Rogue Squadron- Thweek of the Week

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

Protectorate Starfighter “Fenn Rau” (Protectorate Expansion) (34 pts) (PS 9)

When attacking or defending, if the enemy ship is at Range 1, you may roll 1 additional die.

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.
Modification- Autothrusters (StarViper/TIE Silencer Expansions): 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.
Title- Concord Dawn Protector (Protectorate Starfighter Expansion): When defending, if you are inside the attacker’s firing arc and at Range 1 and the attacker is inside your firing arc, add 1 Evade result.

StarViper “Guri” (StarViper Expansion) (31 pts) (PS 5)

At the start of the Combat phase, if you are at Range 1 of an enemy ship, you may assign 1 focus token to your ship.

Elite Pilot Talent- Intensity (TIE Aggressor Expansion):
- Side A: After you perform a boost or barrel roll action, you may assign 1 focus or evade token to your ship. If you do, flip this card.
- Side B: (Exhausted) At the end of the Combat phase, you may spend 1 focus or evade token to flip this card.
StarViper Mk II (Guns for Hire Expansion): You may equip up to 2 different title Upgrades. When performing a barrel roll action, you must use the soft 1 template instead of the straight 1 template.
Modification- Autothrusters (StarViper/TIE Silencer Expansions): 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.

StarViper “Thweek” (Guns for Hire Expansion) (32 pts) (PS 4)

During setup, before the “Place Forces” step, you may choose 1 enemy ship and assign the “Shadowed” or “Mimicked” Condition card to it.

Shadowed

“Thweek” is treated as having the pilot skill value you had after setup. The pilot skill value of “Thweek” does not change if your pilot skill value changes or you are destroyed.

Mimicked

“Thweek” is treated as having your pilot ability. “Thweek” cannot apply a Condition card by using your pilot ability. “Thweek” does not lose your pilot ability if you are destroyed.

StarViper Mk II (Guns for Hire Expansion): You may equip up to 2 different title Upgrades. When performing a barrel roll action, you must use the soft 1 template instead of the straight 1 template.
Title- Virago (StarViper Expansion): Your upgrade bar gains the Illicit and System upgrade icons. You cannot equip this card if your pilot skill value is “3” or lower.
System- Fire Control System (B-Wing/TIE Phantom Expansion): After you perform an attack, you may acquire a target lock on the defender.
Illicit- Glitterstim (Hound’s Tooth/Kihraxz Expansions): At the start of the Combat phase, you may discard this card and receive 1 stress token. If you do, until the end of the round, when attacking or defending, you may change all of your Focus results to Evade or Hit results.
Modification- Autothrusters (StarViper/TIE Silencer Expansions): 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.

Lock S-Foils in Attack Position

I’ve played Thweek in three tournaments and at multiple X-wing nights for at least 20 games and until Regionals, went undefeated with him. I’ve tried multiple list configurations (Talonbane/Fenn, Bumpmaster/Scurrg, Bumpmaster/Talonbane). He’s a lot of fun to fly and that soft one barrel roll is crazy good. I took the above list to Austin Regionals and made top 16. I lost a mirror match after losing the initiative roll and one game to an Asajj Shadow Caster, she tractored Fenn onto a rock and he rolled two damage from it. My top 16 game was against the guy who guy who ended up placing second and that went to time. My Fenn died early to 8 blank green dice.

Thweek will almost always steal your opponent’s highest pilot skill. The ability to steal pilot ability sounds cool, but in 9/10 cases having the higher PS is better. Sure, I’d love a Thweek with Fenn Rau’s ability. But then he’ll just get arc dodged. This necessitates building in a bid. This list has a three-point bid which will win most pair ups unless low bids become a thing again. FCS is essential to ensuring his offense. He’ll be making heavy use of his repositioning abilities so you need something to help ensure the damage gets through and with most squads having 2-3 ships you’ll get a lot of mileage out of that infinite target lock. Glitterstim is your insurance. If you just can’t get out of the way, you can just pop the spice and be really offensive and defensive.

The main advantage of this particular squad is that each ship is a legitimate threat on its own. In the Bumpmaster version, the Bumpmaster is useful for causing trouble but it isn’t going to win the game on its own. Similarly, Talonbane is a real threat at range one but with only two green dice and rarely getting his bonus at range three, due to all of the secondary weapons out there, he can melt really fast. Any of these ships can melt fast due to the fickleness of green dice but at least they have three of them.

Fenn Rau can dish out a lot of pain and can be incredibly tanky. Four dice, with a guaranteed bonus evade at range one in arc will soak some damage. Five dice attacks will also chew through a lot of ships. Especially Wookiees. They get their reinforce but you essentially do too. And you will likely chew through a third to half of their nine health with each shot.

Guri is your wildcard. At PS 5 she’s not arc dodging many things. But she can be surprisingly tanky. I one time screwed up my maneuver choice and ended up range one of Talonbane, Fenn and another Guri. That meant I was eating 14 dice. By all rights, she should have died. But thanks to Intensity giving me an Evade and Guri’s ability getting a Focus, and some unnaturally lucky rolls, she survived with one health left. There’s a huge amount of variance involved there so don’t expect that to happen regularly.

This list was a lot of fun to fly. Is it good enough to dominate in this new meta? There were two other Thweek lists in the top 16 with me, one made it to top 4. But I don’t think we saw the true return of stress bots yet.

Variations

If you want to up your initiative bid, you can drop Glitterstim off Thweek and then have a five-point bid. That is a very strong bid. I would only recommend that if you really expect to face a lot of bids. Glitterstim has saved Thweek many times.