X-Wing Minis: “Follower Build-A-List” Battle Report for 8-3-17

Posted on August 7, 2017 by FRFC3S

Despite the success of our consistent “Star Wars Mondays” segments, they are to be discontinued. Instead, the flexibility will allow me to quickly bring you breaking X-Wing news instead of waiting upwards of a week or two.

With that being said, this blog post is the debut of our new weekly Facebook “Follower Build-A-List” segment in which our social media followers build a squad for me (Andrew) to fly every week. This is an effort to make me a better player overall (by learning to win with what I’ve been given) and to also create an interactive component with our social media followers (you suggest that I fly silly shit and then you get to see the hilarious results!).

The Facebook post will go up on Tuesday every week and I will fly the list on Thursday at my FLGS (or a couple casual games over the weekend) and then I will provide you with an update before we start the process all over again. Make sure you are following our Facebook so you can get in on the fun!

THE LIST

What originally started as a fun idea for me attracted a lot of attention from our followers:

Once the list had been completed, I made a little video about how I thought the strengths and weaknesses of the list were and how I intended to fly it:

The 100 point list is as follows:

Mike Warren set me up with this decked-out 42 point TIE Phantom build:

“Whisper” 32
Veteran Instincts 1
Rebel Captive 3
Fire-Control System 2
Advanced Cloaking Device 2

Next, Garret MacFalda suggested a hilariously efficient TIE Punisher build which I slightly modified to fit 29 points:

“Deathrain” 26
Bomblet Generator 3

Finally, Mike Gemme suggested that I fly a TIE/fo, “Zeta Leader” aka “High Roller,” but with the remaining available points I was able to upgrade the TIE/fo to a more classic approach:

“Omega Leader” 21
Comm Relay 3
Hull Upgrade 3
Juke 2

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

Strengths:

Action Economy
- Whisper gets free Cloaks, Target Locks, and Focuses.
- Omega Leader’s first turn Evade token and second-turn Target Lock essentially modify her attack dice and prevent the modification of opposing defense dice for the entire game.
- Most importantly, Deathrain can reveal his maneuver, drop a bomblet out of either the front or rear guide, barrel roll, move, and then take a third action.
Arc-dodging. Every ship has either barrel roll or boost, Whisper has Decloak movement, and every ship has a 180* “K Turn.”

Weakness:

This is an arc-dodger list with no true jouster to draw fire and no Autothrusters. It will get torn to shreds by wide firing arcs and turrets.

RESULTS

Unfortunately, I was unable to make the weekly tournament at my FLGS this week. Fortunately, I was able to cram in a couple casual games with a buddy of mine. Unfortunately, my buddy flies Dash/Corran, the bane of this list.

Game 1:

Things went downhill fast when I forgot how decloaking works and ended up flying Whisper through an asteroid right between Dash and Corran. Although she lost a shield to the asteroid she still managed to get a glancing shot off on Corran. However, she blanked on her four green dice and was reduced to nothing more than the same space debris which she had just flown through. Down goes half my squad.

With the heavy-hitter gone, it wasn’t long before the low-agility Punisher met his 360* cannon death. However, Deathrain did get his One Shining Moment of Dash landing directly on top of a Bomblet.

That left only Omega Leader to do some very heavy lifting. She was able to keep pecking away at Corran, but Corran would just regenerate the damage with R2-D2.

Omega Leader was able to bump Corran and sit in Dash’s range 1 Heavy Laser Cannon “donut” for a handful of turns before she eventually met the same fate as the other two ships.

The result was an utter 0-100 thrashing.

Game 2:

The initial approach had everyone going straight for the isolated Corran.

However, Corran was able to lure my squad into Dash’s welcoming arms.

Thanks to an Omega Leader bump, Whisper set up the one-shot kill on Corran with a Direct Hit! critical hit. First blood!

Things started looking up when I remembered that Whisper was more than a pretty face and actually earned defensive Focuses. Protip: RTFC (“Read the Fucking Cards”).

With one hull remaining, Omega Leader decided that it was time to boogie and let Whisper finish the job.

And finish the job she did, with a fantastic maneuver right into Dash’s donut and a range-bonus increased 5 red dice attack.

A far more favorable 100-29 win!

TAKEAWAY

Deathrain is a lot of fun, and surprisingly cheap, but unless you are against a swarm or a rebel formation list his two dice bomblets don’t have enough impact. I would have liked to fit some ranged ordinance on him for the initial approach. Hit them with some torpedoes before doing the drive-by bombing. I was also concerned about flying the ships in formation because I didn’t want to bomblet my other ships. It also didn’t help that the opposing list was about as squirrely as it gets. Either way, I don’t think this list is the way to make Deathrain competitive and he’s certainly not competitive in my hands.

If I were to tweak this list to fit my current abilities, I think I would swap out Deathrain and try to fit in a better anvil. I think Deathrain needs more covering fire before flying head-first into the opposing squad. Maybe cut Deathrain and Omega Leader’s Hull Upgrade and try to cram a Quickdraw or Colonel Vessery in there. At this point, I see Quickdraw as almost a mandatory ship in any Imperial list that isn’t Crack Swarm. That would bring the list closer to your typical Imperial “Triple Aces” list. You could also take one of the aces out for a Palp Shuttle for your classic “Palp Aces” list or cut two aces for your classic “RAC +1″ list. Season to taste.

All in all, I really enjoyed flying the list and I thought this was a great first run at the Follower Build-A-List segment.

WRAP UP

Followers, thank you for the list and be sure to tune into our Facebook on Tuesday where we start the fun all over again!

Make sure to follow us on all of the different social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Twitch, the new Instagram and Patreon, and share this article with friends who you think might also enjoy the game. I have been posting a lot of smaller posts directly to Facebook instead of here on our website so you should be following us on Facebook at the very least.

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