 Bs + 2 As is a great list. Actually I think there are a lot of good lists with 1 or 2 Prototype pilots thrown in. If you want to be competitive, I sincerely believe that there is a limit of 2 A-wings to have a good list. I also do agree though with your recommendation to drop Stealth devices. That's defensive overkill (which I guess is a contradiction in terms...) and you need to do something to upgrade their offense. Sorry, but 2 red dice is not good. TIEs get away with it because you can fly so many of them in a list, and because if you play standard Reb vs. Imp matches, most of the Rebel ships only have 1 or 2 green dice. It's the same reason that TIE advanced are so inferior to an X-wing, for the same cost: Red>Green.

Nevertheless, speaking as someone who owns 5 A-wings: a 4 or 5 A-wing list is a lot of fun, and should be tried for the sheer speed antics you can pull off.

Don't just take my word about the 4 A-wing list though, read this thread at BGG:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/987129/31-different-permutations-from-the-development-of

I would not recommend 5 Awings for your beginner fleet. I've been meaning to play the exact same list for fun. That list would be an uphill battle pretty much no matter who you face.

If you like it fly it... just realize that it's not optimal but will be fun! I am still a mostly imperial player because I fell in love with the tie and Awing movement options. Casually, I'm the better pilot because I have to be to fly those lists and get mileage out of them.

If i were to take an all A-wing squadron I would probably take either

4x Green Squadron w/ push the limit

3 of them with concussion missiles

or

Tycho Celchu w/ push the limit, homing

3x green squadron w/ push the limit

unfortunately though, I would not expect it to perform that well, but it could work. Something better would be A-wings with either X-wings or B-wings, as A-wings do not really excel as the backbone of your squadron like they can

I ran Tycho/PTL/Cluster + Green/PTL/Cluster + Green/VI + Green/VI over the weekend, Vs. a pair of shuttles and a pair of bombers..

Now, that's lots of hull points on the imperial side, but I still won, with 2 of the A-wings shot down, and Tycho down to one hull point, and the other green undamaged.. the three defense dice and green 5 straight maneuver on the A-wing are nothing to scoff at. They can be deadly if you maneuver well, make your actions work for you, stay out of firing arcs or out at range 3, and don't run over bombs (like I tend to). They're tougher than they look.

(the clusters were there because.. well.. Sable and his shuttles. )

This is probably one of the few favorable matchups for A-wings. A wings can murder shuttles due to their lack of maneuverability and 1 defense die. Bombers also only have 2 green dice and are very susceptible to crits due to their lack of shields. So in this case, a bunch of 2-attack A-wings seems relatively powerful,

Might as well go with Opportunist instead of Expose. You maintain your action advantage, and the A-Wing has more options to shed stress than any other ship in the game!

Yeah, but he will need the Imperial Aces expansion to get Opportunist, and it isn't out yet.

Not to mention that Opportunist relies on people not having focus or evade tokens and gives stress. To be honest, they're both just as situational as the other, and it's hard to argue which is better than the other. Opportunist does happen to work with Tycho because he can use actions at any old time, and I imagine the ability stacks with missiles.

The problem is that you can't shoot off a missile when you aren't target locked, and realistically it's not often that you don't at least use a focus when you're already locked on (unless you can get out of range). I would still place more faith in Push the Limit and the occasional chance to use Expose.

I ran Tycho/PTL/Cluster + Green/PTL/Cluster + Green/VI + Green/VI over the weekend, Vs. a pair of shuttles and a pair of bombers..

Now, that's lots of hull points on the imperial side, but I still won, with 2 of the A-wings shot down, and Tycho down to one hull point, and the other green undamaged.. the three defense dice and green 5 straight maneuver on the A-wing are nothing to scoff at. They can be deadly if you maneuver well, make your actions work for you, stay out of firing arcs or out at range 3, and don't run over bombs (like I tend to). They're tougher than they look.

(the clusters were there because.. well.. Sable and his shuttles. )

This is probably one of the few favorable matchups for A-wings. A wings can murder shuttles due to their lack of maneuverability and 1 defense die. Bombers also only have 2 green dice and are very susceptible to crits due to their lack of shields. So in this case, a bunch of 2-attack A-wings seems relatively powerful,

You've not seen my opponent maneuver a shuttle, particularly with the engine upgrades. They have a nasty habit of appearing where you least expect them.