When I closed out last weeks blog, I was sure I was going to talk through some more Hux Abuse I had been thinking about:
Epsilon Squadron Cadet – TIE/fo Fighter (6)
Ship Cost: 6 Loadout: (0/0) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 2
Epsilon Squadron Cadet – TIE/fo Fighter (6)
Ship Cost: 6 Loadout: (0/0) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 2
Epsilon Squadron Cadet – TIE/fo Fighter (6)
Ship Cost: 6 Loadout: (0/0) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 2
Commander Malarus – Xi-class Light Shuttle (10)
Tactical Officer (3)
General Hux (6)
Targeting Computer (1)
Ship Cost: 10 Loadout: (10/10) Half Points: 5 Damage Threshold: 3
“Breach” – TIE/se Bomber (11)
Primed Thrusters (5)
Proton Torpedoes (14)
Ship Cost: 11 Loadout: (19/19) Half Points: 5 Damage Threshold: 3
Lieutenant LeHuse (EoD) – TIE/sf Fighter (11)
Determination (EoD) (0)
Concussion Missiles (0)
First Order Ordnance Tech (EoD) (0)
Ship Cost: 11 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 5 Damage Threshold: 3
Total: 50
On paper this looks pretty decent! 3 I5 ships with some big hits and 3 little blockers that can be thoroughly abused by Hux.
Then I tried it…
I was flying vs fellow Mando Sam (Hi Sam!) on TTS who was trying Imperials for the first time in probably ever. He was flying:
Soontir Fel (BoE) – TIE/in Interceptor (14)
Apex Predator (BoE) (0)
No Escape (BoE) (0)
Blank Signature (BoE) (0)
Feedback Emitter (BoE) (0)
Ship Cost: 14 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 7 Damage Threshold: 1
“Whisper” (SL) – TIE/ph Phantom (15)
Without A Trace (SL) (0)
Relay System (SL) (0)
Stygium Reserve (SL) (0)
Ship Cost: 15 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 7 Damage Threshold: 2
Darth Vader – TIE Advanced x1 (15)
Malice (5)
Fire-Control System (2)
Ship Cost: 15 Loadout: (7/7) Half Points: 7 Damage Threshold: 2
“Wampa” – TIE/ln Fighter (6)
Precision Ion Engines (1)
Ship Cost: 6 Loadout: (1/2) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 1
Total: 50
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)
Ship Cost: 14 Loadout: (17/17) Half Points: 7 Damage Threshold: 2
“Midnight” – TIE/fo Fighter (11)
Swarm Tactics (7)
Fire-Control System (2)
Concussion Missiles (6)
Targeting Synchronizer (3)
Munitions Failsafe (1)
Ship Cost: 11 Loadout: (19/19) Half Points: 5 Damage Threshold: 2
“Quickdraw” – TIE/sf Fighter (14)
Proud Tradition (2)
Fanatical (2)
Fire-Control System (2)
Deuterium Power Cells (7)
Special Forces Gunner (9)
Electronic Baffle (2)
Ship Cost: 14 Loadout: (24/24) Half Points: 7 Damage Threshold: 3
“Whirlwind” – TIE/wi Whisper Modified Interceptor (11)
Cluster Missiles (5)
Advanced Optics (5)
Enhanced Jamming Suite (0)
Ship Cost: 11 Loadout: (10/10) Half Points: 5 Damage Threshold: 2
Total: 50
The idea here being “Let’s see if we can out-PS the opposition”.
Ian was trying Imperials for the first time in probably ever, and had never really flow Defenders at all. He was flying:
Darth Vader (SSP) – TIE Advanced x1 (17)
Hate (0)
Ion Missiles (0)
Afterburners (0)
Ship Cost: 17 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 8 Damage Threshold: 3
Countess Ryad – TIE/d Defender (16)
Hull Upgrade (9)
Ship Cost: 16 Loadout: (9/9) Half Points: 8 Damage Threshold: 4
Colonel Vessery – TIE/d Defender (17)
Juke (7)
Proton Cannons (5)
Ship Cost: 17 Loadout: (12/12) Half Points: 8 Damage Threshold: 3
Total: 50
View in YASB: https://yasb.app/?f=Galactic%20Empire&d=v10ZbZ50Z630X204W101W105Y195XWWWW164WWY194X123WW470WWWW&sn=New%20Squadron&obs=
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:
Kylo Ren – TIE/vn Silencer (16)
Brilliant Evasion (2)
Sensor Scramblers (1)
Adv. Proton Torpedoes (7)
Ship Cost: 16 Loadout: (10/10) Half Points: 8 Damage Threshold: 3
“Breach” – TIE/se Bomber (11)
Primed Thrusters (5)
Proton Torpedoes (14)
Ship Cost: 11 Loadout: (19/19) Half Points: 5 Damage Threshold: 3
“Blackout” – TIE/vn Silencer (15)
Proton Torpedoes (14)
Ship Cost: 15 Loadout: (14/14) Half Points: 7 Damage Threshold: 3
“Muse” – TIE/fo Fighter (8)
Squad Leader (5)
Fire-Control System (2)
Automated Target Priority (1)
Precision Ion Engines (1)
Ship Cost: 8 Loadout: (9/9) Half Points: 4 Damage Threshold: 2
Total: 50
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:
Captain Nym – Scurrg H-6 Bomber (14)
Fearless (3)
Dorsal Turret (3)
Veteran Turret Gunner (6)
Bomblet Generator (3)
Ablative Plating (2)
Havoc (0)
Fire-Control System (2)
R4-B11 (3)
Ship Cost: 14 Loadout: (22/22) Half Points: 7 Damage Threshold: 5
Boba Fett – Firespray-class Patrol Craft (20)
Fearless (3)
Maul (12)
Marauder (0)
Veteran Tail Gunner (5)
Ship Cost: 20 Loadout: (20/20) Half Points: 10 Damage Threshold: 5
Koshka Frost – Firespray-class Patrol Craft (16)
Notorious (6)
Jamming Beam (1)
0-0-0 (4)
Rigged Cargo Chute (2)
Ship Cost: 16 Loadout: (13/13) Half Points: 8 Damage Threshold: 5
Total: 50
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.
X Wing Musings 
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