Octopus Overlords

I'm going to get one of those blue 2-sided Plano boxes. I have 2 Plano red boxes that fit everything but the capital ships and the pilot cards, with room to spare.

Played my first game with the new wave 4 ships. Really enjoyed the new ships! Well to be honest I had no success with the Defender surprisingly as I was sure it was to be the safest bet but the phantom was extremely impressive. Played 3 games in total, 1 as empire vs rebel, one as the rebels vs empire, and then one as empire vs empire. Won the last 2 games. In the two empire games I ran one defender and one phantom each time. In the first game I ran a couple of ties along side them. It went well, but I lost a tie fighter to an asteroid and then I lost my defender on a great roll. My opponent was playing wedge who fired on my phantom before my phantom could cloak and that was the end of it. The last game I played whisper with veteran instincts and vader as well as a base naked defender. The phantom and vader just ripped apart the ties he was flying against me. With pilot skill nine ships I was able to consistently barrel roll out of his firing arcs. The phantom with advanced cloaking devices was absolutely devastating. It is extremely difficult for anyone to anticipate where the phantom will be. It makes the ship really fun to fly. And when it gets range one, look out, 5 dice is devastating to anything, but especially devastating when you have a focus and the enemy ship has low agility.

I also managed to win with an E-Wing and a mini Z-95 swarm. The Z-95 swarm is a little easier to fly than a tie swarm because the ships move move slower and can go 1 forward. Makes them a bit easier to use. It was effective, they managed to tear through a couple defenders before only a phantom was left. Worked out well. Lost a couple of the Z-95s but everything else hung together.

Overall I learned a few things. I feel advanced cloaking device is just about a must for the tie phantom. It is the only way to shoot every turn with the Phantom. Using your action to cloak means you also don't get to shoot that turn so advanced cloaking device just makes sense. For the phantom to survive you want it to cloak every turn. Which also leads to the importance of high pilot skill for the phantoms. The first game my phantom wasn't cloaked on the turn it died because my pilot skill was 8 and wedge shot before I had a chance to get off my shot. The phantom also is the first ship I have flown that does not play well with others. There is no way to fly it in formation successfully. They just move so crazy, it is hard to use. I also think Echo is cool because of all the crazy ways it moves, but it is hard to use, and the max pilot skill with veteran instincts is an 8, which still leaves it vulnerable to Wedge and other skill 9 pilots. Dangerous position to be in with only 2 dice. Whisper is easier to use and wrap your head around (which also makes it slightly more predictable) but also with veteran instincts has a pilot skill of 9 which means it usually shoots first, and then cloaks before anyone has a chance to take a shot at it. The last match he was never even hit and managed to single-handedly destroy 2/3rds of the enemies ships. Impressive showing really.

Next time I play I am going to try a beefed up defender. I was playing with only low pilot skill defenders and they were not terribly helpful. So I think my next list will be a loaded defender with high pilot skill assisted by 4 tie fighters one of which is Howlrunner. Should work out well. Either they go for the mini-swarm which can do some serious damage, or they go for the defender and open up for the swarm to attack.

The white K-turn was nice for the defender but it didn't work as well as I would have liked. I felt it actually made the ship a bit more predictable. I've worked myself out of the habit of using k-turns since it means losing an action so it was hard to get used to using it again. Worked ok, but could have been better.

Also as a side note for some reason it took me a long time to realize that Vader with expose makes him an X-wing whenever he wants to be, pretty cool actually. Then when he is in a position to be attacked he can simply not take the action and still has the agility of a tie fighter. I tried the combo for the first time tonight and it was impressive. I'll probably be using it again.

The new ships look great on the table too, a quick pic that I snapped during the games:
The last turn of my second game when the Z-95 mini-swarm managed to take out the Phantom, last ship of the empire-

Is there a canon ship that predates the TIE Fighter the same way the Z-95 predates the X-Wing? (Not including prequel trilogy crap)

wonderpug wrote:Is there a canon ship that predates the TIE Fighter the same way the Z-95 predates the X-Wing? (Not including prequel trilogy crap)

Not as far as I know. Bioware desperately wants you to think so with their Old Republic crap, but their stuff is laughably non-canon anyway.

There are several different models of TIE Fighters though, at least two of which are in active service during the Rebellion. One was used for ground operations, with the other focused on space missions. With the ditching of the EU, however, this is no longer canon.

wonderpug wrote:Is there a canon ship that predates the TIE Fighter the same way the Z-95 predates the X-Wing? (Not including prequel trilogy crap)

How about the fighters used by the jedi in Revenge of the Sith? Or the v-wing fighter we can see in that movie? If you mix both of these designs together, you basically have yourself a TIE, no?

The Rocketman wrote:

wonderpug wrote:Is there a canon ship that predates the TIE Fighter the same way the Z-95 predates the X-Wing? (Not including prequel trilogy crap)

How about the fighters used by the jedi in Revenge of the Sith? Or the v-wing fighter we can see in that movie? If you mix both of these designs together, you basically have yourself a TIE, no?

As far as ranking canon "officialness", I put anything from the prequels on the same tier as fanfiction found on the official forums for Force Commander or Masters of the Teräs Käsi.

The new ships are finally in stock here in Norway, so I ordered a batch of 4 Z-95 Headhunters, 2 E-Wings, 2 TIE Defenders, and 2 TIE Phantoms. Should make my games more interesting.

That's actually a good question -- how many of the new ships? I picked up 2 of each, but I'm tempted to get a third Z-95 and E-Wing, and a third TIE Phantom. We'll have to see what the next wave holds.

So Chrisoc, did you find the Z-95s useful in your games? I didn't purchase them this go around but I could get them for completeness sake. Thing is though, they're touted as being like TIE fighters for the Rebels point wise allowing the Rebels to field a swarm of their own. Unfortunately that probably would mean buying at least three of them.

As I was putting my newly arrived miniatures away I had to admire the quality of the ships. The detailing is really well done and even though I don't get to bring out the game as much as I like I don't regret any of my purchases.

I have read a few reviews that the Z-95s are another option to filling out a Rebel squad with another ship instead of additional upgrades. At least one reviewer has fallen in love with the idea of customizing the E-Wings.

It's my understanding that the Z-95 is pretty different from the TIE Fighter in everything but cost. The Z-95 is supposedly designed as a cheap missile delivery platform, which the TIE Fighter is definitely not.

In my limited experience to this point the z95 can be used like a tie swarm if you want. They are not near as maneuverable but it is an option. I ran a mini swarm and it worked beautifully.

They also can be used as throwing a couple extra ships in the squad. That worked well too. The two named pilots have excellent abilities so I wouldn't hesitate to run either of them at any time.

So in short my opinion is they can be used in a swarm like ties, but they also work well as one additional ship to a squad. Either way they seem effective to me so far.

I don't run a lot of missiles but they certainly would work well for a quick alpha strike.

How many were in your mini swarm?

4 one time, then I tried out six. I think I'll stick with four normally if I fly a mini swarm type and bring another ship with heavy firepower. That seemed to work best for me.

They have weaker stats than a TIE, so honestly they'll lose against a TIE Swarm on average.

However, they can be used as a missile platform as is clearly intended. Once the furball stage of combat starts, they're blown up a lot faster than TIEs due to both lack of health, and lack of maneuverability.

Their utility is amazing though, load up a swarm with missiles and things change drastically.

I agree head to head against a tie swarm the z95 swarm would lose. Not just because of the difference in agility but also because the rebels have no howlrunner.

But they do have more health than a tie fighter. 1 more. And more importantly half of their health are shields which protects them against crits.

1 health helps for a single hit, but the 2 defense vs 3 defense is the real problem.

Defense 3 TIEs means that, unless you roll really low, your TIE will usually survive a turn of shooting from multiple sources, or draw enough fire that shots are wasted.

Which is not to say that the Z-95s have no use. I always target them first to knock out the ship before it can fire its missile.

The Outmaneuver card is now a thing and is extremely powerful, more so against swarms as you'll have more chances to find targets. Going from defense 2 to 1 is nasty.

Agree completely. The best part about wave 4 for me is not as much the new ships (although I cannot overstate how much I love the phantom) are the new cards. Predator is also really good.

Speaking of the TIE phantom, saw this cool paint job tutorial the other day for painting a cloaking effect on a TIE Phantom.



(It's not actually a Phantom that he painted, but you get the idea...)

Amazing. If I had any painting skills I would love to take a stab at that. Thanks for sharing!

Skilled model painters are basically wizards in my book.

One of the biggest attractions of X-Wing is fine models with no painting necessary. I appreciate if you paint beautiful models, but that's sinking unnecessary cost.

The other attractions to X-Wing are its theme and solid rules.

Zarathud wrote:One of the biggest attractions of X-Wing is fine models with no painting necessary. I appreciate if you paint beautiful models, but that's sinking unnecessary cost.

The other attractions to X-Wing are its theme and solid rules.

we're playing during GenCon, right?

Slight derail: does anyone know if the Dark Horse comics (from '95 or so? see) are any good?

I'm missing GenCon this year, Hark. Hepcat and a few people will be there. My sister is even heading there to visit friends, and she's the one who encourages me to play more X-Wing.

hentzau wrote:Hmm...

Perfect for X-wing, or for this guy:


In all seriousness though that would probably be pretty fun to play on...

New information out on both the YT-2400 and the VT-49 released today. I can't help but think they have some surprise up their sleeve for Gen Con. Maybe they will both be for sale there? Man that would make me sad that I wasn't there this year. So sad. I'm sure the rebel aces will be for sale. The timeline fits for those. These would be a stretch, but possible.

Like wave 4, what interests me most about wave 5 is again the imperial options. I love the VT-49. I can easily imagine flying 1 or 2 in plenty of other fleets. It also brings some new cards to the table. Especially like:

And the thought of putting expose of the decimator is a great idea. Along with the thought of putting:

with

Making the decimator much more agile is an interesting idea. The dial is strong, but also weak. no K turns, and few green maneuvers, but also no red maneuvers and it has a turret so it is far less likely to need a k-turn.

The YT-2400 still looks cool too, but the empire ships are grabbing me more these last 2 waves, which is interesting because I primarily play rebel. Or gravitate to the rebels at least. But the phantom last wave is one of my favorite ships to fly, it is just so cool. And now the decimator is going to be intriguing. Nice stuff for the empire.

I'm curious to see what comes out of gen con. They already announced armada, which I would have figured would be their big announcement, but now I don't know what it will be. I am guessing they will announce a couple of epic empire ships. But maybe nothing else. Should be interesting.

Well I didn't see a third faction coming, and honestly I am pretty happy about it.

It was the kind of announcement you save for Gen Con so I am not surprised they waited. Wave 6 will be comprised entirely of scum and villainy faction, helping the new faction get off the ground. 3 new ships and repaints of the Y-wing and Headhunter, as well as conversion cards for the HWK and Slave 1. That gives the new factions 7 ships right off the bat, including 2 large base ships, turrets, bombs etc. Honestly it starts out as a decent faction. Unique ships and new uses for a couple of ships that have been collecting dust (Y-wing and HWK) in my collection.
Supposed to ship this year, we will see about that I guess.
The one issue I see is that they will likely have to FAQ astromech droids... because R2-D2 doesn't say rebel only and obviously needs to.
I'm mostly excited about how easy this will make 3 player games be to pull off. Also it will add some nice variety to the gaming scene in general.

I am surpised no epic ships for the imperials were announced, or really now we also need them for scum and villainy. There has been some speculation that they are done with epic, but I find that hard to believe. Even with Armada coming out there is still a market for huge ships. Epic has become my favorite format (when I have time to play it) but the imperials really need a huge ship. It just feels incomplete without one. And now with three factions... we may need a third. At the very least a conversion pack for the tantive.

I suspect they just had their plate full with Armada, the infantry boardgame, and the new faction. That's a lot of announcements on top of all their boardgame stuff.

Turtle wrote:I suspect they just had their plate full with Armada, the infantry boardgame, and the new faction. That's a lot of announcements on top of all their boardgame stuff.

I think so as well. The more I think about this 3rd faction the more excited I am about it. Really cool to add a third one, and the options for the game just went up a great deal.
The preview is up at FFG, and everything looks great, including a new version of fett, the answer to how they will handle astromech droids (salvaged ones only, so specific ones for the S&V pack) and lots of information about the new ships. Looks like a really strong faction right off the bat. Lots of interesting things to read about it.

X-wing mission control launched last week. Pretty great tool FFG put together in order to create custom missions. I'm a big fan of these types of programs, I really like the way programs of this nature have greatly increased the playability of Zombicide or Galaxy Defenders so I am really happy to see them going this direction with X-wing. It isn't perfect, but it is pretty cool.


I've toyed around with it a bit, hoping to put together some really cool missions. X-wing has expanded a lot.

I also had the chance to play for the first time in two months yesterday. First game we played I decided to try out a random fleet I have never played before. 3 HWKs! It was not successful, which was no surprise at all, but it was a lot of fun. 4 A-wings ate through them rapidly, it was a disaster.

The next game I flew 3 Defenders with Ion cannons against a slave 1, howlrunner and backstabber, and a royal guard. Close close game, but the defenders prevailed and I claimed the victory. I learned an important lesson though, the Ion cannon is fairly worthless on the defender. My idea was ionize the enemy, flip behind them. But in going up against tie fighters the could still maneuver out of my arc with barrel roll, and the interceptor with boost. Also with such power the defender packs I ended up just using primary weapons and taking the chance of wiping out the tie fighters in one or two shots rather than ionizing them for an easy kill. Next time I take defenders I don't think I will take ion cannons. The heavy laser cannon is still a much better deal, although it doesn't fit in 100 points with 3 defenders... what I really wish they would release would be a generic defender pilot with elite pilot skill. Still loving the defender, I've been on a pretty good streak with them.
Picture from the first furball of the first game:

3 HWKs is a pretty strange group. What did you put on them? That's the best thing about playing casual. The freedom to try some pretty strange combos in a non-tourney setting.

$iljanus wrote:3 HWKs is a pretty strange group. What did you put on them? That's the best thing about playing casual. The freedom to try some pretty strange combos in a non-tourney setting.

It was a strange and rather worthless group! But it was interesting.
I flew Jan Ors with push the limit, ion cannon turret, engine upgrade, nien numb; Kyle Katarn with wingman, ion cannon turret, stealth device, recon specialist, moldy crow; Rebel operative with ion turret, stealth device.

I've been enjoying 3 ship builds more recently and decking out those three ships or taking high pilot skill. One I've actually had surprising success with recently is 3 9 skill pilots:
Vader (Advanced) with expose
Whisper (Phantom) with veteran instincts and advanced cloaking device
Soontir Fel (Interceptor) with PTL

I've played them in 3 or 4 games casual or organized and haven't lost yet, but they are fragile and I have not played against a Falcon with them...

I'm going to have a lot of fun using Vader as crew on the new Decimator coming out.

The ability to straight up apply a crit damage something after shooting at it is just nasty. It doesn't ignore shields, but will be useful in sniping down the hard to hit ships, or getting that last bit of health off a b-wing that survived all other shooting.

GenCon interview with X-Wing designers Alex Davy and Frank Brooks. Interesting discussion of different play styles, and they're optimistic about the abilities for the HWKs. They talk a fair bit about balancing and the new Scum and Villainy faction.

Thanks for posting that! I like that they are looking at updating the Advanced. It doesn't have much of a place right now without vader. Cool to see they recognize that. I also like the idea of the HWK skills in scum, very unique compared to the rebels. I think the HWK has a great spot with the rebels already, but I like the idea of the scum faction using it as well. Should be cool, the powers sound very interesting.

I also saw a clip from the in-flight thingie at Gen Con in which they were asked about imperial epic ships etc and they said don't worry about it, nothing has changed. Sounds like they are still coming for sure.

I expect they're trying to come up with an Epic ship model and play style that works for the Imperials. It makes sense for the Rebels to defend a Transport or break a blockade with a single Tantive IV. It's trickier to find a role for a recognizable Imperial ship.

Zarathud wrote:I expect they're trying to come up with an Epic ship model and play style that works for the Imperials. It makes sense for the Rebels to defend a Transport or break a blockade with a single Tantive IV. It's trickier to find a role for a recognizable Imperial ship.

Yeah, usually their role is vaporize everything in the system. They aren't in the business of running.