I know this is a popular rebel ship combination, but I wondered if anyone has advice for me on this setup. It's pretty basic, but I really like the firepower it brings with the HLC. Is it solid?

2 x Blue Advanced Sensors

1 x Blue HLC

1 x Rookie

I'm still pretty new to the game and there aren't a lot of players in my area... yet.

Quite like the look of it, get the feeling hlc blue will be the main target but 3 other 3 attack ships should still bring enough fire power

With advanced sensors I prefer them on daggers for the extra plot skill

Short answer - it depends on your local meta and what you're playing against. Long answer - it won't be competitive. Shooting completely at PS2 means that the only time you'll get to kill something before it shoots at you is against a TIE swarm, which is one of the few lists that this might do well against. Though personally, I like the howlrunner + 6x Obsidians, so in that config, you will be decimated. It should stand a chance against large ship builds.

The competitive meta seems to be shifting towards PS3+, at least for half of the fleet. With that in mind, their squad will shoot first, likely killing one of your B wings - I'd target the HLC unless you're protecting it (as you should) by having it at a further range. So, one of your advanced will likely be at R2 and will die before it gets a shot off. The HLC and Blue/Rookie will shoot back, now with a total of 10 dice, they're probably kill something off. Meanwhile, I'd now close to R1, making the HLC useless. I'd kill it off, since next turn it will be at R2 again. Now down to 2 ships, you severely hurt one of mine, but don't kill it. The next turn, I take out the other B, and the rookie takes out my damaged ship. It's now full health rookie vs. 2 PS4 ships. GG.

And I'm sure that there are ways that you could fly this - flanking with the HLC comes to mind that would make it better than a straight joust that I described, but the B doesn't really have the speed to flank fast enough, so it won't be in the first engagement, so only 2 ships will be shooting back at me, the 3 you brought up the middle, less the 1 I killed due to shooting first. The X wing might be able to flank, but it doesn't have the maneuverability or speed of the A wing to get up there and action deny, or the power of the HLC to get in there and wreck havoc. Jack of all trades, but master of none. While the match up I described was against another 4 rebel list (though a 3 rebel list would be just as dangerous) I see similar things happening against the imps. Against multiple large ships, you might stand a good chance since they can only shoot once per turn, even if they have lots of health. So you're more likely to stick around longer, and you can bring the hurt to knock them out too.

It can be more competitive than you think. My 4x Blue + AdvS squad does quite well. The key with low PS is to not just charge headlong at the enemy, but find lines of approach that force them to bank or turn to come at you, where they're more likely to hit rocks, bump ships and lose actions, or just wind up with not all of their ships in range where they can mass fire on you as effectively as they'd like to.

Actually if I had one suggestion for your list it would be a slight tweak to this:
1 x Rookie

2 x Blue + Fire Control Systems

1 x Blue + Fire Control Systems + HLC

I loves me some Advanced Sensors, but I think it behooves you to get FCS on your HLC to make it a more terrifying target - and the easiest way to do so is to downgrade from AdvS to FCS on the other two as well.

That could be quite a competitive squad if flown smartly, because you can hang the HLC back, probably with the Rookie running interference for him - if they're ignoring him to shoot at the HLC he might be able to K-turn in behind them and cause real pain. The other two Blues with FCS will be landing quite a bit of damage while everyone is panicking trying to kill the heavy laser. If you can get a couple of kills while they're trying to haul the HLC down kicking and screaming you've got a real shot.

Looks pretty solid, and I was thinking about a similar squad the other day, but with a Y instead of the X:

Blue Squad + Adv Sensors x2

Blue Squad + Ion + FCS

YWing plus Ion

Ywing out front messing with swarm movement via ion, and hopefully getting shot first.

Blue hitting hard behind. I've seen double Y double blue lists, but I think this has more flexibility, the 3rd B can shoot the ion at first to mess who formation flying and take advantage of secondary weapon range 3 advantage, but later in the game can switch to its powerful normal weapon.

I definitely planed on running the HLC well behind the other blues and using the X-wing to run interference if needed. I also don't want a straight up joust if I can use rocks and advanced sensors to my benefit.

Higher PS would be nice, but it seems difficult to get on a 4 ship rebel build with any upgrades. I supposed the sensor blues could hopefully take the higher PS fire at range (or through rocks) well enough to get at least a round of firing to even the odds before one or two goes down.

All in all I'm not all-in on the blues, is dropping a sensor blue for a higher PS pilot or ship a good call? Is one higher PS pilot really enough?\

@CrookedWookie the FCS isn't something I have played yet, but I may give that a try.

I have had success with the following:

Ibtisam w/ Advanced Sensors

Blue Squad B-wing

Blue Squad B-wing

Biggs

TOTAL: 100 points

Lots of good things going on here: good health and firepower, Biggs can protect B-wings from being focused down first, some decent pilot skill to shoot before academies etc., and Ibtisam can do an action+perform a red move+ get her reroll from stress all in the same round.

I have had success with the following:

Ibtisam w/ Advanced Sensors

Blue Squad B-wing

Blue Squad B-wing

Biggs

TOTAL: 100 points

Lots of good things going on here: good health and firepower, Biggs can protect B-wings from being focused down first, some decent pilot skill to shoot before academies etc., and Ibtisam can do an action+perform a red move+ get her reroll from stress all in the same round.

This is a great build and I run something similar to it. Suggestion though: Give Biggs R2-D2 and replace Ibtisam with a Dagger Squad. You're not really taking advantage of her skill and the difference between SP4 and 6 is little. R2-D2 is a game changer though!

I had some success with multi bwing lists and Roark. He solves the firing order problem. I did add in a HLC a few times but just didn't like how it forced me on defense from round 1. That was early in my rebel {scum} spy days with less knowledge of Bwings.

Blue Garnet Cannon

Roark + ion

Blue + advS + HLC

Blue

Blue

Might be able to drop AdvS and move one blue up to a dagger. Also just moved it to one of the non-HLC blues to spread points and give me a more mobile option at engagement.

Roark slows the advance 1 round to ensure that 2nd-3rd HLC hit an lets a dying blocker or the big fun shoot first. The other 2 blues work with Roark to block access and focus down an enemy. I think I was 1-1 with the original set up and 1 win with the move sensors build. I'm about 7-3 overall with Roark + multi Bwings. I settled on blaster, recon Roark, and a dagger squad, blue, and rookie (blue garnet dagger!) for my preferred list.

My XXXB list is:

Biggs

Blue + FCS

Blue + FCS

Dagger + Advanced Sensor

I just wanted some way to really capitalize on FCS without my Blues dying in the initial exchange, so I added Biggs. I had 3 blues with FCS, but found that all 3 shooting and TLing the same target wasn't useful.

It's a lot different from your list, with no HLC. However, FCS can really boost damage. Just another direction you could go with XXXB.

I got to play the original list this weekend.

Blue adv sensors x2

Blue HLC

Rookie Pilot (x wing)

I played versus:

Turr

Saber squad

Holwrunner

Academy Tie x3

I was able to place asteroids in such a way as to plan my approach to use them for cover and rely on advanced sensors to get me around them on a later turn. As a result in many cases the higher skilled pilots had range 2 or 3 shots through a rock only on the advanced sensor Blues.

This is really how I envisioned the squad working and by managing the targets my opponent had a choice of I was able to mitigate the Higher PS shooting and survive the first turn of fire with all of my ships intact. It will be interesting to see how it performs versus a higher PS squadron.

I won the game and am satisfied enough with the squad to play it a few more times.

Thanks for all of the great suggestions for bbbx, I do intend to try out some of them.

My XXXB list is:

Biggs

Blue + FCS

Blue + FCS

Dagger + Advanced Sensor

I just wanted some way to really capitalize on FCS without my Blues dying in the initial exchange, so I added Biggs. I had 3 blues with FCS, but found that all 3 shooting and TLing the same target wasn't useful.

It's a lot different from your list, with no HLC. However, FCS can really boost damage. Just another direction you could go with XXXB.

Isn't that BBBX?