SciFighter's Guide: Budget Builds: TFA Core First Order Edition

[scifighter1 68]

What Do I Buy Next?

 

Episode 7 has brought new ships to X-Wing Miniatures.  With the hype of the renewal of what has been a phenomenal movie setting also come new players.  There are those out there that did not know about such an amazing game until picking up The Force Awakens Core Set.  It is their first step into a larger world.

 

How do I get involved in larger dogfights?  They may ask.  I have to purchase something to get to a hundred points but what should I get?  Where does the value lie?

 

So many options can be overwhelming.  Luckily there are no bad directions to go with your purchases.  Every pack has something that is great to have.  Still, it can be a daunting task for some.

 

These are the players I want to lend assistance to.

 

Budget Builds: The Force Awakens Edition

 

**As a preface, this guide is very similar to a previous version for the original Core Set.  There are minor changes that did not require a full rewrite for the builds.  The largest change to each build is the Flight Summary.  For convenience, I will write the Imperial build that changed drastically first and follow it up with the remixed builds after.**

 

You’re new.  You don’t know quite what you want.  You don’t want to buy everything to find out.  I get that.  I’m married and spending money on X-Wing is a hard sell.  My collection is still slowly building.  With that said, in the interest of savings, let’s start with builds based on a budget.

 

Let’s see what we have to work with.  Assuming that you have only a Core set, you have a single X-Wing.  The most expensive build you can make is Poe with Wired, Proton Torpedoes, Weapons Guidance and BB-8 coming in at 40 points.  We have to come up with 60.  How can I get a squad while not scrounging through my neighbor’s trash at dinner?  In no particular order, we will get you going on a path to take down the First Order.

 

 

Budget Build 1:

 

What’s the cheapest 100 squad points that will still allow you to decimate the competition?  In case I was too subtle for some, it’s the VT-49 Decimator.  With a single ship, you can go up to 71 squad points.  You can most certainly find this ship for $20, making this the most budgeted of Imperial builds.

 

The decimator is a tank.  It’s a versatile tank.  It can seriously intimidate your opponent with or without the Elite Talent.  With 12 Hull and 4 Shields, it can take a lot of punishment.  Unfortunately, with 0 Agility it will indeed take whatever punishment the dice deities deem deserving.  With a 360 degree firing arc, it can dish out 3 attack dice to anyone in range.  You can Target Lock or you can Focus for actions.  Your dial seems slow but, as a large ship, you will be surprised how fast you can go.

 

So what can we do with this? Like I said, it’s versatile.  You can go offensive or defensive with this behemoth.

 

Let’s look at an aggressive build.  Remember, we only have Core and Decimator to build from.

 

Pilot: “This is your Captain speaking.  Please put all trays in the upright position as we assume ramming speed.”  This is what I imagine happens aboard the 42 point Decimator Captain Oicunn flies.  Every time we hit an enemy ship with our move, we do an automatic damage.  In addition, it can really mess up the pretty formation our opponent may want.

Elite Pilot Talent: If nothing else the Decimator is scary looking.  Any good tyrant will tell you that to keep people from joining the Resistance you need Intimidation.  For 2 points, we can reduce the Agility of enemy ships we touch and make our smaller ships into much deadlier allies.  Besides, remember that Oicunn really wants to ram ships.

Title: The Dauntless is the power in these “waters”, true enough.  It can also block our little TIE buddies by acting as an obstruction for enemy attacks.  Free green dice?  Yes, please.

Crew: Mara Jade is an awesome character.  And at 3 points, she’s an awesome crew member in this game.  Can I take a moment to recommend reading the Thrawn trilogy?  Canon or not, every Star Wars fan should read it.  Anyway, Mara is going to stress all enemy ships at Range 1 at the end of combat.  Denying your enemy red maneuvers and actions is huge.  Stress is no one’s friend in this game.  You have a lot of hull.  Enemies need that Range 1 attack on you.  Now they want to stay back.  Mara…you’re great.

Crew: For 4 Points gets you Ysanne Isard.  Once you lose your shields and take your first damage card, you’re going to panic.  Isard starts triggering the following turn, giving you a free Evade.  With no agility, it’s how you’re going to stay alive that much longer.  Use it on Critical Hits if you can but evading face down damage is better than saving it and wasting the token at the end of the round.

Crew: The First Order wants you!  I imagine that’s the slogan on the poster with Dark Helmet pointing at the passerby when trying to recruit a Fleet Officer.  Luckily, that roped in a crew member that can use Oicunn’s action to give 2 friendly ships at Range 1-2 a focus token.  He gets a stress, but often enough you’ll be doing green maneuvers.

Modification: This is an optional card.  Tactical Jammer can help by making you a moving obstacle and help your Tie Fighters stay alive.  Can be good, can be “meh”, can be useless.  It may be more worth it to stay at 99 points without it and be more likely have Initiative.

Pilot: The Omega Ace.  It’s certainly a tough sounding pilot.  His pilot ability supports that as well.  If we spend a Target Lock and a Focus, we can change all of our dice results to Critical Hits.  Thanks to the Fleet Officer, if we stay close to the Decimator, that’s a consistent result every round that we can Target Lock which we will unless we have a dire need to Evade.

Elite Pilot Talent: We don’t want to be stressed because we want to Target Lock.  If we must get stressed, at least we get Wired.  Now we can reroll any focus result that we roll.

Pilot: Every squad needs a leader.  Epsilon Leader fills this spot quite nicely.  Remember that stress that we want to avoid?  It’s gone so long as we keep our fellows in Range 1 at the start of Combat.

            Tech: The obvious choice, as it’s the only choice.  Weapons Guidance allows us to replace a blank result with a Hit.  It only costs a focus token, so if we get that from our Fleet Officer, we can take any action we want.

 

TLDR; Why are you looking at a guide?  It seems counter productive to scroll past it.  Fine, here’s the short version.

 

Imperial player? Not a lot of cash?

 

Force Awakens Core + VT49 Decimator = $50 (It’s cheap, it’s easy to fly.)

 

Oicunn

            -Intimidation

            -Fleet Officer

            -Mara Jade

            -Ysanne Isard

            -Dauntless

            -Tactical Jammer

Omega Ace

            -Wired

Epsilon Leader

            -Weapons Guidance

 

99 points

 

Flight Plan:

Oicunn is running interference.  He’s staying in the middle of the action.  Blocking attacks and ramming unfortunate ships.  His 360 arc allows him to shoot the other ships that avoided him.  Our TIEs are staying on the backside of Oicunn, benefiting.  Even if that puts Omega at Range 3, the consistency of Criticals is going to win out in the long run.  If Oicunn is taking the brunt of the damage, pull him back before his death and have him shoot from afar.

 

 

Budget Build 2:

 

Boba Fett?  Imperials can get Boba Fett?  Where?

 

The Imperial Firespray-31 is considered by some to be fairly inadequate.  However, I’m a firm believer that you can learn to fly any ship well enough to make it worth building.  I would like to ease your gaze away from everyone’s favorite bounty hunter to another pilot.  He doesn’t suit our needs the best.  With other expansions, you can make him work.  But we’re on a budget and for this build we are working with the Core Set and the Slave-1 pack.

 

Pilot: Kath Scarlett for the Imperials has a better pilot ability and can equip everything that bucket head can.  For 38 points, she will stress out targets that avoid her Critical Hits.  Stress is a big factor in this game.  Even if you don’t hit this round, it will be easier to do so next round.  So how do we maximize stress output?  Read on, padawan.

Elite Pilot Talent: Wired only helps us to cope with our own stress, however, it’s a way to try and roll a Critical that otherwise would have been a focus result.

Title: We may not be Boba, but we can fly the Slave 1.  For free, we get to add a Torpedo slot onto our ship.  Though we still have to buy the ordinance, it’s going to allow us more chance of big boom.

Bomb: Though I tend to grab mines first, there is nothing wrong with a bomb.  The seismic charge might seem small, only doing 1 damage, it is automatically a hit on every ship at Range 1 of the token.  If you’re being chased down by a pack of anything, this is a way to hit them all.  Keep in mind that having a bomb on board is a bit of a mindgame.  It deters the opponent from following you.  Once you use it it’s gone.  Still, the Firespray has the auxillary arc so you’ll be okay.

Crew: Guns for hire, sell swords, or any other title they give themselves mercenaries are good to have around even Vader knows that.  With a Mercenary Copilot, we can change a Hit to a Critical, increasing our chance of stressing the opponent out at the least, or giving face up damage card at the most.  Remember to use this with your munitions.  Speaking of which.

Torpedo: The Proton Torpedo is the classy way to kill a ship in Star Wars.  Give it a chance.  After all, those pesky Rebels used a single shot to blow up the Death Star.  It’s time for a taste of their own medicine.  At Range 2 and Range 3 we roll 4 attack dice and get to change a focus result to a Critical Hit.

Missile: The heatseeking missile has been a trope for a long time and for good reason.  The Homing Missiles are hard to Evade.  In fact, the enemy ship can’t spend any Evade tokens to dodge these 4 red dice. 

Pilot: Stress is not as common with this build, but it happens to the best of us.  Epsilon Leader will take care of that when it does.  Just get in Range 1 and let go of all that pent up emotion. 

Tech: The Weapons Guidance system is a marvel of the new era of Star Wars.  It’d be a shame not to bring it along.  Being able to spend our focus tokens to change a blank result to a Hit is handy and makes a 2 attack power ship quite nasty.

Modification: Spending 3 points on Stealth Device is how we survive.  We get an extra agility until we are hit by an attack.  With 4 dice, that will hopefully take awhile.

Pilot: If Scarlet was the Alpha of our list, now we come to the Omega…Ace.  If Critical Hits are what we are going for, look no farther.  With a Target Lock and a focus token, we can automatically change all of our attack dice to Critical Hits.  It takes 2 turns to pull off but there is no Resistance to it.

Elite Pilot Talent: An extra 2 Pilot Skill with Veteran Instincts, makes Omega outmatch many ships outside of the most elite.  We want to shoot first when we have our auto Critical Hit attacks ready to go.

Modification: Another Stealth Device.  Omega is probably the ship our opponent wants to take down quickly.  This should help us not to let that happen.

 

TLDR; Really?  Again?  Next you’re going to tell me you don’t read iTunes agreements either and simply trust that Apple does not now have legal possession of your soul.  Got you covered.

 

Kath Scarlett

            -Wired

            -Slave 1

            -Seismic Charge

            -Mercenary Copilot

            -Proton Torpedo

            -Homing Missile

Epsilon Leader

            -Veteran Instincts

            -Stealth Device

Omega Ace

            -Weapons Guidance

            -Stealth Device

 

99 points.

 

Flight Summary:

The name of the game here is angles.  Kath has an auxiliary primary weapon firing arc behind her.  You don’t have to chase people around.  Use it to your advantage.  Turn the opposite direction of the expected move now and then.  When they turn the wrong way, you’ll still be able to fire.  Be patient with the bomb.  Try to get multiple ships behind you.  You don’t have to use it to keep ships off your tail, that’s your secondary arc’s job.  Omega is going to draw fire, don’t let him take multiple shots.  Make use of Segnor’s Loop.  It throws off opponents content to use more standard movements.  If you keep Epsilon close, you won’t have to worry about the stress on the following turn.

 

 

Budget Build 3:

 

The Imperial Aces is the first expansion that I purchased.  Not that it was the right way to go or that I’d do the same thing again but getting 2 ships was a strong pull for me.  That being said your squad gets more into the swarm style than purchasing the larger ships.  That means less upgrades but more raw power from stats.  We’re also going to have to fly less casual and more purpose driven.  We also gain the Boost action allowing us to get in even closer, dodge firing arcs, and get enemies into our own arc.  If we so choose, we can even add a second modification to our Interceptors.  Nice.  This squad is made with just the Core and Imperial Aces.

 

Pilot: Carnor Jax is our premier pilot here.  Focusing attack dice changes your hit percentage from 4/8 to 6/8 on each die rolled.  Your defense dice also change from 3/8 to 5/8 chances to evade per die.  The Force as well as simple statistics are with you when you Focus.  Evade may not seem like much but adding an extra evade result to your dice pool can really save a ship from Hits or Critical Hits.  When Carnor Jax gets in close, you shut both of those actions down for your opponent.  Enemy ships at Range 1 of Carnor cannot take or spend focus and evade tokens.  This helps your squad do some major damage.

Elite Pilot Talent: Not a lot of red on the dials in this build but we’ll give Wired to Carnor due to some builds giving stress and sometimes we may need to go through debris to stay close and activate our pilot ability.  On the off-chance Carnor is stressed, he won’t be dead in the water.

Pilot: Aces fly well together.  Kir Kanos takes advantage of Carnor’s defense nullifying ability and can add a Hit to his results when he shoots from Range 2 or Range 3.  That could be up to 4 damage results and the enemy can’t spend any tokens to dodge.

Pilot: Of course, we’re bringing in Omega Ace.  With our enemy not being able to Evade or Focus to get away from our attacks,  someone that’s doing automatic Critical Hits is important.  If only we could activate this ability whenever we wanted.

Elite Pilot Talent: Cue the ShamWow guy because now, there is!  Omega slices and dices, he can Target Locks and perform a Focus on the same turn.  This build is yet another way to get big damage potential each round.  With Push The Limit, you can perform any 2 actions on our action bar at the cost of a stress.  With Epsilon Leader around, it won’t be an issue at all.

Modification: Now, we want Omega to stay alive for the damage.  But the Shield Upgrade could go on Carnor as he’ll be in close and probably be the first target for our opponent.  Assign it as you will, but I think giving Omega a Shield is more worth it.

Pilot: When we need a shoulder to cry on, Epsilon Leader is there for us.  When we get pay to go see Jar Jar on the big screen because we got excited that Star Wars tickets are on sale, Epsilon Leader is there for us.  When we get stressed and can’t take the burden of doing 2 automatic Critical Hits in a single turn every turn, Epsilon Leader is there for us.  As long as we’re at Range 1, Epsilon Leader takes the stress away.

Tech: And for the final time, we bestow the Weapons Guidance on Epsilon Leader to keep his damage potential up.  Everyone else will be doing damage, why leave him out of the fun.  If he rolls a blank, he can use a focus token to make it a hit.  Now every one of our ships has something to fear.

 

TLDR; Here we are.  You, me, and an easy and brief summary of the build.

 

Carnor Jax

            -Wired

Kir Kanos

Omega Ace

            -Push the Limit

            -Shield Upgrade

Epsilon Leader

            -Weapons Guidance

 

99 points

 

Flight Plan:

Focus Fire is the name of this game.  Pick the easiest enemy to kill and work your way through the ranks.  Try to swing Carnor around firing arcs and come from the side or behind.  Make use of Barrel Roll and Boost.  Only Epsilon Leader needs to think about sticking close to Omega Ace.  Other than that it’s best to spread out and come in at different angles.  We can do major damage each round if we can get everyone come in at the same time as Carnor gets in close.

[TTC 114]

On build 3, is Wired really worth that 1 point?  Why not add Autothrusters to one of the ships and use the full 100?  I don't see that 1-point being worth it on Wired or the initiative build.

[cvtheoman 234]

On build 3, is Wired really worth that 1 point?  Why not add Autothrusters to one of the ships and use the full 100?  I don't see that 1-point being worth it on Wired or the initiative build.

 

Because he's running "budget builds", and build 3 only uses cards from the Core Set and Imperial Aces.  Autothrusters are from the Starviper.

[TTC 114]

 

On build 3, is Wired really worth that 1 point?  Why not add Autothrusters to one of the ships and use the full 100?  I don't see that 1-point being worth it on Wired or the initiative build.

 

Because he's running "budget builds", and build 3 only uses cards from the Core Set and Imperial Aces.  Autothrusters are from the Starviper.

 

 

Good point.

 

I really like his lists.  I may use these as a nice starting point and tailor from there...

[TTC 114]

Carnor with VI to take him to PS 10 seems like a better use of a point.

[xnet445 1]

Bumping for righteousness. These guides belong on the first page.