Rogue Squadron- Rebel Sampler- First 2.0 Tournament

Welcome to Rogue Squadron, pilot! In this series, we will be looking at different squadrons you can fly in Fantasy Flight Games X-Wing miniatures game. We give you the squad, what expansion pack all of the upgrades come from and then give you the lowdown on how best to fly it. Strap in and get ready to fly.

All Wings Report In

T-65 X-Wing “Garven Dreis” (Wave 1) (50 pts) (I4)

After you spend a focus token, you may choose 1 friendly ship at range 1-3. That ship gains 1 focus token.

Astromech- R3 Astromech (Core Set): You can maintain up to 2 locks. Each lock must be on a different object. After you perform a Lock action, you may acquire a lock.
Configuration- Servomotor S-foils (Core Set):
- Closed: While you perform a primary attack, roll 1 fewer attack dice. Before you activate, you may flip this card
  - Adds: White Boost, Focus> Red Boost
- Open: Before you activate, you may flip this card

Z-95 “Lieutenant Blount” (Wave 1 Conversion Kits) (35 pts) (I4)

While you perform a primary attack, if there is at least 1 other friendly ship at range 0-1 of the defender, you may roll 1 additional attack die

Missile- Homing Missile (Wave 1 Conversion Kits): Attack (Lock) (4 Attack, Forward Arc, Range 2-3, Charge- 2): Spend 1 Charge. After you declare the defender, the defender may choose to suffer 1 damage. If it does, skip the Attack and Defense Dice steps and the attack is treated as hitting.
Talent- Expert Handling (Wave 1): Requires Red Barrel Roll. Adds White Barrel Roll.

A-Wing “Arvel Crynyd” (Wave 1 Conversion Kits) (46 pts) (I3)

You can perform primary attacks at range 0. If you would fail a Boost action by overlapping another ship, resolve it as though you were partially executing a maneuver instead.

VECTORED THRUSTERS: After you perform an action, you may perform a red Boost action.

Missile- Proton Rockets (Wave 1 Conversion Kits): Attack (Focus) (5 Attack, Bullseye Arc, Range 1-2, Charge- 1): Spend one Charge.
Talent- Intimidation (Wave 1): While an enemy ship at range 0 defends, it rolls 1 fewer defense die.

HWK-290 “Kyle Katarn” (Wave 1 Conversion Kits) (69 pts) (I3)

At the start of the Engagement Phase, you may transfer 1 of your focus tokens to a friendly ship in your firing arc.

Crew- Lando Calrissian (Rebel Conversion Kit): Action: Roll 2 defense dice. For each Focus result, gain 1 focus token. For each Evade result, gain 1 evade token. If both results are blank, the opposing player chooses focus or evade. You gain 1 token of that type.
Modification- Shield Upgrade (Core Set): Add 1 Shield point.
Modification- Hull Upgrade (Core Set): Add 1 Hull point.
Talent- Elusive (Wave 1): Charge 1. While you defend, you may spend 1 to reroll 1 defense die. After you fully execute a red maneuver, recover 1 Charge.
Title- Moldy Crow (Rebel Conversion Kit): Gain a Forward Arc primary weapon with a value of “3.” During the End Phase, do not remove up to 2 focus tokens.

Lock S-Foils in Attack Position

I went to my first 2.o tournament and I wanted to try a variety of different things out. So I threw together this list as a sampler of a few things. It worked far better than I anticipated as I won 3 out of 4 and came in second overall.

First, HWK’s don’t suck! Really and truly they don’t. Another guy also flew HWK’s (didn’t fly against him) and he also went 3-1. Moldy Crow is the real winner here more than anything else. Gaining a front arc attack with three dice, combined with another mobile arc is huge. They are a legit threat out the front and it’s harder to sneak up behind them. Additionally, having the 180 degrees of arc coverage is essential to pulling off Kyle’s (and the other HWK’s) pilot abilities. Because they now all only work on ships in their arc. This proved an issue a few times when the ship I wanted to pass a focus to wasn’t in my arc.

Kyle working with Garven is a nice combo. Lots of Focus to pass around. And the X-wing is a real beast with six health. Held up quite well in most games, as did the upgraded seven health HWK. Garven, however, suffers with the change that requires him to roll Focus in order to spend his token. Quite a few rounds it went unused by anybody.

The Z-95 was the sleeper hit. Homing Missiles are a cheap way to push damage through against a hard to hit target. Blount’s new ability is amazing. He’s cheap enough to slide into quite a few lists, especially ones with multiple ships. The more ships, the more chances he’ll get his bonus die. And it did quite a lot of work for me.

The A-Wing was the disappointment. The free Boost action was very nice, I’ll give it that. But it’s still only four health and can evaporate quickly. Bumping is far harder to pull off than you think it should be. Intimidation and Arvel’s range 0 shot happened once in four games. Maybe he’ll be better with some more practice but overall he was a disappointment.

As for the tournament itself, wow did I see a lot of Punishers. It’s great seeing people trying out new things, especially things that sucked in 1.0. I also flew against three Whispers in a row. She’s back. Whisper with Darth Vader crew is kind of scary. Especially if you’re an idiot, like me, who failed to grasp how important it is to keep your ships tokened. I made some bonehead decisions and lost three ships to Vader because I made the wrong action call. Didn’t help that my opponent flew Whisper as she’s meant to fly so he always had me in arc and in range. You can’t screw around against flying like that.

Overall, the tournament was won by a TIE swarm. Fortunately, I didn’t have to fly against him. I doubt this list would do exceptionally well, as swarms are a beast to fly against.

Variations

For this combo of pilots, I would probably change out quite a few upgrades if I flew it again. First, Proton Rockets are quite expensive and difficult to pull off. Honestly, I took them before I realized they were range 1-2, not 0-2 which mean when Arvel bumped he couldn’t fire them. I would probably switch them to Homing and bump Arvel to Jake. More Focus shenanigans for the list to play with.

Intimidation never did anything, even with Arvel, so that should become a different Talent. Either Elusive on Garven or for the A-Wing. Speaking of Elusive, you’ll get more mileage from it on someone other than the HWK. Because you really want to Focus or Lando with Kyle, you aren’t making much use out of your red maneuvers, including the stop. At least not when you need to recharge Elusive. The other ships do more red maneuvers K-turning. Move Kyles.

R3 Astromech wasn’t useless but maybe not worth the three points here. The idea was to let Garven take Lock once and have to Locks to use during the game. It would depend a lot on what you fly against but in my games I didn’t have two ships I wanted to lock in range on the turns I was okay locking instead of focusing. R4 for some hard turn blues would be better use of the points. Then, if you gave Elusive to Garven, you could give Trick Shot to Kyle. With the wider arc, he’ll have more chances to use it.