X-Wing Squad - Charge!
Let's start with an important primer: I've literally played 5 games of X-Wing in my entire life, and 3 of those 5 games were before rules changes like initiative and objectives. So read literally everything I write with that in mind. You may ask why I'm bothering to share squad lists or posts about X-Wing if I know so little about it.
Honestly, it's because I personally appreciate knowing that people are at all different experience levels when it comes to games. A lot of more experienced X-Wing players may not get much from reading about my journey from total novice to who knows what, but maybe there are other newer players out there who will appreciate that despite the fact it can feel as though this game has been around forever, there are still new players coming to the game and learning. I just happen to be one of them.
Below is a squad list I've enjoyed playing since the newest X-Wing changes (objectives and list-building), so let's get to it!
Charge!
When I decided I was going to try X-Wing, I knew I was just going to start with one faction. I thought I might enjoy running swarms, so naturally, I looked at Separatists. I read through the different buying guides on the website, Stay on the Leader, and basically came away with the notion that Separatists were the most difficult faction to fly because of the inflexible nature of droids (specifically Hyenas and Vultures, which I planned on flying). I came to the conclusion that if I could learn to fly Separatists and still enjoy the game as a novice, then that was pretty good evidence that I'd enjoy the game after all! I say "after all" because I really had so little interest in playing for quite some time. The possibility of defense dice effectively eliminating any good rolls I had was a huge turn-off for me given that I really enjoyed the defense token mechanic in Star Wars Armada (the only dice rolled are attack dice, so I'm 100% aware of how effectively a target can protect itself with no nasty surprises outside of a poor attack roll). Plus, the only times I had watched X-Wing basically amounted to players circling each other until one of them got lucky enough to see a good roll while their opponent rolled poorly. At least, that was how I perceived the game.
Ultimately, I decided to try the game out because I was buying all sorts of games during the pandemic (ah, the joys of retail therapy...) and my good friend Josh enjoys the game enough to travel for competitions and sings its praises. I tried building a swarm and it was a weird way for me to learn the game, but I kinda sorta understood the basics, even if it went poorly for me. With Josh's guidance (and a little help from another friend, Chris), I learned a little bit more. Ultimately, while I may revisit swarms, I saw some ships that I was more interested in flying, neither of which work particularly well in a swarm archetype because of their cost.
As you can see in the list above, instead of a swarm, I've got 4 fighters. I knew I wanted to try out the HMP Gunships just because they've got a weird mechanic, they look cool, and because it's been written that if you want to win with droids, you're better off using Hyenas or Vultures because they're cheaper. I'm sure this analysis is spot-on; but if you've read my blog at all, you also know I'm very contrary. So I decided I wanted to see what would happen if I messed around with the HMPs without the knowledge and wisdom that so many other players have already accumulated. My original build featured a pair of Geonosian Prototypes because my plan was to use Tractor Beams in order to best take advantage of their reroll ability. I also equipped each Prototype with Multi Missile Pods. Once I had that notion, I decided I'd include Sun Fac along with Gravitic Deflection. I've got little familiarity with the game, but what little experience I've got with Sun Fac and that particular talent made it an easy decision for me.**
**It's worth noting that, at this point, the way squads are built had not made the changeover, so I could still afford Sun Fac with the Geonosian Prototypes and Grievous**
I'm pretty sure I rounded it out with General Grievous from the start, equipping him with Impervium Plating and Soulless One because that's really the only build with which I'm familiar. The couple of times I had played with Grievous and Sun Fac saw them paired alongside Slave I (first piloted by Zam, and later by Jango - specifically, after the points change to Zam and Count Dooku). But when I ran the "tractor shenanigans" past Josh and asked if I was working too hard to make a thing happen, he agreed with that assessment. He introduced me to the notion of equipping Ion Cannons to my Geonosian Prototypes. It was all fun from there, especially once the squad-building rules changed!
In the new build system, Grievous and the Geonosian Prototypes are all 5 points. Sun Fac sits at 6 and is the most easily replaced ship in my build. So I started looking at other Nantex pilots that might work and landed on Chertek. I had never really looked anywhere else before because the couple of times I flew a Nantex, I was using Gravitic Deflection as a way to protect Sun Fac while he functioned as a sort of weird ace in my squad. However, now that I can easily fit Ensnare into my squad, Chertek's special ability to reroll dice against a tractored opponent is quite the boon. Chertek sits at 5 points and so fits very neatly into a squad featuring Grievous and two Geonosian Prototypes. Finally, being able to Ensnare an opponent and then use the Geonosian special reroll ability (in those instances in which I don't have locks on my desired target) in a pinch really pulls the whole thing together. Not everything I do will work out, but I've got several redundancies in order to land my Ion tokens, which sets up some decently big shots. So Chertek ends up being a great find for this squad.
I actually started the build with my "easy decisions," which all centered on General Grievous. In nearly every game I had played, I used Grievous. Before the list build changes, I always kept Soulless One, Impervium Plating, and Outmaneuver on him. My very limited understanding is that this is a pretty standard loadout for him: it all plays to his strengths very well and is reasonably priced for all the advantages it grants him. But then they changed the rules and added a second modification slot. Far be it from me to say no to something so inviting! I started by throwing a Shield Upgrade on him and it worked well the one time I played it. But then Josh suggested using Afterburners instead. I'm sure I'm mostly preaching to the choir here, but Afterburners is so much damn fun on Grievous. The amount of utility it offers is tremendous and it really supports Grievous in his mission to be the flanker nobody wants to deal with. I thought the Shield Upgrade made him that much more irritating to kill, and it does! But Afterburners lets me play either offense or defense as needed and I really appreciate that.
I keep it simple with Chertek: Chertek is happy to take a tractor token to adjust position and his turret and then use Ensnare to toss the tractor token onto a foe. If I can use the move the token grants me in order to trigger Crack Shot, that's great! But it's more of a bonus than anything; if I'm busting my ass to force that kind of situation, then I'm probably out of position in the grander scheme of things. But that tractored opponent now has one fewer defense die against my HMP Gunships as they pile on with their Ion Cannons.
Speaking of the HMP Gunships...
If Grievous is the muscle and Chertek is the utility, the Geonosian Prototypes are the keystone of my squad. And what a fun keystone they are! I really loved the notion of sideslip maneuvers and I honestly just thought they looked cool. But what was really going to make these work were the Ion Cannons and their synergy with Chertek. The Networked Aim ability would allow me to sort of "set it and forget it" with regards to my locks. Between those rerolls on attack and the defense dice penalty that the tractor beam would impose on a defender, there's a really good chance that each HMP attack will land a damage and an Ion token. This sets up a scenario in which Chertek and Grievous can have their shots lined up for them as long as my planned positioning is realized. Since I've got the slot and I know I want both HMPs locking and firing (especially if I'm going to Ionize anything bigger than myself), I thought that adding Shield Upgrade would give me just a little more beef. Ultimately, on Josh's advice, I added Kalani to one of my HMPs and Discord Missiles to the other. Both make sense in the greater scheme of my squad goals, since it *should* be feasible to Ionize an opponent's ship and let it drift into a Buzz Droid Swarm or into the bullseye arc of a friendly ship, thus triggering Kalani's ability. The important thing here is to make sure I don't try to force that situation. If it happens, that's terrific! But if I try too hard to make it happen, it's more likely than not that at least one of my ships will be out of position.
I've flown this squad a couple of times now and seen some decent success with it! Any time it didn't do what I wanted it to do was user error. Which is absolutely reassuring because it means the ceiling on this squad is just higher than I can hit until I get more practice with the game under my belt (especially with the HMPs and setting up the sideslips). But I will say this: there's an element of this squadron I don't love - the element in which I remove agency from my opponent. It doesn't feel good when I don't get to play the game I'm playing and there's an element of that I'm choosing to leverage with Ion Cannons. So I may or may not stick with it. But for now, it's proving to be a ton of fun to fly while I learn how the pieces work together!
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