In-depth Look BTL-A4 Y-Wing

Looking at the Gray Squadron Bomber in the Y-Wing, we can see two new actions, and a shift of a shield to an extra hull, meaning those critical hits are going to hurt a little more.  With that being said, the Y-Wing retains its ability to take an astromech and turret, while gains a gunner slot alongside a device slot.

These changes mean the Y-Wing can fulfil some different roles on the table, from a relatively cheap asteroid removal tool, to a turret-toting menace.  The ideal turret appears to be an Ion turret with a Veteran Turret Gunner to tap that primary weapon as well as a turret shot, both out of the front, as a Primary Arc is considered separate to the Turret Arc.

This list appears to be a decent control list, enabling you to ionise targets, albeit, with more difficulty than previously, and still force damage through.  The frame is robust enough to survive at least one joust, with more decisions in the mid and late game.

The Gold Squadron Veteran brings the Talent slot to the Y-Wing now, to open it up for those who enjoy them.  This enables them to add a white barrel roll to their action bar, to increase their positioning ability.  While actions are far more important in X-Wing now, there are still times where a barrel roll can put you in the exact position you want to be, even moving early during the activation phase.

Fielding four Y-Wings, with Expert Handling and Proton Torpedoes could make for a very difficult list to fly against.  At Range 2-3, you are denying range bonus (3) and hitting with a 4 die, locked attack, while at Range 1, you open up with a 3 dice primary attack as seen here.

Coming up with a list where this would be most beneficial was rather, interestign to say the least.  Evaan’s ability appears to be a double-edged sword.  However, here, I’ve paired her with AP-5, Biggs, and a Blue Squadron Escort, to increase Biggs’ survivability if you run him out the front, while AP-5 Co-ordinates that Focus action, while knowing what a particular ship is going to be doing.

Using Horton’s ability here seems a little wasted, especially when you are generally going to have a lock and a focus token when you are attacking.  It kind of feels like he is supposed to be going in with a swarm of allies, and no active modifiers, rather than the way the majority of players like to rell the attack dice.  That being said, however, Horton does provide you with a lock effect for those times where you find a target of opportunity with your primary weapons or a turret.

As you can see here, I’ve built him with Kyle in Mouldy Crow, and two Phoenix Squadron pilots.  The A-Wings can get in close, while Horton does his thing, or block to make targets stop where you want them, while Kyle passes around a focus token, when needed.  Both have a Seismic Charge for opportunistic obstacle destruction, if targets present themselves.

“Dutch”, as you can see, is rather a handy pilot, with his ability to aid allies in acquiring locks for later in the game, or for some great Torpedo shots.

After watching A New Hope last night (time of writing), I figured I’d see if I could give “Dutch” a better shot at getting his Torpedo shot off, and hopefully surviving the Battle of Yavin, here.

We come to our final BTL-A4 Y-Wing pilot, Norra Wexley.  For those who aren’t new to X-Wing, Norra is usually found in the cockpit of an Arc-170.  However, she appears to have found a new ship to fly as well.

Norra’s ability gives her a massive advantage to getting up close, and staying there.  You are always guaranteed a single evade result.  That means that she’s going to be rather difficult to hit.

I’ve thought about this list, full of knife fighters, and a bumper to try and block while still getting a shot off.

Well, that’s the BTL-A4 Y-Wing looked at.  I can’t say I’m totally happy with it, but, I’ve yet to actually put one on the table, despite owning five of them.  If anybody does try any of these lists, I would love to hear some results and experiences with said list.  As always, if I’ve missed something out, let me know.

 

Team View – 186th Squadron

As well as interviewing individuals I either encounter or get suggested to me, I thought interviewing some of the teams that have grown around X-Wing, so, after posting some local Tournaments to the 186th Squadron tracker found here.  I figured they would be a good place to begin.

I pinged off a message, and the seemed fairly excited by the idea, and, I kept it fairly short, and asked some questions that I thought might be interesting to everybody.  We have Jesper and Oliver here to give us some answers.

So, here we go.

1. Who came up with the name for the 186th Squadron?

J: Our name comes from the store where the founding members first met. It was the X-Wing league organised by Jon Berenguer-Webb at Dark Sphere, which is on 186 Hercules Road in London. The name was coined by Mark Patterson.

2. Who has the highest win score in the team?  Conversely, who has the lowest win rate, and, is it intentional?

J: That’s a hard question! Amongst our ranks we count multiple and consecutive Regional Champions, National Champions, European Champions, World Championship Top 16s, System Open winners, and more. But we also have members who aren’t interested in tournament play!

Our biggest winner is either Martyn Chivers/Andrew Pattison (who won the consecutively two biggest X-Wing tournaments ever at the UK System Open), or Benjamin Lee (European Champion and World Championship Top 8 ).

Our worst player is undoubtedly Alex Birt who hasn’t even managed to win a set of templates in over four years of playing tournaments.

I mainly asked this question because my own win rate is fairly low, and decided to have a joking poke here.

186th at the 2018 System Open

Alex after getting to Top 16 at Worlds (still no templates)

3. What benefits do you, as a team see to a podcast over a regular blog?

J: Well, we used to have a “team blog” on our website. We also have members like Phil GC, Tom Tattersal and Joel North who are known bloggers in their own right outside of 186th Squadron.

It’s been great to see the podcast becoming so well-received, though. Alex, James, and Mike have, since starting it, cultivated a solid listenership (and we’ve even won awards!). I think the major benefit is that it allows us to project our thoughts and values over a more personable medium. Quite simply, we really just enjoy talking to the community.

You can find the podcast here.

186th Podcast Crew at Euros 2018

4. What’s the furthest the team has traveled for an X-Wing event?  Conversely, would you ever grace Suffolk/Essex with a visit for a tournament?

J: Our members have sniped events in places as diverse as Iceland, Singapore, Minnesota USA, and Italy. Most of us love to travel for events, and we’ve made X-Wing friends all over the world as a result. You’d better watch out, Essex!

Mishary, Alex, Jesper, and Ben Lee at Worlds 2018

Copen Open 2016

5. I’ve seen the name pop up all over the internet, as people talking about having played members, all these reviews are very positive.  How do you manage that?

J: We have a members charter, code of conduct, and vote on official roles and responsibilities such as Treasurer and President just like any proper club. Our recruiting process for new members is strict; involving nominations and full-membership votes. It means we have (perhaps justifiably) been accused of taking things too seriously!

But this also means that we are formed of, and only invite, players who are serious about the community and serious about being a positive and constructive part of it. We’ve worked hard to build and maintain our reputation and we’re quite rightly proud of that.

Ben Lee Winning Euros 2018

 

6. What inspired you to create the tournament tracker you host?

J: That’s Oliver Pocknell’s baby. He keeps that thing updated like an absolute hero simply for the good of the wider community and to help bring players together, and because he does not require sleep like us humans. Jonny Olliff-Lee (of StopGap builder fame) graciously provided the programming behind it.

O: I think Jesper summed all that up really well. We are at the core a close group of friends that play X-Wing together.

What started for many of us as a hobby has turned into a community and we really try and nurture and care for it in any way we can.

Thanks for the kind words on the tournament tracker.

While I update the website it’s entirely community driven, it wouldn’t work if it wasn’t for the input from people continually tagging me and messaging me tournament details.

The more you guys do that, the better it becomes! so a big old thank you to everyone helping to keep it going

You can find the tracker here.

7. And, finally, is there anything, in particular, you would like to say to the internet about either being a member of 186th or, X-Wing in general?

J: Love all you guys. Never forget: overconfidence is weakness.

Team Photo Euros 2018

There you have it, some great insight into a group of guys who love pushing small plastic spaceships around. 

I’d like to thank both Jesper and Oliver for taking the time to answer my questions and wish them, and the 186th good fortune for the future, and excellent opponents.

In-depth Look UT-60D U-Wing

Partisan Renegade

Let’s kick off with the Initiative 1 Partisan Renegade.  At first glance, there seems to be very little to inspire you to take a Partisan Renegade over a Blue Squadron Scout, with the lower initiative.  However, the Partisan Renegade does bring the Illicit slot to the rebellion, meaning that this ship can bring all sorts of tricks to the table.  While the illicit slot used to be hotly contested, that isn’t the case currently, but, if you do want to get some use out of it, perhaps running 4 renegades together, with rigged cargo chutes could cause no end of issues for both yourself or your opponent, or, to get the best out of both the ship and what it can bring, perhaps pairing with a large ship.

Dash/Partisan

The interesting thing I thought about with this list was using the initiative 1 step to co-ordinate an action off to Dash to activate C-3PO, or to get a white barrel roll off to get him out of a bump position for later in teh game.  It brings Dash a pseudo-Advaced Sensors upgrade.  There is always the option to replace Expert Handling on Dash for Trick Shot, but, sometimes, repositioning can be more important that adding extra dice.

Blue Squadron Scout

With the Scout, no illict slot leaves it clear to perform its Support Ship role rather nicely.  Some Advanced Sensors and a Tactical Officer leave it wide open for passing bonus actions around.  Giving it the configuration too means that it can co-ordinate off an action, then stop and rotate to get a prime shot off.

It looks as though Han, a Scout, and a Tala Squadron Pilot could provide some interesting distractions for an opponent here.  With the Scout opoening up Han for boosting, using Lando, Evading, or locking/focusing, means that he can save his action to rotate that bow-tie arc to prime position with almost perfect information when facing Initiative levels lower than his.

Heff Tobber

Heff Tobber is an interesting pilot, with a very situational ability.  He loves to be bumped.  With that in mind, pairing him with “Zeb” Orrelios Crew seems like a no-brainer.  Add in a Tactical Officer (yes, you will see one on almost every U-Wing I can build), and he can forego his action if required, because, when he is in exactly the right place, you will have forced your enemy to bump him hard, and often.

For this, I’ve gone with a Ghost/Attack Shuttle/Heff build, making use of “Chopper’ in the battering ram that is the VCX-100 with a loaded Informant on board, allowing you to get a good idea of what’s coming your way.  Now, you could move that informant onto the U-Wing, but, I believe Heff would prefer the Tactical Officer and “Zeb”.  We’ve got Sabine in the attack Shuttle as she is a focre to be reckoned with in her own right, and, it gives the Ghost a rear fire arc with 3 attack dice.

Benthic Two Tubes

I’m not going to go on a long rant here.  I’ve talked about Benthic a few times, in that, paired with a Perceptive Co-Pilot and Edrio Two Tubes, you can’t go far wrong, the rest of the list is fairly open for your favourites.  But, let’s have a look at an alternate build for fun shall we?

Bentic/Shara/”Dutch”

Cassian Andor

Next on our list is Cassian Andor.  He looks like a great squadmate for some B-Wings, thanks to an interesting idea I saw on the FFG Forums, which got me thinking about how else he could be used in stress mitigation.  What other ships are out there that stuggle with shedding the stress they seem to accumulate so quickly?  After looking around, the only other ship I could think of was the HWK 290, but, that has ways itself of either mitigating stress, or, just not getting stressed in the first place, so, back to the B-Wings it is.

Here, we have Cassian and 3 Blade Squadron veterans.  The idea is simple.  Get amongs the rocks, use the lead B-Wing to pull something onto a rock to deny return fire, Leia helps reduce the red on teh B-Wing dials once every 3 thurns, so, consider it carefully when you want to trigger.  Cassian should be activating first if the B-Wings are going to stress themselves, so he can Co-Ordinate an action out first.  The Debris Gambits are there to help up your dodging.  If you’ve placed correctly, you should have a minimum of 3 green dice, plus an evade token, for changing out those blanks.

K-2SO Place-holder

Magva Yarro

I had quite a hard time deciding where to plave Magva Yarro, and how her pilot ability could be put to best use.  I’m not totally happy with this but, it could work in the squadron’s favour.  With her ability to deny multiple die re-rolls, it should give the K-Wings a decent shot at surviving incoming fire, and, as their dials are very similar they should all be up to staying with each other.  They K-Wings have their Advanced Slam modifications for when they need to both get out of the fight, and reload their Proton Rockets.  The idea being that their primary weapons are for taking on targets that get in their arc, while the Proton Rockets are for forward facing threats, and give them a decent jousting threat level.  While the K-Wings are Slamming around, Magva should be either spinning on the spot to face where they will end up so she can rejoin them, or, following, and providing support from her weapons.

We come to our penultimate U-Wing pilot, the Imperial Defector, Bodhi Rook.  There are a fair few lists that could utilise Bodhi’s pilot ability.  The most obvious one being Shara Bey in her Arc-170.

The list I decided upon for this pilot is here and, I think, gives some nice interactions.  The idea is that the A-Wing dashes off, getting as close to the opponent as possible, while the other three ships slow roll in, bouncing locks off the A-Wing.  Once everybody has locked in, they can come about, and begin the engagement, loaded with focus and locks, with Bodhi co-ordinating wherever needed, and, during the engagement phase, Airen pinging a cheeky barrel roll off to Shara to either get her into prime position, between two ships, or out of the line of fire, while lining up herself.  Definitely an interesting ability to watch out for.

Here we go, our final pilot for the UT-60D U-Wing.  Partisan leader Saw Gerrera.  As you can see, his ability is almost perfect for ships that will take a pounding.

This seems an almost perfect pairing with the mighty VCX-100 alongside Jan Ors in the HWK-290.

Granting the VCX-100 a reroll, alongside an extra attack die, meaning, at Range 1, you would be doling out six attack dice, with a reroll, and whatever other modifiers you placed, such as either a focus or a lock.  A very intimidating prospect.  Keeping the VCX-100 to the fore, followed slowly, and are Range 3, by both Saw and Jan, you should guarantee it takes, and therefore gives, an awful lot of shots, and, with a Co-Ordinate from Saw, there is the extra modifier you are looking for, unless you go reinforce for damage mitigation.

Well, there you have it, a few ideas there on where to slot a U-Wing into a list, and what roles I feel it should be fulfilling.  As always, if you have any feedback on any of the lists, or even my opinion on the ship or pilot ideas, feel free to leave a comment.

Training Younglings

An idea struck me during a recent idea to run a poll about content for this blog, and that was about how we view the younglings that show an interest in flying space ships and making pew pew noises alongside the adults who do so.

I find myelf quite lucky in this regard, in that I have two children who seem to share the same interests I do, and want to be as involved as possible.  But, what about the wider community?  How young is too young?

Granted, just like Anakin, I have taken part in Organised Play events, but, I am by no means a master.  However, to my kids, I am a master, and I have plenty to teach them.

Yesterday I ran through an introductory game with my daughter, the first chance I really have had since she got her core set for her birthday, and she thoroughly enjoyed herself, and wanted to go again.

She made only three mistakes, two of which I helped her to correct, and worked towards showing her that gaining a stress token isn’t always to be avoided, if it prevents you from flying off the board, or lines you up for an excellent range one shot, with your s-foils open.

So, we had a Red Squadron Veteran up against 2 Obsidian Squadron Pilots.  Crentrally scattered rocks and debris, and a decision, on my part, to just go forward, go fast, and see what happens.  Early rounds show no real effect from lots of laser blasts being exchanged, until we get to the point where you either punch through the joust to slow roll around, or K-Turn it and go in again.  Yup, I K-Turned, and went in again.  Now, we came to a point where the X-Wing was having an issue because a K-Turn itself would mean it would lose its opportunity to fire, whereas a Tallon Roll would still turn it around, but also give it a shot.  As it happened, she had dialled in a 3-hard anyway.

Learning opportunity number 1:  When the enemy is behind you, and you want to stay engaged, Tallon Roll!  It might sound obvious to more experienced players, however, once I showed her the two finishing positions her ship would have had, she could see that turning tightly like that was the better move, especially as it put her out of arc of a TIE that was at point-blank range.  We are talking so close to bumping that we took it extra slow, just incase.

Now, unfortunately, when she rolled, she just couldn’t push damage through their three green dice, even with a four dice primary.  While she managed to dodge the majority of incoming fire, the X-Wing ended up shieldless, and down to 3 hull.

Next round saw stress removal all around, with no engagements, and back to dials again.  We now approached Learning Opportunity number 2.

Tallon Rolling to avoid facing the edge of the board is extremely wise!  I mean, there was no opportunity for it to correct from the 3-Hard that had once again been dialled in.  So, for teaching methods, and to show her what these non-standard moves look like on the table, we perform the move, and she twigs it again.

Unfortunately, the game ended shortly after after the X-Wing barrel rolls right into the bullseye of a TIE fighter, with nowhere else it can go, and eats a crti and two hits.  Completely blanking out on evading.

I felt awful for her, until I saw the gleam of excitement in her eyes, and she was bouncing around, asking for another game.  However, it was time for dinner, but, we have a play-date lined up for today

I would love to hear from other parents who play with their families, to hear about your experiences, maybe in an interview style format, or just a conversation through a comments section.

An Interview with an X-Winger

This is the first of what I hope to become a monthly feature, where I either interview somebody from the X-Wing community I have encountered in person, or had contact with online in one regard or another.

Today, I have Omer here from Can’t Sleep, Must Paint to talk about how he started in X-Wing, and what it has become for him.  I met Omer during this year’s Colchester Invasion charity Tournament.

Me:  How did you discover X-Wing?

Omer: So, I’ve been playing since the first release. A close friend got the core set and some expansions, and invited me over for a game. That was pretty much it, the hooks were in!

Me:  What was your favourite aspect of the game?

Omer:  It’s Star Wars, y’no? Haha.  In the beginning, it was making movie-moments. Having Luke dodge a shot from Vader, watching TIEs smash into the asteroid chasing the Falcon. My favourite bit of Star Wars is the Rogue Squadron novels, and this is those books on a table.

As I bought my own ships, got more invested and started wandering into the tournament scene, I still loved those moments, but I also loved the competition of it. I’m a fairly competitive person, I’ve been a wrestler, an archer and I’ve built combat robots, and when I started getting into X-Wing I wasn’t really doing those things any more, so it filled that competitive void. Not the winning, I’m not the best player around, but playing with a purpose.

Me:  At what point did you decide that the models could do with being modified?

Omer:  Day one, as soon as I saw them, haha. X-Wing wasn’t my first war game, and I’d always modified things for other games. Gave Vikings bigger beards, made banners and flags, stuff like that.

I always want my stuff to stand out on the table, because then I can write my own stories in my head. That’s not just a YT-2400, that’s Dash Rendar and Leebo in the Outrider, tearing through the asteroid field, escaping Hoth, engines roaring and guns pounding!

I started out simple, changing the colours on an X-Wing, stuff like that. Then I saw someone put LEDs in a Millennium Falcon and thought “I can do that”. From there the madness began. 6mm pilots in cockpits, sound chips, UV paint. Nothing is too far.

Me:  So, was the Millennium Falcon the first ship you modified?

Omer:  I think the first ever was an A-Wing, the peg snapped and I magnetised it, if that counts. But the first proper mod was a B-Wing. I made it spin, then I decided  to make the cockpit spin too.

Me: Sounds cool, I saw your falcon at Invasion Colchester, how long after your fist modifications was it before you felt confident enough to tackle that one?

Omer:  Probably the best part of 6 months. I spent about 3 weeks working out how to do it, ordering just the right LEDs, planning where the switch would go, how to fit a battery inside. Even learned a bit of GSCE electronics!

Me:  So, is every ship in your collection customised in some way now?

Omer:  The ones I use, yeah. Even if it’s just painted. I used to just paint everything I could get my hands on, but my time is a little more limited now, so I tend to focus on a ship or something I’m actually going to take to a tournament or something and show off. I had the goal of painting 13 X-Wings to match the livery Rogue Squadron used in The Bacta War, but I got stuck at 5, haha.

I’ve only painted 3 Imperial ships, Vader’s TIE and two Firesprays, but I only really play Rebels.

I don’t think I’ve ever put a “vanilla” ship on a tournament table.

Me: So, you have the cool ships, either painted or modified, what about your pilot cards?  As there aren’t many Alt-Arts out there, how have you handled that?

Omer:  Ok, so this will be a bit of a long one!

Well, I made my own! I couldn’t very well have cards that didn’t match the ships! I was never really cool with stealing other people’s art though, I didn’t just want to find cool pictures on Google.

At first I used a program called Strange Eons, and just took pictures of my ships and edited them onto backgrounds with a program on my phone.

Then the itch to create my own art came. I had an iPad mini and a stylus, so I taught myself to draw. At first I had a real sketchy, minimalist style, then my good friend Joe Crouch got his claws in me. He’s an outstanding artist/animator/digital sculptor/absolute wizard, and he became my Sensei, teaching me how to use things like Illustrator and Photoshop, even giving me a graphics tablet. Somehow, with crazy speed, I was creating my own art! I’ve never been very good at drawing, so I was the most surprised person at the results!

Me:  Have you restricted yourself to just Pilot cards, or worked on fully kitting out a squad as well?

Omer: I actually made a few upgrade cards, both versions of Chopper and one BB-8. Then I was going to to some common builds, with upgrades showing the actual ships they were on. I was halfway through drawing a Heavy Laser Canon, the one on the Outrider in the Shadows of the Empire game, and then X-Wing 2.0 was announced, so I scrapped that pretty quick!

Me: So, with the release of 2.0, are you going to continue with your alt arts, or use stock cards?

Omer:  Oh, I’m definitely going to continue. Some of my best cards, like Dash or Vader, just need re-formatting for 2.0, but it’s also a good chance to tweak cards, like making Wedge more screen accurate. It’s also an opportunity to work on some new pilots that may be coming to the fore now, like certain famous Mandalorian.

Me:  Ok, so, if my readers want to immortalise themselves, a loved one, or a random idea in their head, can they get in touch with you for a discussion?

Omer:  Of course! I love a good chat, especially about the random ideas for things people come up with! I did invent the Jurassic Arc-170 after all!

Me: Well, thanks for taking the time to chat, and show off your skills, for those of you who are interested in seeing more of what Omer gets up to, or what he could possibly do for you, you can view his work and look over some things at the links below.

Facebook

Instagram

Merchandise

The Journey Begins

With a list already prepared in a previous post, I have, since, edited it slightly, just changing upgrades.  It now looks something like this:

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All in, it sits at a cosy 199 points.  So, a small bid, just to see what happens.

I will admit now, I didn’t take any picture of my game today, I also can’t remember everything that was in my opponent’s list, but, here is the gist of it, but, his was at a square 200.

During setup, the U-Wing had it’s wings wide open, and the X-Wings began with closed S-foils.  I had shenanigans in mind.  It’s also where I made my first mistake.

Activation comes round, and the A-wing speeds off with a 5-straight, followed by a focus>boost towards the center of the board.  The Scum Y-wings cautiously approach, and set their turrets ready to turn (his) right, and strafe me.  Next up was Benthic, going slow, so as not to get out of range of Edrio, or get in the fight too soon.  Focusing up, and sliding one to Edrio, who decides it’s a great idea to focus>boost himself, forgetting he had dialled in a white move, through a debris cloud, but, not far enough that he wasn’t going to hit it next turn… D’oh!  At least, before he moved, I remembered to open his S-foils.  Kullbee, on the other hand, pulled off his move and action combination superbly, once.  On that opening turn.

From there, there was no shooting that first round, and, the A-wing managed to pull a wonderful block on one of the Y-wings, still avoiding taking fire, and Benthic moved to get a bead on things, and support Edrio with focus tokens while he cleared his stress.  Combat this turn saw Boba hit a rock right in front of Kullbee, lose his shields, and take a damaged engine in the process, a pot shot at a Y-wing from Benthic took a shield down, and Edrio plinked into Boba some more.

Things were looking great for the rebels, while the Scum just couldn’t land a telling hit, just the odd shield here or there…  At least, until the A-Wing, with a single shield, took a proximity mine to the face, and became a rapidly expanding cloud of debris.

The game progresses, a Y-wing is obliterated by R1 fire from Edrio, Benthic jousts Boba for more damage, reducing him to half and taking nothing but paint on the evade dice, while Kullbee bites the dust after being ionised on a rock and forgetting he fired before Benthic…

The game ended after that round, as I had to dash off to collect the kids from school.  However, if there had been another round or two, it would have definitely been a different story.

Patience I must learn, master?

So, with all that in mind, I did learn some lessons playing against a live opponent, rather than the AI in FlyCasual, as well as making sure my first turn goes exactly as I have planned, and I don’t make stupid mistakes, like stressing Edrio AND flying him through debris…  Ion has certainly lost some potency now, ensuring a damage firstly, then converting any remaining results into Ion tokens.  This actually worked more in my favour during this game, as I generally only suffered one hit, which wasn’t enough to get ionised, aside from that one time…

I’m looking forward to getting this list on the table again, and working on getting better with it, I can certainly see potential with it.

Time to Write A List.

Firstly, to note:  Yes, the past few days have seen a VERY mixed reaction on the internet, regarding various aspects of the 2.0 (hereafter known as X-Wing) release, some bad, some good, but an awful lot of volume, so, I’m not going to address any of that.  So, let’s jump right in.

What to fly?  This is the question I find myself asking over and over again.  You will find my analysis of the rebels during the build-up to release here, and one by a different blogger here.

Let’s start at the beginning, with an inventory of ships, and what I have to fly them.

Ship Models:

6 A-Wings, 5 Y-Wings, 6 X-Wings, 5 B-Wings, 2 E-Wings, 2 K-Wings, 2 U-Wings, 3 YT-1300s, 2 YT-2400s, 3 Z95s, 1 TIE/LN, 1 VCX-100, 1 Attack Shuttle, 1 Sheathipede Class Shuttle, 2 HWK 290s, and 1 ARC-170.

Phew, quite a list there.  So, much more in model count than I have cardboard to fly, and, much more than I could, currently, put on the table for a single game.

Card Stock:

X-Wing Core Set, Rebel Alliance Conversion Kit, Saw’s Renegades.

A much smaller list, but, one that actually covers a fair sized portion of my ship collection.  I can’t help but wonder whether I would have been better off beginning this game a lot later, but, there you go.  I have what I have.

I have one list jumping out at me at the moment, playing with some interesting interactions and pilot abilities.

First run X-Wing List

So, with the associated upgrades as seen in the list linked above, here is the plan.  Our little Phoenix Squadron Pilot is out blocker, tail nipper, and general pain in the backside.  He’s there to fill up the points, and provide an extra distraction.  Hopefully.

As the next lowest, Benthic would activate first, slow-rolling where I want him, with a focus, passing one off to Edrio.  Now, Edrio would focus into a boost, gaining stress, flip his S-foils over, perform a blue move to clear the stress, and take a lock on the most appropriate enemy ready to unleash his torpedoes.

Something similar can happen with Kullbee, however, his is slightly reversed, whereby he would begin the round stressed, dial in a blue, focus to boost, then open his S-foils, for a full strength primary attack.

So, lots of S-foil shenanigans there, and, hopefully, makes the X-wings slippery enough to be unpredictable.  My initial thoughts on possible tweaks are to remove the torpedoes from Kullbee, but, at 9 points, they would give me a decent bid, or, open up another crew member for the U-Wing.  However, most of the unique rebel crew seem somewhat lacklustre compared to their legacy selves.  But, time will tell I guess.

Got any thoughts on this list?  Give me a shout, and let me know.

[X-Wing] 2nd Edition – The Rebel Alliance first take

A more comprehensive look at what the Rebel Alliance brings to the table than I did previously. Although, Mine will be due an update soon, once I get some games under my belt with my collection.

Dice Tales

2nd Edition has arrived, and (much to my relief) it’s really good! I’ve been very impressed by how much the game has actually changed – it’s a lot more in-depth than it at first appears. As a result of this, I’m (along with everyone else) very much in the early stage of figuring out what’s strong in each faction, and what the big shifts on a ship by ship basis are between editions. To help get to grips with the new edition, I’m going to take a look at each faction in turn, starting with the Rebel Alliance as the owners of the most iconic ship in the game.

A word of warning, this is a long blog post, so make yourself a cup of tea before settling in for the whole thing, or just jump ahead to the ships you care about. I’m not looking at every pilot in-depth…

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Goodbye 1.0. Hello 2.0

Image credit to saeriellyn on Deviantart.

So, with many places waving goodbye to 1.0, I took part in the annual Colchester Invasion charity tournament at Ace Gaming Centre, Colchester for my second ever, and last, 1.0 tournament.

Now, I didn’t think to get pictures, as I didn’t want to unreasonably slow down the other players, and, I was a little out of my comfort zone, seeing as I don’t generally enjoy inserting myself into groups of people I don’t know.  However, one of my opponents did get some pictures of the game, so, there will be some of those to see.  I’m not going to do a blow-by-blow for each game, as it was a 5 round, highest Tournament Score wins event.

I decided to theme my list, based on what ships I enjoyed flying, and how tricksy I could make them.

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Now, I’m not saying it was a competitive list in the slightest, but, it had some hilarious effects, interactions, and a surprise or two.

Many of the highlights include One-shotting a Fenn Rau (Scum) out of Norra’s rear arc, with 3 dice for range, the added focus from her ability, then turning it to a crit, with the other focus using her token.  Had Fenn’s autothrusters kicked in, he would survived on a single hit point… but, it was ruled that, as a printed arc, the rear arc didn’t activate them.

Another Fenn Rau (Scum) kill came from the proximity mine out of the U-Wing, with a Sabine damage, causing 2 critical hits.

Sabine’s mine struck again when Rey, chasing the U-wing down for the kill (against the overall winner), forgot the mine was there, so the U-wing sacrificed itself to plink some shields off Rey.  1.0 U-Wings with mines or bombs is hilarious!  Nobody expects them…

Norra was, by far, the best performer, weaving, boosting, rolling, locking, and shooting things as opportunities presented themselves, aside from one game, where she went off in completely the wrong direction, after I mistook the direction my opponent was going to go.

Overall, I came 11/12, which is a personal best, going 1-4.  Every single one of my opponents was an absolute blast to play, and I only faced TLT/Harpoons Nym once, and, my opponent agreed that it was an awful thing to do, but, he wanted to do it one last time, as Nym is locked out for him in 2.0, being a rebel player.

I’d like to thank every single person who played that event, as well as the TO Paul, and his partner in Crime, Glenn (for the loan of a TIE fighter dial after mine turned up missing at the last minute.)  Everybody made me feel welcome to the group.  As promised, here are the pictures I got from an opponent. (Please don’t be cross if I don’t mention the names of my opponents, I can remember two of them, but not the other three, so I’ll mention nobody to be fair lol)

If you want to find out more about Ace, and what they get up to:

Facebook Page

X-Wing Group on Facebook

Ace Comics Website

Ace Gaming Website

A Small Word of Recommendation

Let’s try rewriting this.  The original draft was kinda awful.

About 2 weeks ago, my son managed to sell his Warhammer projects, and decided he wanted some X-Wing 2.0 templates and trays.  I’d been looking around for a while, in preparation for some myself, but, as yet, I haven’t decided what I want.

He looked over a couple of the most popular vendors, and decided to go with Buy the Same Token.  He ordered.

At the same time, I was discussing with BtST about my daughter’s likes for some templates too, mainly, in the end, because of some of the opiions offered.  Added to this some last minute assistance.

Fast forward, and my son’s templates and trays turned up, and he was extremely pleased with them.  The unicorns?

Some incredibly detailed work there, and a design that looks like it will be immesurably epic once the template tray is ordered, and it’s on the Com-scan effect lid.

The customer service received is second to none that I have experienced when shopping online, regardless of what it is for.

One small note, my wife and I painted these, so, if it’s not up to standard BtST quality, it’s not his fault, it’s ours.  The quality and service are second to none, and I have absolutely no complaints at all.  Certainly somebody to buy from with absolute confidence!

EDIT – Add the links you twit…

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