Good games to everyone on Sunday, and especially to Johdo for winning! I'm really glad I got to come out and play with you guys and hopefully I will be joining you all for more games soon. Also thanks to Khyros for putting on the event and for letting me borrow your A-Wing!

I was super-productive today and I think I will be able to make it out to the tournament after all. I will be the guy wearing the ridiculous Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt, so if any of you sees me tomorrow please introduce yourself!

You guys are machines! Do you even stop to eat?! Thanks for letting me know! I hope to be there on Sunday but I have a lot of work to do this weekend, so I'm doubtful that I will be able to go; it will depend on how much I get done tomorrow. Anyway, I haven't played in a few months so I am probably a bit rusty on the rules and even rustier on the maneuvers...

Hey everyone! I am in Ann Arbor, about 30 mins from RIW. I had been playing X-Wing at my place with a friend/co-worker of mine, but he's lost interest in the game and I'm looking to find a group to start playing with. My fleet is modest (1 core set + 1 of each Wave 1 + 1 of each Wave 2, no Wave 3 ships yet), but I'd like to start joining you guys on Thursdays when I have the time. On the RIW website the X-Wing event is listed for 6pm-11pm. What time do you guys usually get there and how long do you usually play?

A lot of people like to characterize Disney as either 1. a children's entertainment company (e.g., Mickey Mouse, Pixar, Disneyland) or 2. a soulless, money-hungy behemoth intent on destroying entertainment. I think both of these characterizations are unfair, and I am still optimistic about Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm. Many people cried afoul when Disney acquired Marvel Comics in 2009, and a lot of fans were convinced that Disney would bring about the death of that brand. Three years later Disney produced one of the best super hero movies to come out in years in The Avengers. That being said, Disney's chopping block hasn't claimed any entities very near or dear to me. LucasArts, for example, hasn't developed a decent game in over 10 years, with all the good ones (KOTOR, Battlefront) being licensed to third parties. So perhaps my opinion could change if Disney cuts something more important to me. Nevertheless, there will inevitably be some reorganizing on Disney's part as Lucasfilm settles into the new order of things. Right now we're seeing the cuts because that's the first part of reorganization. Soon we will begin to see new material coming out.

a4rino said: Looks like I will be starting us off again! My list: Academy Pilot Wedge "Dutch" Vander Darth Vader Green Squadron Pilot Lando Calrissian Gold Squadron Pilot Han Solo Alpha Squadron Pilot "Howlrunner" I just realized I left out "Dark Curse." I want to amend my list: Academy Pilot Wedge "Dutch" Vander Darth Vader Dark Curse Green Squadron Pilot Lando Calrissian Gold Squadron Pilot Han Solo Alpha Squadron Pilot

Looks like I will be starting us off again! My list: Academy Pilot Wedge "Dutch" Vander Darth Vader Green Squadron Pilot Lando Calrissian Gold Squadron Pilot Han Solo Alpha Squadron Pilot "Howlrunner"

I think almost everyone agrees that Maarek Stele is the least cost-effective pilot in the game. So I issue this challenge: Assemble a 100 point squad based around Maarek Stele, post it here, and use it in your next match. I am interested to see if we can crowdsource some usefulness out of him.

So everyone seems to be in agreement that one Interceptor alone isn't worth sinking so many points into. Now I'm considering a list that looks like this: Total Squad Points: 100 Pilot: Academy Pilot 1 Tie Fighter (12) Pilot: Academy Pilot 2 Tie Fighter (12) Pilot: Academy Pilot 3 Tie Fighter (12) Pilot: Kath Scarlet Firespray-31 (38) Upgrades: Marksmanship (3), Gunner (5) Pilot: Alpha Squadron Pilot 1 Tie Interceptor (18) I like the idea of the Alpha Squadron Pilot because he will (a) give me a little extra firepower in case my opponent gets fancy with A-Wings or Stealth Devices, (b) move at the same time as the Academy Pilots, which will give me a lot of freedom in my maneuvering, and © not be game-breaking if he dies. At 18 points, he's basically an Academy Pilot with an Engine Upgrade and an extra attack die (I might argue that he should actually cost 19 points instead of 18). I am also interested to try Kath + Marksmanship + Gunner as I foresee these upgrades complementing her ability well.

ziggy2000 said: On the surface you answered your own question correctly, but there are other factors to consider. It depends a little (or a lot) on the other dice involved in the combat. Let's say we have a 3-on-3 dice situation. The attacker's final result is [hit] [hit] [crit}. The defender ends up with [evade] [evade] [blank]. In this case the evades cancel the two hits but not the crit, and result in a shield being removed, but Kath's ability does not trigger since no crit result was cancelled. Now consider this scenario, say the final attack die results are [hit] [crit] [crit] and the agility result is the same [evade] [evade] [blank]. In this case the evades cancel one hit and one crit, allowing the second crit to get through and remove a shield token. This time though, the first crit WAS cancelled, Kath's ability kicks in, and a stress token would be applied. Hope this helped! Thanks ziggy for the clear response. Very helpful!

Kath Scarlet's pilot ability reads: "When attacking, the defender receives 1 stress token if he cancels at least one <critical> result." My question is this: If Kath lands a critical against an opponent with a shield (such that the shield absorbs the critical without resolving a faceup damage card), does that count as a "canceled critical" and does that ship receive a stress token? My suspicion is that this does not count as a canceled critical, but I want to be sure and I can't find clarification in the FAQ or Rule Book.

Just to let everyone know what I'm working with, I have 1 core set and 1 of each expansion, so I can choose from 3 TIE Fighters and 1 each of the Firespray, TIE Advanced, and TIE Interceptor. Here is the squad I've developed: Total Squad Points: 100 Pilot: Academy Pilot 1 Tie Fighter (12) Upgrades: No Upgrades Selected Pilot: Academy Pilot 2 Tie Fighter (12) Upgrades: No Upgrades Selected Pilot: Krassis Trelix Firespray-31 (36) Upgrades: Proximity Mines (3), Heavy Laser Cannon (7) Pilot: Soontir Fel Tie Interceptor (27) Upgrades: Push The limit (3) I ditched the Stealth Device on Soontir to free up some points for Proximity Mines on Krassis. I'm not sure if this is a mistake. My intention is to fly an Academy Pilot out into the path of my opponent's YT-1300 (assuming he runs one) in order to block it, then have Krassis pull a 90 degree turn and drop a Proximity Mine right behind the Academy Pilot such that his YT would have to land on it or move through it. I would almost certainly still catch enemies in Krassis's rear arc, so he would effectively attack twice that round. I would be super excited if I could pull this off successfully what with asteroids and other ships around and everything, but I think it can be done - the question is whether it's worth losing stealth over.

I usually play X-Wing with a friend/colleague of mine. He always plays Imperial side and I always play Rebels, but after today's match we decided to trade sides for the next time around. We share ships and we've got only one TIE Interceptor between the two of us. I would like to run this Interceptor in lieu of Vader because (as a Rebel player) I can't stand the thought of having only 2 attack dice at range 2-3. But in every match we've played with a TIE Interceptor (I believe it has been 5 games), the Interceptor was the first ship to go down for either side, often before it even fires a shot. I am wondering if my buddy is just lousy at maneuvering or these Interceptors require some thought and effort to keep alive. What has been your experience with Interceptors? Do you usually give them Stealth? Shield Upgrade? Or is the trick simply to maneuvre them well? I'm thinking about incuding Soontir Fel + Push the Limit + Stealth in my list for next game. His PR is high, so he will move late in the round. If he moves into trouble, I can try Boost or Barrel Roll out of there and play an Evade action and then get a free Focus on top of that. This should ensure that he's fairly difficult to hit. The trouble is, at 33 squad points, this is incredibly expensive. For the same number of points I can run Vader + Cluster Missiles or a naked Bounty Hunter. Is it worth it to sink these points into the Interceptor?

I guess I will start us off: 1. Push the Limit 2. Heavy Laser Cannon 3. Ion Cannon Turret 4. Gunner 5. Homing Missiles 6. Engine Upgrade 7. R2 Astromech 8. Swarm Tactics 9. Veteran Instincts 10. Seismic Charges I almost always play Rebels so my picks may be skewed towards Rebel, but I tried to include Imperial cards that scare me. I probably have some unorthodox picks in there (I don't foresee R2 Astromech reaching too many top 10 lists over R2-D2, but I really love the little R2 Astromech on an X-Wing).

Mu0n said: Stealth device WITH focus is a thing of wonder for defense, though. It's the same situation that occurs with R2-F2. Alone, it kind of sucks, even on a X-Wing that goes from 2 defense to 3 defense. I think you have to be the target of 3 ships for it to beat just using focus (don't take my word on it, a quick analysis should show if I'm right or not). However, R2-F2 combined with a free focus action given by a nearby Lando is very good (pile on stealth device for incredible defense). You are right that Focus is better than R2-F2 for a single attack on a typical ship. If someone like Biggs takes lots of attacks in the same round, R2-F2 can be useful alone. In general, R2-F2 should be buffed with a 2nd action, although sometimes pilot abilities (like Luke's Focus-like ability) can make him worthwhile by himself. One time I ran Biggs + R2-F2 + Stealth alongside Lando + Nien Nunb. The combination wasn't as effective for me as it could have been because these two didn't always stay in Range 1 of each other, but it was still effective enough for me to win that game. With better maneuvering these guys could be nearly invulernable! How about an A-Wing with PtL and Stealth Device? You could roll 4 defense dice (5 at Range 3), Focus, and Evade almost every round!

I recently discovered that the opponent against whom I typically play X-Wing was completely unaware that attack dice are more likely to hit than defense dice are to evade. On the 8-sided attack dice, there are 3 hits + 1 crit + 2 focus + 2 blank sides, so you have a 50% chance of hit or crit before focus. On the 8-sided dfense dice, there are 3 evades + 2 focus + 3 blank sides, so you have a 37.5% chance of rolling and evade before focus. This means that 3 attack dice vs 2 defense dice is better offensively than 2 attack dice vs 3 defense dice is defensively, and is a contributing factor in why Stealth Device seems to be disappointing for many people (my gaming partner included, which is how I discovered that he didn't know this in the first place). This could also be interpreted to mean that focus is more "valuable" on defense because evades are more rare, but I think it is a stretch to make this claim. Anyway, just wanted to throw that information out there in case anyone else had somehow missed it.

cleardave said: That's just a few Rebel examples, and doesn't take into account facing another Imperial list at a tournament, which is entirely possible, and should be accounted for. Unless of course you plan on never doing random pick-up games, or any type of organized play, other than strict Rebel vs Imperial matches at home. It's a great way to try and bleed off opponents' focus/evade tokens ahead of another attack too. For this list I assumed that the author of the thread wanted to run only Boba (and no other ships) in a 60 squad point match. So there are no other attacks for which he would be bleeding focus/evade tokens - Boba is all alone in this match. If we're talking about tournament play, then the squad total goes up to 100 and you may be playing a mirror match, so of course strategies will change. You did come up with many examples of why the Gunner may be more useful than I originally speculated. This definitely depends on what you expect your opponent to run. If you expect him to have lots of defense dice (e.g., A-Wings), perhaps it would be worthwhile to lose the Mercenary Copilot and the Cluster Missiles in the original list I posted and replace these upgrades with a Gunner instead. The Cluster Missiles stand out as a good card to replace because the two Cluster Missile attacks of only 3 dice each will be less effective against agile opponents. But like we've said this decision requires some foresight in what your opponent will run.

ReaverRandall said: Both of your statements concerning Homing Missles and Gunner are clearly misguided… The only thing i like in your build is the boost and veteran instincts, those are well thought out upgrades I'm not sure how you figure that these are clearly misguided. Gunner is a judgment call - in my experience, 4 attack dice rarely miss against Rebel pilots, which means you probably won't get to use this with HLC. The Gunner could come in handy if you're attacking often in your reverse arc (when you will not have that extra dice from the HLC). Homing Missiles are most definitely not worth 5 points if you already have HLC even if your opponent likes playing the evade action. I am interested to hear why someone would want to spend 5 points to cancel one evade token once in a match. cleardave said: To weigh in on this, I wouldn't bother with the Mercenary Copilot if you're running the Heavy Laser Cannon. The Mercenary turns a hit to a critical, but the Laser Cannon downgrades your criticals to regular hits, which, if I'm remembering the rules correctly, you always go with the "worse" option, which in this case is the critical turns back to a regular hit. It seems that some people assume the Gunner or Luke only work if your attack dice rolled zero hits, which is false. Mercenary Copilot allows you to modify your attack dice. This occurs after the HLC nullifies your criticals (which happens "immediately after rolling your attack dice," i.e. before dice modification). Because the effects resolve at different times you will get the critical if you hit at Range 3. I understand how Gunner works, but in my experience rolling 4 attack dice vs 2 defense dice still almost always hits at least once, so you will probably get little utility from a Gunner (at least for the 5 points he costs). Like I said before, though, this is a judgment call. If your opponent loves to run A-Wings, you will probably see more use from a Gunner. If he fields lots of Y-Wings/X-Wings/YT's, then you're probably better off saving those 5 points.

LedZep said: Boba Fett + Slave 1 card (39) Homming Missiles (5) Veteran Instinct (1) Heavy Laser Cannon (7) Gunner (5) Proximity Mine (3) What would you change? Weapon wise? Homing Missiles are a waste if you've got a Heavy Laser Cannon because HLC will ensure you always roll 4 attack dice at enemies in your forward arc anyway. These are especially useless if you're playing against Rebels, because only the A-Wing (or Falcon upgrade) is capable of evading. The Gunner could also probably go. With 4 attack dice, you're not going to miss often enough (especially against X-Wings and Y-Wings) to make this upgrade worth it's weight in squad points. If you insist on running Boba Fett alone, I would probably go with Boba Fett (39) Veteran Instincts (1) Cluster Missiles (4) Engine Upgrade (4) Mercenary Copilot (2) Seismic Charges (2) Heavy Laser Cannon (7) The rationale here is that Veteran Instincts will ensure that Boba always maneuvers last - this will let you get the most out of his pilot ability and also let you decide if the time is right to Boost (since you've also got Engine Upgrade) or to drop your Seismic Charges. Don't hesitate to Boost past your foes and catch them in your rear arc. The HLC will be useful at long range, and you'll also have your Mercenary Copilot to help you out at this range. If you happen to catch an enemy in your Range 1 forward arc, hit them with the Cluster Missiles - these are especially well-suited to tearing up Y-Wings.

Mosedeke said: I would think FFG would need to add more rules for "bomber" or "gunboat" style craft. Wave 2 gave boost to the interceptors, Wave 3 could give 'strafing run' or something similar. Letting the ships fire a secondary weapon as an action if they made a green (or straight?) movement, and then giving capacity for 4 missiles for the Bomber or an ion cannon and a couple torpedos to the B-Wing could make them useful hammers that wouldn't be too easy to use. You'd still need a target lock for the missiles, so either a squad would have to be built around them to give locks/actions (Lando, Dutch, Squad Leader, etc), or they would be a centerpiece that would need to be escorted/protected for a couple turns before they get their payload off. If costed properly they could add a new dynamic, and possibly be a strong counter to the medium sized ships. If it was just a Y-Wing with more missiles and nothing fancy or different I probably wouldn't even bother. I have problems enough as it is getting one shot off from Proton Torpedos and having it matter, let alone 2 or 3. These are some excellent ideas in here. I agree that they will have to introduce some new mechanics if they are to make these ships interesting. I like the idea of the 'strafing run.' This would surely lead to some really great missions/scenarios.

heychadwick said: Hi all, My luck has been pretty bad lately in the game. 4 evade dice w/ focus & evade token still see me blown up (literally ). Dark Curse getting hit with Stealth Device. I am thinking that the official dice application might help me out. I figure it roles closer to average. Anyone use it? Is that true? I am sure there are extreme results, but not most rolls. Anything closer to average is good. I assume that when you say that the Dice App will "roll closer to average," you're suggesting that the Dice App will roll results closer to the expected value of hits/evades with a smaller variance (e.g., there will be fewer instances of rolling ALL hits or ALL evades and more instances of rolling some mix of blanks, hits/evades, and focuses). This is almost certainly not the case. Most likely the Dice App relies on a random number generator which acts independently for each die (i.e., outcome of rolling die #2 is not influenced by the outcome of rolling die #1), and so the variance of rolling your dice in the app should be no different from rolling an actual set of dice. Of course, there is an argument to be made that perhaps the random number generator they use isn't truly random (because in computing RNGs are actually pseudorandom; if you're actually interested in this, Google search pseudorandomness), but the statistics associated with them will be random so the results you see will still be a good representation of a random process. TL;DR: No, the dice app will not achieve the lower variance outcomes that you seek.

Vorpal Sword said: It's definitely a bargain, and it's a very efficient way to enhance the Falcon's durability. But on the other hand, while it's cheap for what it does, it's still a fairly expensive member of the set of upgrades. There's also the fact that it's a strictly defensive upgrade in a game where the primary win condition is "blow stuff up". As I said a few days ago about Stealth, it doesn't turn a losing squad into a winning one--it just means you lose more slowly. I totally agree with this. Chewbacca is good if you're running someone like Han Solo and you want him to survive an extra round or two, but choosing him means you won't get to throw those Concussion Missiles on your A-Wing or Proton Torpedoes on your Y-Wing. In X-Wing I find offense to be the best defense - if a TIE is blown up and off the board, I don't need to worry about it landing hits to my hull!

Bazinga said: Me thinks this is not the pilot your looking for, there is another, one who is brave enough to be able to do that and to ensure you can still shoot back :-) I didn't want to use Arvel because his pilot skill would be too high for him to block Krassis or Bounty Hunter, and I wasn't sure which Firespray pilot my opponent was going to field. He ended up using Boba Fett (so I was at first sad that I didn't play Arvel), but as it turned out my Green Squadron Pilot could still fire on his ties from where he landed while blocking Firespray, so it wasn't a total loss, anyway. Tycho was a liability for the same reason (high pilot skill), although I absolutely LOVE him with Push the Limit. A regular A-Wing with PtL is really almost as good, though; there are a few situations in which Tycho can really bring down the house with his ability, but Green Squadron Pilot is a full 7 points cheaper than Tycho. That means I could field Green Squadron Pilot + Push the Limit + Homing Missiles for only 1 point more than fielding Tycho with no upgrades.

Musicman4163 said: How do you guys value A-Wings? Do they need to have Missles of some kind on them to really help earn their points? Last game I ran a Green Squadron A-Wing with Homing Missiles and Push the Limit. I used PtL to play Target Lock and Focus and then fired off my Homing Missiles! I really love PtL on those little guys because they have so many green maneuvers to mitigate the stress token. I don't think the A-Wings need missiles to be effective, though. With their 3 defense dice, A-Wings can be very difficult for Imperial players to bring down (seeing as most of their ships have only 2 attack dice). I've also had a lot of success running a low-skill A-Wing out into the path of my opponent's Firespray, depriving him of his action and preventing him from firing on the A-Wing itself.

Seeing as my favorite Star Wars character isn't playable in our beloved miniatures game, I figured I would take matters into my own hands.