I pretty much only fly small based ships...except for my beloved shuttle. You'd have to pry that thing out of my cold, dead hands.

Already bought my badge, not sure on Nationals yet though.

If you live in the US, either Applied Perspective or Team Covenant has you covered. Applied Perspective: http://www.appliedperspective.com/acrylic/product-category/x-wing/ Team Covenant: http://teamcovenant.com/store/star-wars-x-wing-2/covenant-templates.html?limit=all

Fleet Officer makes Lorrir & Kanos pretty awesome, actually.

Arvel needs a lot more than that. An EPT would let him have predator which would make him much more effective. What really killed Arvel was the ruling that you can't boost into enemy ships. If he had something like Dauntless or Advanced Sensors he would be beneficial. Getting screwed without an action is just awful. Maybe if you were flying with Cracken or Kyle Katarn he would get an action and be happy. God he sucks so bad... He's not great but I don't think that "sucks so bad" is accurate. He's got a situational ability, but one that it doesn't cost anything to use. In the current high PS meta he makes a reasonable blocker that still gets to attack what he blocks. Post Rebel Aces he gets an EPT and a 2 point reduction. I think he'll also be pretty great against IG-88.

Wow, never thought of this but it's actually a really good idea.

Kir Kanos & Lorrir actually become pretty good when combined with Fleet Officer.

Because they are not a massive company and if they order stuff that never gets sold it could massively impact on their business as a whole, warehouse space is not free, neither are utilities or security. Order too little they annoy customers, order too much they could have an unexpected bad turn and bankrupt themselves. it takes 6-8 months to get stuff made and delivered they want to sell us stuff but they have no way in advance to know what the meta will shift to and which ships will suddenly go high demand. Not to mention that the factories themselves have a limited capacity. I'm sure they use the same factories for all of the X-Wing ships so they need to divide that capacity between all the ships they need to make. I would also assume that expanding their manufacturing capacity is a long and expensive process.

Played this last night, it was good fun: Rexler Brath (37) Predator (3) Heavy Laser Cannon (7) Omicron Group Pilot (21) Fleet Officer (3) Intelligence Agent (1) Tactical Jammer (1) Royal Guard Pilot (22) Opportunist (4) Total: 99 View in Yet Another Squad Builder If the shuttle had both ships in range, each got a focus. If only one ship was in range, the shuttle took the other focus. When the shuttle had focus, it was pretty handy on defense. Brath was untouched the majority of the game due to stacked focus and the RGP often had focus and evade stacked. I deployed the shuttle in the middle and used it to screen the other ships in the opening rounds. Keeping it in the middle also kept it close to the action and it was able to pass focus every round.

Honestly, Fleet Officer is probably my favorite wave 5 card. I bought a second Decimator just so I could have two of them. It REALLY opens up the Imperial design space.

I love running it on a shuttle. Sometimes I'll combine it with Advanced Sensors to make it easier to use, but usually I'll just use the Fleet Officer & FCS. You can also drop an Intelligence Agent on the Lambda and use it to make Alpha Squadron Pilots unholy engines of death.

Then why require that players use any FFG components at all? As long as someone shows up with bases that are the appropriate dimensions with firing arcs printed on them and have printed out the cards that they need to play there's no reason for a TO to not let them play other than enforcing rules designed to make money for FFG at the expense of the player. Models actually get in the way of playing the game, as long as the base clearly shows what ship it represents why not let people play without models? Because people like the models. The models improve their gameplay experience. Do matching dials improve the gameplay experience (not that anyone has a right to expect matching dials anyway, given the rules that have been quoted regarding personalization)? I would be fine playing against an opponent with card s from Kinkos or even digital versions. What they say is what matters - I can't remember the last time that I looked at an opponent's cards one the game started. All this stuff DOES matter in a tournament. If I'm playing a casual game, they can proxy whatever they want. In a tournament game, they'd better have the right components.

I vaguely remember someone contacting the devs about this a couple months ago and the response being that scum ships need to use scum dials. Wish I could find it now though...

This should help. A small base firing arc on top of a large base:

All green banks, white 1 and 2 turns, plus native boost "turns like a bus?" What kind of Tokyo Drift public transit do they have where you live?! It's a large based ship which means there is more movement when it turns regardless of the move it takes. It's even more pronounced when boost is involved. Small based ships make MUCH tighter turns than large based ships.

Jendon is pretty expensive for what you get out of him. If you slap Advanced Sensors on the OGP, it's even easier to pass out Focus tokens. If you want to go really crazy, you can take two shuttles with Fleet Officer & put Predator on Brath. Brath can have a Predator re-roll & 3 focuses a turn.

But with IG2000 at 36 points and Rexler at 37 points, that discount is kinda non existent. In general I tend to agree with your viewpoint on this, but the times appear to be changing. On topic, I am leaning towards the large base. The OP is spot on with his observations about ease of dodging. If you can fly around asteroids, the large base can present a lot of problems for your opponent. Back before they changed large based barrel rolls, I used to play Han with EU and EH making a kind of large based Soontir. The ease of dodging was absurd, and that build didn't include the ability to boost and barrel roll on the same turn natively. A ship like IG2000 is not quite the dodger that Soontir is, but the lack of BR is made up in speed. There's already been a couple of threads about the movement of the ship that illustrate this far better than I can so check those out for more. Bottom line is that certain large based ships, flown correctly actually benefit from the larger footprint. I think that Han will still be king because PS9 is too much of an advantage, but IG2000 is definitely Big News. tl;dr I think that a large base is more of a benefit than a detriment. Sure, the increased movement of a large-based ship gives it the chance to move out of more arcs. But the real trick is still having a target after that. Most large based ships have turrets so that doesn't matter. The IG2000 needs to be pointed at something after it moves. Early game it won't be as big a deal, but I think late game it will suffer.

Brath paired with a Shuttle & Fleet Officer becomes scary.

Unless it has a turret, I would pick a small base every time.

This has been my go to Defender list for a while: Colonel Vessery (35) Outmaneuver (3) Ion Cannon (3) Cluster Missiles (4) Omicron Group Pilot (21) Sensor Jammer (4) Weapons Engineer (3) ST-321 (3) Academy Pilot (12) Academy Pilot (12) Total: 100 View in Yet Another Squad Builder The Academies fly with the Shuttle and act as blockers. The Defender is set up like a flanker. The sensor jammer on the shuttle helps keep it alive, but you could always drop it to upgrade an Academy to Backstabber. With ST-321 and Weapons Engineer, Vessery will ALWAYS have a target lock no matter how out of position the shuttle is. You can also use that to keep your opponent guessing who Vessery will target. The additional Target Lock can also be used for something the Shuttle wants to target. If Vessery gets into trouble, he runs towards the shuttle bringing it's arc to bear on whatever is pursuing Vessery. With an Ion cannon on Vessery, he'll pretty much Ion anything he shoots at. This sets him up for Outmaneuver shots next turn and helps keep him out of firing arcs. It also turns him into a late game monster. Firing on an Outmaneuvered ship with Cluster Missiles will also help kill it really quick. That's my favorite way to kill Phantoms, by the way. If you stay far away from the Phantom, it's much easier to get it into arc. Since you're using an Ion cannon, it won't get an extra evade die. With focus & Target Lock, Vessery still has a really good chance at landing that Ion. Once Ioned, the Phantom can't decloak. Since you know exactly where it will be next turn, you then point your entire force at it and fire the next round. Along with that and an Outmaneuvered Cluster Missile, it should be dead. The Cluster Missile is also incredibly handy against Han, Decimator, Dash, etc. Often times I'll shoot the Ion cannon at a large ship the first time it is in range. Not only does that give Vessery a TL for his follow-up Cluster Missile attack, but if the Large ship ever makes a mistake (moves to close to an asteroid or board edge or I want to set up a block) I just drop another Ion token on it and there it goes.

Not really, That may be true if the aggressor were similar in capabilities to the other large base ships, but FFG gave it all the tools to overcome those disadvantages. Consider the fact that a Lambda with EU, even with its crippled dial and without EPT, is capable of fighting back decently. Now, compare the Agressor to the Lambda... This. People acting like this ship is anything like a Lambda shuttle when it has one of the best dials in the game (and S-loop and boost and k-turn) is hilarious. It won't fly like a Lambda at all. Sure it won't fly like a Lambda, but it still turns like a bus. The k-turn and S-loops help a lot with that, but they are red. And sure, it does have a lot of green moves, but they all put it in the same general area. Then if you're boosting, you're not focusing, target locking or evading unless you run PTL. Also, PS6 without a turret is quite a liability. Not to mention that the Aggressor will HATE control lists. It is a good ship, but it also has some fairly large drawbacks. It's going to have a lot of trouble with PS6+ positional ships and swarms. I think it's pretty fairly priced at 36 points especially considering that everyone will be running upgrades on this. Compared to the Defender, I still think that Vessery and possibly Brath are fairly priced. Delta and Onyx have always been overpriced but I don't mind paying 33pts for a Delta w/ Ion. They're different ships with different roles in different factions. Even with the red turns, the Defender turns better. The Defender can also slow roll (which is really handy with a cannon) which the Aggressor can't do. The Aggressor is a good ship that has some big pros and big cons. I think it's pretty balanced for the price. The Defender does what it does well too (especially Vessery). I kinda don't have a problem with the price difference.

I REALLY like Cluster Missles on Vessery with Ion Cannon & Outmaneuver.

All empirical evidence. Tournaments prove otherwise. They are seeing little competitive play. Something can be unbroken and still not be at s competitive level. Tie Advanced and A wings were broken. Han was not, but he wasn't really competitive until C3PO. By this logic, the Firespray also needs a fix. The TIE Defender overall performed better than the Firespray and there were MORE Firesprays than TIE Defenders. But as we all know, the Firespray is a really good ship. So...I'm still not seeing the need to fix the Defender.

Fleet Officer makes Brath dramatically better and gives him more EPT options. Fleet Officer also has the added benefit of making pretty much every Imperial ship better.

An Ion cannon on Vessery works wonders at stopping Phantoms. When you absolutely, positively need something Ioned, slap on Ion cannon on Vessery.