"X-Wing: Vader and elite pilots vs Rebel trio" Topic

Brought X-wing down to the club so that David could take Darth Vader for a spin with my newly purchased Tie-Advanced. We both ran lists with elite pilots and maxed out our points into skills and equipment for the ships.

Imperial force:

TIE ADVANCED
- Darth Vader, swarm tactics and cluster missiles

TIE FIGHTERS
- Howlrunner, expert handling
- Black Squadron fighter, expert handling

TIE INTERCEPTOR
- Turr Phennir, elusiveness

Rebel Force:
X-WING
Wedge Antilles, R2-F2 astromech, Proton torpedo's

Y-WING
Gold Squadron pilot, R2-D2, Ion cannon turret, proton torpedo's

A-WING
Arvel Crynd, Homing missiles

You can read how it went and see more pictures of the game over at my blog:
link

How did you feel about the Interceptor? I finally was able to buy a couple last week but haven't had the chance to run a game yet. Are they as great as everyone has been saying?

The Interceptors are extremely dangerous and probably the best fighter in the Imperial arsenal at the moment. More maneuverable than a Tie Fighter, Firepower like an X-wing and only slightly more expensive than a Tie fighter means that you can still field a lot if you have them. Add to that the difficulty of gunning down Imperial fighters in general due to their high agility and frequent use of "evade" it makes for some really difficult fights.

I always try to destroy the Tie Interceptors first if they are on the table with my Rebel stuff. It's just devastating and impossible to try to dodge 4 attack dice with an X-wing or Y-wing.

Fortunately my buddy David can only ever run 2 Tie Interceptors as that is all I have in my Imperial collection.

The TIE interceptor has only 3 ATT dice, unless at close range!

I love the squints, but they are fragile and die as easily as line TIE fighters, so handle with care. It's nice to have some Academies out in front of them to tempt the enemy into taking the short range shots.

With Imperial builds of 6 or less ships, I tend towards putting a few Interceptors in. Have currently been enjoying good success and fun with:

Vader + Swarm Tactics
Sable Squadron Int. + Swarm Tactics
Alpha Squadron Int.
Dark Curse
Academy

Vader swarms Sable who swarms Alpha for an opening volley all shooting at skill 9. Or, if I don't need that much fire power on 9, Vader swarms Alpha or Academy to 9, and Sable swarms the other one to 4.

The squints are priority targets for the enemy. The Academy is likely to get killed sometime. Then Vader and Dark Curse make a tough duo to duke out the endgame.

Mixing the Y wing with the Awing is rough. I've even had trouble keeping the Awings in formation with the Xwings. Granted its not designed to stick close to them but I generally keep things tight for a few turns so they can support each other and then turn the A-wing into a harasser. I either chase down a selected target or just keep sweeping through his formation trying to pin it between my x-wings. The X-wings usually stick close together for support.

My goal is to get the imps to shoot at the A-wing. The last build I made used a Green squad pilot so low points but he is still hard to kill. The more shots he takes the less the X-wings have to handle.

I won a free for all tournament over the weekend with Luke, Biggs, and the green squad pilot. 75 point lists.

Yes, the Y-wings are really tough to use as dogfighters against any of the TIEs. Ys might as well be space slugs.

I would propose a "Turret Gunner" upgrade to the Ys, so that a secondary Ion Cannon weapon could have the same 360° firing arc as the YT-1300. This would open up greater tactical possibilities for the Ys, making them truly dangerous paired with nimbler ships like the As: the As lure the enemy close, the Ys "freeze 'em" and the As and Xs take 'em out.

Right now the Ys' saving grace is their durability; it takes a lot of hits to bring down a Y.