I’m Dave, an avid X Wing Miniatures player. If you’re reading this, you probably are too! I play in events all around the UK and on TTS. I’ve been playing for over 10 years… you’d think I would know better by now!
What happened? One minute I was musing about what FO can do and the next minute… well, I had to travel for work, then for a short holiday, then pre-christmas stuff, then Christmas… and here we are! 4 weeks later. Doesn’t time fly!
In x-wing terms, I played a bunch of games, all online. In every case I played the same list:
I think this is the cumulation of all the learnings over the last 10 weeks:
Lots of containment – all ships are able to take multiple actions or (in the case of Malarus and Kylo) make sure that there are extra mods available.
Tanky. Most ships have a very respectable stat-line to ensure less chance of being one-shotted.
Cheap and cheerful! Most ships are very respectably priced (Malarus at 10 is very good value, and the test pilots are very decent at 12).
It’s also a list I felt really comfortable with – lots of ace-y style flying and things to surprise at the last minute.
I flew this list in 7 games, and the result was… middling – I won 3 and lost 4. Unfortunately, the one thing that stops this list cold in its tracks is high initiative aces. More specifically Fenn Rau: I ran into him in at least 3 games and in each, this list doesn’t really have an answer to him. In 3 separate games, Fenn managed to 1 shot a “Malarus Modded” Malarus. In all the Scum games, I was roundly thrashed with Fenn being the biggest issue, but also Mando and
However, in the games where I wasn’t against Fenn it went pretty well!
So at the risk of being “that guy”, I have to say that Fenn Rau (SL) is a bit of a problem. He’s really good value and a massively dangerous piece on the board. I think 15 is about 2 points too cheap in the current climate – with most lists gravitating to 4 (maybe 5) ships, the ability to consistently put out 5 dice with mods with complimentary damage prevention (the concordia effect and 4 dice at range 1) is a really dangerous combination. If you compare him to other “top dogs” per faction, he really comes out well because he’s such a focused package. Other than the force, there’s nothing he doesn’t have! Yes, he is slightly susceptible to being ganged up on outside of range 1, but that’s why being I6 helps! Obviously, though, having been at the receiving end of things recently, I probably would say this…
So at the end of the year, it being a time for reflection, it’s time to make a difficult choice! My original plan was to stick with FO until the other side of Sith Taker Open in the hope that I could find something I got on with and something that would help me win. After 10 weeks (tied to the Nickle City league), I’ve tried all the things I can think of that I’d like, and yet the results were, at best, middling. As such, I think it’s time for a change. With the new year basically upon us, I’m going to try another faction to try and take it through to STO (and maybe beyond). More on this next time!
So, a short and sweet post this week, but I wish you a Happy New Year and see you around in 2026!
This week I played 4 games of X Wing… 2 in person and 2 via TTS. Over these, I have come to a few conclusions about containment and value, and once again changed my preferred list from the one I THOUGHT was really good last week to one that’s already 2 games in this week and doing… OK?
But that’s enough executive summary. Let’s get down to details:
At the end of last week, I had settled on what I thought was a Very Good List:
“Muse” – TIE/fo Fighter (8) Squad Leader (5) Fire-Control System (2) Automated Target Priority (1) Precision Ion Engines (1) Precision Ion Engines (which he can’t use but you have to use every point, right?).
The “trick” is to drop a concussion bomb on turn one near Rush and make him I6 in the first turn. This is easy enough to do, but means you effectively give your opponent 2.167 points immediately. Then the rest of the game is flying around shooting things.
In my first game back sunday week ago, I was flying against Larry Leach, who was both a new player and recovering from a virus. His list was:
A non-meta Imperial list with lots of munitions, but not many way of getting double mods.
We were playing Assualt (which gave Larry the advantage with more ships). In essence, I did “the Trick” which gave me my I6 Rush and slow played to the middle of the board. Larry got his guys to the middle too and then we basically had a showdown… The Gunboat was destroyed before he could shoot giving me an early lead, but then Breach got a bit greedy and flew into the arcs of 3 ships getting vapourised. Over the next couple of turns, Kylo and Rush were able to eat their way through Tomax and Captain Jonus (the worst Jonus Brother) and Pure Sabaac unfortunately parked himself onto a rock losing his specialness. At the end of the game, Sabaac had 1 hull left and was ionised and Maarek Steel was in good shape but far behind all the ships.
Final score: 50-27 to me.
So I was feeling pretty good about my new list. Very good indeed! There’s something very powerful about MurderKylo and genuinely any list with 2x high initiative Silencers (probably the FO’s best ships!) is very cool indeed. That said, I made 1 change – Advanced Proton Torpedoes on Rush for Plasma Torpedoes, as they are decent against most shielded opponents.
Having suffered at the hands of Ian “X Wing Jesus” Wardle and a bunch of Defenders last week, I was delighted to be showing up to Thursday Night club again with a new list that felt… Right. .
So of all the lists in all the world, Ian brings one that basically shuts down lock-based munitions. Yay.
Just breaking this down:
Magva stops you rerolling more than 1 dice when attacking
Norra gets extra evade results when at Range 0-1 of anyone
Lowrick can give an extra evade result in a pinch
They nearly all have force
Braylen does… Braylen things.
We played 2 games, and in both cases, it was very hard to pin down anything with Magva in range. In the first game I was able to do some nasty damage to Norra who flew too far away from the pack, but wasn’t able to finish the job. The combination of Lowrick, Magva, and my fairly rubbish dice in a clutch meant Ian won both games BUT by a much lower margin than last week (49-51 and 43-51), so there’s progress there.
Afterwards, we talked about both lists. Ian was fairly convinced Braylen wasn’t pulling his weight and I was thinking Muse wasn’t pulling hers. In both cases, it was all about containment…
Muse is the cheapest co-ordinator FO can field. At 8 points with 9 loadout, she is well set up to take Squad Leader, and can also ditch the inevitable stress at the start of the engagement phase. However, 2 big issues:
She only has 2 dice to attack with
She is usually unmodded (or at best has a calculate token due to ATP).
This limits her effectiveness and also makes her a soft target (I mean… do you want to shoot at MurderKylo, or an unmodded ship that hasn’t probably shot yet!). In most games, even if she runs away, she is one of the first targets to go down because she lacks containment. Yes, she’s cheap, but her very rational for being in the list makes her easy prey.
In a similar way, Braylen loves being stressed, but this really limits his time on target. B-Wings don’t have the best dial (although in the best case could borrow the use of Kanan on Lowrick – although this means Low won’t have any mods) but that still limits what he can do (Blue or white moves and he then has to get stressed again to allow rerolls). Braylen is a solid piece but by doing what he’s supposed to do, his movement and time on target is very limited.
So let’s consider what a contained piece should have:
Does their ability or chasis allow them to do something useful?
Does their dial support what they are trying to do?
Do they operate independently without needing to be around other ships?
Can they get multiple mods or actions a turn?
Are they cheap OR cost effective?
if the answer is “yes” to all of these, you probably have a self-contained ship.
For my list, both Muse and Breach are suspect: Muse for reasons given, and Breach because the dial is iffy and chances of double mods are limited (good selection of actions, but not all supportive of the pilot ability).
So I took another hard look at what ships in FO can do this and found the following:
Kylo is expensive but is very self-contained. He has passive mods with the force, he can jam, and this version has a very high probability of getting maximum attack dice on any attack if he has a focus due to Advanced Optics. A great start.
Commander Malarus is again a great choice as he can double mod (for 2 turns) and with Clusters can THEORETICALLY do 2 super-modded attacks.
Holo is again very handy. His ability is a double edged sword, since if you aren’t careful you could end up passing off a useful mod, but if you can find a low value donor, you can basically be double modded most of the game.
And Epsilon Squadron Cadets… hear me out here… they are really strong. I’m sure you can recall tales of TIE Fighters that just won’t die, and these guys are slightly tougher! The extra shield vs their Imperial / Scum cousins make them just that bit hardier and their dial is also so much better. Just as a bonus, they have native target lock. For 6 points (barely 1 point more than other Ties) they are really good value. They are so cheap they allow for a 5 ship list which. When you consider the other 3 ships are all I5 and pretty self contained (except Holo, but more on that later…), isn’t bad.
So another new list and 2 games to try it out this week!
The first game was my weekly NCX League game against DJ McNeillis, also flying FO.
So some very interesting ideas! The core of it was Lt Rivas… the cheeky TIE FO can acquire locks easily and share them via Targeting Synchronizer, allowing Breach and Kylo to fire rockets without much of a care. Zeta 5 is already famous for being “that Tie Fighter than can do 5 damage attacks” and Static is a cheap crit dealer. The only issue with it is that most of the list doesn’t reposition easily… but that’s still a fair bit of firepower on Breach and Kylo alone!
As it transpired, Breach go separated from the main pack to be brutally harassed and killed by Kylo and Malarus. However, one of my squaddies and Holo also got bushwhacked… but not before Static got taken off the board. My Kylo got halved and so did his, but in the last turn Zeta 5 clipped a rock and died.
Final score 58-44 to me, although that doesn’t really say how close it was – after I got an early lead, DJ did well to bring it back.
So a first win, but possible a little premature to start celebrating. Against 5 ships, the Cadets struggled a little and in one case died outright before they could shoot. But against 4 ships I was confident this would be fine. So on to the next game…
Late Sunday evening saw me fly vs the very excellent James Humphreys. This game was for TTS Top Gun league which I had yet to score on yet, so I really wanted a win. However, James is a very good player and we’ve flown against each other IRL a few times over the years. I was expecting him to fly FO, since that’s mostly what I’d seen him fly…
Except James flew something like this:
Lieutenant Karsabi – Alpha-Class Star Wing (10) Marksmanship (2) Fire-Control System (2) Advanced SLAM (3) Xg-1 Assault Configuration (0) Ion Cannon (6)
(Note – I can’t remember the exact loadout for Vizier or Sai… but honestly, I don’t think it mattered).
There’s a lot to like about this list:
All ships are 10 points
All are self-contained, but can work better together.
Although they are all low initiative, Goran is here, as dick-ish as ever.
At least 3 are very fast if they want to be
Lots of co-ordinate
So although it’s off meta, it’s a really strong list.
The mission was Scramble the Transmissions (which should have given me an advantage due to higher PS). However, I made a very crucial mistake in turn 0. I set up a wall of rocks on the right of the board to scare off the big ships and placed an objective in there. I then set 2 of my I5 ships up to lock it down and scare off Kasabi. By doing this, I effectively cut off 2 of my biggest ships from the main action on the left and overcommitted to chasing a ship that could (and did) SLAM away. Awkward!
I lost one Cadet cheaply and by a foolish mistake that half pointed Kylo on a rock (first time I’d done that in a while). A good recovery saw Goran get halved but NOT DIE to 2 attacks due to… Elusive. In a “you had to see it to believe it”, he initially self bumped a damage into the back of Vizier, leaving him tokenless, and then rolled 1 evade to my 3 hits… only to re-roll a second evade due to Elusive. That, in itself, is pretty rare. The next turn, he slooped (again, no mod) and Kylo rear shot a concussion missile for 1 hit. Goran rolled no evades, but having recharged his Elusive rolled it again… and converted!!! Never tell me the odds, I guess… As punishment, because Kylo rotated his arc and didn’t Jam Stromm, Stromm used his “burn the target lock to flip a damage card” on Kylo and found… Direct Hit killing him.
(In other news, if James is playing the lottery next week. Expect big news from him around Tuesday…)
Losing Kylo and the 2 Cadets was bad. In return, I killed Goran eventually, and halved Vizier, and Stromm. Ultimately, though, 2 vs 4 ships meant the objectives all swung towards James quickly and there’s only so much 2 ships can do.
Final score: 41-55 loss… not as bad as it could have been, but I learned an important lesson about containing the engagement – don’t overcommit to the lesser threat.
So once again, I leave the week in deficit, but with a smile on my face – all my losses were into the 40s this week, suggesting an improvement in something!
So what have we learned this week:
This week was brought to you by the word “Containment”
When it comes to list construction, look for ships that can operate independently AND are good value.
Again, a lesson from week 2 resurfaced: 10 points is probably the sweet spot to look at for ship costs, since there are lots of 10 point ship around that can do a lot for any list.
Don’t overcommit to face off the lesser evil. Pick off the main targets first.
Slap Elusive on everything… apparently.
More next week, where I will report on this new list more and promise (pinky swear) not to change list for at least a week!
Sam flew very cautiously, I flew in full speed, prepared to block and shoot anything that got in the way and follow up with munitions from the I5 rocket jockeys. Great in theory!
What actually happened was that Soontir did Soontir things (taking no damage all game), Whisper snuck around the side, Vader tanked any and all damage and only poor Wampa suffered on Sam’s side (being taken out fairly quickly). On my side, the TIEs were still standing at the end, but Breach was halved, and Malarus and LeHuse (“Les Hughes”) were destroyed. A convincing win for Sam, but it started me thinking…
The core of Sam’s Imperial list is basically 3 ships. Wampa is just a cheap tack-on (you could potentially run the same list with a deluxe Vader for 47 points and drop Wampa altogether, or add a Defender like Jendon instead). It feels that the core elements of the list are really strong point fortresses that are self contained and can survive pretty well against most things.
By comparison, all of my ships are pretty flimsy and need some support to be “good”… Breach, for example, is quite useful with Proton Torpedoes, but needs help getting double mods. Les Hughes (EoQ) is an I5, but is pretty awful as far as it goes – he has less native red dice compared to his “Original Flavour”, and even his ability is less good (you have to bust the lock at the start of the attack phase, where previously you did it when you attacked… stopping things like Quickdraw using FCS on his attack). You can see why he’s a lot cheaper! Aside from the list, though, flying full speed at Soontir is a terrible idea… His high PS means he can always get out of trouble easily.
Later on in the week, I had some in person games vs Ian “XWing Jesus” Wardle (Hi Ian!). In response to my poor efforts earlier in the week, I tried something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:
Major Vonreg – TIE/ba Interceptor (14) Predator (3) Deuterium Power Cells (7) Mag-Pulse Warheads (7)
We played 2 games, and ignoring dice (which weren’t great for me), Ian soundly thrashed my list both times. The closest I came to killing even 1 ship was getting Countess Ryad down to 1 hull in one game. Otherwise, both games I was soundly outflown… none of my ships were able to manage to get any decent shots and even if we did, the Defenders just tanked it off with double mods and a ton of health. Ryad in particular having 8 health is A PROBLEM. For 16 points (just over 6 points in old money), she is an insane package – with 9 loadout and a mod slot, she has options for days… Afterburners, Outmaneuver, Juke and FCS, Collision Detector… etc etc etc. To my mind, she is pretty much an instant-include in any imperial list.
Once again, self contained, efficient ships were able to outperform a bunch of useful ships that need assistance – Midnight is a little exposed without green mods to go with a lock… Quickdraw too. Von Reg is good, but has to take some negative tokens to get double actions. Whirlwind was there to try and exploit a technicality (i.e. get focusses at the start of shooting… but against only 3 ships, it’s a bit redundant). In essence, all 4 ships are OK, but lack a lot of the independence that the 3 Imperial ships do. I know the answer is to try and block them (so they don’t get their evade mod at least) but with less ships on the board, and with less maneuverability for the ships, that’s not so easy.
Over the weekend, it was back to TTS to play my first round in the Top Gun league, organised by Obi Win X-Wing. I’m in the Sorting League since it’s my first time out, and having learned from the other games this week, I thought I’d try something COMPLELTELY DIFFERENT:
Having learned from my first 2 games, I decided that Silencers were the way to go, offering a more solid, self contained chassis and a generally great stat line. I was flying against Beto Diaz from Brazil, who was a great guy and flying:
So… a 3 ship list, and the ships all were pretty self contained… I have to say Koshka vs Silencers was pretty strong (because she can get rerolls vs stressed ships) and look! Full Fat Boba! A really decent, and quite intimidating list.
Once again, I got soundly thrashed. I thought I had a decent engagement, but Koshka with both her ability and Notorious (and shooting after most of my list) was a far bigger problem than I expected. Props to Beto for using their native Reinforce to great effect… Koshka managed to shrug off both a Proton Torpedo and an Advanced Proton Torpedo and only take 3 shields! It wasn’t just Koshka, though. Boba is the real deal and when it gets to a knife fight at range one, there’s very little competition (except maybe Fenn).
Firesprays in general are a problem because they are very tanky, quite maneuverable, and have multiple arcs. I would say that right now, they are again probably undercosted slightly (they start at 14 points or 15 for Kath Scarlett, who doesn’t have a ton of loadout, but is very decent) or have slightly more loadout than is fair. You can have 3 in a list, which you could just about have previously, but now you can have good ones, and since the average ship count is going down (allegedly) they are a bigger threat.
And I guess this is my key learning for the week – more expensive, tougher ships seem to be the way forward. Defenders and Firesprays are prime examples of ships that are suddenly massively more popular because they represent solid value, loads of loadout, and are typically self contained. Anything that has action efficiency, can survive a couple of rounds of attacks, and can hit back with 3+ dice is worth bringing to the table. Others to add to the list include Silencers (as mentioned already), force wielders (e.g. Luke, Rey, Vader, most Aethersprites…) and specific pilots like General Grievous or Poe. Yes, they are more expensive, but in the current climate, it just makes sense.
Also, this leaves FO in a bit of a spot. You can probably tell I am trying FO out a lot, and it feels there are some big gaps in their ranks. Silencers are pretty good, and quite expensive… but not expensive enough to make up a decent value 3 ship high initiative list. You can get Kylo and Blackout in a list, but that third ship… best case you can get Avenger or Recoil, but that’s leaving between 3 and 5 points on the table, depending which version of Kylo you use (which you can’t fill since the cheapest FO ship is 6 points). Alternatively, you can look at up to 4 lower initiative Silencers… you can do a lot with generics (either 4x I1 Siener Janus Engineers with enough points for an extra Epsilon Squadron Cadet TIE FO) or 4x First Order Test Pilots (leaving 2 points on the table). OR 3x First Order Test Pilots and something else (e.g. Quickdraw! Von Reg! Avenger!). The problem with all of this is 2 things: first, they have low initiative, so can easily get bushwhacked before they even shoot, and second being generics, they have a pretty poor loadout stash (5 points).
Anyway, I have a few ideas where to go, and was able to prove out them working on my 5th game of the week. I’m not going to go into too much detail this week, on this since it was a game against an opponent who was new to the game and recovering from the flu, but all my learnings for the week have been incorporated into what I think is a very decent list. More on that next week!
So what have we learned this week…?
Well, there is a temptation to say that I suck at Xwing… but I would say this is my Testing Era. Lots to try, and FO has a lot of options. I don’t mind losing a few games, but probably need to change my approach a little…
The meta seems to be shifting towards Imperials slightly. Recent events have shown a strong Empire bias and some of my own team that have not shown any interest in Imperials for years are suddenly heading to the dark side. It’s easy to see why – some of their ships are tough and independent (and possibly undercosted…). Defenders in particular and Countess Ryad specifically is a problem…
3 ship squads are very competitive right now. Just as I write this, I see another 3 ship list both topped swiss and won overall at a 32 player event in Spain this weekend. Scum are really well set up to do well in this meta (having more ship chassis to choose from, including Firesprays…) as are Imperials, CIS (Firesprays again) and Resistance. Rebels, Republic, and FO… maybe less so.
Next week I’ll be reporting on at least 2 TTS games (Thanksgiving permitting!) and hopefully telling you how well my new preferred list is performing! See you then.
So the Joy of Xwing comes in may formats, and a very convenient format for bringing the community together is online play (“Pornwing” as it’s known in our local group) via TableTop Simulator (TTS). It’s a great mod and is pretty gosh darned realistic… also comes with the benefit of allowing you to play lists you would never normally play if you don’t have the ships (which are now very very hard to find) – more on that later!
This weekend saw part of the excellent Conquest Series run by the even more excellent 312 Squadron. These have really done a great job in getting the Xwing community back together… and it’s sure as hell a lot cheaper than a bunch of plane tickets! The event in question was the Alamo Conquest – the last of the open events and played at US Central time. For me, that’s about 6 hours behind, but actually really good news as I got to have a mosey and a muse in the morning, and spend the afternoon on pewpew. This event was effectively a 4 round swiss event with a final 5th game for the top 2.
In my last post, we took apart some other events that had been going on worldwide, and I promised some discussion around strategy, but what better way to discuss than looking at the field! My working hypothesis was that squads with less ships were making a comeback, so we could consider how to compensate for that, but the average squad size for this event was 4.275 – a smidge less than averages before the point change, but still not lower than 4, so not truly conclusive. 40 players signed up, which was a big number for an event like this, and factions were a complete counter to the events seen last week: 10 Imperial, 8 Rebel, 7 FO, 6 Republic, 4 Resistance, 3 Scum, 2 CIS. Imperials dominating with 25% of the field! Interestingly, CIS once again barely there… but still one of the 2 lists made top 8. Curiously, one of each faction (except Republic) made the top 8 with Rebels and Imperials boasting 2 lists each in the cut (and indeed Rebels and Imps made the 5th game).
What does this tell us? Well… there’s still not meta list just yet. There’s a healthy spread of lists, from 3 ship ace squads to 6 ship swarm squads, which is great news. The fact that CIS have barely been present in the last few events probably shows the impact of the price hike for Energy Shell charges (you can’t spam cheap 3 dice attacks any more). But in general, CIS is a high-skill faction – most of their ships have some good qualities, but need some real expertise to get the best out of them. Maybe people are taking the easier route and trying out new things in other factions now they are better value?
So with the high level analysis out of the way, I set myself up. My performance on the 2 events I have entered so far has been less than stellar (2-2 and 0-2 with a swift drop because I was massively hungover and thought discretion was the better part of valour) so really, I’d settle for at least evens… or dare to dream… a top 8 finish! Having looked at likely lists over the last week, I was assuming that there would be less ships and even a rise in 3 ship lists. So I did the obvious thing: spam a load of generics. I present to you THE FURIOUS FIVE!!!!
It’s a terribly simple, but potentially scary list:
Zealots get into range and take focuses (and / or rotate arcs to suit)
Malarus lopes up behind and engages Hux Abuse! Coordinate 3 ships (not 1, not 2, but 3!) with a target lock.
Either ships go wild with Cluster Missiles (using the lock for rerolls in the first attack to save the focus for the second attack) OR if there’s a better shot (e.g. Bullseye 4 dice at R1) go nuts, getting the Hux reroll for a strain.
IN THEORY this is great. I2 Ships rarely care about strain, as they usually shoot last, and the Whisper chassis is great because it can shoot out the rear if it flies over the top of the target.
IN PRACTICE… well, Zealots shoot last, so getting the engagement right is tough as they have to not get killed in the first pass. There are 5, so you can afford to lose one or two over the course of the game, but there is no jamming suite, so they only roll 2 evades. They have 5 health, so are only 1 hull more than a Z95 (which is interesting as they are basically priced the same as named Z95s and have a few more tricks). In practice, it’s a tricky list, it seems!
It’s also virtually impossible to play in real life since FO Whispers are only found in the Fury of the First Order packs which are not easy to come by… Whilst not rocking horse s**t rare, they are still trading at over £45 a pack (on eBay), so 5 of these, and a Xi shuttle, would set you back about £200… If you can find the stock! So TTS (Pornwing) allows you to try out stupid lists like this with no money down!
I tried it out twice over the week and won both games, so was feeling pretty good about trying it out in a big event. Lets see how we did!
Miranda Doni BTL-S8 K-wing (13) The Child + Concussion Missiles
So, chonky Rebel Beef with lots of tricks. I was initially hopeful the low evade count on 3/4 of the list would allow me to chip into him heavily, but made a fatal mistake of chasing after Miranda. She’s worth a lot of points, but was able to SLAM past me and leave my whole list cornered in a bad spot, ready to be rushed by Norra, Gina, and Luke. Over the course of 3-4 turns, I lost a lot of ships (well… 5/6 actually) and only just got half points on Gina.
Oh dear.
Final score: 14-52 Loss.
Well… I learned not to commit to early. Let’s not do that again, eh? Things can only get better…
Game 2 vs Sebastian Demers – Scramble the Transmissions
This time I flew a little more circumspect, spreading rocks out as best I could to allow multiple channels to get around. Effectively I moseyed up the side of the board and turned in to face him. Sebastian didn’t appreciate they had Cluster Missiles until I was able to unleash hell on his list… in one turn, I lost one Fury, but traded out for Thane and Wedge. Malarus picked up a Panicked Pilot, and Thane (on the way out) was able to double it with his ability (allowing him to flip a damage card for a focus result), leaving Malarus with 5 stress… so he spent the rest of the game as a blocker. Garvin then took a face full of paint and somehow my I2s were able to pick up all the switches, so I was scoring 4 points a turn. Pretty sure this was the game I won ROAD virtually every turn as well… In the end, it was a textbook “how to” for the mighty Furies!
Final Score: 54-23 Win
I was worried about Chance and Scramble, so this was great as I felt like I was coming out ahead!
Game 3 vs Taylor “Bainite” Jacobs. – Salvage Mission
He flew:
Yendor (BoE) T-65 X-wing (12)
Gina Moonsong (BoE) A/SF-01 B-wing (16)
Braylen Stramm (BoE) A/SF-01 B-wing (13)
Gemmer Sojan (BoE) RZ-1 A-wing (9)
Oh look! Rebel Beef. Again. Interestingly, I thought these B wings had “gone away” since everyone had worked out how stupidly broken they were… but no, they’re back (although not cheap). Props for bringing all BoE ships to a showdown. More props for flying Yendor! He was expensive before, but is now cheaper than Luke and arguable better value. It’s a really decent list.
Just as we’re setting up, we get tapped to go on stream. Yay! You can watch it back on Twitch if you look up 312 Squadron. Much as before, I was trying to manage range control as well as I could, but made 2 really small but terrible flying mistakes:
Turn 2, I tried to co-ordinate a barrel roll on to one of the furies that was all locked up about a turn earlier than expected. I thought there was room, but there wasn’t (basically nubs blocking it). As a result, he got the full force of 3 ships shooting and was taken off the board after rolling 2 evades out of 6 green dice vs 10 double modded red dice. Yay.
Turn 3, I tried to boost in 3 ships to Range 2 for Clusters on Gina and one was too close to a rock. As a result, I threw 10 dice at Gina, got 5 hits, and she evaded 2 for 3 damage. That was the 1 turn I had to really drill as the next turn Malarus died and it all went to hell.
So yeah, it wasn’t a great showing and again I lost most of my list and took 0 enemy ships off the board. All with the world watching. Oh dear.
Final Score: 16-50 Loss
So, no chance of a top 8 win… just hanging in for honour and glory and stuff…
Game 4, vs Jacob Morningstar – Assault on the Satellite Array
“Quickdraw” TIE/sf Fighter (14) Predator + Proud Tradition + Fire-Control System + Pattern Analyzer + Ion Missiles + Special Forces Gunner
NOT A REBEL LIST!!! HALLELUJAH!
Once again, I set up as far away as possible from his big scary ships and tried to get to the objectives I had helpfully set up in an asteroid field. This time I also tried not using Hux so much as I figured his stress was actually a pain for the ships to manage since their blues are great for getting away, but not so good for sharp turns. Both tricks worked quite well as Tavson came in hot, and got bushwacked by the Full Furious Force, taking his shields in turn 2 and hull in turn 3. Props to Jacob, though, as he did use a cute trick: Using GNK to charge up early and then using Electronic Baffle, Tavson, and GNK to effectively get rid of stress for a net 0 result. That’s really good!
After getting Tavson off the table, Phasma and Quickdraw showed up. They were able to take off 3 Furys between them, leaving us very close to equals. Then Jacob unfortunately slooped his provocateur onto a rock halfing him, and parking him R1 from Malarus, who had nothing better to do than shoot. In the same (last) turn, my fury was able to shoot Phasma clearing the shields, but forcing a final shield damage onto Quickdraw (with no shots) getting half points on both. Between that and the points for objectives, it pushed the score up to quite a lot…
Final score: 64-45 win!
So overall 2-2… 19th of 40… no worse than my best performance at a conquest to date, and a moral victory for a somewhat stupid list I’m still learning.
What did we learn???
Don’t over Hux yourself!
Give rocks a much wider berth
Rebel Beef sucks!
I have a new idea to try over the week that might even be stupider – more next time!
As far as the event went, Andrew Oehler won with a really interesting list with ships that have barely been seen since V1…
Fenn Rau Sheathipede-class Shuttle (11) Targeting Computer + R4 Astromech + The Child
Captain Rex TIE/ln Fighter (11) Precision Ion Engines + Targeting Computer + Snap Shot
You know what I was saying last week about 10 point ships? It looks like there’s one I missed… Fenn Rau in the shuttle. Yes, it’s a shuttle, so really flimsy, but he’s I6! He’s got force! He’s got an annoying ability! Really, he’s a 10 pointer who will be doing the rounds a lot. His list basically won by confounding the opposition and stopping them from doing damage: Biggs soaks up the hits and can regen, Kyle can hand out goodies, Bodica keeps the damage train going, and Rex gives out a sort-of perma-deplete condition! Lots of moving parts, but all very useful and efficient. Expect to see more of this at a table near you soon.
Well done Andrew! If nothing else, designing this horror show of a list is impressive, but not as impressive as him winning now 2 of these events.
Having established last time that all factions seem to be relatively equally placed in this Brave New World, there were 2 big events worldwide over the weekend: the Cornish Nationals and the Californian Open. Great timing for someone just starting a blog, as it gives real content to analyse!
Starting with the Cornish Nationals, 22 players attended in Truro which is pretty decent. There was no stream to watch, but just looking at the lists, something jumps out – Scum and Resistance are both pretty popular! 5 lists from each faction and (spoiler warning) 5 of these 10 made the top cut. FO and Republic were also well represented (4 and 3 respectively), Rebels and Empire were there (both 2 players) but CIS was on its lonesome with a single player representing (Sam Cooper).
Just looking at some of the lists, it seems that size doesn’t matter… there’s no clear pattern to effective list size! 3 ship lists are showing strong again, with four showing up to play and two of these making top cut. On the flip of this, there are a few volume lists – two Republic weenie swarm lists and one Resistance list all with 6 ships (and again, two making the cut). Considering the rest of the field (except one bold CIS player with a 5 ship list) flew 4 ship lists, it’s interesting that there’s no clear trend. This is pretty annoying because I was all set to start shouting the 3 ship lists are back in a big way, but it’s not as simple… statistically, the top cut contained 4.25 ships… which I guess is less than the 4.5 ships that were seen before the points change, but isn’t conclusive. It’s probably worth mentioning that Chris Burnett won with a 3 ship Resistance list (Rey, Poe, Vinnie), which is in itself impressive (well done Chris!), so Resistance chalk up their first scalp of the weekend.
On to the Californian Open, where 23 players attended. There was a stream (thanks to 312 Squadron) and it was good to see what was going on (some games were extremely close and great viewing!). It was a very different story to the Cornish event… 6 Republic lists, 5 Scum, 4 Resistance, 4 Imperial, 2 Rebel, and 1 each for FO and CIS. So again, Scum is very popular and CIS is not…
Size wise, there was pretty much a full spread of lists, including one 7 and one 8 ship squad. Average ship count for the event was 4.78 (so going in the opposite direction). One point of interest was that only 2 players took large based ships at all (in both cases their respective lists had both a Jumpmaster and a YV-666)… one made the cut, the other came dead last.
In the top cut, 4 players were Republic, 3 were Scum and 1 was Resistance. All except 2 were 4 ship lists. Wouldn’t you know it, Resistance won (with a 5 ship list) in what turned out to be a gripping final (well done Mobius!).
Two big events… both won by Resistance! So does this mean they are the new hotness???
Well… no. What was evident from the games I saw over the weekend was that most of the games were very close (at least to a point) – there wasn’t anything so overpowered it was broken. Resistance, though, do have a few, reasonably priced, strong set pieces:
10 points gets you Kaz or Finn – both very strong and now with enough loadout to make them useful. 10 points also gets you L’ulo L’ampar or Seftin Vanik in A-wings, with enough loadout to be dangerous. Whilst not the strongest A-wings, they are both I5 and good to go. 10 ALSO gets you a Aftab Akbar or C’ai Threnalli in the Wartime Y-wings (another new feature of the game is that the Resistance Y-wing now comes in 2 flavours – cheap, flimsy Y-wings or more expensive Wartime Y-Wings with the Wartime Loadout baked in). This is all before you start looking at Xwings, of which there are a few… So 10 is the magic number.
10 points is the new 4 points. If you can find a list with a bunch of decent 10 pointers, you have a shot, and this is (nearly) what Mobius did with his list (Finn, Kaz, L’ulo, Zizi Tlo and Greer Sonnel in an A-wing heavy list!). It seems, as well, like every faction has at least a couple of decent 10 point ships:
FO has Captain Malarus or Captian Phasma
Republic has “Captain Obvious” Ric Ole, Hound in the LAAT, Jag in the Arc or Aksoka in the Aethersprite (although, as mentioned before, they have a huge number of very cheap Z95s and Torrents to pad out any list!).
Empire has Lieutenant Sai, plus loads of very decent TIE Interceptors and TIE LNs.
Scum has Dalen Oberon in the Starvipers or Viktor Hel in the Khiraxz (both very underutilised over the last few seasons).
CIS has Volen Das and Wat Tambor / Captain Sear
Rebels have… well… a mixed bag! Jake Farrell (SSP), Arvel Crynyd (BOE – AKA “Captain Suicide”), Keo Venzee in A-wings and Dutch Vander / Hol Okand / “Pops Krail” (BOY versions) in Y-wings.
Of course, if you flex up to 11 or 12 points, the world is your oyster – every faction has some top tier talent around this point. So really, it’s about how many solid shooters you feel comfortable about squeezing in.
This argument does fall over when you look at what Chris flew at the Cornish Nationals – 3 chunky ships. However, when you think about it, all 3 of those ships (Rey! Poe! Vinnie!) hit very hard and don’t die easily – you have to commit to taking one off the board before moving on, and with nearly 30 hull and a lot of defensive mods, they aren’t going down easy!
So for now, we just have to concede that Resistance are stealing the march on things, but there’s no new secret sauce just yet. There’s still plenty to think about and things to try.
Next time… Strategy! How the new paradigm could change the way you play…
Jumping straight in to the recent news that X WING HAS CHANGED IN A BIG WAY, there’s been a couple of weeks to consider what lists to build. Just to recap, here’s what’s happened:
The squad point limit for lists have gone up to 50. Yay!
Unfortunately, the squad point cost of all ships has increased in line with this new threshold. Booo!
Most ships have gone up 2.5x. So 3 is now 8, 4 is now 10, 5 is now… errrr… 12.5…
Yeah, this is where it gets interesting! Anything that was an odd number has been rounded up or down…
Well… mostly up! The points team have admitted that they have been looking to reduce the power levels of the game. This means lists that were 20 points before aren’t quite 50 now (I’ve seen some of my old favourites jump to 58 in this new era!)
For example, 4x 5 point ships in “old money” are probably 13 points (or more) in the new world… which would be 52 in “new money”.
Loadout as a concept has been relatively unchanged (each non-Standard Loadout ship has a budget attached to each ship)… although there are lots of changes in points.
The points team have also reigned in individuality… most chassis have the same slots now as opposed to the more “custom approach” that have been doing the rounds over the last few years.
Most importantly, there’s now a “Restricted list” to ensure certain ships or talents aren’t spammed. As if we would!!! (spoiler warning – we would).
So… a lot has happened! What has caught my eye the most though…
Lots of changes to points on various upgrades:
Missiles! Both Cluster Missiles and Concussion Missiles have had a slight points reduction (5 down from 6 and 6 down from 7 respectively) making them affordable again! Great news for ships that were struggling to land damage! However, Energy Shell Charges are up a smidge… making it a bit tougher for the cheapest CIS vultures to be as dangerous (although some would say that’s a good thing).
Tech! Not a lot of change except Primed Thrusters and Deuterium Power Cells both dropping a point, making them affordable again! Notably, most of the (good) non-faction Tech cards are now 5 points! This is a mixed blessing… they are cheaper, but still quite pricey and difficult to attach more than one per ship (even if a ship has multiple Tech slots).
Gunners! A few minor changes, (Greedo now 2, BT-1 now 1…) but the most notable (for FO at least!) is that Special Forces Gunner now costs a whopping 9 points!
Talents! Apart from a few aforementioned restrictions on some old classics (Snap Shot? No more than 3 for you! Intimidation? That’s functionally unique now! Juke? only 2 for you…) Enduring feels like a steal at 3 points! However Trick Shot is now 5 points!?!? Those with a long (V1) memory might recall it was originally 0 points when it was released… now it’s almost premium rates!
Cannons! Bad news for Rogue fighters… Synced Laser Cannons are up 33% to 8 points! Yikes! Good news for people that like dicking around with other players ships, Tractor beam is down to 4! That said, I can’t think of a time where Tractor Beam has been used effectively since it was launched, soooo…
Pilots!
This is probably a whole post in itself, but as a really short summary…
Generics are BACK baybee! Whereas previously they were overpriced and underpowered (limited slots), now they are generally the same (or less) as their named equivalent. Some notable examples are most of the Clone Army! Z95 generics are 7 points… that’s Lower than 3 points in old money! Gold Squadron Troopers are 6 points… that’s nearly 2 points in old money! Bravo Flight Officers are only 8 (exactly 3 points in old money… with enough loadout for Ion Torps!). In fact, a Generic Heavy Republic list just made the cut at a decent sized UK event this weekend!
Boba Fett has his crew slot back, making him a viable threat again… although he’s very expensive at 20 points (although that’s still 8 points in old money… which is pretty much where he was).
Talonbane Cobra is back! He’s a very reasonable 12 points and has enough loadout to get useful stuff (like Afterburners).
VCX-100s are now cheap enough to have 3 in a list (!)… which is just nuts.
Darth Vader is now a deluxe option! The “cheap” BYO version comes in at 15 points… but has a criminally low loadout value (7!). SL versions are 17 (which is basically 7 points in old money).
There’s a LOT to take in and there’s a new gold rush to find the new meta lists. Before we can even get to that there’s an even more critical question to answer first: What faction to play now???
Big point swings mean big opportunity swings. What was dominant last season might not be good this season… So what’s hot and what’s not? Let’s take a peek!
Rebels are… fairly unchanged. Other than the general points increase that effects all factions, Rebels are still able to field a decent enough list of either mid to high initiative ships, or a load of really cheap ships. Most notably, E Wings are still able to rock around with Pro Torps for days… I’m sure that won’t cause problems.
Empire seem at a first glance to have been somewhat neutered. All the cheap winners (Captain Karsabi, Double Edge, Scimitar 1… all up a little) seem to be more expensive. But then you get to the Defenders… Whilst they still aren’t what you can call “cheap”, there’s gold in them thar hills! Countess Ryad at 16 points is very good value (6 points in old money) and even Colonel Vessary and Vult Skerris are 17 (6-and-a-bit) vs the 7 points they were. You can field a spicy 3 ship Defender list (Ryad, Vessary, Yorr) with the 2 BYO ships having Outmaneuver!!! That’s pretty scary.
Scum are very competitive. Given the fact that they have the most chassis of any other faction, this is not a surprise. I’ve already mentioned TB Cobra esquire, but the sheer variety of ships in Scum mean there’s always something there. Unbelievably, SL Fenn Rau is priced at 15 points (bang on 6 in old money). I personally think this is undercosting him quite a bit since whenever he shows up on the board, he is a problem. Considering the price of his peers (Poe, Vader, Anakin, Wedge) all going upwards, this seems very cheap.
Resistance is evergreen. Lots of options and the pricing is broadly the same… SL Cai and Stomeroni have both nudged up slightly, which is understandable but odd. Stomeroni is a great piece but suffers from being I4. I was expecting him to be “4.5 points”, so 11 or 12 points. Cai felt a little cheap at 4 (old) / 10 (new) points, so 11 is OK I guess. The interesting news is that a few Sofas (Resistance Transports) are now really cheap (8 or 9 points) – basically 3 points in old money. The downside being they lose the cannon slot, so they really become support ships only. However, keep an eye on Kaz… he’s very reasonable at 10 points now.
FO are looking fairly strong. Some key set pieces have been unfairly bumped (Von Reg and Quickdraw both 14 points which is a bit above the 5-points-in-old-money they used to be). However, like Shirley Bassey, they have the range, darling… Lots of cheap generics and some big loadouts on some old favourites (Blackout, Whisper Kylo Ren). One of the good news stories in fact is that WhyLo now has the points to get Advanced Optics, Concussion Missiles, and Instinctive Aim… something he was missing in the last round of points. He’s 15 points, though, so firmly 6-points-in-old-money territory.
Republic are a similar story. There’s a lot they can do cheaply now, with bargain basement generics and Aces for days. I have to admit, of all the factions they are the one I’ve looked at probably the least for reasons I will probably go into later, but Anakin in the Y wing looks dangerous with enough points to equip Proton Torpedoes if you want…
CIS are still as controversial as ever. Whilst the hike in Energy Shell Charges is bad for the cheapest ships, they are still viable on Hyenas and HMP Gunships. However, all their Aces are still relatively unaffected. General Grievous is still very good value (12 points… just under 5 in old money) and has the loadout for Outmaneuver as well as all his usual toys. Jango Fett is an eye watering 20 points… but that’s only 8 in old money. Sun Fac is ready to go at 13 points (just over 5 in old money). Even Volan Das is 10 points, which is very good value. CIS is an acquired taste, so will be interesting to see how they show up.
So in all, it’s a pretty balanced affair. The points team have done a great job in ensuring that there’s something for everyone, so that’s a big plus. At this early stage, it’s hard to pick out an obviously overpowered faction… I guess time will tell.
Me personally? Well, I’m playing in the NCX Team League at the moment (Go Mawlers!) as an FO pilot, so am just continuing that for the time being. I’ve been really pleased to see a huge number of lists available to me and looking forward to trying them out.
So that’s enough for now. Next time I hope to be looking at the impact of the new 50 point meta and review a few tournaments that have been happening this weekend.
X Wing Musings 