Rogue Squadron- Scummy Scum Ion Control

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 “Kavil” (Most Wanted Expansion) (35 pts) (PS 9)

When attacking a ship outside your firing arc, roll 1 additional attack die.

Elite Pilot Talent- Veteran Instincts (Millenium Falcon/Slave-1 Expansions): Increase your pilot skill value by 2.
Modification- Engine Upgrade (Milleniium Falcon/Hound’s Tooth Expansions): Your action bar gains the Boost action icon.
Turret- Ion Cannon Turret (Y-Wing/HWK-290 Expansion): Attack (3, Range 1-2) Attack 1 ship (even a ship outside your firing arc). If this attack hits the target ship, the ship suffers 1 damage and receives 1 ion token. Then cancel all dice results.
Salvaged Astromech- Unhinged Astromech (Most Wanted Expansion): You may treat all 3-speed maneuvers as green maneuvers.

Y-Wing “Hired Thug” (Most Wanted Expansion) (30 pts) (PS 4)

None

Modification- Engine Upgrade (Milleniium Falcon/Hound’s Tooth Expansions): Your action bar gains the Boost action icon.
Turret- Ion Cannon Turret (Y-Wing/HWK-290 Expansion): Attack (3, Range 1-2) Attack 1 ship (even a ship outside your firing arc). If this attack hits the target ship, the ship suffers 1 damage and receives 1 ion token. Then cancel all dice results.
Salvaged Astromech- Unhinged Astromech (Most Wanted Expansion): You may treat all 3-speed maneuvers as green maneuvers.

HWK-290 “Dace Bonearm” (Most Wanted Expansion) (35 pts) (PS 9)

When an enemy ship at Range 1-3 receives at least 1 ion token, if you are not stressed, you may receive 1 stress token to cause that ship to suffer 1 damage.

Elite Pilot Talent- Veteran Instincts (Millenium Falcon/Slave-1 Expansions): Increase your pilot skill value by 2.
Turret- Ion Cannon Turret (Y-Wing/HWK-290 Expansion): Attack (3, Range 1-2) Attack 1 ship (even a ship outside your firing arc). If this attack hits the target ship, the ship suffers 1 damage and receives 1 ion token. Then cancel all dice results.
Modification- Engine Upgrade (Milleniium Falcon/Hound’s Tooth Expansions): Your action bar gains the Boost action icon.
Crew- Tactician (TIE Phantom Expansion): After you perform an attack against a ship inside your firing arc at Range 2, that ship receives 1 stress token.

Lock S-Foils in Attack Position

I took this list to a store championship recently. I put it together primarily as a response to the over abundance of Twin Laser Turrets (TLT) in the game’s current meta. Everyone is using TLTs so I wanted to give some love to the old workhorse of the turret slot. And if you’re taking ion cannons you want Dace Bonearm to up your damage potential which means Scum. Kavil meshes well with Dace as a four dice ion attack is hard to avoid. That, in turn, led me to the idea of throwing Engine Upgrade and Veteran Instincts on them. The list is already defying convention by bringing ion cannons instead of TLTs. Might as well double down and get a PS 9 HWK and Y-wing that can now boost.

The ability to boost ended up coming in handy thanks to the limited range of the ion cannon. Instead of wanting to hang out on the fringe this list needs to get up close and personal. You want to set up the asteroids in a tight confine and then orbit them early, forcing your opponent to follow you or come through the rocks to get you. Because you have boost and only three ships, it’s worth moving into the middle of the asteroids to engage them, aiming to ion several ships onto the rocks.

For most lists you face, your objective is counter to the usual convention of concentrating your fire. Instead of working down one target at a time, you want to spread your fire and try to keep as many enemy ships ioned and out of the fight as you can. If they can’t fire on you then they are as good as dead in any given round. Use Dace’s bonus damage to get the kill on targets or focus it on the high priority targets.

Your biggest threat is, ironically, TLT carriers. A Y-wing with a TLT will usually win against a Y-wing with an Ion Cannon Turret. They have the advantage of range 3 and doing twice the damage per turn. The exception to this is if you can get behind them. If you do that, once they are ioned you can easily move into range one and just follow them at speed one until they are dead or off the board. K-wings are your biggest nemesis because they have no donut hole to exploit so will wear you down faster than you’ll wear them down.

I’ve flown this list six times and am 4-2 with it, though only 2-2 in a tournament setting. It had the hardest time with Miranda and anything with autothrusters. Firing three times on Poe and missing them all due to autothrusters can be super annoying. But, on the other hand, forcing Bossk to fly his still shielded YV-666 off the board is super satisfying.

Variations

The crew slot on the HWK can be easily switched out for a variety of other scummy crew. Greedo can be fun since you can now deal critical damage from an ion cannon attack. He’s risky though as you don’t have many shields to absorb the crits he’ll be dishing back to you. Outlaw Techs have a place since you have quite a bit of red on your dial. Though to make full use of Dace’s ability you’ll probably be trying to take green maneuvers every turn to clear that stress. Gonk might be useful once Wave 8 hits.

You can also forgo the crew slot entirely and the list’s control focus and just give TLTs to the Y-wings. More conventional but far less scummy.