I just ran Bodyguard/Light Scyk Inaldra a couple times over the last couple weeks, paired with Asajj. I really like her in concept, and she was great when I could keep her and Asajj moving in sync. Honestly my biggest problem was trying to keep them close enough together without bumping given that Inaldra moves first and Asajj is a large base. But yeah, when it worked I felt really happy with it.

Fluff: YT-2400 or Starviper. Funny thing is, I never even played Shadows; I just was very impressed with all the stuff I read about it, which made it feel like a missing movie from the Trilogy. Table: Another tossup... Firespray or TIE/fo. I don't care what anyone says, my Firespray is a blast to fly every time. And the fo dial + shield makes it a nasty little pocket rocket! Rare: lol, so many. Maybe the YT-2400. I can't recall for sure if I've ever even flown it myself, or just used it in demo games...

Actually that doesn't sound half bad.

Ahh, makes sense. Sorry, I got all excited by the talk of a generic E-Wing with an R3 winning some big trophy. That's what you get for playing with my heart! :-p

It was Libyan! :-p Also, can the clueless among us get some more context, please? Like a list? And what's the contest?

Here, if you’re willing to be less specific about which bounty hunter: Darth Vader (29) Bounty Hunter (33) Rebel Captive (3) Kylo Ren (TIE Silencer) (35) Total: 100 View in Yet Another Squad Builder (Season to taste with 0-cost upgrades)

As I keep ruminating over options, I keep coming back to the supportive nature of Cassian's pilot skill as something that feels like a piece of the puzzle. Rather than trying to combo together something to boost Cassian's offensive potential, can he be made a halfway decent (albeit probably still overcosted) support ship? And what about turning that friggin' brick around? Introducing: Good Guy Cassian Cassian Andor (27) Draw Their Fire (1) Advanced Sensors (3) Jan Ors (2) "Leebo" (2) Pivot Wing (0) Total: 35 DTF and Jan and Cassian's ability should add up to be decent support. At 35 points, you're not completely breaking the bank. And the point of Leebo+AdvSens is to help you when it's time to bug out: Dial a 4 straight, but start with a Leebo-boost to give you more distance and a variable direction, then flip Pivot Wing. Next turn, dial the 0 stop, but start by giving yourself a Jan evade, then flip the title again. Maybe? If nothing else, I figure it's a cheap way to escape the dreaded 2-turn death trap.

I might have to give the first build another try. I don’t think I flew it optimally, which I might have just had to fly it to figure out; that build doesn’t want to get stuck trying to thread the needle through rocks. I’m glad that the second build has potential! I don’t know if FCS is necessary though; shouldn’t Wired mostly cover that? One other thought about build #2: he could slim down a lot by cutting Sensor Jammer. The Collision Detector flavor clocks in at just 32 points, making me question if I should plush for some Anti-Pursuit Lasers, or at least a Tactical Jammer...

My buddy and I pretty much only use rocks, but I do have some debris I suppose... You make a good point about the Aussie and the upgrade slots here. The U has a System and a Torp to make it unique. I guess that does tend to push the cost higher, but it's also part of the package. At a minimum, FCS is never a bad use of the System slot... I dunno. More than other ships, the U feels hard to build in a vacuum--it's not a big enough stick to get by without asking about the rest of the list that it supports. By statline and dial, it seems a lot like a Rebel Lambda, and of course there are plenty of Imperial Lambda devotees... There's gotta be something I'm missing here!

I’ve recently done some test flights of Cassian (and the U-Wing in general) with an eye toward finding a build that feels good without breaking the bank. I feel like it’s gotta be possible, but it’s hard; the U is an easy chassis to pump points into without getting a lot of return. But I’ve got some possible builds here that might spark some ideas. Be warned, only the first is field-tested. Please feel free to jump in with suggestions. BitterFig’s 4 Actions Cassian Andor (27) Expert Handling (2) Advanced Sensors (3) Kyle Katarn (3) Inspiring Recruit (1) Experimental Interface (3) Pivot Wing (0) Total: 39 I ran this guy this past weekend (build stolen from The BitterFig). He can generate a hilarious number of tokens, but has a great big “but”: you better have room for that pre-move barrel roll, or you just paid too much for a U-Wing. There’s not much to help you if you’re boxed in by rocks and ships, then pick up bogeys on your six. Just Keep Flipping Cassian Andor (27) Wired (1) Sensor Jammer (4) C-3PO (3) Hera Syndulla (1) Pivot Wing (0) Total: 36 Here’s an idea that I kinda like. Basically you commit U-Wing heresy by flying it in landing mode all the time, then you mitigate the impact of that via C-3p0 and Sensor Jammer and Wired, and Hera lets you sit there and flip all you want. Try getting behind this, suckas! Oh, and speaking of that: Torpedo Face Cassian Andor (27) Wired (1) Fire-Control System (2) Advanced Proton Torpedoes (6) "Zeb" Orrelios (1) Hera Syndulla (1) Guidance Chips (0) Pivot Wing (0) Total: 38 This one’s a bit like the last one, but the idea here is to throw mitigation to the wind, run in and block someone, shoot them anyway, grab a free TL, flip next turn if you think they’re gonna run, then jam a Wired APT in their face. Probably not a serious contender, but it struck me as amusing. Turnaround Jank Cassian Andor (27) Daredevil (3) Advanced Sensors (3) Inspiring Recruit (1) Hera Syndulla (1) Engine Upgrade (4) Pivot Wing (0) Total: 39 I had this idea a while back. Basically you always stay on the +1 AGI side of the title unless you need to do this: perform a pre-move Daredevil, flip to the 180 side, reveal a stop, rotate 180 degrees, flip back to the +1 AGI side. Problem is, you can’t clear the 2 stress this sticks you with right away—Recruit helps with that next turn. Another problem is that this relies on having enough room to do the trick, which is tough with a large ship. I Wanna Rock Cassian Andor (27) Expert Handling (2) Collision Detector (0) Dash Rendar (2) Intelligence Agent (1) Engine Upgrade (4) Pivot Wing (0) Total: 36 Here the idea is simply to throw that big beautiful chassis around at people (and rocks!) willy-nilly. Be where they don’t expect you to be and shoot them anyway. Hashtag can’t stop the signal.

I was going to say that janky means using silly, complex combos. Which is pretty much how this flew in my test game today: silly and complex. :-p First, a little background for the game: I ended up working a horrific round of overnight on-call support last night, and I only managed to sneak away from the family this morning for about 1.5 hours sleep, so I was majorly wrecked by the afternoon. :/ My buddy hadn't really prepped for the game, so he just grabbed 2 Y-wings and 2 A-wings and 2 TLTs and... came in at 102 points, but whatever; it wasn't the most optimized list anyway, so we chose to just play instead of dithering around. My buddy's last-minute list (102): Gemmer Sojan — A-Wing: 22, Chardaan Refit: -2, Ship Total: 20 Jake Farrell — A-Wing: 24, Trick Shot: 0, Chardaan Refit: -2, Ship Total: 22 "Dutch" Vander — Y-Wing: 23, Twin Laser Turret: 6, Ship Total: 29 Horton Salm — Y-Wing: 25, Twin Laser Turret: 6, Ship Total: 31 I don't have a full batrep in me right now, but I'll try to hit some high points. First off, I felt like the synergy of my pilots' abilities was good. Not game-breakingly good, but worthy of tweaking and flying again. Sadly, Ibtisam and Garven never managed to fly similarly enough to benefit from passing the focus token, but Garven and Cassian proved to be BFFs--Cassian helped clean up after a messy situation that left Garven stressed but needing to 4K to get away, and Garven returned the favor by passing a focus back on a turn where Cassian was boxed-in by rocks and enemies and couldn't activate his whole barrel-roll-driven shenanigans. On that note: on the turns where Cassian couldn't do his BR thing, or once he picked up 2 A-wings on his tail, or when Ibby's 2K was blocked by someone with higher PS, or after I jettisoned the droid to keep Garven in the fight... WOW did I feel like I was flying a list full of BRICKS! These guys really need help getting around! Ibby wasn't too bad, and only got blocked once that I cared about. I was tired enough to fly Garven onto a rock early on, though, which ended up costing me a plum shot and forcing me to ditch the droid to stay alive due to return fire--the contrast between FAA Garven and non-FAA Garven was unreal! Cassian though... man, the U-wing has got ISSUES with turning around. It was hilarious when his card combo worked out, but too often it didn't due to one kind of blockage or another. There was a turn where I debated flipping Pivot Wing over and resigning myself to eating 4 TLT damage just so I could turn around the next turn, and I wish I'd just done it--he ended up taking 2 anyway, and Garven took 1 more. Having something to take that heat off Garven would've been really nice; Ibby tried by staying in close and knife-fighting, but sadly that just made her ineligible as a target. As you might have guessed, I lost--or conceded after we ran out of time. It was a pretty nail-biting and fun game, though! That was the biggest win; next biggest was feeling good about Ibby's performance. Overall I think there's potential in this list, but I think I'm going to have to put Engine Upgrade (or at least Leebo) on Cassian for my own sanity's sake. It's one thing having Barrel Roll as an option on a large ship if circumstances allow you to take advantage of it (e.g., with the JM5K/Bumpmaster); it's quite another when a ship's whole schtick relies on consistently pulling off a large-ship BR to proc some crazy combo just to keep its head above water. I guess that sounds more negative than I felt, though; this struck me as a fun and interesting start of something, though not its Final Form. The U-wing pulled its weight when I could keep things in front of it. Final Verdict: 6/10, needs boost on the U-wing but I would gladly jank this again.

Gotta say, these "Jammin' Bs" look funky funky fresh. It's cool to hear that they actually work, too! I've only got one jamming beam but I would love to use this as a way to try it out. I guess my only question is, how can these get the job done against much higher PS foes? They're not going to be able to shut down an alpha strike on the initial approach, right? More like they're going to punish an offender with a stress and a jam token as they're swooping away...

3x YT-1300s definitely feels like too many. But then I foolishly avoided buying HoTR because I didn't want to deal with trying to store a second Falcon. Ended up eBaying/trading for most of the salient bits eventually... Of course, FFG could be nice to us and realize some people are going to have 3 of the bloody things and give us 3 copies of the cardboard and pilot card for a sub-34-point generic in the box. I'd be surprised if it was uber-competitive but it would be a nice gesture to let people be able to fly all 3 in a single game.

I respect people's decisions here either way. I've gone deep enough down the rabbit hole to be able to field most of the hotness, but I'm not really part of a big play group--just me and my one less-competitive buddy for the most part. Still, I love demoing the game for newbies, and I'd readily encourage them to get in if they're interested. The classic ships aren't always the most optimal but I've seen people get a charge out of flying them. It's always great to see people engaging with the basic rules and their favorite ships and having a good time. TBH I think one of the most useful things that us more experienced folks can do is give buying advice to the newbies. Things like, if you really want to fly a B-wing or Defender or Falcon, just skip the expack and jump right to the aces pack (until/unless they reach the point where they need something out of it to bolster their play experience). Or, the JM5K and Nym have some good stuff in them, but buying them opens you up to needing to care more actively about FAQs/errata. Or, the E-Wing and Punisher (and some others) are probably worth just avoiding unless you really want to go deep into the niche they represent. I think there's a related point to be made about specific meta-archetypes and affordability. Simply put, some are more affordable than others. IMO that's not a terrible thing in and of itself--there's more than one archetype out there at any given moment, and chasing meta-shifts is an expensive prospect in any game. But eBay is there if people want to go after a specific build in a competitive format without buying certain packs, and we should be open to some proxying if people are trying to decide if they want to bite the bullet on a C-3P0 or Palp or whatever. Overall, I think we should encourage people to play what they can feel okay about playing, and consider tailoring our list-building accordingly. I for one plan to fly a lot more straight-up jank this year... :-p

I appreciate the input on this madness. As I look at getting ready to fly it this weekend (schedules permitting), though, I keep gravitating back toward the original. SOT and Garven are absolutely not the most optimal choices in any list, but I think they'll help contribute to a fun play experience. I also like it that they help all 3 of these guys come in at the same PS, and I think they might even synergize pretty well, in their own freakish way. If I get to play, I'll try to post a batrep!

I've never played against anyone but my regular gaming buddy, except for people who I'm demoing it for to try to get them interested.

Thanks @theBitterFig! I’m pretty sure I stole that U-Wing build from you in another thread. I can see the potential value of the tractor beam but I’m leery of giving up Ibtisam’s damage output. Also, having the second reroll could be overkill but it does a better job of simulating Target Lock if you blank out or just can’t get Garven’s focus. But, maybe 1 reroll is really enough. I might have to try it both ways if I get the opportunity. I think the real thing that cemented the 2nd reroll was this other variation I was considering: ”Jankin’ with Ibtisam: Special Edition” Cassian Andor (27) Expert Handling (2) Advanced Sensors (3) Inspiring Recruit (1) Kyle Katarn (3) Experimental Interface (3) Pivot Wing (0) Ibtisam (28) Adrenaline Rush (1) Collision Detector (0) Linked Battery (2) Finn (5) B-Wing/E2 (1) Lieutenant Blount (17) Deadeye (1) Harpoon Missiles (4) Vectored Thrusters (2) Total: 100 View in Yet Another Squad Builder The idea is to push Ibtisam to new heights of red-dice absurdity while using Adrenaline Rush to keep her dial open for 1 move. It’s only 1 move, though, which probably kills your maneuverability. Also, Bluntman doesn’t synergize nearly as well as Garven; I’m mostly just using him because he’s cheap, can be guaranteed to hand out a Harpooned! condition, and to keep everyone at PS 6. I think the original (plus or minus a Tractor Beam) is probably stronger. EDIT: Oh right, I just remembered my other doubt about the TB: if you have the TB, you want Ibtisam to shoot first if at all possible--but with Garven's ability, you really want him to shoot first. And considering how janky this is, and how Cassian will probably have a pile of tokens anyway, it feels stronger to me to be able to hand Ibtisam that focus.

*facepalm* I think I figured it out. There’s a BBCode button on the view/print pane. Sorry for the noise! And yep, here’s what it looks like: Cassian Andor (27) Expert Handling (2) Advanced Sensors (3) Inspiring Recruit (1) Kyle Katarn (3) Experimental Interface (3) Pivot Wing (0) Ibtisam (28) Stay On Target (2) Collision Detector (0) Linked Battery (2) Hera Syndulla (1) B-Wing/E2 (1) Garven Dreis (26) Flight-Assist Astromech (1) Integrated Astromech (0) Total: 100 View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Let me know how it goes! ^^ I may or may not get to try this tomorrow... otherwise probably next weekend.

I've gotten that far, but what I mean is the formatting used by @ChewieOnThis over here, which includes a nice built-in link in the format block:

This year I’m on a mission to fly everything I’ve got at least once. All the upgrades, and all the named pilots. Even Saboteur. But today we’re talking about Ibtisam. A long-overshadowed pilot on a long-overshadowed chassis, Ibtisam doesn’t have a lot going for her other than a reroll when she’s stressed. But stressed B’s that aren’t named Keyan have a bad time ahead of them, right? Well, I figure that doubling down on both the stress and the reroll might make for a janky good time. Hera’s here to make sure Ibtisam’s whole dial is open regardless of stress, which also makes sure Ibtisam can always get at least one reroll on both offense and defense. Linked Battery is there as a cheap and easy way to get a second offensive reroll. And Stay On Target is there to make sure that her dial is always 100% open and red so she never loses her stress regardless of whatever’s going on—and to make her tougher to block, if things get tight. As for the rest of it: I’m trying to make sure the jank remains strong with this one. Garven can pass off a focus to Ibtisam to essentially give her double-modified dice all the time, while Flight Assist keeps him as slippery as a T-65 can be these days. Cassian is, honestly, mostly just there for the jank factor. Though I’ve heard this build is a good way to make sure he always gets a TL, BR, and 2 focuses each turn. Plus, he could pull stress off Garven if needed. Cassian Andor — U-Wing 27 Expert Handling 2 Advanced Sensors 3 Inspiring Recruit 1 Kyle Katarn 3 Experimental Interface 3 Pivot Wing 0 Ship Total: 39 Ibtisam — B-Wing 28 Stay On Target 2 Collision Detector 0 Linked Battery 2 Hera Syndulla 1 B-Wing/E2 1 Ship Total: 34 Garven Dreis — X-Wing 26 Flight-Assist Astromech 1 Integrated Astromech 0 Ship Total: 27 Total: 100

Hey guys. I’m pretty sure this is both easy to do and that how to do it is common knowledge, but I can’t seem to figure it out. In brief: how can I paste squad lists built in Yet Another Squad Builder (https://geordanr.github.io/xwing) into the forums here and have them come in with nice formatting? I’ve seen it done plenty of times, but I must be missing something. Like I can copy out of the “print/view as text” mode but I wouldn’t call the formatting “nice.”

OMG guys, I just played one of the most epic (though not Epic) games of X-Wing I've ever played. My buddy and I rematches our lists from last time, and it was a nail-biter. I played Fenn way more aggressively this time, and got into a R1 face-off with Rey pretty early. Sadly the dice did not favor me in the engagement, and while he survived, he ended up chipping just one shield while being brought down to 2 hull with some nagging crits. I straight-up bolloxed his next move, both turning the wrong way and proccing the crits... he died very soon after. Inaldra, of course, didn't last long once Asajj started threading through the field. I just couldn't seem to keep them together. Bodyguard Inaldra really wants that R1, no bump, focus token situation--and that's hard to achieve when she's moving first, and small-base vs. large. We both figured the game was over once it got down to Asajj vs. his whole squad. It wasn't. Suddenly the random little chip damage that my guys had been doing all along mattered, because my buddy couldn't touch Asajj. Courtesy of Latts, and asteroids, and Glitter, and Countermeasures (which I got to refresh via Scav Crane!), Asajj soloed the rest of 'em. There were tense moments a-plenty, as I set up bumps for his guys between Asajj and the rocks. When Rey ended up with Blinded Pilot, then bumped Asajj... hilarity ensued. I'm probably going to move on to other builds, but I get it now! Asajj with Latts is powerful, and I had a heck of a lot of fun!

Skyrim has held on as my go-to game when I want (and have time for) something more than just fighting games. Like @Boba Rick I don't game much anymore though; kids and family stuff makes it really hard to find the time. At least with X-Wing I'm either out of the house or very visibly occupied with something other than just sitting at the computer.

Purely for stupid fun, I might consider: Cassian Andor — U-Wing 27 Daredevil 3 Advanced Sensors 3 "Chopper" 0 Hera Syndulla 1 Engine Upgrade 4 Pivot Wing 0 Ship Total: 38 It’s stupid! But I bet it’d be fun to activate with that 1-hard Daredevil maneuver, flip Pivot Wing to the 180 side, reveal a 0-stop, flip the ship 180, then flip Pivot Wing back over. I could consider Inspiring Recruit instead of Chopper to help shed the 2 stress, but Chopper is cheaper and lets you keep doing it despite the stress if you need to. What EPT & Astro do you think E’tahn wants... maybe Juke with Flight Assist? (EDIT: or Intensity...)