Tycho - Stress really doesn't matter w/ Tyco. His signature move is a 5 K turn, followed by a push the limits focus and target lock to launch a missile while being behind enemy ships. I find, by the end of a game with Tycho, I've got a stack of stress on him, but otherwise he performs the same as a higher pilot skill Green.

So you are doing that fancy K-turn trick once in the whole game? Because Tycho still is not allowed to execute red maneuvers when stressed, which means you would need to hand out your dial to your opponent when trying reds on overstressed Tycho... I don't think he will end up in good positions then

I've never seen a Tycho ending a game with more then 2 stress tokens

The idea of 12 A- wings tooled up scares the hell out of me, although as shown earlier I would love to proton bomb the hell out of them(I'm an imp player).

But the prospect of an opponent facing of against all of sable's shuttles i find hilarious.

The range of emotions on their face, I can see it now, confusion, fear, panic, bewilderment etc..

Oh and just to bring up one topic out of my previous post, am I the only (or one of a few) person that finds Tycho to expensive for what he does, and a bad investment on a A-wing? His maneuvering with stress does get a bit better but with no red maneuvers to do the real movement lacks imo. Only the initiate move of the flip around (forgot its name) and then focus and target lock seems like a good one shot move. And his attack still remains at 2.

From the perspective of an Imperial player (God saves the Emperor) A-Wings are quite nasty little flies, especially if they are only PS1. There is a guy I play against regulary on local tourneys who like to include at least one A-Wing. And this A-Wing in the end made the difference in some battles. In my last game I brought 4 Bombers with Jonus, and he attacked very early and aggressive with this one A-Wing while he his main force was moving very slowly. I of courst don't wanted to waste my ordnance for the A-Wing nor i intended to split up my firepower, so I ignored the A-Wing and headed to unload my stuff at his B-Wings with success ... in the end I lost my last Bomber against his lonely A-Wing with 1 hull point left. The constant 'needle stings' at my Bombers over the whole battle made this one worthwhile and the hero of the match.

This wasn't the first time that his A-Wing ruined my day ...

I think A-Wings are good just the way like they are. If they get the possibility of an System Upgrade slot in exchange for the missile slot someday ... this would still be ok ... System Upgrades would make them more expensive and thus a more attractive target to shoot at upfront.

Personally I like 4 Green Squad a-wings with Homing Missiles and Adenaline rush. 100 points even

Personally I like 4 Green Squad a-wings with Homing Missiles and Adenaline rush. 100 points even

That actually sounds like a deathly small force. And probably the best use of Adrenaline Rush.

I wished the Gamma Bombers could use 'their own' Adrenaline Rush upgrade card.........

The down side is you have less offense, but the plus side is your offense is more predictable than the X-Wing. Target Lock + Focus is generally 3 hits at range 1, and at longer ranges you can Focus + evade to be both hard to hit as well as having a decent chance of 2 hits. Missiles can get you excellent burst damage early, though they are substantially more effective vs Rebels than Imperials, as one good roll defense roll will negate all but a pittance of damage from a concussion missile.

Sadly, the damage isn't even that much more consistent than you may think. The less defense a target has, the better the A-wing will do, comparatively speaking. 3 base dice with focus will always do more average damage than 2 base dice with focus + target lock, against agility 1-3 targets.

There are a few cases where TL + focus with one less dice will be more likely to land at least one or possibly two hits, namely, against very low agility targets. Against TIEs, the X-Wing is categorically better in almost* every regard.

* (range 1 vs 3 dice w/o focus, probability of getting 1+ hit is the very small exception)

At range 2+, the X-wing is basically flat-out better. There are a couple of minor cases where the A-wing has a couple percentage points of a better chance at landing one hit, but the difference is minor, and overshadowed by its inferior chances of doing 2+ damage.

Bottom line: A-wings with PtL need to get in range 1 and pick on low-agility targets, otherwise X-wings deal superior damage.

Missiles are another interesting case that I'll be happy to bring some numbers for in a later post.

This is actually something i can talk about from practical experience from multiple tournaments. While over many, many games the numbers you have posted will pan out, in a tournament you need generally 4 games in a row of consistent performance to win. If I absolutely need to deal damage in an A-Wing (I've got an enemy Rookie X-Wing with 1 hit left) I've got a few options between Target Lock, Boost, and Focus. Alternatively, if I absolutely need to survive for another round (I've got no shot this round), I've got the options of Boost, Evade, and Focus.

Generally once during a tournament (especially back when only wave one was out), I've ended up in a situation where I've needed a rookie to perform - say, something like I've got Howlrunner with 2 damage in Range 2 with no tokens. If I don't kill her, I'm going to eat attacks from 4 or 5 academy pilots with the howl runner bonus. The rookie has run with a target lock or a focus and whiffs the attack hardcore (2 blanks and an eyeball). If I focused, I've got 1 hit. If I've target locked, I can reroll everything and just really, really hope I don't whiff again and pull at least 2 hits. In this situation, I hope i target locked and I also hope I can naturally roll 2 hits. If I don't, this one bad roll may cost me the game, and I can no longer win the tournament. A PtL Green Squadron in this situation Target Locks and Focuses. I roll 1 Eyeball and 1 blank. I can blow the target lock to reroll the blank and hope for anything but another blank, and then spend the focus token to get 2 hits. Howrlrunner probably goes down, but either way at least I've got 3 green dice on defense for the blast of attacks coming back at me.

The bigger the tournament, the more I'm willing to trade potential burst damage for the ability to negate bad dice consistently.

The idea of 12 A- wings tooled up scares the hell out of me, although as shown earlier I would love to proton bomb the hell out of them(I'm an imp player).

But the prospect of an opponent facing of against all of sable's shuttles i find hilarious.

The range of emotions on their face, I can see it now, confusion, fear, panic, bewilderment etc..

when putting 2 Orbital Space Bison with engine upgrades on the table I see that expression. Quadruple that and probably a little more and you have something!

I do love awings. They are fun to fly. They don't do the one thing that wins you games at this point (damage your opponent) as well as other options at the same point cost. They do a lot of incremental things that in the right situation can level that on a small scale. I have never been happy with taking 2 awings or 3 awings. Vs. non-turrett, non-interceptor lists I am usually happy with 1 green+ ptl instead of an extra rookie.

Another thing that may (or may not) be worth mentioning is that if you ever play any of the missions in the rulebooks the A-wings really shine. Great at getting in to steal those canisters, throwing a swarm together to escort your political shuttle, as well as surviving any of the missions where the imps have to take out one ship.

My wife and I recently played Asteroid run and I took the falcon as the target ship- her Acadamy TIE's ate me alive. Like seriously, I had about 4 turns in a row where I was just barely in range of the edge to escape, but she blocked me so completely that I couldn't move and so I just sat there while she whittled me down. It was pathetic.

The next day we played Preystalker, and this time I took a fully loaded Tycho (PtL, Stealth Device, a few other things). She only got like 2 shots off at him the whole and neither were even close to hitting.

The A-wing is definitely my favorite rebel ship, it's rare for me to not have at least one on the board. I always put stealth device on them, 4 defense dice are you kidding me... and its a ship that is fast enough to catch any thing else. It's so easy to get in range one to give yourself an extra attack die as well.

I've been quit fond of both Green+PTL+Missile, and plain Proto's. That PS1 blocker is always fun to have!

Also fond of playing large squadron games. Currently only have 9 A-Wings, but they'll get up to full squadron of 12 eventually.

Personally I like 4 Green Squad a-wings with Homing Missiles and Adenaline rush. 100 points even

Suddenly GSP's like Tycho (but with one use)

The boys have tried all kinds of units against my A wings and just cant crack the nut

Green +PTL+ assult missile + stealth device ×11

Tycho + same upgades

IMO push the limit was made for the Green Squadron A Wing.

Your opponents might need to rethink their strategies.

It looks like a good list, but certainly not unbeatable. Next time, tell them to try this for 400 points:

Vader + Concussion Missiles (33)

Maarek Steele + PtL + Concussion Missiles (34)

Major Rhymer + APT + PtL (35)

Captain Jonus + Concussion Missiles + PtL (29)

Gamma Squadron + Concussion Missiles x7 (22*7 = 154)

Gamma Squadron + Assault Missiles x5 (23*7 = 115)

A third to half of the A-Wings will be dead in the first round before they even shoot.

Also, in large games, Assault missiles start to work really well because of all the clustered targets. So that will certainly help a full squad of A-Wings. The above imperial list relies on some synergy with Jonus, so Assault Missiles would do well once the Greens that are left get a chance to shoot.

I'll have to do some math including stealth device to see the expected damage numbers. But the above squad can target 5 A-wings with 2 Concussion Missiles + 1 Assault Missile. And then you also have Rhymer's TL + focus APT.

For me, A-wings are that cheap missile boat. Throw out a couple of A-wings with Assault missiles and watch your opponent's swarm tactic go to pieces.... literally.

Tycho - Stress really doesn't matter w/ Tyco. His signature move is a 5 K turn, followed by a push the limits focus and target lock to launch a missile while being behind enemy ships. I find, by the end of a game with Tycho, I've got a stack of stress on him, but otherwise he performs the same as a higher pilot skill Green.

So you are doing that fancy K-turn trick once in the whole game? Because Tycho still is not allowed to execute red maneuvers when stressed, which means you would need to hand out your dial to your opponent when trying reds on overstressed Tycho... I don't think he will end up in good positions then

I've never seen a Tycho ending a game with more then 2 stress tokens

Try running Squad Leader Wedge or Lando along side Tycho w/ Push the Limits. 4 Actions / turn if you want, at the cost of some extra stress. I haven't run it much, but I can say you'll surprise a lot of people with a 5 move forward + a boost forward + target lock + focus + evade and then fire an assault missile.

I wonder if there is some mileage to get out of the following idea:

As I recall, according to WEG materials back in the day, A-Wings were like hot rods or race cars in that they were certainly fast, but finicky and prone to needing repairs frequently.

I think this near constant working on them also produced a situation where individual pilots had very customized craft. Some had rare wood inlaid cockpits and whatnot. They were also hand built in underground engineering labs.

Maybe the Title system could be used to get some of these effects into the game.

Some A-Wings could shoot their primary weapons behind them, for instance.

Sensor jammers could be introduced as well.

I had a list of titles for awings on a thread awhile back. It's also copy/pasted in the fixing the advanced page.

So to bring us back around to a question of mine, why the hate for A-Wings competitively? For the points, I'm finding a PtL Green Squadron w/ Concussion missile to be competitively superior to an equally costed X-Wing or B-Wing. I haven't run it in a tournament yet, but I'm thinking my next tournament rebel list will be:

Green Squadron. Push the Limits, Homing Missile

Green Squadron. Push the Limits, Homing Missile

Blue Squadron w/ Advanced Sensors

Rookie X-Wing

My biggest concern is the Blue Squadron - I think I'd be more comfortable with that being a Dagger Squadron or even Ibtisam, but I'm not sure I want to drop to 3 ships and I kind of like having the naked X-Wing instead of a prototype.

That's not a terrible list. Concussion Missiles with focus are good, as are Homing Missiles. Homing Missiles come out by a little bit, unless you have Jonus for free rerolls. The problem is that after the missiles have been fired, the A-Wings even with PtL will generally do a fair bit less less damage than X-wings with just focus, all else being equal. See below for the exact numbers for a primary weapons comparison.

Good luck with your tournament.

The down side is you have less offense, but the plus side is your offense is more predictable than the X-Wing. Target Lock + Focus is generally 3 hits at range 1, and at longer ranges you can Focus + evade to be both hard to hit as well as having a decent chance of 2 hits. Missiles can get you excellent burst damage early, though they are substantially more effective vs Rebels than Imperials, as one good roll defense roll will negate all but a pittance of damage from a concussion missile.

Sadly, the damage isn't even that much more consistent than you may think. The less defense a target has, the better the A-wing will do, comparatively speaking. 3 base dice with focus will always do more average damage than 2 base dice with focus + target lock, against agility 1-3 targets.

There are a few cases where TL + focus with one less dice will be more likely to land at least one or possibly two hits, namely, against very low agility targets. Against TIEs, the X-Wing is categorically better in almost* every regard.

* (range 1 vs 3 dice w/o focus, probability of getting 1+ hit is the very small exception)

At range 2+, the X-wing is basically flat-out better. There are a couple of minor cases where the A-wing has a couple percentage points of a better chance at landing one hit, but the difference is minor, and overshadowed by its inferior chances of doing 2+ damage.

Here are the numbers. Sorry, I don't have them in graph form yet. Someday I'll get around to it.

Range 1 vs 1 defense dice, no focus

0 hits 1+ hits 2+ hits 3+ hits 4 hits

0.44% 96.56% 92.7% 51.5% 3 dice + focus + TL = 2.44

2.15% 97.85% 87.01% 58.01% 19.78% 4 dice + focus = 2.63

Range 1 vs 1 defense dice, with focus

0 hits 1+ hits 2+ hits 3+ hits 4 hits

0.71% 99.29% 88.58% 30.90% 3 dice + focus + TL = 2.19

3.32% 96.68% 81.74% 47.46% 11.87% 4 dice + focus = 2.38

Range 1 vs 2 defense dice, no focus

0 hits 1+ hits 2+ hits 3+ hits 4 hits

3.01% 96.99% 77.25% 32.19% 3 dice + focus + TL = 2.06

6.21% 93.79% 76.14% 43.67% 12.36% 4 dice + focus = 2.26

Range 1 vs 2 defense dice with focus

0 hits 1+ hits 2+ hits 3+ hits 4 hits

7.41% 92.59% 52.53% 11.59% 3 dice + focus + TL = 1.57

12.66% 87.34% 60.31% 25.21% 12.36% 4 dice + focus = 1.77

Range 1 vs 3 defense dice, no focus

0 hits 1+ hits 2+ hits 3+ hits 4 hits

10.41% 89.59% 60.35% 20.12% 3 dice + focus + TL = 1.70

12.83% 87.17% 63.96% 31.93% 7.72% 4 dice + focus = 1.91

Range 1 vs 3 defense dice with focus

0 hits 1+ hits 2+ hits 3+ hits 4 hits

32.45% 67.55% 26.94% 4.35% 3 dice + focus + TL = 0.99

29.55% 70.45% 38.38% 12.24% 1.67% 4 dice + focus = 1.23

Range 2 vs 1 defense dice, no focus

0 hits 1+ hits 2+ hits 3 hits

4.79% 95.21% 54.93% 2 dice + focus + TL = 1.50

6.84% 93.16% 68.55% 26.37% 3 dice + focus = 1.88

Range 2 vs 1 defense dice, with focus

0 hits 1+ hits 2+ hits 3 hits

7.71% 92.29% 32.96% 2 dice + focus + TL = 1.25

10.35% 89.65% 58.01% 15.82% 3 dice + focus = 1.63

Range 2 vs 2 defense dice, no focus

0 hits 1+ hits 2+ hits 3 hits

19.89% 80.11% 34.33% 2 dice + focus + TL = 1.14

16.06% 83.94% 52.73% 16.48% 3 dice + focus = 1.53

Range 2 vs 2 defense dice, with focus

0 hits 1+ hits 2+ hits 3 hits

44.79% 55.21% 12.36% 2 dice + focus + TL = 0.68

30.13% 69.87% 31.64% 5.93% 3 dice + focus = 1.07

Range 2 vs 3 defense dice, no focus

0 hits 1+ hits 2+ hits 3 hits

37.06% 62.94% 21.46% 2 dice + focus + TL = 0.84

27.76% 72.24% 39.14% 10.3% 3 dice + focus = 1.22

Range 2 vs 3 defense dice, with focus

0 hits 1+ hits 2+ hits 3 hits

71.57% 28.43% 4.63% 2 dice + focus + TL = 0.33

54.02% 45.98% 15.57% 2.22% 3 dice + focus = 0.64

Bottom line: A-wings with PtL need to get in range 1 and pick on low-agility targets, otherwise X-wings deal superior damage.

Missiles are another interesting case that I'll be happy to bring some numbers for in a later post.

That's not a terrible list. Concussion Missiles with focus are good, as are Homing Missiles. Homing Missiles come out by a little bit, unless you have Jonus for free rerolls. The problem is that after the missiles have been fired, the A-Wings even with PtL will generally do a fair bit less less damage than X-wings with just focus, all else being equal. See below for the exact numbers for a primary weapons comparison.

Good luck with your tournament.

So, more or less, the A-Wing with TL and Focus is a fraction of a hit worse than the X-Wing (.4 hits worst case it looks like). Unless the A-Wing can boost from Range 2 into Range 1 and then focus, in which case, its completely even. Or if the maneuver needed is a 1 turn, in which case the A-Wing will get the shot and the X won't. The A-Wing is also less likely to completely blow an attack it seems. Oh, and at Range 3 the Homing missile is substantially more likely to land hits than a proton torp.

All of that makes it sounds like, for the cost of a fraction of a hit, the A-Wing is the better choice. Also, from looking at the numbers, it seems that the A-Wing with boost and evade should actually be able to avoid the worst of the damage from an X-Wing on its tail.

Yep being able to boost into close range or out of the enemy arc is a huge thing for me. A-Wings can do a decent amount of damage if they are flown right. They are also A LOT tougher than X-Wings, the 3 Agility + the extra maneuverability can make them a pain to kill.

So to bring us back around to a question of mine, why the hate for A-Wings competitively? For the points, I'm finding a PtL Green Squadron w/ Concussion missile to be competitively superior to an equally costed X-Wing or B-Wing. I haven't run it in a tournament yet, but I'm thinking my next tournament rebel list will be:

Green Squadron. Push the Limits, Homing Missile

Green Squadron. Push the Limits, Homing Missile

Blue Squadron w/ Advanced Sensors

Rookie X-Wing

Not bad at all, man. I personally prefer Fire Control System, but this works just as well, if not better in some cases.

So to bring us back around to a question of mine, why the hate for A-Wings competitively? For the points, I'm finding a PtL Green Squadron w/ Concussion missile to be competitively superior to an equally costed X-Wing or B-Wing. I haven't run it in a tournament yet, but I'm thinking my next tournament rebel list will be:

Green Squadron. Push the Limits, Homing Missile

Green Squadron. Push the Limits, Homing Missile

Blue Squadron w/ Advanced Sensors

Rookie X-Wing

My biggest concern is the Blue Squadron - I think I'd be more comfortable with that being a Dagger Squadron or even Ibtisam, but I'm not sure I want to drop to 3 ships and I kind of like having the naked X-Wing instead of a prototype.

Drop your missiles to concussions and you have your upgrade points.

I wonder if there is some mileage to get out of the following idea:

As I recall, according to WEG materials back in the day, A-Wings were like hot rods or race cars in that they were certainly fast, but finicky and prone to needing repairs frequently.

I think this near constant working on them also produced a situation where individual pilots had very customized craft. Some had rare wood inlaid cockpits and whatnot. They were also hand built in underground engineering labs.

Maybe the Title system could be used to get some of these effects into the game.

Some A-Wings could shoot their primary weapons behind them, for instance.

Sensor jammers could be introduced as well.

It would have been nice to have a modification card to allow A-wings to fire backwards. Mind you, it would have been hard to show the auxillary fire arc on the small base insert. Still, this thread has encouraged me to break out my A-wings. Small is beautiful!