DO I WANT... a Xi Class Shuttle expansion pack?

Right, before we do anything else let's get the first thing out of the way - just how the hell are we supposed to say Xi?  Is it the Spanish Xi?  The Chinese Xi?  The Greek Xi?

Well Star Wars precedent is set that this name has been drawn from the Greek alphabet (along with other names like Upsilon, Sigma, Omega, Omicron etc) so I believe it should be pronounced almost like 'Ky' and a quick trip to a .edu website that looks like it was last updated when it migrated of Geocities tells me this...

Xi (χ): This is the same sound as "ch" in "Bach", which does not sound like "ch" in "chair". The same sound occurs in the Scottish "Loch", as in "Loch Lomond", or the German "ach!" 

So it's a Khy Class Shuttle.  Sorted.

Next up: is the Xi (Khy) Shuttle actually good?  Do you want to buy this expansion pack?

PILOTS

There are four Xi Shuttle pilots and the First Order Courier is your generic entry point to the Xi Shuttle at 38pts.  That's 20pts less than an Upsilon Shuttle but the ships are very different so comparson within the faction is really difficult.  Is there maybe something with a similar statline that we can benchmark that 2/2/5/2 chassis against to see if it's offering us good value?

Alpha-Class Starwing - 2/2/4/3 - 32pts

(you can also get a TIE Bomber with one less Hull for 27pts, or a TIE/sf with one less hull and a rear arc for 32pts)

Ok, so immediately the Courier at 38pts seems pretty expensive and not great value.  The dial's not great and the coordinate is a red action so there's no redeeming features there and it's pretty unattractive all round.  I'd personally expected the Xi to land about 32-34pts so to find it up at 38pts means I don't think you'll be seeing Couriers in play very often.

At face value Agent Terex is even worse value than the First Order Courier.  He's 42pts and the only difference for those 4pts is he's Initiative 3 not Initiative 2.  What Agent Terex DOES do, though, is allow you to then invest further points in buying Illicit upgrades to give to your squad, which is actually kind of neat and fun.  But I think it's only janky fun, unfortunately, and not actually good.

1. Terex forces you to pay points for the opportunity to pay more points, and those points are on top of the base cost of a Courier that we've already seen is overcosted to begin with.  If you want to give your TIE Fighters some cool Illicit upgrades you're being taxed for them THREE times!
   
   
2. A lot of the cool stuff you might want to do with illicits... you can't do.  You can't give illicits to anybody but TIE/fo and TIE/sf pilots so that means there's no Cloaking Device for Major Vonreg and no Contraband Cybernetics for Kylo Ren.  You also can't pass Illicits onto somebody who doesn't meet the requirements, so you can't hand out Rigged Cargo Chutes to your TIEs as they're not Medium Base ships, for instance.  In fact the list of stuff you can do that you really care much about is very limited... Deadman Switch on TN-3465 is funny, and some people are unreasonably excited about Inertial Dampeners on Quickdraw too.

It's a shame because Terex could be a starting point for some interesting and unusual squadbuilding options to diversify the First Order faction but he's been crippled by the combination of unreasonable cost and restrictive ability.  The First Order Courier should probably cost 32pts and Terex should probably cost 34pts which would then give you 8pts back to actually then buy Illicits with.  It's a shame but one that's easily fixable with future points updates.

But now we get to the meat of the Xi pilots range - Gideon Hask and Commander Malarus.  These pilots have a lot in common so it makes sense to compare and contrast them against each other.

Both pilots have similar 'force multiplier' abilities.  They're both Range 0-2 bubbles, they both buff the offense of ships around them and they both cost a Strain token for doing so.  The difference is that Commander Malarus means you reroll a blank red dice while Gideon Hask adds a whole extra red dice to the attack!  So which one is better?

• Epsilon Squadron Cadet with Focus = 1.5 hits
• Epsilon w/focus & 3rd red dice (HASK) = 2.25 hits
• Epsilon w/focus & reroll blank (MALARUS) = 1.8 hits

So there you have it: Hask adds +0.7 hits while Malarus only adds +0.3 hits. Hask is over twice as good as Malarus, and he even costs less points!

Actually, Gideon Hask is pretty rubbish and I'm firmly in the camp that Malarus is going to be better in your squad 9 times out 10.  

Why?

Well, This is because Malarus' reroll is always active while Hask's extra red dice only triggers once you've already damaged the opponent and it turns out that when you're swarming lots of ships with 2 red dice it can take quite a lot to get that first damage card down.

I need an example to demonstrate this, so let's imagine we're playing a really basic force multiplier squad - we're running 6 Epsilon Squadron Cadets (150pts) and a Xi shuttle as a support ship.  And let's say we're firing at a basic 'Average Joe' T-65 X-Wing.  First of all let's model what Commander Malarus adds to our attack

• 7x 2 dice primary attacks at range 2, vs a T-65 X-Wing with Focus = 4.9 damage

• 7x 2 dice primary attacks at range 2 plus reroll, vs a T-65 X-Wing with Focus (MALARUS) = 6.7 damage  

So we're getting a pretty hefty damage output bonus from bringing Malarus, and in fact it's the difference between only having a 37% chance of killing a T-65 without Malarus and being a 73% odds-on favourite to kill a ship.  That's a big deal.

Modelling what Gideon Hask adds to your offense is much more complicated and variable as a lot depends on if your first couple of attacks got lucky or not, but we can kind of get a rough sense of what's most likely to happen.  

For instance, would you expect that it takes 5 focused 2 dice attacks before you have >50% of actually dealing a damage card to that T-65 X-Wing?  Now yes, there's some games where the T-65 is going to blank out their first two defence rolls and you've got them damaged in time for your 3rd attack but those games are going to be very rare, and indeed there's going to be games where you'll spend your whole attack shooting that that T-65 without damaging it.  But let's use that 5 attacks as the example as it's a pretty average scenario.

• 5x 2 dice primary, 2x 3 dice primary at range 2, vs a T-65 X-Wing with Focus (HASK) = 6.3 damage

So Hask comes out worse than Malarus in a typical situation - not a lot worse, but worse.  But actually we've also been quite kind to Hask in that scenario planning - we assumed we had all 7 ships left to fire with and none got killed earlier in the Engagement Phase, and we also assumed we still had Focus tokens on all those ships to modify dice with.  Once the real world starts eating into that assumed firepower those extra red dice that Hask promises will get pushed further and further down the tracks.

And we still haven't even got into the fact that Hask never adds an extra red dice at all when you're shooting at Range 1 while Malarus is still giving your rerolls on that extra red dice (and in fact gets better at R1 as more dice = more chance you roll a blank to reroll).

9 times out of 10 Hask is a trap.  Yes his ability is CLEARLY worth +2pts on the First Order Courier but the First Order Courier is overcosted to begin with so you weren't actually going to be playing it - those 2pts are a misleading 'bargain' for Hask's ability.  And it's also CLEARLY at least 3pts worse than Commander Malarus' ability is.  Yes, you can definitely make lists that will try to leverage Hask better by hitting harder at high initiative to force the damage through and those are the 1 out of 10 times when he's better than Malarus.  The other 9 times I think you should take the rerolls.

So of all the four Xi pilots the one you're most likely to want to play is Commander Malarus.  But do you even want to play her at 43pts?  

Well, if we start from an expected chassis cost of ~32pts for the Xi Shuttle then it's +11pts for Malarus, for which you get higher Initiative for coordinate actions and those juicy offensive rerolls.  It's a lot of points but it's ballpark what you pay for that type of reroll ability where we've seen it on cards like Drea Renthal or Sinker.  And it's also true that a lot of the strength of the First Order faction is in some very efficient generics who just lack offensive dice modification (Epislon Cadets, Zeta Survivors, Seinar-Jaemus Engineers) so Commander Malarus fills a gap in the faction perfectly.

The one word I've not used all yet is an important one, though: Strain.  With Malarus that reroll is a compulsory effect and it hands out a Strain token with it.  Firstly, it worth noting that although players panic about this a lot it turns out that a Strain token isn't actually that bad (it equates to roughly 1/3rd of a health point on average) as anybody who has flown First Order Provocateurs will know.  

Secondly, though, it does mean you're going to have to be a bit more careful about including Malarus alongside expensive aces like Vonreg or Kylo Ren where you're leveraging a lot of value onto that 1/3rd of a health point.  On an Epsilon Cadet a Strain token is worth roughly 2pts (25pts divided by 4 hull multiplied by 1/3rd) but on Vonreg or Kylo it's worth more like 4-5pts on average each time you give those pilots a Strain token.

UPGRADES

The delightful Commander Malarus may be the best Xi Shuttle pilot card and it's a good job because her Crew version is diabolical.  Her starting side is similar to her Xi Shuttle pilot ability and grants rerolls to nearby ships, but it's a much more restrictive Range 1 bubble that only allows non-Limited pilots to reroll dice.  Then as soon as any of her friends miss a shot Malarus flips to her EVEN WORSE side that is inspired from her TIE/fo pilot ability only now you're expected to be nailing bullseyes with your shuttle to make it happen.  It's an utter dogshit card that somehow costs more equipped to a First Order Courier than her similar-but-better pilot version does.

Captain Pyre is not bad for 5pts, just so completely unreliable that he might make any difference at all to a game that you can't ever really burn 5pts on him.  Pyre has two effects - defensive rerolls and Setup stress - but it's almost impossible for your to reliably leverage either of them to your advantage.  First Order isn't rife with ways to force Stress onto enemy ships and it's rubbish timing that Phasma throws stress out after they've already attacked so using the defensive reroll is entirely dependent on the opponent stressing themselves.  The stress on Setup sounds nasty but it's very easy for the opponent to plan around it and clear that stress with blue maneuvers long before you get close enough to really take advantage.

Agent Terex's Crew incarnation is a very good card, almost certainly the best crew in First Order and at just 6pts he's very keenly priced.  Being able to donate Calculate tokens at the start of combat is pretty close to Emperor Palpatine's ability to use the Force (both force and calculate convert one eyeball result) - it's worse as you have to donate the token in advance of needing to spend it but it's close.  The Cyborg side of Terex is also pretty good, giving you a free Calculate token or a Jam token which you can then throw around the table at the cost of an action, and that's pretty good too.

There's a couple of things that make me a little cooler than most on Agent Terex right at this minute and it really comes down to how limited the options for Crew carriers are in First Order.  It means either bringing a Xi Shuttle (which we've seen are mostly underwhelming) or paying through the nose for a huge Upsilon Shuttle and then sinking more points into it by adding Terex.  While efficient swarms like Nantex are all the rage I think any Upsilon that's not Lt Tavson are easy meat for the opponent and loading Terex points on top of Tavson's 64pts is tough as the Upsilon is already so expensive.

I think Agent Terex is a fantastic card at a fantastic price point, but I also think opportunities to actually put that card onto the table are a lot more limited than I'd really like and it's almost Commander Malarus or bust.

Sensor Buoy Suite... right, by show of hands who originally assumed you could get target locks with your whole squad like you can with DRK-1 Probe Droids?  Yeah, lots of us.  Then by show of hands how many of us didn't immediately realise that the opponent would almost always have a free turn shooting at the Sensor Buoys to destroy them before they actually got close enough for the Buoys to do anything?  Ok, not as many I'm guessing but it's depressingly true.  I think the Buoys are a fun thing to put onto the table but the upside is so small and the risk they do nothing at all is so large that I can't imagine spending 4pts on it when bringing a Xi or Upsilon already leaves me so tight on points.

Automated Target Priority.  This thing is serious and at just 1pt may well be my pick for best card in Wave 7.  A lot of the best ships in First Order are just rolling 2 red dice and 2 red dice attacks miss quite a lot, especially at range 3 and especially in a metagame where a lot of 3 Agility ships are undercosted and being widely played.  You're going to see ATP trigger to store Calculate tokens quite a lot and then the ability to store those Calculate tokens until you're ready to use them - stressed or bumped or whatever - is really powerful.  The downside to Automated Target Priority is losing some of your choice for target priority and having to shoot at what the computer tells you.  I'm not TOO worried about that, but it's worth talking about a bit.

1. I actually like it - it's thematic!  My First Order thugs are idiots that just shoot at whatever is in front of them so it's 'fluffy' and that alone makes me feel a lot better about the times when they're going to be shooting at the wrong thing.  They're just grunts and I'm not paying them minimum wage to make management level decisions like that.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Beware the 'zombie kill' if you bring lots of ATP ships.  Ships aren't removed from the table until the end of the Initiative step in combat so if you've got lots of Initiative 1 ships and only one enemy ship at Range 1 you will be forced to pour all your fire into it even if that target got destroyed on the first attack you made.  Clever opponents will try to engineer this situation.
   
   
3. You'll be able to mitigate some of the 'zombie kill' problems by thinking carefully about your firing order, and it may also make sense to deliberately stagger your Initiatives in squadbuilding more than you otherwise would so there's chances to remove zombie ships before another Initiative level starts firing.
   
   
   
   
   
4. ATP makes most sense on TIE/fo and TIE/sf (2 red dice ships miss most often, their base chassis is defensively efficient enough to bear adding +1pt to it) but I think it's a gimme for Quadjumpers too (2 red dice, often spend actions on other things so miss more often, can control range bands with tractor).  I doubt it pushes Advanced Optics off RZ2 A-Wings but if the MG-100 Starfortress becomes a thing due to all the recent price cuts I wouldn't be surprised to see it there.  The Resistance Bomber itself is cheaper, Concussion Bombs are cheap, Veteran Turret Gunner is cheap, Automated Target Priority is cheap... that ship keeps getting better and better and will soon be hitting tables, I suspect.

CONCLUSION

So at the top of the article I asked two questions: is the Xi Shuttle good?  Do you want to buy one?

Well for the first question the answer is 'mostly no'.  As a useful support ship running around with Coordinate actions, some interesting Crew equipped or having fun with Illicit using Agent Terex the Xi Shuttle has been costed almost entirely out of the picture.  Commander Malarus is a powerful force multiplier effect to bring to First Order swarms but doesn't really support any acey type squads so well.

And do you want to buy this expansion pack?  I think the answer to that question almost entirely depends on how much you like the generic efficiency side of First Order.  If that's not your bag then you can probably avoid this expansion for the time being - you won't really miss any of the Xi pilots and although Automated Target Priority is killer for 1pt it's really expensive to spend $30 just to get two copies of that upgrade card.  But if you ARE a big swarm efficiency style player then you will want both the Xi Shuttle and Commander Malarus, and you're also likely to want the Automated Target Priority and may even need to go back and find even more copies of ATP from a second expansion pack.

Finally, if you're not a First Order player there's pretty much no reason to buy this expansion unless my long odds guess about the MG-100 Starfortress comes true as the only neutral upgrade is Automated Target Priority.

Advanced Optics Probably Aren't As Good As You Think

I had an interesting conversation yesterday on the X-Wing Second Edition Discord that I think is worth pulling out and sharing as a blog entry.  We started off talking about a First Order squad and then wombled our way across a few topics like the maths behind Heroic and Advanced Optics and finished on the RZ2 A-Wing.

Advanced Optics in particular is a topic that I think is worth talking about because I suspect it's an upgrade card that players don't really fully understand the maths of.  As a result I think it's consistently overestimated and put into squads that it shouldn't really belong in (aka, most things that aren't RZ2 A-Wings).  I'd even argue that in the current metagame it shouldn't really be a no-brainer for the RZ2 A-Wings, which is tantamount to sacrilege... but we'll get there.

I'm not going to repeat the conversation verbatim but paraphrase stuff a bit and condense multiple people together to make it easier to read.  Apologies to the people who were involved in the conversation if you feel I misrepresent what you said, it wasn't my intention!

Let's drop in where the conversation started, which is when somebody suggested this First Order squad only to have a couple of people (not just me) recommend dropping the Advanced Optics...

/==/_BEGIN TRANSMISSION_/==/

Galaxies?

• Quickdraw (TIE/sf) - Special Forces Gunner, Fire Control System
• First Order Provocateur (TIE/ba)
• First Order Provocateur (TIE/ba)  
• Epsilon Squadron Cadet (TIE/fo) - Advanced Optics
• Epsilon Squadron Cadet (TIE/fo) - Advanced Optics
  (198) 

Would this be good for Galaxies?  It's going to be a tough thing to joust!

I'd take the Advanced Optics off, they're pretty poor on Cadets.   Optics adds very little to their offense and they spend too long k-turning or s-looping so aren't always Focused. 

But everyone agrees the problem with Cadets is their anaemic offense, and people shouldn't be shooting at them so they'd still have Focus.  This is the best upgrade to help them get better offensive value. 

You don't get 4pts worth of value from it.  

How else are you going to make their offense more reliable?

I'd probably play with Rivas, or TN-3465.  You have to attack with Advanced Optics about SIX times before it adds up to an extra damage being dealt.  Are these Epsilons going to attack six times with Focus?

Probably not.  Ok, I'll take the Optics off!

I think people really overrate Advanced Optics based on what it does on RZ2 A-Wings when they have multiple arcs, linked focus actions and another dice mod that catches double blanks (Heroic).  And even on RZ2 A-Wings it's still only arguably worthwhile.  These days Optics are only in the 5 A-Wings squad because there's nothing better to spend the points on.

It's definitely worthwhile on A-Wings.  Heroic and Optics is really the core of that squad and you're relying on how much you're certain of rolling 2 hits wherever you put the ships on the table.  I wouldn't trade 20pts of Advanced Optics for a Fireball or to just run six Heroic A-Wings without Optics.

I know that's the perception but I think if you tracked how often those 20pts turned into actual damage being dealt it wouldn't be a spectacular return on your investment.  Advanced Optics was good in the Rebel Beef meta of 1 Agility ships but it's lost a massive chunk of it's effectiveness now there's loads of 3 Agility around.

It's not just about the maths.  We had the same conversations when Heroic was first released and it supposedly not being worth playing at all.

Heroic is different, it's not just about the maths but Optics is.  Heroic is a skill-rewarding upgrade.

What?

Good players win games where their dice don't produce bad variance results.  Any variance close to average is probably a game win for a good player.  Heroic is therefore a safety net that tosses the one thing that means they lose games and turns it into the thing that means they probably do win games.  But for bad players Heroic takes the results that mean they're going to lose games and turns it into results that probably means they're going to lose anyway.

Mathematically: Heroic does nearly nothing.  But to a good player that nearly nothing is the one thing they need it to do because all other eventualities are covered by their skill.

That's an interesting way to look at it!  But why doesn't it apply to Advanced Optics too?

Well Optics costs 4x as much.  And I think the game-losing variance you need Heroic for more often happens on defense than offense.  Heroic covers both and all the time, Optics costs more and only covers offensive variance when you've a focus to spend.

The decisive factor for Optics value is really the expected agility of opposing ships because vs low agility the incremental extra hits you get from optics are likely to turn into extra damage cards, but vs high agility there's a reasonable chance the opponent will evade anyway.  Optics on A-Wings are a great addition when the meta is right for A-Wings and their 2 dice guns, but when A-Wings are weaker in the meta the Optics are weaker too and you're not really solving the problem you're facing by adding Optics.

But it's really the same thing - Optics is there to kill the very variance that makes you lose as it's giving you close to max hits every time.

But it costs TWENTY points for a squad, and we're back around to that it's good in that squad mainly because there's nothing better available.  People locked onto Optics' value when it made a big splash in a rebel beef sort of meta when turning 1 hit into 2 hits was highly likely to be +1 damage dealt.  It's value has dropped a lot since then but I think people still have it pegged at where it was and then they make mistakes like assuming the RZ2 value from a beef meta transfers onto another ship in another meta (like putting it on TIE/fo to deal with an Agility 3 Nantex meta).  Optics hasn't changed at all, but everything around it changed and it got a lot worse.

*** the sound of me cranking up an Excel spreadsheet ***

This chart shows how Advanced Optics value tails off quickly when the defender starts rolling lots of green dice.

Does that chart include Heroic?  If we're talking A-Wings then I think it's about Heroic and Advanced Optics working together

No, but I can add it.  I think you'll be surprised how little difference it makes.

*** more Excel noises ***

Ok... Heroic actually makes Advanced Optics worse!  Because Heroic is already catching the double blank rolls that Optics can turn into 1 Hit it's actually running interference on Advanced Optics rather than boosting it.

What's that line about '+2 damage' mean?

That's how many attacks you'll need to make with Advanced Optics for it to turn into 2 extra damage dealt.  I'm assuming that if you're investing 4pts in Optics you want a good chance to return 2 incremental damage in a game to make it worthwhile.  You could halve the number of attacks if you decide you only want +1 damage for your investment, though.

Got it.

And all those stats are assuming that the green dice don't have a Focus behind them.  If the defender has Focus then it gets worse again for Advanced Optics as it's even more likely that the extra hit you go was evaded anyway.

So to come back around to the start... I think a lot of the strength of Advanced Optics, even in their best use case of RZ2 A-Wings, is as much perception as it is reality.  In their best use case vs low agility targets, like in the beef meta, you probably got good value out of Optics over a game.  But in the current meta you're probably throwing points away by taking Optics and you're DEFINITELY throwing points away if it's going onto a ship that has a harder time taking focused shots than an RZ2 (like a TIE/fo, or even the TIE/sf as it doesn't have linked focus-reposition).

Ok.  I think I can start to agree with this.  I still think the consistency of getting 2 hits is a big factor in helping you plan your turn knowing what the dice will do, though.

Maybe.  Right now I think the metagame isn't right for 5 A-Wings - wild horses couldn't make me fly that list into all those efficient Agility 3 swarms.  But if I was flying it I'd probably be giving serious thought to dropping Advanced Optics to play Proton Rockets, they at least answer the problem that the list is facing when it plays against lots of Agility.  

A few Initiative 5 A-Wings with Proton Rockets are probably not what the Nantex want to be playing against!

/==/_END TRANSMISSION_/==/

So there you go.  Advanced Optics probably aren't as good as you think.  I think.

First Order Orientation - What To Fly?

When I ran through the recent point changes for First Order I said that I thought the faction was full of A-Tier ships and pilots but had nothing truly S-Tier.  I've seen a lot of players starting to look more at the First Order faction in the last few weeks, but as it's historically been one of the least played factions a lot of players aren't really sure where to start.

Jump into Scum and you know you'll need a Firespray, jump into Empire and it's rapidly obvious you'll want Darth Vader, Soontir Fel or Grand Inquisitor.  Want to play Separatists?  You'll want a bunch of Vultures and Hyenas, most likely.

For First Order I think the picture is really muddy as there's never really been a fixed 'here's how to win with First Order' type of squad that's consistently risen above.  At the back of end of last year we saw the Avenger Swarm do well, then suddenly the TIE/fo was 25pts and FOcho appeared... then seemingly disappeared just as quickly and it was a time for Concussion Missile TIE/sfs.  And while all this was going on what was happening with faction hero Kylo Ren and his new running mate Major Vonreg, who many players had expected to make a splash?

In short if you're thinking about dropping into First Order it's hard to really know for sure what squad you should be trying to make.  It turns out that there's a good reason for this: it's because they're virtually all good squads and no two First Order players can agree on the best way to do things.

To help introduce players to the faction I was going to try and write a blog that shared a bunch of different First Order squads that I've seen people flying and then I had a better idea... let's get those players to do all the hard work for me!

So here's four First Order players from the First Order channel on the X-Wing Second Edition Discord telling you about their favourite squads and why they're cool and you should definitely play them.  

Now if you don't mind I'm going to put my feet up for a bit, like this model in a stock photo pretending he's not too tall and handsome to have a real job like a normal person.

First Order Ace Lads (FOALS)

• Kylo Ren (TIE Silencer)
• Major Vonreg (TIE/ba) - Daredevil
• Rush (TIE Silencer)
  (190)

Introduced by Battlebrow...

I’ve been running this squad since before the points change and now it’s even cheaper. Running Vonreg with Daredevil,and then naked Kylo and Rush is a solid ace list that ends up at 190 now, giving you room to add some toys like Advanced Optics, Sense, or Hate - whatever you prefer!.

Main strategy with this list is to put Rush into combat quickly, taunting the enemy to chase him. If they’re gullible (or greedy) enough they will go after him, freeing you up to get Kylo and Vonreg on the flanks. Just be careful not to engage with Rush on turn one otherwise you may end up in a bad spot (I may or may not have lost him to four range three attacks once). Usually you will want Rush engaging on turn two, while setting up the flanks for Kylo and Vonreg. If the enemy ends up halving Rush, get him out of there so he can fix any crits and come back in as an i6 ace.

Kylo and Vonreg will also likely want to be on opposite sides of the board so you can use them as bait too if the enemy is wise enough to ignore the i2 silencer. Kylo and Vonreg are your endgame pieces, so try to keep one of them untouched as long as you can. 

It's also completely Hyperspace legal and in Hyperspace there's a lot less Initiative 6 pilots around and it gets even better!

 

Holo, TN & 3/sf

• Holo (TIE/ba) - Proud Tradition
• Zeta Squadron Survivor (TIE/sf) - Special Forces Gunner
• Zeta Squadron Survivor (TIE/sf) - Special Forces Gunner
• Zeta Squadron Survivor (TIE/sf)
• TN-3465 (TIE/fo)
  (197)

Introduced by Elred...

This list started off from the Kylo, TN, 3 Zeta Survivors list who got a decent track record a few months back (top8 at LVO), I adapted it with the /ba when I was trying to make good lists for the chassis. I settled on this variant with the 2 gunners after I noticed gunnerless SF had a lot of trouble handling both Boba and 3 AGI list like 5 Jedi.

The gist of it is you have a jousting block of TN and the 3 TIE/sf (gunners in the back) that will aim to engage the opponent at range 1 if possible, to maximize the damage output from TN. Holo more of less follows the block (on a sideline before turning in or directly behind) to provide evades if engaged early, then will dump strain on the safest target (usually the gunnerless Zeta who is the most unattractive target in the list). This list has a strong engage round thanks to TN providing a lot of spike damage, and will also have strong follow-up thanks to the survivors back arc, allowing for unexpected maneuvers and blocks that don't cost you shots if the rest of the opponent squad overshoot your blocker. The gunners are here to provide extra damage from the front but trying to milk them as much as possible is a trap, it's more often than not the correct decision to focus > rotate rather than slooping directly after engage.

Overall it's a very balanced and efficient list that can challenge anything in the hyperspace meta, the key to it being using TN to maximum effect (either as bait or as crit battery), Holo in a flexible ace/damage/support role and the /sf back arc to setup killbox and cut off escapes.

And you can find Elred proving the list's effectiveness in a series of videos from a recent lockdown tournament in France.  It looks like the Semi-Final and Final are yet to be uploaded to Youtube and (spoiler alert) Elred features in both, but here's one of him dismantling a fellow First Order squad during the Swiss rounds...

Ben Swolo

• Kylo Ren (TIE Silencer) - Instinctive Aim, Advanced Optics, Proton Torpedoes
• Epsilon Squadron Cadet (TIE/fo)
• Epsilon Squadron Cadet (TIE/fo)
• Epsilon Squadron Cadet (TIE/fo)
• Epsilon Squadron Cadet (TIE/fo)
  (194)

Introduced by TriggerHappyTaco...

This squad really puts the “swole” in Ben Swolo. The list is set up to provide Kylo everything he needs to carry the team. He is equipped with a torpedo that can be fired without the lock, using an optics focus on a blank result and a force on an eye result. Firing without the lock gives a 63% chance of 4 hits, slightly less than the 71% if a lock were used instead. This loadout helps him threaten fragile I-6 pilots that move after him. Fenn, Vader, Fel, and Wedge are all deathly afraid of this threat, which can swing an unfavorable ace matchup back in Kylo’s favor. 

Then come the four Cadets. This efficient distraction can force your opponent to pick their poison: They could spend their time slowly taking out the TIEs (They’re surprisingly durable, as anyone who has played against the FOcho will tell you) while Kylo screams in on the flank. Alternatively, they could chase Kylo, only to have him slip away with the TIEs bearing down from your other flank. Either choice is bad for your opponent.

All in all, this squad is a fantastic choice if you enjoy flying Kylo. It gives you all the tools you need to set Kylo up for success in the late game. I would recommend using rocks or debris fields to prevent enemy ships hiding from Kylo’s torpedo behind those pesky gas clouds. The squad works well against almost all squad archetypes, especially lists that include boba.  I’ve had a lot of fun flying this squad in the past, and hope you do too!

Ride Eternal, Shiny & Chrome

• Major Vonreg (TIE/ba) - Daredevil
• Captain Phasma (TIE/sf) - Fanatical, Special Forces Gunner
• Major Tavson (Upsilon Shuttle)
• Lieutenant Rivas (TIE/fo)
  (198)

Introduced by Dave (SOTL) - that's me, btw, I'm back from putting my feet up...

This is probably the squad I've been playing most over the last month or so, and if you follow me on Instagram you'll have seen me sharing some of the highlights of my deepening love affair with Captain Phasma as pilot of a TIE/sf.  Much maligned since she arrived in Hotshots & Aces I'd go as far as to say that I think she's the best of the named TIE/sf pilots, especially when used in conjuction with Tavson.  Usually a named TIE/sf becomes the most obvious and easy target in your squad as it only has 2 Agility in a faction full of efficient 3 Agility ships but Phasma breaks that rules as she can pass damage off to nearby ships, and it makes her a very tough target to kill.

What I love most about this squad, though, is that it's got a bit of everything in it.  I've got a blocker in Rivas, I've got an ace in Vonreg, I've got a jouster in Phasma and I've got a big gun shuttle in Tavson.  But I've also got coordinate tricks, synergies to unlock between Phasma's ability and Tavson's ability, extra dice mods for Rivas and Vonreg, surprising Coordinate moves or Jam actions.  It's only ever been a fun list to put on the table and just whizz about with and in the key Phasma/Tavson axis there's a real core of steel to the squad as well.

What it's really good at is giving the opponent no targets they really want to attack.  Lieutenant Rivas is a little throwaway filler ship that takes much more effort to kill than it's really worth, if you shoot at Major Tavson he tends to stack up on Target Locks for the whole team and exact his revenge (TL himself, coordinate Phasma to TL, then Rivas picks up a TL too) but if you go after Captain Phasma then you're giving me more green dice to roll and half of it winds up being passed off to Tavson to trigger all the revenge attacks anyway.  So long as I'm careful to keep Vonreg out of harm's way this list presents a real Hobson's Choice of unattractive targets that tend to hit you back harder than you hit them.

Chase the ace and you've got a lot of red dice sitting at your back.  Try to break down the jousting block and it's probably going to take much longer than you expected and hurt more than you'd like.

And it has an Upsilon Shuttle in, which is a ship that I've long had an unreasonable attraction to dating all the way back to first edition.

 SUMMARY

That's four players who've each shared very different First Order squads that they've been enjoying and winning games with.  That really highlights the strength of the faction to me - there's so much stuff that's competitive you can take lists in multiple directions and really spend months and months just exploring all the different options.  In fact not only were those four very different squads but they also included at least one of every ship in the faction - there's literally nothing unplayable in First Order!  

And we did all that without hitting on other popular archetypes like Kylo & 3 Provocateurs, Avenger Swarm, triple Silencers, FOcho, a block of TIE/sfs loaded with Concussion Missiles, or other ace squad options like Kylo/Vonreg/Tavson or Kylo/Vonreg/Cadets.

Although the First Order is a faction that's missing out on the truly standout individual pilots that push a faction to the top of the game like a Boba Fett, Whisper or the simple Trade Federation Droid there's such a wealth of good stuff just below that level that's waiting for players to explore and discover.  It doesn't really matter what ships you buy because they're all good, and you can assemble them together in almost any combination and have it be effective.  With the Xi Light Shuttle just around the corner I don't think I'll be looking far beyond the boundaries of First Order space for the near future.

Now bring on the First Order Bomber and the TIE Dagger.  All remaining systems will bow before the First Order!

July 2020 Points Changes - Resistance & Generic Upgrades

Finishing up my review of how I think the July 2020 points changes will play out for the various factions I'm going to look at Resistance in this blog, and also cast an eye on some changes to Generic Upgrades that I've not talked about already as part of the previous blogs.

If you recall my original totem pole of faction power level before the points change I had Resistance pegged in the second tier along with the First Order.  

Much like the First Order I think the Resistance has tons of very good and solid ships but a lack of any really super-strong S-Tier guys who you can build a squad around with confidence that you're going to have something special at the end of it.  It means you get lots of squads circulating that have bits of shared DNA between them as everyone can agree that the ingredients are good and are trying to just find a magic recipe for success, but you don't really see any one squad type become adopted and proving repeatedly successful like you get in the top tier factions.

RESISTANCE

It's taken me a little while to get round to writing about Resistance points changes and I left them to last for a reason: I don't think there's much to say.

Of all the factions the Resistance have had maybe the least impact in the July price changes with no major pricing moves at all, really.  On the one hand that's great news as it means things like the RZ2 A-Wing or the incredibly efficient generic T-70 X-Wings got away without being hit at all, and even my boy Finn and his transport pod were left alone.  There's a lot of players who have been having success with various versions of Resistance efficiency lists because you could assemble these pieces in almost any way you liked and find success, with most players landing on four or five ship versions.

I've been championing a six ship version, and although it came out on 201pts after the change (stupid Crack Shot increase) that's easily remedied.

And yes, you can still run five RZ2 A-Wings, which is a great squad but just not a great squad for right now in this metagame.  If anything the RZ2 A-Wings got a little bit of a hit in Zizi Tlo going up and also Crack Shot, although I think they'd already got squeezed on points so much that Crack Shot was out of most squads anyway.

Likewise, Rey went down 2pts in the Salvaged Millenium Falcon but does that do a lot?  Well in the case of the most recently successful build - running deep in the LA Space Jam event - all it did was offset the +2pts of Zizi and Crack Shot and net the list back out at 200pts.

In the whole of the Resistance arsenal probably the only squad to meaningfully come down in cost was Vennie and her humongous Starfortress because not only did Vennie herself get cheaper but there was a price cut to Veteran Turret Gunner too. The only problem is, well, what do you get the girl who has everything?  Vennie already had all the toys she wants and there's no room for anything else... the only thing I can think to spend those saved points on is an upgrade to her T-70 wingman and that maybe the newly discounted Joph Seastriker could shore up a weak point in the list.

Let's get one thing straight: Vennie is not to everyone's taste and the experience of flying her lumbering bomber is about as far from a fun and whizzy A-Wing as you can get... but she damn sure is effective and can have some great matchups into all the swarm squads around.  

And yeah, that's the Resistance in this points cut: it doesn't change.  It was pretty good before and it's pretty good now, but there's no reason to think it's suddenly going to be able to compete with the best factions or that it's worth revisiting Poe Dameron now he's 1pt less.

GENERIC UPGRADES

Not a faction but with some of the points changes being made I thought it was worthwhile stopping by to look at what has happened to some squadbuilding decisions that could affect all the squads.

Torpedoes & Missiles

I really appreciate the little changes made to all the less popular Torpedoes and Missiles in this points cut and I think it makes decision points between them all a lot more valid.  Previously for all the diverse range of torpedoes and missiles in the game you saw 90% of them being played as either Proton Torpedoes or Concussion Missiles.  I still think those are the main go-to secondary weapons but there's now that little more incentive to trim points here when things get tight.  I'll pull a few out to talk about...

3pts - Ion Missiles - a cheap way to bring a 3rd red dice to a fight.  I've been a huge proponent on Ion Cannons for Scyks playing exactly this role in that getting Ion tokens through is a secondary benefit to simply being more likely to chip a damage in by rolling 3 red dice.  The missiles are weaker because you need the Target Lock and it's hard to get at low initiative so I think even at 3pts they're not quite good enough most of the time.  They may actually find more play as a cheap addition to an ace pilot who will find it easier to get the lock.

5pts - Ion Torpedoes - a cheap way to bring a 3rd AND 4th red dice to a fight!  I like these more than Ion Missiles because that 4th dice is really hard for an enemy ace to ignore and you only have to pay 2pts for it over the Ion Missiles.  That 4th dice threatens to reliably punch through damage and even ion tokens against even 3 Agility ships and it means even the smallest ship can cast a big shadow on the table that the opponent has to run from.  You can bring an N1 Starfighter with Passive Sensors and Ion Torpedoes for 40pts and it will be something that any enemy ace has to treat with utter respect.

8pts - Plasma Torpedoes - probably the 3rd most popular ordnance weapon already I actually think the points change WON'T see much increase in how many of these you see.  It's like the inverse of the Ion Torpedoes argument, in that for 8pts you're still only swinging 3 red dice and no guarantee that it will punch through a 3 Agility target to hit and cause the shield strip... assuming the opponent has any shields left to strip.  Because you really need to push those 3 red dice as hard as possible I think Plasma Torpedoes remain glued to the few ships capable of reliably getting double mods for them who were already using them.  For just 5pts you can throw Ion Torpedoes single modded and get the value you need but that's not true here and I think it limits how many ships will take them.

2pts - Passive Sensors - not strictly ordnance but an enabler for it on low initiative ships.  It all helps you to push cheap ordnance carriers as effective 'super-filler' ships that can deliver a real bite for relatively low cost.  Targeting Synchroniser getting a points cut has a similar effect and I've already seen some janky Z-95 swarms that use a Quadjumper with Targeting Synchroniser to get their missiles away!

Payloads

Ion Bombs, Conner Nets and Electro-Proton Bombs all get a point cheaper.  Ok.  Ion Bombs are still a niche use item, Conner Nets still aren't good enough with just one charge and Electro-Proton Bombs are still a meme.

Gunners

Agile Gunner finally costs a probably fair amount considering what Gyroscopic Targeting cost for the Lancer in First Edition.  5pts on a large base is really reasonable and I wouldn't be surprised to see this starting to creep into some big turret builds on 100pt ships because those boys need every bit of action economy they can lay their hands on.

Veteran Turret Gunner dropping on large bases has already been mentioned in this blog with regard to Vennie but while it's a welcome price drop I'm not sure it's going to get played very often.  Without Paige Tico's ability to swing that arc around and allow for double tap attacks on the same target I think it's still going to be limited by just how often you're going to have targets in two different arcs as the Starfortress is the only large ship currently able to pull off that double-tap trick.

Crack Shot

Crack Shot is now 2pts.  This is arguably the single biggest change in Generic Upgrades because of how much it was being played vs anything else that got a price change.

Firstly: Crack Shot was too good at 1pt.  Even at 2pts it routinely outperforms Predator in terms of combat math for almost any ship in the game and there's actually a mathematical argument for making Crack Shot 3pts so that there's a reason to use Predator instead.

Secondly: Crack Shot did have a role to play in controlling token-stacking defensive aces and doubling it's cost will limit how well it can perform this role.  At the moment I'm not too concerned by this as I think the token-stacking defensive aces are already coming under much more pressure from the huge ranks of hyper-efficient generic ship swarms.  If that ever changes and the efficient swarms go away I could see an argument for bringing Crack Shot back down in price.  In the meantime losing Crack Shot from things like Rebel Beef is just another nail in the coffin of that archetype - already unable to beat off the hyper-efficient swarms it now finds it harder to fit key anti-ace tools too.

Thirdly: you're going to play a lot of Marksmanship now.  You don't think you are because you think Marksmanship is rubbish and it's not really a proper dice mod.  And you'd be right.  But when you've got 3pts hanging and 3 empty Talent slots you're going to add Marksmanship in anyway... and then later you'll realise it's actually winning you games a fair amount of the time.

WRAPPING UP

I set out in my first blog by saying how I thought the factions lined up in three tiers and after reviewing all the changes and stewing on it for two weeks, I still think not a vast amount is going to change, at least before new ships come out and possibly shake things up.

Tier 1 is still Boba/Dengar or Boba/Koshka, Imperial Aces, Droids and the Agi3 Swarms (Scyks, Sloane, FOcho etc, now maybe joined by Spamtex and TIE v1 swarms)

Tier 2 is still where you find best jousting blocks of First Order and Resistance ships in their many configurations, or First Order aces and Vennie or Rey hoping to dodge the wrong matchups.

Tier 3 is still whatever the best of the Rebels and Republic can throw together after their dominant 2019 squad archetypes got hammered into the ground at the end of last year.

New ships are coming and I really hope they do something to shake this all up.  With no serious events happening during the continued Coronavirus lockdown I think FFG may have missed a trick by not just throwing everything up in the air for six months and experimenting with some wacky points costs to see what happens.  But on the other hand, with no serious events happening maybe that's our release valve that not everyone is going to be taking the game seriously enough to really make us sick and tired of seeing Boba in every other match for another six months!