X-Wing Buying Guide - Resistance

BUYING GUIDE - THE RESISTANCE
"I've known a lot of trigger-happy flyboys like you"

LAST UPDATED: APRIL 2023

1) WHO ARE THE RESISTANCE?

Arriving with the release of The Force Awakens the Resistance is the future of the 'good guys' in Star Wars.  It's where you'll find heroes like Rey, Finn and Poe Dameron as well as some older versions of General Leia Organa or Han Solo.  There's also just starting to be a line of new ships coming in from the Resistance cartoon series with the Fireball that arrived in early 2020.

Ship-wise the Resistance leans heavily on the next generation of classic Rebel Alliance technology like T-70 X-Wings, RZ-2 A-Wings, the rusted remains of the Millenium Falcon.  Although the ships may often look very similar to Rebel ships they've been designed to play quite differently so the Resistance features a lot less dependency on running your teams closely together to benefit from teamwork abilities.  That can be a positive as you're not shackled to each other in the same way, but that freedom also means you're given more opportunity to make mistakes.  You want your squad to be working together ultimately, after all!

Like the Rebels the Resistance has some pretty tough ships so they're a pretty safe place for a new player to drop into the game and there's not really any bad ships in the whole faction so you can pick up whatever you like and make it work.  They're mainly focused on flying squads of one-man fighters but in the Millenium Falcon and MG100 Starfortress there are a couple of bigger options to build a squad around if you fancy a change of pace - you will need to go via the Resistance Conversion Kit to play either of those ships though.

2) STARTING SQUADS

Resistance has one of the smallest number of available ships in the game and that makes it a pretty straight forward faction to buy into - there's so little diversity in ship types that you can't really go far wrong.  I'd say your top priority is probably getting to 2x T-70, 2x RZ2 A-Wing, 1x Transport Pod and 1x Fireball, and once you've got those basics in place you can look around at what to do next. 

One thing that I do think is quite pertinent to Resistance players is that the conversion kit is probably a bit more attractive for you than any othe faction because it's the only way to unlock Rey and her Millenium Falcon.  It's a bit of an annoying paywall but if you can find a cheap Millenium Falcon miniature on eBay or from a local player then the conversion kit shouldn't cost you any more than buying a Falcon expansion would if it were available.

But to set the conversion kit aside for now, a pretty straight forward starting Resistance list would probably look something like this...

Resistance 101

• Nien Numb (T-70) - Elusive, R6-D8, Integrated S-Foils

• Ello Asty (T-70) - Backwards Tailslide, Predator, BB-8, Integrated S-Foils

• Kazuda Kiono (Fireball) - Concussion Missiles, R1-J5, Advanced SLAM, Targeting Computer, Kaz's Fireball

• Wrobie Tyce (RZ2 A-Wing) - Starbird Slash

• Merl Cobben (RZ2 A-Wing) - Starbird Slash, Automated Target Priority

And you can make that list entirely out of a T-70 expansion, Heralds of Hope, and A-Wing expansion and a Fireball.

An alternate version would be to buy the Resistance Transport instead of the Fireball, then you turn Kazuda Xiono into Finn's transport pod while upgrading Wrobie Tyce to a more powerful A-Wing.

3) SHIP BY SHIP GUIDE 

Being a small faction with quite a lot of new ships that didn't exist in First Edition means the Resistance is easy to collect as you don't really need to stray too far from the black box expansion packs.  Compared to players buying into other factions that may be what frees up the funds to find and buy a conversion kit and YT-1300 so you can play Rey.

T-70 X-Wing

Very easy to fly, Strong

The T-70 X-Wing is arguably the best all-rounder ship in the game, featuring enough hull and shields to take a while to kill, enough firepower to pose a real threat to any opponent and some fantastic pilot abilities to help drive you forwards.  At the expensive end is the Resistance's top ace, Poe Dameron, whose flexible pilot ability means he can switch seamlessly from defensive flying to piling on the explosions when he's got into position.

But Poe isn't all that the T-70 offers and right the way down through Nien Numb, Temmin Wexley, Jess Pava and Lieutenant Bastian to some of the most cost-effective generic pilots around too.  Anywhere from 42pts up you've got a raft of strong pilot abilities dedicated to ensuring the T-70 punches above its weight.  You're almost certainly going to want at least one T-70 X-Wing in your Resistance collection and it's not uncommon to field 2 or even 3 T-70s at once.

There are four places to get T-70 pilots from but the most important ones pretty much all come in the actual expansion box, including Poe.  Heralds of Hope adds Poe's orange and white T-70 model from Rise of Skywalker and Hotshots & Aces II in particular adds Zay Versio who (at time of writing) is the only T-70 pilot you can buy with just 4 squad points so she's well worth having.

RZ-2 A-Wing

Easy to fly, Strong

Alongside the T-70 X-Wing the RZ-2 A-Wing is one of the twin pillars of Resistance squadbuilding on which the entire faction is based.  Smaller and more nimble than the T-70, the RZ-2 A-Wing is one of the fastest ships in the game and features the powerful ability to switch its laser cannons from firing forwards to backwards.  This makes them a tricky opponent on the table as you're never sure if they're going to fly slowly towards you and continue firing out of the front, or fly right over the top of you and switch to firing backwards.

Like the T-70 there are several A-Wing pilots worth flying and it's not unheard of to see players flying as many as five A-Wings in a single squad!  Although each A-Wing only packs a modest punch the opponent can be left blasting uselessly at empty space as a cloud of speedy A-Wings swirl around the table switching between front and rear guns. 

As well as the ship expansion box there's two RZ2 A-Wings in the Heralds of Hope expansion, along with some good new pilots.  Most Resistance players will have multiple A-Wings to call upon and it's probably worth buying 1x expansion and 1x Heralds of Hope to get the wider range of pilots.

Resistance Transport

Hard to fly, Average strength

Resistance Transport Pod

Easy to fly, Strong

The Resistance Transport expansion contains two ships: the transport itself, which is what Leia arrives in during The Force Awakens, and a detachable cockpit pod which is what Finn & Rose travel to Canto Bight in.  Neither ship may sound too exciting but they've both proven to have their place in the game, and it's actually the little Transport Pod that has made the biggest impact!

The main Resistance Transport is a pretty unexciting support ship like the Rebel Alliance's Sheathipede or the Escape Craft from Lando's Millenium Falcon.  The reason the Resistance version is less useful is because the rest of the faction features ships that are so independently powerful that they don't really need a support ship to be effective.  When you fly Cova Nell with General Leia Organa on board the Resistance Transport changes role and becomes a tough brawler, but outside of that combinationit's not seen much use.

The little Transport Pod, on the other hand, is small but mighty.  There are great pilot abilities on three out of the four pilots and when Finn is at the controls the Pod becomes one of the cheapest and most efficient damage-dealing threats in the game.  It's well worth picking at least one Resistance Transport expansion up just to add Finn to your squadbuilding options, and it's also worth noting that there's a lot of great crew upgrade cards in this expansion that can be used on the Millenium Falcon or Starfortress to good effect.

Fireball 

Average to fly, Strong

The Fireball is the main racer from the Resistance cartoon series and is frequently described as 'an explosion with wings'.  In X-Wing the Fireball is actually a pretty decent little ship that can fill in a couple of roles.

Most of the Fireball pilots are bringing a cheap ship that's not very effective in combat but useful for objective or support play like a Transport Pod or cheap A-Wing, but Kazudo himself punches a bit harder and he operates more like a cut-price T-70.  It makes the Fireball a surprisingly versatile little addition to your range of Resistance options.

NR2 Y-Wing

Easy to fly, Average

Note: this is a two-ship expansion so it's pricey, but you get two Y-Wings to play with.  At times it feels like every faction has its own version of the Y-Wing and this is the Resistance one - smaller and sleeker than the others and with a dual role capability depending on if you take Wartime Loadout and become slow and tough or leave it light and faster.

Aside from a brief period when the non-Wartime Loadout version was probably a bit too cheap the Y-Wing has really languished in the wings of the Resistance.  T-70s are better brawlers and A-Wings are better skirmishers and the Y-Wing occupies an uncomfortable space between those two roles.  They're probably low priority when you first join the faction but experience tells us that when points change to make them good they can be really really good!

Heralds of Hope

Not just one ship but three, the Heralds of Hope boxed set was the first of the new 'squadron packs' designed to breath new life and styles of play into existing ships.  In Heralds of Hope you'll find two T-70 X-Wings (including Poe's orange and white one from Rise of Skywalker) and an RZ-2 A-Wing.  There's also a slew of new pilot cards in the box - a new Poe, a new Snap Wexley, ad some powerful new A-Wing pilots.

It all sounds good, and it is, but if you're buying into Resistance I think there's a catch: most of the stuff that's here is the cherry and sprinkles on top of the cake, rather than the cake itself.  Yes you get three ships in one box but if you're starting out you probably should just buy three individual expansions instead.  It's not that there's anything bad going on, it's just that the meat & potatoes of the faction isn't here - you get Starbird Slash to put on A-Wings but you need the RZ-2 expansion for Heroic and Proton Rockets.  It's the same story with pilots - yeah you get Seftin Vanik as a cheap I5 A-Wing ace but you'd rather have Tallisin Lintra or L'ulo L'ampar instead if you're only flying one A-Wing, and yeah there's a new Poe Dameron pilot card but the original one is almost certainly better.

It's a good box.  You'll wind up getting it eventually.  But it's probably not the right place to start unless you really REALLY like that orange T-70 X-Wing.

===== THE FOLLOWING SHIPS ARE UNRELEASED IN SECOND EDITION =====

You'll need to source a First Edition model and buy the Resistance Conversion Kit to play these ships.

Salvaged YT-1300

Average to fly, Strong

The rusting remains of the mighty Millenium Falcon have been salvaged from Jakku and are flying once again!  This isn't the Falcon of Han Solo's prime that the Rebel Alliance gets to enjoy - the maneuver dial is worse and it's lost a couple of shields along the way - but there's life in the old girl yet and she's a mainstay of Resistance squads.  

You'll usually find Rey in the pilot's seat of the Resistance Falcon, with Finn in the gunner seat and usually Rose Tico is around somewhere too.  Finn & Rey make for a potent combination and turn the Falcon into perhaps the single most reliably hard-hitting ship in the game, capable of removing smaller opponents in a single shot. The Resistance Falcon is not for the faint of heart, though: it blows up significantly more easily than the Rebel version and can take great piloting to keep the Falcon from being shot at too often.  But if you can master keeping the old girl on the table then the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy still has a few tricks up it's sleeve.

The Falcon has also been given a second lease of life in Hotshots & Aces II, with Poe Dameron piloting the ship like he did at the start of Rise of Skywalker.  He's got some great abilities that completely transform how the ship flies.

There's just one problem... and it's a big one.  You can't buy a Second Edition version of this ship.  You can buy a Resistance Falcon (with the square radar dish) for First Edition, or you can buy a Rebel Falcon for Second Edition... but neither of them come with the cardboard you'll need to actusally play this ship in Resistance, you'll have to buy the conversion kit for that.  It's a chunky paywall that effectively doubles the cost of adding the Falcon to your squad and it's a real shame that FFG didn't think of including the Resistance cards when they released the Second Edition expansion box.