Rogue Squadron- Phoenix Squadron

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

VCX-100 “Hera Syndulla” (Ghost Expansion) (50 pts)

When you reveal a green or red maneuver, you may rotate your dial to another maneuver of the same difficulty.

Title– Ghost (Ghost Expansion): Equip the Phantom title card to a friendly Attack Shuttle and dock it to this ship. After you execute a maneuver, you may deploy it from your rear guides.
Modification- Engine Upgrade (Millenium Falcon/Hound’s Tooth Expansion)- Your action bar gains the action Boost icon
Turret- Autoblaster Turret (Most Wanted Expansion)- Attack (2, range 1): Attack 1 ship (even a ship outside your firing arc). Your Hit results cannot be canceled by defense dice. The defender may cancel Critical results before Hit results.
System- Accuracy Corrector (IG-2000/StarViper Expansions)- When attacking, during the “Modify Attack Dice” step, you may cancel all of your dice results. Then, you may add 2 Hit results to your roll. Your dice cannot be modified again during this attack.
Crew- Chopper (Ghost Expansion)- You may perform actions even while you are stressed. After you perform an action while you are stressed, suffer 1 damage.
Crew- Zeb Orrelios (Ghost Expansion)– Enemy ships inside your firing arc that you are touching are not considered to be touching you when either you or they activate during the Combat phase.

Attack Shuttle “Ezra Bridger” (Ghost Expansion) (20 pts)

When defending, if you are stressed, you may change up to 2 of your Focus results to Evade results.

Title– Phantom (Ghost Expansion): While you are docked, the Ghost can perform primary weapon attacks from its special firing arc, and, at the end of the Combat phase, it may perform an additional attack with an equipped Turret. If it performs this attack, it cannot attack again this round.

2x A-Wing “Prototype Pilot” (A-Wing Expansion) (15 pts)

None

Missile– Chardaan Refit (Rebel Aces Expansion): This card has a negative squad point cost.

Lock S-Foils in Attack Position

What to fly first with the release of Wave VIII? So many choices it is really hard to make a call. So I went with what I don’t expect to fly very often long term but what I am most excited about taking out of the box; the Ghost. I could be proven wrong but as a big, expensive target with no agility I’m not sure how much I’ll end up flying the VCX. I’ve only dropped the Decimator on the table a few times. But I’ve been watching Rebels with my son and we’re both really enjoying it. So I just have to start with Phoenix Squadron.

The main gist of this squadron is combining the Autoblaster turret with the Accuracy Corrector and Ghost’s double attack. If there is a ship at range one, it’s taking four damage and there is jack all it can do about it (well, I guess if it’s Omega Leader you’re at the mercy of the die rolls). Zeb helps ensure that even if you end up touching but are still in one of Ghost’s two arcs, you’re still getting shot at.

I debated whether or not this combo would work best on Chopper(Pilot) or a Lothal Rebel to keep things as cheap as possible. And you could potentially squeeze out twelve points and keep the Autoblaster/Accuracy Corrector/Ghost/Phantom combo. That’s enough for an additional Z-95.

While five ships, with one being a large HP monster like the VCX, is tough, I think this combo will have more traction on Hera. Her ability to change her maneuver means she’ll be able to adapt to low PS ships maneuvers to ensure range 1. Additionally, giving her an engine upgrade gives her even greater potential to find the ideal board placement. With Chopper she can even make a 5 K-turn and then Boost which can really put her in unusual spots.

So why Ezra in the attack shuttle? Well, for one thing, Zeb might be useful on the Ghost in allowing shots on touching ships. But mainly, Ezra is just a better pilot than Zeb. With him, you can decide to launch the shuttle early if having more ships on board is better against your opponent and then have a good pilot on the board. He’s much better built up with upgrades (Chewie crew + hull upgrade and a stress dealing EPT) but even stock he’s lightyears better than Zeb.

As for the remaining ships, well, how could it be Phoenix Squadron without disposable A-Wings? At one point I considered Z-95’s with Concussion missiles and Guidance Chips for some additional bang. And you could do it by dropping Zeb crew into the shuttle. But the theme was just too good to pass up.

Variations

I mentioned a few potential build modifications above when discussing my logic for why some cards were chosen. But most of those involved fairly major changes. Another major variation would be dropping Engine Upgrade and upgrading the turret to a TLT. Then you can either keep Accuracy Corrector or drop to FCS and upgrade Zeb to Han Solo. That way you can keep a Target Lock after each of your three attacks and spend it to either change Focus results or reroll dice depending on what helps the most.

One simple choice would be to change out Zeb for Nien Nunb. You lose the ability to fire on a touching target (but they can’t shoot you either) and gain two more green maneuvers for Hera to make use of. This one is really a personal choice as to how you prefer to fly.