Rogue Squadron- Triple Defenders

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 low down on how best to fly it. Strap in and get ready to fly…

All Wings Report In

TIE Defender “Countess Ryad” (Imperial Veterans Expansion) (36 pts) (PS5)

When you reveal a Straight maneuver, you may treat it as a K-turn maneuver.

Elite Pilot Talent- Juke (TIE F/O Expansion): When attacking, if you have an evade token, you may change 1 of the defender’s results into a result.
Title- TIE/x7 (Imperial Veterans Expansion): Your upgrade bar loses the Missile and Cannon upgrade icons. After executing a 3-, 4-, or 5-speed maneuver, you may assign 1 evade token to your ship.

2x TIE Defender “Delta Squadron Pilot” (TIE Defender Expansion) (33 pts) (PS1)

None

Cannon- Ion Cannon (B-Wing/M3-A/Slave-1/TIE Defender Expansion): Attack (3, range 1-3): Attack 1 ship. If this attack hits, the defender suffers 1 damage and receives 1 ion token. Then cancel all dice results.
Title- TIE/D (Imperial Veterans Expansion): Once per round, after you perform an attack with a secondary weapon that costs 3 or fewer squad points, you may perform a primary weapon attack.

Lock S-Foils in Attack Position

With the release of Imperial Veterans the TIE Defender, these long neglected ships, will be seeing a resurgence in a big way. It’s hard to saw how often we’ll see triple Defender lists but I like the idea of this kind of list (so much so that I bought triple Defenders when they first launched). I debated what list to put as the showcase list for talking about triple TIE Defenders. While the potential variations are many, I went with the above solely because I’ve flown it. We’ll discuss it’s strengths and weaknesses and compare to some other builds.

My first desire when building a triple Defender list was to run three generics with the TIE/D title and cannons. But since I didn’t want to buy two Imperial Veterans (netting me five TIE Defender models) I went with a mix of the two titles. The TIE/x7 will probably see the most play as it is quite powerful with it’s free evade token and price reduction but the above combo is all about maximizing damage potential.

With two ships wielding ion cannons and the TIE/D title you get a total of five shots from three ships. Two ships could end up ioned each round giving you a lot of board control. Thanks to their preference for jousting, due to the white 4 K-turn, Defenders get a lot of mileage out of ion cannons.

While the two Delta’s are trying to control movement and generally be annoying, the Countess is flitting about being unpredictable and stripping tokens. Thanks to Juke and TIE/x7, as long as she goes fast she’s forcing her target to either take extra damage or spend a Focus token. This increases the hit chances of the two Delta’s. With her ability you can never be sure if she’s going to turn around or pull something sneaky by just taking the soft one. Just having the option to make a 5 K-turn is incredibly potent as that allows you to clear a good distance so it’s hard to block.

Variations

Sticking to these pilots, the best variation is to drop one ion cannon to a tractor beam and give Ryad Push the Limits and a TIE Mk II. She suddenly becomes a lot more dangerous as she can get a Focus, Target Lock and Evade every round. Just giving her the option to clear a stress on a maneuver other than straight is also very useful.

As for other potential triple Defender lists, we’ll stick with the restriction of just using one copy of Imperial Veterans:

Vessery + Marksmanship + TIE/D + Ion Cannon + TIE Mk II
2x Delta’s + TIE/x7 + TIE Mk II

This one has potential as Vessery can be one of the most accurate ships in the game if played right. If you take TL with your Deltas Vessery is almost definitely going to get three hits on all of his attacks. The main downside is that Vessery becomes the obvious first target. Compared to the above list, the Delta’s are easier and therefore more tempting, leaving Ryad around longer to be more useful in the end game.

Vessery + TIE/D + Tractor Beam
Ryad + TIE/x7 + Adaptability
Glaive + TIE/x7

The main advantage of this list is that you have three PS 6 Defenders. They are moving after all generics so you have some arc dodging potential. You’ll want Vessery firing first to get maximum benefit out of the tractor beam but it adds a lot of potential shenanigans. Of course, the list suffers against real aces as it fairs no better than triple Delta’s.