Rogue Squadron- Elite Eight

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

T-70 X-Wing “Poe Dameron” (Force Awakens Core) (40 pts)

When attacking or defending, if you have a focus token, you may change 1 of your Focus results to a Hit or Evade result.

Elite Pilot Talent- Lonewolf (Hound’s Tooth/YT-2400 Expansions): When attacking or defending, if there are no other friendly ships at Range 1-2, you may reroll 1 of your blank results.
Astromech- R5-P9 (Rebel Transport)- At the end of the Combat phase, you may spend 1 of your focus tokens to recover 1 shield (up to your shield value).
Tech- Weapons Guidance (Force Awakens Core)- When attacking, you may spend a focus token to change 1 of your blank results to a Hit result.
Modification- Autorthrusters (Starviper Expansion)- When defending, if you are beyond Range 2 or outside the attacker’s firing arc, you may change 1 of your blank results to an Evade result. You can equip this card only if you have the Boost action icon.

A-Wing “Tycho Celchu” (A-Wing Expansion) (30 pts)

You may perform actions even while you have stress tokens.

Elite Pilot Talent- Push the Limits (A-Wing/Imperial Aces Expansions): Once per round, after you perform an action, you may perform 1 free action shown in your action bar. Then receive 1 stress token.
Elite Pilot Talent- Wired (Force Awakens Core): When attacking or defending, if you are stressed, you may reroll 1 or more of your Focus results.
Title- A-Wing Test Pilot (Rebel Aces Expansion): Your upgrade bar gains 1 Elite Pilot Talent upgrade icon. You cannot equip 2 of the same Upgrade cards. You cannot equip this if your pilot skill value is “1” or lower.
Missile- Chardaan Refit (Rebel Aces Expansion)- This card has a negative squad point cost
Modification- Autorthrusters (Starviper Expansion)- When defending, if you are beyond Range 2 or outside the attacker’s firing arc, you may change 1 of your blank results to an Evade result. You can equip this card only if you have the Boost action icon.

Z-95 “Airen Cracken” (Z-95 Expansion) (30 pts)

After you perform an attack, you may choose another friendly ship at Range 1. That ship may perform 1 free action.

Elite Pilot Talent- Predator (TIE Defender/Kihraxz Expansions)- When attacking, you may reroll 1 attack die. If the defender’s pilot skill value is “2” or lower, you may instead reroll up to 2 attack dice.
Missile– Cluster Missile (A-Wing/Imperial Raider/TIE Advanced Expansions)- Attack (3, Range 1-2): Spend your target lock and discard this card to perform this attack twice.
Modification- Engine Upgrade (Millenium Falcon/YV-666 Expansion)- Your action bar gains the Boost action icon.

Lock S-Foils in Attack Position

There have been a lot of ship releases in a pretty short amount of time. So it’s taken me a month to get to showcase one of the new Force Awaken ships in a Rogue Squadron. But it’s worth the wait because Poe Dameron is a lot of fun.

In the early stages you keep this list together. For the first engagement you try to get to range 2 and trigger Cracken’s Cluster Missiles. With those he can give out actions to each of the other two, potentially giving them a target lock to combine with their focuses. You can also potentially fire with Poe and Tycho to fire first, and then take Cracken’s free action to Boost out of an arc to avoid fire in that first engagement.

After Cracken has spent his ordinance, you’re free to spread the squad out. You might never use Cracken’s ability again but that’s okay. Poe wants to stay away from his allies so that he can reroll blanks with Lone Wolf and get a free focus change from his ability. He’ll rarely use Weapon Guidance but it’s nice to have in a pinch.

Tycho is your king of stress, as always. But now with Wired he’s rerolling Focus token left and right. This is specially good if you’re facing a swarm or TLT spam. He can only ever take one Focus action so if he gets fired on many times he has a good chance to evade them.

Variations

Due to the heavy point investment in a lot of these ships there really aren’t a lot of modification you could make. You could drop Engine Upgrade from Cracken to give him a Shield Upgrade so he can last a little longer. You could also drop Weapons Guidance to give Poe a Flechette Torpedo or for a two point initiative bid. You could also drop it and Chardaan Refit if you’re feeling cheeky.