So I was looking at the B-wing( mainly because I run Imperial.) an I was thinking how can I improve on its ability to dodge those swarms of tie fighters. This is a build that works for all the pilots(but can be costly.)

Blue squadron+ heavy laser cannons+ stealth device(must focus on defense to gain the best results.)+ sensor jammer. Comes out to be 36 points not bad if you run a 3 man squad.

That's all I have for now thanks for reading and let the force be with you B-wing pilots.

Stealth Device on a B-Wing is a waste of 3 points.

Yep totally agree, stealth device is just not worth it.

You get survivability by weight of Hull/Shield points not dodging shots... TBH 4 base B-Wings + Advanced sensors is probably the way I would go. The Advanced sensors mean you will get an action even if the swarm tries to block you.

The best way for the B-wing to dodge hits is simply keeping folks from shooting at you, at which it can excel.
Consider the following:

Advanced Sensors (which let you perform your action before moving, thus making sure you ALWAYS have your action, even if you're going to collide and/or stress yourself out).

It is particularly good at dodging when combined with an Engine Upgrade, as you now have the ability to boost OR barrel roll before or after every maneuver, at your discretion. This can drastically change your final position, particularly when turning or banking, as you have your choice of 10 different starting locations from which to launch yourself.

Boosting changes your angle, so you can decided to turn/bank more severely, and also less severely, than advertised. You may also angle yourself before performing a koiogran.

Long story short, this "Hypermobile" B-Wing lets you always find the spot where you're out of firing arc with a ready shot, or quite often at Range 1 behind your target.

Adding Push the Limit takes this from 20 potential flightpaths to 92.


Each Hypermobile B-Wing clocks in at 29 points, and you still have room for a laser if you felt the need to add more damage. I tend to find that unnecessary



In other news, adding a Stealth Device to a B-Wing is a pretty bad idea. You've got the HP to soak the damage, but when dodging with only 2 dice when stealthed, you're still not going to dodge much before the SD falls off.

Stealth Device never is worth the effort on a 1 agility ship. If I were really interested in keeping it or a Y-Wing or something alive I'd add more shields. Sensor Jammer isn't terrible, but oddly enough I ran a squad of B-Wings recently and ironically the ones without Sensor Jammer and with Fire Control System lasted longer.

Stealth Device never is worth the effort on a 1 agility ship. If I were really interested in keeping it or a Y-Wing or something alive I'd add more shields. Sensor Jammer isn't terrible, but oddly enough I ran a squad of B-Wings recently and ironically the ones without Sensor Jammer and with Fire Control System lasted longer.

I have to disagree with "never" but it's very hard to pull off. Namely Ibitsam+elusiveness+sensor jammer+stealth device. You're going to be extremely hard to hit, especially if you focus but this is probably the only way to make a 1 agility ship work with stealth device.

If your main concern is swarms I would use a mix of HLC Bs and engine upgrade+ autoblaster Bs. HLCs snipe from range three, giving them the extra agility to help survive, and the others close in and knife fight. B-wings are hard to take out without a lot of focus fire so offense really is the best defense with them.

Adv Sensors is pretty much a mandatory upgrade on a B-Wing. Their dials are awful.

I have, honestly, found very little use for Advanced Sensors (See sample battle Report Below). I've played against a 3 blue squadron list 3 times now, once with Wedge / Luke / Dutch list, once with a Boba / Krasis list, and once with the list below. Overall, in each game, the B-Wing player would have been better running an Advanced Torp + something else or upgrading one of the blues to a character than running with 3 sets of Advanced Sensors. I think out of the 3 games, the game below was actually the best result for Advanced Sensor, where the B-Wing barrel rolled out of the way of the fighter... but that didn't really help him all that much - burning an action for a barrel roll to avoid a ship is the same result as running into the ship and not getting an action. Either way, you're not getting a target lock / focus to help your offense or Defense.

Vader, Expose, Engine Upgrade, Concussion

Maarek Steele, PtL, Concussion

Obsidian

Academy

Played against:

Blue Squadron, HLC, Advanced Sensors, Shield Upgrade

Blue Squadron, HLC, Advanced Sensors

Blue Squadron, HLC, Advanced Sensors

I burned in full speed turn 1, but he didn't, so no one shot anything. Turn 2, he focused all around and I dropped both concussion missiles on one of the blue squadrons - It evaded one of vaders 4 hits. Maarek got 3 hits and a crit and the blue pulled a blank on defense. I the 3rd damage card down was a direct hit, so I chose that and the blue squadron went down without firing a shot. Blues both fired HLC on vader and landed 3 hits. The obsidian and Academy managed to knock 1 shield off of the blue squad with the shield upgrade. Next turn I tried to block with the Academy (he used advanced sensor to barrel roll and avoid the block) and selected moves that would let me focus fire on the Blue that had taken a hit. Vader boosted and barrel rolled out of the line of fire of both blues, but was only able to line up a range 2 shot on the other blue because of it and didn't do any damage. Maarek went head to head with the blue in range 1 and target locked and focused, the obsidian also hit range 1 with a barrel roll. They knocked off 4 shields and in return Maarek took 2 hits. The other blue put 2 hits on the academy. Next turn we both ended up K turning a bunch excluding vader & maarek. Vader lined up a shot on the damaged blue without being able to be shot by the other blue, so he exposed and target locked. Vader put 4 hits on the blue (horray for blanks) and the obsidian finished it off (did I mention horray blanks?). We ended up calling it at this point as the last blue just wasn't going to be able to win against 4 ships.

I think part of the point is to focus or target lock, after all the B-wing does have a very large number of red maneuvers compared to most ships.

I think advanced sensors on B-wings rule the range 1 game. If you do so you really don't have a need for HLC's.

The targeting system is the go-to upgrade for my B-wing, cheap and effective (more ships is almost always better IMO). It works at range and makes the red maneuvers no were near as bad if you get to that crucial range one were the target lock was the thing you wanted anyway.

Advanced Sensors on a B-Wing are amazing. The B-Wing becomes the best close combat ship in the game. Try to bump into enemy ships or get bumped to deny them shots on you, while keeping firing arcs on others. Often it's quite easy to have a range 1 shot too. Focus or target lock and your damage potential will be insane.

Completely dodging enemy fire with a 1 agility ship makes a huuuuge difference, since you will get damage on every enemy attack. Reducing those is key.

I find dodging enemy shots through overlapping and still get a focus/TL is way better then barrel roll out of an arc and shooting without a buff. Remember that either Focus or TL halfes your miss chances on an attack die. That's a huge damage increase.

HLC B-Wings play completely different. They want to stay at range 3 as long as possible. Advanced Sensors B-Wings want to get into the thick of it as fast as possbible.

Try out 2x gold+ion 2x dagger + sensors for max disrupting abilities. Go into close combat with all of them. Bump as many ships you can and ionize key enemy ships.

Adv Sensors is pretty much a mandatory upgrade on a B-Wing. Their dials are awful.

I agree with half of this.

Their dials aren't awful. They're just tricky. The beautiful thing about a B-Wing is it actually has a very wide range of maneuvers - it's just that some of them are red. Want to do a 4 straight out of trouble, or a 3 bank to eat ground, or need to turn on a dime with a hard-1 in order to line up a kill shot or avoid a collision? Go for it; you're just going to pay with a stress.

Enter: Advanced Sensors. You may not need to 1-turn if you can barrel roll to adjust your angle and then 1-bank instead. Or, at the least, you get to focus or target lock and THEN pull the red move, and worry about getting the stress off next turn. And who needs to 4-straight when you can go 3-straight and barrel roll another half base length forward?

The B's dial can be frustrating until you learn to realize it's got a lot of tools other ships simply don't have on their dials, period. The B-Wing can **** near keep up with a fleeing Interceptor if it uses AdvS to barrel roll forward, then pulls a 4 straight. Yes, it takes a stress for the trouble, but nobody expects the B-Wing to put the pedal to the metal like that - and it CAN. TIE thinks he's all clever, doing a 1-turn trying to get out of your arc? Target lock him with AdvS, then pull a 1-turn right back at him, and let him know he's not going anywhere (except straight to hell).

When you think about it, the B-Wing has an amazing dial. It's just that a lot of the dial is red. All that means is that you keep those moves in your back pocket and then bust them out when the other guy has forgotten you have them because they hardly ever get used. Pair that with Advanced Sensors so that you can take your action and then pull off one of these moves, and the reward is VERY often worth the short term cost of eating a stress.

I have, honestly, found very little use for Advanced Sensors (See sample battle Report Below). I've played against a 3 blue squadron list 3 times now, once with Wedge / Luke / Dutch list, once with a Boba / Krasis list, and once with the list below. Overall, in each game, the B-Wing player would have been better running an Advanced Torp + something else or upgrading one of the blues to a character than running with 3 sets of Advanced Sensors. I think out of the 3 games, the game below was actually the best result for Advanced Sensor, where the B-Wing barrel rolled out of the way of the fighter... but that didn't really help him all that much - burning an action for a barrel roll to avoid a ship is the same result as running into the ship and not getting an action. Either way, you're not getting a target lock / focus to help your offense or Defense.

Vader, Expose, Engine Upgrade, Concussion

Maarek Steele, PtL, Concussion

Obsidian

Academy

Played against:

Blue Squadron, HLC, Advanced Sensors, Shield Upgrade

Blue Squadron, HLC, Advanced Sensors

Blue Squadron, HLC, Advanced Sensors

I burned in full speed turn 1, but he didn't, so no one shot anything. Turn 2, he focused all around and I dropped both concussion missiles on one of the blue squadrons - It evaded one of vaders 4 hits. Maarek got 3 hits and a crit and the blue pulled a blank on defense. I the 3rd damage card down was a direct hit, so I chose that and the blue squadron went down without firing a shot. Blues both fired HLC on vader and landed 3 hits. The obsidian and Academy managed to knock 1 shield off of the blue squad with the shield upgrade. Next turn I tried to block with the Academy (he used advanced sensor to barrel roll and avoid the block) and selected moves that would let me focus fire on the Blue that had taken a hit. Vader boosted and barrel rolled out of the line of fire of both blues, but was only able to line up a range 2 shot on the other blue because of it and didn't do any damage. Maarek went head to head with the blue in range 1 and target locked and focused, the obsidian also hit range 1 with a barrel roll. They knocked off 4 shields and in return Maarek took 2 hits. The other blue put 2 hits on the academy. Next turn we both ended up K turning a bunch excluding vader & maarek. Vader lined up a shot on the damaged blue without being able to be shot by the other blue, so he exposed and target locked. Vader put 4 hits on the blue (horray for blanks) and the obsidian finished it off (did I mention horray blanks?). We ended up calling it at this point as the last blue just wasn't going to be able to win against 4 ships.

My wife is running a Bluebacca build where she dropped Expert Handling and upgraded Gunner to Luke with the spare points. The reason for that is that she didn't think EH was any good. She wasn't ever using it, she wasn't sure how to get the most out of it, she didn't like taking a stress when she did it. In short, she thought it was terrible and wanted to swap it out.

Now here's the thing - anyone who's ever used EH with a large base ship (especially a Falcon, with that lovely turret main gun) knows it's an amazing tool. Who cares if you can take a stress when you can arc dodge with a big ship like a boss? And shrug off a target lock while you're at it, no less. The amount of ground a large base ship COVERS when it pulls a barrel roll is both beautiful and terrifying to behold.

In short: my wife is wrong. It's a great combo, and the fact she felt it failed her, much as I love her, comes down to a weakness of the player, not of the card.

You can see where I'm going with this.

I am running a 4x Blue squad with AdvS squad right now, for the record. It went 3-2 at Worlds (and in game 1 had my opponent's last Firespray down to a single hull when the game went to time), and is currently 2-0 in the Vassal HiLo tournament going on right now, with a kill/death ratio of 199-50. And I wouldn't trade AdvS for the world. If you're finding "very little use" for AdvS, I feel for you but you're not doing it right.

How do I use it? Let's see. Last night my opponent dropped a prox mine in front of me, and my 2 bank was going to carry me square into it with a B-wing down to 2 hull. Bad odds. I used AdvS to barrel roll as far back and to my left as possible before moving and missed the prox mine template by a HAIR. Thanks, Advanced Sensors!

Another turn I had a Blue down to 2 hull and my move was going to give him a range 1 kill shot. I used AdvS to barrel roll over and up so that my move crashed me into him, denying him a shot at me, while I was able to shoot at one of his other ships behind it, which was pointing off the wrong direction. Thanks, Advanced Sensors!

Use it nose to nose with a rock and a bank, and you can either bank to one side of the rock and do whatever, OR barrel roll to the other side of the rock, take your bank, and come out the other side where your opponent doesn't expect you to be. If I'm playing a blocking squad I'll take a focus before every move, so that if they block my front ship - he still has his focus. If that in turn causes every ship in the line to collide behind him in a four-B pileup, guess what? They all still have their focus for attack or defense, and blocking did nothing except ensure that his front ship is at point blank range to my OTHER three B-Wings - and the FRONT guy almost certainly has a shot at somebody. Thanks, Advanced Sensors!

Advanced Sensors on a B-Wing is probably the second best use of 3 points in the entire game - and the only reason I put it behind Push the Limit for that honor is that a lot more ships/pilots can use PTL. And even then I'm tempted to put it in first, because Ibs + AdvS + PTL is an amazing combination when used right.

It is an absolutely incredible tool. Do I use it most often to barrel roll and change my angle before moving? Probably, yeah, about 2/3 of the time. But that alone has saved my bacon on a number of occasions, and the ability to dodge mines and obstacles, let alone take a focus or target lock when you know you're going to crash into somebody, is amazing.

Oh, and I didn't even TOUCH on K-turns. Focus or target lock, THEN pull a 2K and get the shot and the action assist, which I think no other ship in the game can do (seeing as shuttles have no K-turn)? Um, yes please. Thanks, Advanced Sensors!

Their dials aren't awful. They're just tricky.

I agree, this last weekend I got a chance to play with and against B-Wings, and I found a whole new appreciation for them. Up til now I haven't really had much chance to play with them. I also fell in love with Avd Sensors.

The B-Wing dial isn't bad, it's just very different. If you try to fly a B-Wing like you do a X-Wing or even Y-Wing you'll hate it. But it's because you're trying to do something the ship wasn't designed to do, and not a failure of the ship itself.

*** Warning semi-related story****

Back in the day of XvT a friend of mine fell in love with the Y-Wing. Most people were of the opinion that the Y sucked, it was slow, couldn't turn, ect... He took a very zen like approach to it, and learned to use the Y's disadvantages into advantages. Few people could beat him in a Y because he knew exactly how to fly it. In tourney's and the like he always came in first or 2nd. At one point he was actually banned from the MS Zone because there were so many people accusing him of cheating. Because you can't win with the Y unless you cheat...

The same holds for the B-Wing dial. If you use it like it works best, as a close in knife fighter type ship it works very well. If you try to fly it like a X-Wing you'll hate it all day long.

*Lots of cool stuff regarding Advanced Sensors*

Oh, and I didn't even TOUCH on K-turns. Focus or target lock, THEN pull a 2K and get the shot and the action assist, which I think no other ship in the game can do (seeing as shuttles have no K-turn)? Um, yes please. Thanks, Advanced Sensors!

Ok, I hear you, and I understand the concept, but it requires you to survive with the B-wings long enough for knife fighting, and it requires your opponent to actually get into the close range knife fights. Perhaps my issue is more with the B-Wing itself than the advanced sensors. My experiences from around a dozen games (call it 3 with B-Wings and 9 against) is that b-wings eat a pair of missiles or HLCs and just die a flaming death before the game really gets going. I suppose the plus side is that the games go fast so we can get more games in on game night, but the down side is the B-Wings don't have a defense against those secondary weapons and just... die. Maybe next time I'll bring 5 interceptors against 3 B-Wings just to see how the game changes when there aren't multiple secondary weapons against the b-wings.

Surviving to get into knife fight range is challenging mainly because of the lack of (non-red) big, sweeping banks on the B-Wing. Like everything else on the dial, survival is simply a means of learning to work with what you've got. There are all kinds of tricks to employ.

The key to remember here is that people look at the B-Wing's dial, think it's slow and bad, and try to charge headlong at the enemy and joust - the B-Wing isn't a jousting ship, and its low defense means that yeah if you leave one where 6+ TIEs or a couple HLCs or whatever are blasting it the whole way in, it's going to hurt. And you may NOT be able to get all four (or whatever) of them into range every game. It happens - if that's the case try trading one of them out for Biggs. Biggs may die, but he's probably going to get the three B-Wings in close where they can do damage.

For me the trick has been to use the tools I have to avoid charging into the valley of the shadow of death. Line up in the middle of the map. Barrel roll south, do a 2 turn or something. Next move, barrel roll further south and forward, then pull a 2 or even a 3 bank back up north. Now you've completely changed your angle of attack, forcing him to bank or turn to come at you. You'll take a stress on a 3 bank but probably still have a turn to shake it before you're in shooting range. If you play it right you can keep some rocks as cover between your ships and some of his. And if you're lucky, having to suddenly change direction to keep you from flanking him may cause him to plan out his moves sloppily and collide or run into asteroids.

I did this exact thing in my match last night against a squad of 5 TIE Bombers. Going from lining up straight across from him to suddenly coming up at an angle from the bottom of the map threw him off, and he wound up having 2 Bombers way out of position up north, and smashing the other 3 of them together when they tried to bank and come at me. In the resulting exchange of fire he chewed up one Blue pretty good - downing its shields, I think, maybe even dropping it to 2 hull, but in exchange he straight up lost one bomber and took a couple of damage to another. I'll take that exchange every day of the week.

The B-Wing isn't a linear ship - its big advantage (aside from AdvS) is its ability to change its angle of attack, and move laterally with barrel roll. Sit down sometime with a B-Wing with Advanced Sensors - this is fun to do on Vassal, where you can make a copy of the B-Wing before doing each move. Do a move, see where it lands. Then imagine it barrel rolling left or right from there. Then imagine it barrel rolling left or right BEFORE it moves, and where THAT lands it.

Your opponent has to guess from a much wider range of positions, because even JUST looking at barrel roll and advanced sensors and ignoring its other tools, he not only has to try and guess your move, he has to guess where that move will land you if you barrel roll before you move, after you move, if you barrel roll left or right, if you barrel roll to AND from the front or rear edge of your base. It is maddening to them once you start to get used to thinking less 'charge straight at him' and more 'wrong - now I'm over HERE!"

You can use these tools early to radically change your angle of attack with no warning, and you'll be amazed how often you will throw your enemy off balance if he thinks you're going to rush headlong at him and instead are suddenly angled in at him from a direction he didn't expect, and suddenly he has to figure out how to maintain his formation while changing direction next turn.

I think the best thing you can do to increase the survivability of your B-wings is stay conservative with the upgrades. They can take a ton of hits, but with only 1 agility they are likely to take some damage every time they are shot at.

If you want an upgrade to keep them alive, I would actually go with Improved Sensors, getting your action every turn means you will get those focuses and barrel rolls when you really need them.

I think the best thing you can do to increase the survivability of your B-wings is stay conservative with the upgrades. They can take a ton of hits, but with only 1 agility they are likely to take some damage every time they are shot at.

If you want an upgrade to keep them alive, I would actually go with Improved Sensors, getting your action every turn means you will get those focuses and barrel rolls when you really need them.

Advanced Sensors, but yes, agreed - the uses for it are endless. It's really going to shine once you get into 'knife-fighting' range, yes, but it's never NOT helpful.

One really nice use for it, barrel-rolling off of a bomb token or asteroid before executing your move. It's situational, because not only do you have to be on the obstacle, but you have to be on the obstacle at a point where you could place the barrel roll template in such a way that no part of it touches the obstacle. If you're smack dab on a rock/bomb, with obstacle template sticking out both sides and in front of you, yeah you're probably still SOL.

BUT, if you catch it with an edge, or ALMOST but not quite completely clear it, rolling free and then executing your move can really save your bacon (the turn after you originally landed on it, obviously). I've used that a number of times where my move template would have forced me to roll damage a second time clearing a rock, or triggered a proximity mine to detonate.

Advanced Sensors are awesome, for all of the reasons people have listed here.

I have a couple of pictures on my TC blog post that show the variance you can do with a simple 2 turn:

http://teamcovenant.com/pheaver/2013/11/17/playing-as-or-against-my-worlds-list/

Paul

Advanced Sensors are awesome, for all of the reasons people have listed here.

I have a couple of pictures on my TC blog post that show the variance you can do with a simple 2 turn:

http://teamcovenant.com/pheaver/2013/11/17/playing-as-or-against-my-worlds-list/

Paul

Paul! You're a rock star - get a **** avatar.

This man knows of what he speaks, people. Won two major tournaments the same weekend using a squad that included B-Wings with AdvS, right Paul?

Definitely go check out his link - that's a great article he put up a while back over on the Team Covenant page.

I'll give the ol b-wing a shot again and we'll see if the stupid thing survives past turn 2. I'm planning on modifying my tournament wedge list to drop in the B-Wing. That means I'll be using a core I'm somewhat familiar with so the big difference will be dropping Wedge (my normal hammer) for a Dagger Squadron w/ Advanced Sensors. So...

I'll be going FROM this:

Wedge, Expert Handling

Green Squadron, PtL, Concussion Missile

Green Squadron, PtL, Concussion Missile

Prototype

TO This:

Dagger Squadron, Advanced Sensors

Green Squadron, PtL, Concussion Missile

Green Squadron, PtL, Concussion Missile

I'll be picking up extra attack dice at the cost of my standard blocker. I also suspect the Dagger will hand out less punch than Wedge, but will, ideally, knife fight better.

I worry a little about the Greens there; squad lacks a lot of punch if your alpha strike fails to land the kind of knockout blows you need.

Two of my favorite B-Wing squads involve what I call the Biggs Delivery System:
Naked Biggs (25)
3x Blues with Advs (25 each)

or

Biggs + R2F2 (28)
3x Blues with FCS (24 each)

Lots of firepower there, especially if you manage to keep Biggs alive long enough for him to kind of joust in and out of the resulting knife fight.

I love them.

I used two of them last tournament with ion canons and FCS (with two y wings with ion turrets)

I dont know if ion is the most effective, but is sure is fun

(something dies a little bit in the other player when they understand thay you will be the one moving his ships very often this game)

It stopped Wedge fro recovering his shields with r2d2 and crashed tiefighters into asteroids.

And I really like the dial with the short moves.

If have tiefightes behind me I can move 1.

Ion is not a bad option for a B-Wing - I don't USE it much, but yeah not much more satisfying than zapping someone with Ion, having them crash into you, then you 2K behind them and maul them in the combat round.

Also, tagging ships with some Ion shots at range 3 is an excellent way to throw them off their attack vector while you gain some ground and get into close range where the B-Wing shines.

I worry a little about the Greens there; squad lacks a lot of punch if your alpha strike fails to land the kind of knockout blows you need.

Two of my favorite B-Wing squads involve what I call the Biggs Delivery System:

I would love for someone to verify my math, but as far as I know, the Green Squadron is slightly more likely to get 3 hits at range 1 with target and focus than the Blue is to get 3 hits at range 1 with just a target lock or a focus. Of course, the blue squadron has a ~35% chance to get 4 hits, but its a fair trade considering that the Green Squadron can Evade + Focus any time it wants to avoid taking damage, while the Blue Squadron pretty much has to eat damage all the time.