I am fairly new to X-Wing, and I have played a few games. But what I have are 2 starter sets, 1 Firespray, 1 YT-1300, 3 Tie Interceptors, 3 B-Wings, 1 X-Wing Expansion and 1 Tie fighter Expansion. I would like some suggestions for building two 100 point fighter squads, no large ships yet, one Rebel and one Imperial. My difficulty is when it comes to adding the abilities. I have not played the game enough to know what cards work well with what ships. I am not asking for people to build squads for me but just give some suggestions on what abilities are good and which abilities is a waste of time. In time I will understand what works with what and then I can share my squad builds (successful builds or going down in flames builds).

Thank you for any help .

Flux Cobalt

I won't comment on imperial builds.

But I would go with XXXB or XXBB... well, I guess you already knew that.

Here's a variation on Blue Thunder you could use.

Rookie

Biggs

Blue w/ HLC

Blue w/ FCS

99 pts

Wedge w/ Swarm

Biggs

Blue

Blue

100 pts

If you're fine proxying cards, you can make the true Blue Thunder, and the Bloody Daggers.

B.T.
Rookie

Rookie

Blue w/ HLC

Blue w/ HLC

B.D.

Red

Red

Dagger w/ AdvS

Dagger w/ AdvS

Rookie

Luke

Blue w/ AdvS

Blue w/ AdvS

On TIE Interceptors:

Fel's Wrath generally blows because his ability isn't useful until he dies, and what if he doesn't die at all? Then you may as well have played an Alpha Squadron Pilot and used the extra points for an upgrade or two.

Soontir Fel works well with Push the Limit. You use PTL to do two actions, which stresses Soontir, but Soontir's ability gives him an extra focus token for being stressed, which is good. It keeps him alive longer (you can use your extra focus token for defense and use the focus token you probably took as a regular action for offense).

Saber Squadron Pilots are great because they're cheaper, generic ships that can take elite pilot talents. In fact, any generic pilot that take an EPT is good in this game.

On TIE Fighters:

Howlrunner is the best one because of her ability. Keep a squadron of fighters in tight around her and she can give each of them a reroll when they attack, which makes all TIE Fighters much more dangerous. This also makes her a target, though, so putting a modification on her like Shield Upgrade or Engine Upgrade to keep her alive is usually a good idea.

Backstabber is another pilot used frequently because of his ability. Works REALLY well with Howlrunner's reroll and when at range 1 of his target.

Academy Pilot is the cheapest pilot in the game, so it gets played a lot. When people mention swarm squads, they're probably talking about a squad with at least several Academy Pilots in it — although sometimes people opt for a swarm of the slightly more expensive Obsidian Squadron Pilot to get a higher pilot skill over people running Academy Pilots and cheap Rebel pilots.

Night Beast is nice because he essentially has a Push the Limit for his ability. People sprinkle in Dark Curse to add defense to their TIE swarms, and Mauler Mithel to add offense to their TIE swarms. All three of these are usually in the TIE swarm variants that employ lots of the named pilots (who are still pretty cheap compared to other ships' pilots).

On Firesprays:

Each pilot, including the generic Bounty Hunter, is useful. Boba Fett is probably the most popular, and frequently gets paired with the Navigator crew card. Boba Fett with Navigator ("Fettigator") allow you to, upon revealing your dial, decide to use any movement on the Firespray's dial.* Navigator only comes with the Lambda Shuttle, though.

Bounty Hunter is probably the second-most popular, since it's the cheapest Firespray and can be included more easily into lists. Heavy Laser Cannon and Gunner are popular choices on any Firespray, BTW. That combo makes them very lethal.

Krassis is the best pilot for the Firespray, IMO. His ability lets you reroll a die when using a secondary weapon, and since Heavy Laser Cannon is a secondary weapon... it's pretty hard to stop that steamroller.

No one really puts missiles on Firesprays, by the way. Bombs only occasionally. I guess because Heavy Laser Cannon is usually a much better option.

*Except for going straight. You have to choose to go straight beforehand. Navigator and Boba Fett's ability won't let you choose a straight movement.

edited...

Danthrax pretty much said it for the Imp side of things. i would add the following...

Turr Phennir is pretty good too, as it's easy to abuse his ability with Push The Limit (known hereafter as PTL).

ex. move, take action, shoot, bonus action kicks in triggering PTL allowing you another action after the attack. could Move, Focus, shoot, boost and then barrel roll out of the arch of whomever you just shot at.

Interceptors are very maneuverable, and this just feeds into it nicely.

Dark Curse is annoying (for your opponent), which is good for you...especially if you have luck issues when it comes to dice like i do. He shuts down re-rolling shenanigans, and negates blaster turret completely. With a stealth device, Dark Curse can live a long time.

B-Wings work very well with a Heavy Laser Cannon. I think you'll only have 1 HLC since it's 1 per slave-1 and 1 per Lambda, so you could do 2 B-Wings and 2 X-Wings, like a Ten Numb with Autoblaster, and a blue squadron with HLC... then 2 cheap X-Wings, or maybe a 3 ship build, upgrading an X-Wing to maybe Wedge, Luke, or Biggs, adding in some mods to each ship.

Engine upgrade is good for the B-Wings, especially Ten Numb if you want to get him in close for a strong range 1 shot. If doing that, Biggs would probably be the ideal X-wing choice, since he'll keep Ten Numb safer.

Or then again go with the big 3 X-Wings. Luke, Biggs, and Wedge. Give luke a shield upgrade, r2d2, and draw their fire - so he can absorb and repair some of Bigg's hits.

im a fan of Backstabber. he is on a par with dark curse (same pts) but u get a more offensive ship - getting that extra attack dice by being outside the defenders firing arc is pretty easy to achieve making his ability that much stronger - at close range from the rear or flank he gets 4 red dice, thats the same as an x-wing (but close range shots are harder to pull off).

Looking at those ships I see the possibility of 4 squads SIMULTANEOUSLY at 100 points each althing I may be ignoring where some of the upgrades go:

Small Imperial Swarm (99):

Turr + VI + Stealth Device [drop VI causes him to shoot later but help with initiative]

Howlrunner + Determination + SD

Academy Pilot (x4)

Not quite the 7 ships swarm but uses all five of your TIE Fighters and Turr as the outlier/annoyance provider.

Imperial Elites (99):

Soontir Fel

Turr + VI

Boba Fett + Expert Handling + Gunner

With your Rebels you get a HSF variation using a Falcon + 2 Fighters which leaves you with the remaining 4 fighters for an final squadron using 3 or 4 of them. Maybe:

Han + Gunner + Chewbacca + title [if you're not sharing then Gunner can't be here and on Boba]

Blue Squadron B-Wings (x2)

leaving you an XXXB build for your remaining ships