Rogue Squadron- Roll All the Dice

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 Fighter “Howlrunner” (TIE Fighter Expansion) (22 pts) (PS 8)

When another friendly ship at Range 1 is attacking with its primary weapon, it may reroll 1 attack die.

Elite Pilot Talent- Opportunist (Imperial Aces Expansion): When attacking, if the defender does not have any focus or evade tokens, you may receive 1 stress token to roll 1 additional attack die. You cannot use this ability if you have any stress tokens.

TIE Fighter “Scourge” (Imperial Assault Carrier) (21 pts) (PS 7)

When attacking a defender that has 1 or more Damage cards, roll 1 additional attack die.

Elite Pilot Talent- Opportunist (Imperial Aces Expansion): When attacking, if the defender does not have any focus or evade tokens, you may receive 1 stress token to roll 1 additional attack die. You cannot use this ability if you have any stress tokens.

TIE Fighter “Mauler Mithel” (Original Core) (21 pts) (PS 7)

When attacking at Range 1, roll 1 additional attack die.

Elite Pilot Talent- Opportunist (Imperial Aces Expansion): When attacking, if the defender does not have any focus or evade tokens, you may receive 1 stress token to roll 1 additional attack die. You cannot use this ability if you have any stress tokens.

TIE Fighter “Youngster” (Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion) (19 pts) (PS 6)

Friendly TIE fighters at Range 1-3 may perform the action on your equipped Upgrade card.

Elite Pilot Talent- Expose (Slave-1 Expansion): Action: Until the end of the round, increase your primary weapon value by 1 and decrease your agility value by 1.

TIE Fighter “Backstabber” (Original Core) (16 pts) (PS 6)

When attacking from outside the defender’s firing arc, roll 1 additional attack die.

None

Lock S-Foils in Attack Position

This is a very gimmicky list to be sure. It is all about turning the measly two attack of a standard TIE Fighter and juicing that up to insane levels. In order to pull it off it requires special positioning, circumstances and exposing your already fragile three HP ships to being blasted away. But it’s hilarious when it works.

Most of the ships chosen have a native pilot ability that allows them to roll an additional die. Some are easier to pull off than others. Backstabber isn’t to bad as your goal in any game is already to get out of your opponents arc. Likewise, Mauler Mithel triggers when you are doing something you would already be trying to do, get into range one. Finally, Scourge’s has no positioning requirement but it only triggers on already damaged ships. For this list, he probably just wants to shoot second or third.

If you can get this group of pilots into range one, out of arc, and against a damaged ship with no tokens, Mauler (2 Base + Range 1 Bonus + Mauler Range 1 Bonus + Expose + Opportunist) and Scourge (2 Base + Range 1 Bonus + Scourge Bonus + Expose + Opportunist) could roll six dice while Howlrunner (2 Base + Range 1 Bonus + Expose + Opportunist) and Backstabber (2 Base + Range 1 Bonus + Backstabber out of arc bonus + Expose) are rolling five and Youngster four (2 Base + Range 1 Bonus + Expose). That’s a lot of dice coming at your opponent.

Now, the main downside is that aside from the Howlrunner reroll those dice are unmodified. Fortunately, as these ships are all pilot skill 6 or higher, you have a pretty good chance of them all firing first. There aren’t many ways to get five ships in a squad with them all having a PS above four. After Exposing yourself down to two agility dice and only having three hull, these ships will die fast. But they should take some other ships down with them.

Variations

A good choice in variations on this list is to drop Opportunist for Push the Limits. Combine that with your one available point for two Targeting Computers on the two PTL fighters and suddenly your unmodified six dice become well-modified five dice that last even after Howlrunner dies. A worthy trade.

I seriously considered taking Zeta Leader in a TIE F/O instead of Howlrunner. He also has a nice ability to increase his attack die with a built in Opportunistic, that doesn’t require a target who lacks tokens. But since he’s not in a standard TIE Fighter he couldn’t use Youngster’s Expose and it would deny the entire squad Howlrunner’s reroll.