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| Damn boy, look at that move. |
Hey everyone! Just a quick update on the tournament that I'm going to this weekend. I think right now I've settled on two lists that I narrowed it down to after playtesting fiercely in the last couple of days. The first list is the Rebels list with Poe leading Bs with Advanced Sensors and the naked Bandit. I think I'll call that list DBZ-X or something.
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| Poe Dameron as Son Goku. |
DBZ-X (100)
Poe Dameron — T-70 X-Wing 31
Push the Limit 3
BB-8 2
Autothrusters 2
Ship Total: 38
Blue Squadron Pilot — B-Wing 22
Advanced Sensors 3
Ship Total: 25
Blue Squadron Pilot — B-Wing 22
Advanced Sensors 3
Ship Total: 25
Bandit Squadron Pilot — Z-95 Headhunter 12
Ship Total: 12
The second list that I'll be running is he Palpmobile with Soontir Fel and Darth Vader:
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| PS11 might be a little too much. |
Space Pope (99)
Darth Vader — TIE Advanced 29
Veteran Instincts 1
Advanced Targeting Computer 1
Engine Upgrade 4
TIE/x1 0
Ship Total: 35
Soontir Fel — TIE Interceptor 27
Push the Limit 3
Autothrusters 2
Stealth Device 3
Royal Guard TIE 0
Ship Total: 35
Omicron Group Pilot — Lambda-Class Shuttle 21
Emperor Palpatine 8
Ship Total: 29
Looking at the local, national and worldy meta, I would argue that these lists run into good and bad matchups as expected in a pretty balanced game. Let's examine this a little bit further by looking at some of the really popular builds out there. Using statistical analysis and metagame threads on the official X-Wing forum (local, regional and national reports), you can form a pretty good idea of what to expect when going into a tournament.
Here are some of the popular lists floating around:
- BBBBZ and other similar variants
- Fat Dash + Corran or 2 B-Wings
- Fat Chirpy + Fel
- Fat Han variants with either Zs or Jake
- BroBots B+C variants
- Unhinged TLT Thugs
- Obsidian Swarm or Fel + Obs mini-swarm
- Palpmobile with Vader and Fel
I think my DBZX list will do pretty decent against BBBBZ and most 2-ship variants because of the good balance between quality, bulk and firepower. I think it will draw pretty hard matchups vs. TLT, Fel + Mini-swarm or Howl + Obsidian Swarm, and Palpmobile with Vader and Fel. The problem with TLT is because of the B-Wings, which become a pretty hefty liability vs. sustained firepower of throwing out 8 rounds of dice per turn that burn 1 on average. It's almost numerically not possible to roll that many evade dice so you're essentially looking at possibly ~6-8 damage per turn on a single B, which is enough to burn one down a turn if you're unlucky, or he gets lucky. This is a 4th of your lists firepower and things only go downhill from there because both Poe and the Z do not have that much durability either. Against this particular matchup, I think Poe will be sitting in the back with as much AT bonus and Focus as he can get.
I look at the heftier 2-ship builds as positive matchups because as long as I have the lower PS, I can potentially disrupt a lot of movement while being able to throw out dice. Both Fel/Howl + Swarm will give me problems because PS3 will outbid everything I have except for Poe and will generally move better than me. This is also why the elite Imperial build will cause problems for this list because of their superior maneuverability, dice manipulation and high PS. When you have high PS ships that can arc dodge really well, those shields on Bs really wear out fast and with Vader/ATC/Emperor, you will take crits up the wazoo.
On the Imperial side, I think TLT will also pose a problem because of Vader. He can stack Focus/Evade all he wants, but sooner or later he's going to eat it because of the lack of Autothrusters. Even Fel with AT will eventually lose his SD, so the main task will be to find a Y at Range 3 and take him down as soon as possible. The Space Cow will probably hide in the corner and advance slowly as a faster advance will just present him as an easy target for the laser turrets. I'm fairly confident against the other featured here as well, except for lists that will fly in tight formation, present low PS bids to block and disrupt your movement, while being able to throw a lot of dice at you. If you really think about, almost everything will have a chance to block your ships so its almost best to just run away and take time to setup. Getting blocked with Soontir or Vader is going to be bad times. Since the Emperor can only help you once a turn, 90% of the time you will be saving that for defensive reasons while Vader and Fel can hopefully focus down one ship at a time. The challenge there will be exactly how long they can stay alive with so many bodies looking to cockblock good firing opportunities every turn.
Overall, I would say that the elite Imperials list draws better matchups in the grand scheme of things, but is a lot less forgiving to bumps and grinds due to having to roll evade dice and being so action dependent. This is one of the reasons why Bs with FCS see so much play still: You can literally push them forward and let them roll dice. Let me know what you guys think and what you guys have experienced in your local scene.
Oh! One more thing before I forget. Check out this awesome trailer I put together last night. My wife did the editing while I did the overall direction. I'm probably going to use something like this in my Battlefront series as the intro. Did you guys see who it was posted by? It's real. Really really real.
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