Rogue Squadron- X-Wing AP

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 “Jess Pava” (Heroes of the Resistance Expansion) (27 pts) (PS 3)

When attacking or defending, you may reroll 1 of your dice for each other friendly ship at Range 1.

Astromech- Flight Assistance Astromch (Phantom II Expansion): You cannot attack ships outside your firing arc. After you execute a maneuver, if you did not overlap a ship or obstacle and there are no enemy ships inside your firing arc at Range 1-3, you may perform a free boost or barrel roll action.
Tech- Primed Thrusters (Heroes of the Resistance/TIE Silencer Expansions): Small Ship only. Stress tokens do not prevent you from performing boost or barrel roll actions unless you have 3 or more stress tokens.
Modification- Integrated Astromech (Heroes of the Resistance/T-70 X-wing Expansions): X-Wing Only. When you are dealt a Damage card, you may discard 1 of your Astromech Upgrade cards to discard that Damage card.

2x T-70 X-Wing “Blue Squadron Novice” (TFA Core) (26 pts) (PS 2)

None

Astromech- Flight Assistance Astromch (Phantom II Expansion): You cannot attack ships outside your firing arc. After you execute a maneuver, if you did not overlap a ship or obstacle and there are no enemy ships inside your firing arc at Range 1-3, you may perform a free boost or barrel roll action.
Tech- Primed Thrusters (Heroes of the Resistance/TIE Silencer Expansions): Small Ship only. Stress tokens do not prevent you from performing boost or barrel roll actions unless you have 3 or more stress tokens.
Modification- Integrated Astromech (Heroes of the Resistance/T-70 X-wing Expansions): X-Wing Only. When you are dealt a Damage card, you may discard 1 of your Astromech Upgrade cards to discard that Damage card.

Sheathipede Shuttle “AP-5” (Phantom II Expansion) (21 pts) (PS 1)

When you perform the coordinate action, after you choose a friendly ship and before it performs a free action, you may receive 2 stress tokens to remove 1 stress token from it

Astromech- M9-G8 (Heroes of the Resistance Expansion): Rebel Only. When a ship you have locked is attacking, you may choose 1 attack die. The attacker must reroll that die. You can acquire target locks on other friendly ships.
Crew- Weapons Engineer (Lambda/Millenium Falcon Expansions): You may maintain 2 target locks (only 1 per enemy ship). When you acquire a target lock, you may lock onto 2 different ships.

Lock S-Foils in Attack Position

Flight Assist Astromech is amazing. It really turns X-wings, T-65 and T-70, into far more capable craft. And it works on high or low Pilot Skill equally well. At low, you get to decide if you use it because you’re moving first. Then you can set up for bumps or unexpected positions. At high PS, if everyone escaped your arc you can just reposition and get the kill shot. It has limitations, you can’t use it to turn a mutual shot into just you getting a shot or to escape being shot. But at one point it’s quite valuable.

While FAA is great on both X-wings, the T-70 really brings it up several notches. With Primed Thrusters you can get your free boost/barrel roll after a K-turn or T-roll. And, if you take a barrel roll, you can then boost natively. But still, it’s a tremendous upgrade for T-65 who now gains some reposition ability they completely lacked.

This list combines the flexibility of FAA with the great support of the Sheathipede. M9-G8 combined with Weapons Engineer allows you to target lock your two Blue Squadron Novices round one, ensuring them a free offensive dice reroll. That allows them to focus as their action giving them a pretty strong attack. Jess already gets free rerolls as long as she sticks close so that means all three X-wings can hit hard. Additionally, after you’ve lost an X-wing, you can switch one of your locks to your opponents strongest ship and mess with her firepower.

AP-5 further aids by being able to pass out actions with coordinate. You can then take a pre-move boost or get a focus before a red maneuver. He can also use his ability to clear a stress off an X-wing at a crucial juncture, letting them take back to back turnarounds. I did this in one game that completely caught my opponent by surprise and left me with a perfect shot.

The list’s offense is great but it is not without flaws. You work best when you maintain formation. You want all your guns bearing down on the same target and Jess is only amazing when close to friends. You are also low pilot skill so it’s very easy to get arc dodged. But 23 (26 effective with Integrated Astromech) health is tough to chew through.

Variations

Keeping with this basic idea there isn’t a lot you can change. You could change the Blue’s to T-65’s and use those 8 points to upgrade Jess to someone who could take Black One, or turn AP-5 into Fenn Rau.