So, I have narrowed my choices to three lists. As the title asks which would you pick and why.

Please no change suggestions, just the question posed. :-)

List 1

List 2

List 3

actually, none of the above. All the lists have rather disturbing inherent problems that I would like to fix.

Probably List 2, since Turr and Soontir is more or less fixed and you can't really go wrong with them. Not very happy with Kath though, she could use a much better loadout, but it works fine as it is.


For list 1, you did not fully capitalize on the strengths of the ships and they also do not have any synergies, otherwise the choice of pilots is pretty solid. If I could offer tweaks, I would pick list 1 without hesitation. Think about it. You have 2 ships shooting before Ten, meaning if you have a way to ensure that he can reliably squeeze out crit results (coughmarksmanshipcough), the Crit is a 100% sure hit on the target, especially after the other 2 ships have stripped off the shields of the target. Wedge with no PTL is unable to fully captialize on Jan's bonus dice, and Nien Nunb actually does not help Jan as much as you'd think. In fact, if you were to bring your list into the tourney unchanged, what will happen is that Wedge will die immediately at the first combat round, then you are left with 2 ships. Ten Numb is at PS10, so he shoots first, so his uncancellable crit is absorbed by shields, meaning you basically spent 1 point and 1 EPT slot to erase away your Ten Numb's effect. So you are left with Jan Ors, who will be easily caught because your Nien Numb is announcing to your opponent that you wish to fly forward4

For List 3, Maarek is a huge nono for competitive play, and Vader is completely wasted since you basically did nothing to him.

For List 3, Maarek is a huge nono for competitive play, and Vader is completely wasted since you basically did nothing to him.

I agree with most of your points, but this one caught my attention. What's wrong with Maarek in competitive play?

For List 3, Maarek is a huge nono for competitive play, and Vader is completely wasted since you basically did nothing to him.

I agree with most of your points, but this one caught my attention. What's wrong with Maarek in competitive play?

too expensive for too little. With only 2 attack, you are struggling to deal much significant damage, and his cost of 27 is more expensive than Turr + Veteran instincts for eg, who is so much better., or you could bring 1 Academy TIE + 1 Black Sqd TIE + DrawTheirFire for the same 27 points. And we havent even talked about how much more Maarek would cost if you gave him other upgrades like missiles or EPT

Also, in List 3, he has no way to generate crits, so his effect is generally wasted. Even if you put marksmanship on him, your 2 attack still needs to find a way to chew through shields first before your crits can even land on the hull. Afterwards, your opponent will tell you that he has DrawTheFire or Chewbacca (both pilot and crew), and laugh at your 30point combo.

there was a previous large-scale tournament (30 people?) where the lists of all the participants were posted, and the lists with Maarek in them appeared at the bottom 5 or so

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I know the OP didn't want commentary, but it was helpful to me.

Agree with you that list 3 is potentially the weakest list in attack, but it is defensively strong. All the lists are designed to shoot pretty much first and move last to use maneuverability.

The Ten comment is interesting, as I willingly sacrifice the crit to a shield in order to shoot first and many times you are not facing shields. Dead is dead and shooting first means the enemy can't shoot back.

Wedge dying in the first pass is a risk you always take with him. I have found PtL to be of limited use and a crutch upon which people rely that severely limits his movement. Wedge with 5 dice and his ability at range 1 (with Jan) and a focus is lethal enough.

Jan is pure support, hence the Ion Cannon and Nien allowing all 4 straights to be green has gotten me out of fire arcs many times.

Turr and Fel in list two are solid. None of those three ships need to rely on each other, the flexibility is massive. Kath stressing at least one ship every turn is huge and it severely limits the use of PtL and K-Turns on ships who will need to attack her. You really need to fly well though with this list as any focused fire on Fel or Turr and they are dead.

All your points are valid and it is very interesting to see you find weakness, where I find strength in lists. It's all about flying style. Thx for the feedback.

As a follow up, how would you exploit the weaknesses you see?

list 1:

just ion Ten numb, and he's pretty much screwed. Wedge is taken out first, and as an empty Xwing, it should be relatively easy to do at the start of the game. Once wedge is out, ten is ionized, you only have Jan left.

list 2:

completely ignore Kath, her effect should rarely trigger since she does not have any way to generate crits. Get rid of Turr and Soontir via normal methods, then you are left with 1 Firespray. It would be more difficult to exploit your blind spots since you are at PS9, but without gunner, I'm not too worried about you dealing much damage either. Me getting a stress token would allow me to predict your next move much easier, since you know I'm restricted to greens and hence would probably try and hit me with your ass cannons.

This one would be really down to dice, depending on how fast I can take out Soontir. Rebel captive is relatively easy to deal with if you are flying mooks instead of named pilots

list 3:

just fly casual, and take out the firespray first.


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anyway, about the Ten Numb at PS10, consider these:

> If you are shooting first, it means that your opponents have their focus tokens still unused, which means they WILL use it on defense. Yes, Ten's crits cannot be cancelled by dice, but I can still cancel your normal hits, and you have no way to generate crits so you are basically "neutered" in a sense. So by pumping his PS up, you are automatically making me spend my tokens on defense, whilst if I fire back at you, even with 2 attack dice i do not think I would need a focus token (or attack modifier) to deal you 1 damage through your 1 agility. You could consider Sensor Jammer if you want to run high PS Bwings, since it solves this problem here.

> Again, Ten Numb's crits are absorbed by shields. Yes, TIEs are generally unarmoured, but they do have the evade token which they can use to cancel Ten's crits. Xwings and everything else have shields, and in a tournament you are likely to meet both rebels and imperials

> If after you fire and the opponent is still alive, he gets to fire back at you. In that case, it totally doesnt matter if your PS is higher or lower. It only matters if you fire and kill off the guy, which is like maybe the 3rd or 4th shot against a rookie Xwing, or 2nd shot against an Academy TIE?


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Wedge with PTL is quite restrictive in terms of his movements, which is why we always pair him up with R2 astromech for the green hard 2, and engine upgrade for the boost to get him out of trouble. Also, with engine upgrade you can safely bring him to range 1, as opposed to doing a forward 4 and hope he doesnt crash. Jan Ors + TL + boost into range 1 is not funny. Jan Ors + TL + focus at range 2 is a solid 4 hits. without PTL, Jan Ors + TL + staying at range 2 is only 3 hits with a much lowered chance of getting 4.

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After flying Jan Ors + Nien Numb for quite some time, I realize that you really do not need Nien Numb. What you want are green maneuvers that are turns, not straights. Engine upgrade would help Jan a lot, if you have the leftover points. Otherwise, consider Chewbacca crew instead, especially if your main concern is staying alive. Also, you are pairing her with a Bwing and an Xwing, so your overall squad movement speed is not that fast, hence you do not have any problem keeping her within range 3 of your ships, so you really do not need that forward 4 green.

With that 1 point, you can consider determination. Of the crits, injured pilot is one that you absolutely do not want to see happen to Jan Ors, and also if you are lucky you can add some fake hp to her by discarding other pilot crits.

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It's not about flying style, it's about card combinations. Think of Xwing miniatures as any standard TCG instead, where you need to build the combos for your "deck". This game is comprised of 3 parts: squad building, flying techniques, luck. Luck you cannot really affect (except through building in things like Gunner, Garven + Dutch etc), so you are only left with card combos and flying skills. If your card combo is good, you need not rely that much on flying skills. Same goes for the other way around. Of course, if both are good, then you have a pretty high chance of winning your games.

I do agree on determination and Wedge may have to be dumped in favor of Skywalker with VI and give Jan Determination.

Great discussion mate.

I do agree on determination and Wedge may have to be dumped in favor of Skywalker with VI and give Jan Determination.

Great discussion mate.

really do consider giving marksmanship to Kath, Ten Numb and Maarek. It does wonders in making their effects work, and when they do work, it is very scary.

For Kath, you could consider mercenary copilot if you have the slot. It may look quite bad in theory, but I've experienced weird cases like range 3 exchanges where the crit somehow made it through and did some horrible damage. Either way, he's supposed to cancel the crit at range 3 to get Kath's stress, so yeah. It also frees up Kath's EPT for something that I feel every Firespray should take: Expert Handling.

Oh yeh Expert Handling is awesome.

For List 3, Maarek is a huge nono for competitive play, and Vader is completely wasted since you basically did nothing to him.

I agree with most of your points, but this one caught my attention. What's wrong with Maarek in competitive play?

The TIE Advanced is a terrible ship for the cost, IMO it might be the worst ship in the game. Vader is semi-OK only because his ability is amazing. Maarek's ability is not that good, so his ship is a huge points dump for just 2 attack.

I really like your list 2 except that, in my games at least, the falcon seems to really shut down high PS interceptors no matter who is flying it.

Han is the only Falcon I fear with this build and the absolute worst is when he has 2 Y's with Ion Cannons with him. If that occurs you are in very serious trouble and I focus all fire on the Y's until they are dead.

I can and have taken HSF with the list, but it's probably a 50/50 and comes down to luck.

Never close to R1 with the Int's and keep your focus and evade up if you are in range of him.

I attack him with the Firespray and trade blows. It's a fairly even match. This is where the rebel captive shines as you have a real chance to stress him continually if you manage to have him cancel a crit then you have a good chance of keeping him permanently stressed as long as he shoots at the Firespray. This is where keeping the Int's out at R3 helps as if he shoots at them to not take stress, he will probably not do any damage and your Firespray gets a shot at him for 4 dice at R1. If he can't Marksmanship or Focus it slows him down a bit. It also inhibits his movement a little bit, which whilst not massive, can make your opponent think.

Marksmanship's value is garbage compared to its cost and just getting a straight up Focus token, even on ships with abilities that rely on scoring crits. You've got an almost exactly 33% chance of scoring at least one crit on three dice, straight up. I'd much rather throw a Gunner on Kath and let the natural crits do the talking, and save her EPT for something better.

To answer the OP, I like List 2 the best.

One reason I do not use Marksmanship is it eats my EPT slot, second is as Tawnos says, for 3 points it's not very flexible for its actual return. Focus is better.

Thirdly, specific to Kath, most ships have a fairly low crit cancel rate. Agi 1 ships almost never will. Agi 2 ships it's very rare and with Agi 3 ships stressing 1 usually doesn't help (think swarm here).

Rebel Captive guarantees me a stress and if I can wangle a second with a cancellation, bonus money.

I managed to double stress Wedge in a game the other day, totally wrecked him.

I'd definitely take 2.

Can't underestimate the power of interceptors, especially when Kath feels like the target you want to focus. Id also say, with 3 ships mobility is the most important factor in beating a larger number of ships.

Yep, you really have to fly build 2, but it is sweet. The sheer frustration opponents have trying to catch it is priceless.

I like both Fleet 1 and 2, but I would tweak 2 a bit: The two Veterans Instinct and the Seismic Charges could offer you a different combo of points, potentially for something better.

However, Fleet 1 has some really good synergies. I might throw VI onto Wedge instead of Ten for points balancing, but a Hypermobile Ten Nunb is a force to be reckoned with! At an 11, you can choose exactly where you wish to land (each non-red maneuver gives you 20 possibilities, and each red gives you 10). Add the extra damage that Jan gives him, and you're going to hurt a lot of folks really badly. With Wedge in there as well, your opponent is still screwed after taking down any one ship.

Any Firespray with a Rebel Captive is a huge problem. It's the most survivable ship in the game, and you dissuade folks from attacking it in the first place. A fairly nice basket for your eggs. Pairing it with two Interceptors is risky (I'd prefer a swarmlet), but still a viable option. A very defensive build, with some nice facepunch.

Fleet 3 is less ideal. Yes, Advanced Ties are the most survivable small-ships, and are probably 3rd over all (behind Firespray and Falcon), but the named pilots are just too expensive. I would seriously find 1 point somewhere to give Darth Vader a "Squad Leader" ept instead, as he can take a defensive action alongside giving an allied ship extra offense, but once again I'd prefer a swarmlet along Miss Scarlet.


58 points buys you a little more than 4 tie fighters. That's far more intimidating than 2 ships, regardless of how much better those two ships are than a Tie Fighter. It's also 3 of the cheapest Interceptors, with 2 points left over, which is even MORE intimidating.

I know you started this thread with a ' please no alterations ' comment but here goes anyway....

For my two cents I like list 2 best and I like them all being a 9 I cant wait to give it a try and here's the but.......

Question and suggestion Have you tried? or considered swapping Kath for Boba and dropping the seismic.

gives you a 99 pt squad increasing your chances of firing first and a little more manoeuverbility

Hehe, no worries on comments, it is a great thread :-)

The Boba swap would work just fine. I like Kath and the Seismic and the all 9's synergy, but your tweak would work.