Rogue Squadron- Going Dutch

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

Y-Wing “Horton Salm” (Y-Wing Expansion) (34 pts) (PS 8)

When attacking at Range 2-3, you may reroll any of your blank results.

Astromech- R5-P9 (Rebel Transport Expansion): At the end of the Combat phase, you may spend 1 of your focus tokens to recover 1 shield (up to your shield value).
Turret- Twin Laser Turret (K-Wing Expansion): Attack (3 Die, Range 2-3: Perform this attack twice (even against a ship outside your firing arc). Each time this attack hits, the defender suffers 1 damage. Then cancel all dice results.

Y-Wing “Dutch Vander” (Y-Wing Expansion) (32 pts) (PS 6)

After acquiring a target lock, choose another friendly ship at Range 1-2. The chosen ship may immediately acquire a target lock.

Astromech- R7-T1 (E-Wing Expansion): Action: Choose an enemy ship at Range 1-2. If you are inside that ship’s firing arc, you may acquire a target lock on that ship. Then, you may perform a free boost action.
Turret- Twin Laser Turret (K-Wing Expansion): Attack (3 Die, Range 2-3: Perform this attack twice (even against a ship outside your firing arc). Each time this attack hits, the defender suffers 1 damage. Then cancel all dice results.

HWK-290 “Kyle Katarn” (HWK-290 Expansion) (34 pts) (PS 6)

At the start of the Combat phase, you may assign 1 of your focus tokens to another friendly ship at Range 1-3.

Elite Pilot Talent– Lightning Reflexes (Kihraxz Expansion): After you execute a white or green maneuver on your dial, you may discard this card to rotate your ship 180°. Then receive 1 stress token after the “Check Pilot Stress” step.
Crew- Recon Specialist (HWK-290/TIE Phantom Expansions): When you perform a focus action, assign 1 additional focus token to your ship.
Turret- Twin Laser Turret (K-Wing Expansion): Attack (3 Die, Range 2-3: Perform this attack twice (even against a ship outside your firing arc). Each time this attack hits, the defender suffers 1 damage. Then cancel all dice results.
Title- Moldy Crow (HWK-290 Expansion): During the End phase, do not remove unused focus tokens from your ship.

Lock S-Foils in Attack Position

This list is all about action economy and overcoming the usual unmodified attacks with Twin Laser Turrets (TLT). To start with you have Horton Salm, a long-ignored Y-Wing pilot. The TLT was made for him as its range lines up with his abilities range requirements. If he can fire, he can get rerolls on blanks. Then you have Dutch. Dutch loves taking target locks. He then allows another ship, usually Kyle, a chance to take a free target lock. With R7-T1 equipped, Dutch can also boost away to keep range. For the longest time I never gave R7-T1 a second thought because I had misread him and thought you had to have the enemy ship in your arc and be in their arc. But since you just need to be in their arc, having a turret is great. If someone is chasing you you can use him to gain distance and either get to use TLT by getting out of range 1 or get to range 3 and get a bonus defense die.

Finally, Kyle banks up the focus tokens with recon specialist and Moldy Crow. Then he passes the tokens out to the Y-wing. If Horton is a target, give the token to him so he can gain a shield back a the end of the round. If he’s fine, give it to Dutch so that all three ships get a reroll and a focus to use on their attacks. This makes them fairly consistent damage dealers. And at a max of six damage a round, they’re going to need to be consistent.

The biggest weakness with this list is the same as any non K-wing TLT carrier; the donut hole of range 1. It’s pretty easy for a ship to plop down into a position where none of your ships can fire on them. You want to keep them spread out to avoid this. Fortunately, all of your support abilities are range 1-2 or 1-3 so you have some flexibility with your formation.

Variations

Kyle’s EPT is the easiest thing in this list to change. I gave him Lightning Reflexes so that he would have a once per game chance to turn around, something the HWK isn’t very good at. But you could easily substitute Veteran Instincts to gain another PS8 attack. Or Crack Shot in order to force one damage through. Adrenaline Rush might also be useful as it would allow him to go fast one round and still get an action.

You could also trade R5-P9 and Kyle’s EPT for Marksmanship on Horton. With Marksmanship he is almost guaranteed to get three hits on each TLT attack. He loses the regen ability though, which can be very useful for keeping your squad alive in the end game. All three ships can drop pretty easily due to their low agility.