Ah, post Mynock Open X-Wing...

 Got to watch a fair bit of the “Mynock Open” held out in LA over the weekend.  Some excellent games streamed on the Gold Squadron Twitch channel (https://www.twitch.tv/goldsquadronpodcast).  Have to say that I was surprised to find that while there were approximately as many Rebel players as Scum & Villainy (S&V) that there was only a single Rebel player to make the cut to day two.  I did not think that it would be quite that badly lopsided.  The breakdown between S&V and Imperials was actually 8 each.  Odd cut system, but that was the way that the rules were applied out there.  Hard to explain, but it looked like a really good way to do a really large event (something like 160 players IIRC).  But S&V and Imps are clearly well ahead of the Rebels at the moment.  Not surprising, they both have ships that are really quite good and frankly costed far too low combined with good synergies that allow the combos to work.  Rebels have a few really good ships, but no real synergy across them all.  A single Leebo to represent the Rebel YT-2400’s and a single Rebel Han Solo meant that there were almost no Rebel Large Based ships there…  I do suspect that Dash kitted out will be a terror on the field…  Just not entirely sure that the 2 Ship builds are viable against so many ships on the field these days.  I will likely give that a try after this weekend with the first local (Champaign/Urbana) v2 events hitting.  This weekend however I will be flying more or less what I have been flying this whole edition:

FelWhisperSai2 (193)

Soontir Fel — TIE Interceptor	52
Lone Wolf	4
Ship Total: 56
“Whisper” — TIE/ph Phantom	52
Juke	4
Collision Detector	5
Darth Vader	14
Ship Total: 75
Lieutenant Sai — Lambda-class T-4a Shuttle	47
Director Krennic	5
Shield Upgrade	4
ST-321	6
Ship Total: 62

 7 points left to play with, so either a Shield for Whisper or say, Minister Tua for the Shuttle to grab Reinforce tokens as the Shuttle dies more slowly.  Suspect the Shield on Whisper is the way I’ll go as I REALLY like my Aces…  Saw a fair number of the “Cloak & Choke Whisper” on the streams, in fact so many that I suspect it has become the default build for the ship…  Soonter Fel I saw with Juke a fair bit…  Not bad, I do prefer Lone Wolf myself as I want the insurance against the “oh crap” dice roll since I otherwise really lack things like a TL or the like to roll my way out of a bad roll.  And since he can now just evaporate on a single flubbed roll…  Well, to be fair I was able to lose mine in a single shot in v1, but that was an extreme outlier where now?  Not really unlikely if someone say, lines up a Proton Torpedo with decent modification on the roll…  So, he runs scared the whole time he is on the table for me.  USUALLY survives, but there is always that chance that I guess wrong or something to that effect…

Or they have Tug Boats…  Those things are just bloody terrifying these days.  Jakku Gunrunner is 28 points and really does not NEED anything else…  I1 to allow for blocking easily enough, at that cost it makes sense to run a LEAST a pair of them since they can do weird things like slingshot themselves with the Action Tractor to the other Tug to get in a Boost/Barrel Roll followed by the second one activating in a now advanced position to roll in and hit the Enemy ship with its Tractor…  Bullseye gets you a second Tractor token allowing you to move a Medium base…  THAT should terrify things like Redline and Boba Fett as they suddenly are out of position or on a bloody rock…  Saw a LOT of these over the weekend on stream, for very good reason.  Might buy a second one, but I suspect this is one of the very first things to get nerfed and hit the points elevator for the “up, up, up” treatment…  Without a real defense against this tactic/effect, it is just entirely too good against the rest of the field I think.  ALMOST a relic of v1 I think as I actually used this to horrifying effect back then with one event requiring that I fly the Gunrunner.  Was NOT a penalty for me as my other 2 ships were Guri and Fenn Rau loaded for bear.  Did the Fencik/Plank maneuver where the Gunrunner rolled in, blocked and/or tractored the target (usually both) and the other two ships rolled in with both having 5 Dice Attacks and good modifications…  Nothing survived that treatment.  Same thing now it seems.  -1 Agility is good, and the real potential to simply move a Ship in an unexpected way?  WAY too good for a single action on a cheap ship.  And as I am not flying it this time around (in fact lending my only Tug to a buddy, so I KNOW there will be some out there), need to come up with defenses against this.  Really aren’t many…  My Shuttle will likely become a big blocker/barricade to just keep the Tugs away from my valuable Aces…  Run fast and stay at R3 to wear them down…  The Tugs ARE slow and pretty predictable on the field, so in theory the Imperial TIE Interceptor and Phantom SHOULD be able to run circles around them…  Issue of course is that there will not be only one, and of course since it will likely be part of a Swarm, avoiding the Tug will likely land me in Arc of other ships…  And blocked Aces are dead aces…

Looking ahead, I’ll likely give something like this a try as I think it goes fairly well against the “standard Meta” that I am seeing at the bigger events at least.

New Squadron (200)

Dash Rendar — YT-2400 Light Freighter	100
Trick Shot	1
Veteran Turret Gunner	8
Hull Upgrade	5
Outrider	14
Rigged Cargo Chute	4
Ship Total: 132
Wedge Antilles — T-65 X-Wing	52
Trick Shot	1
Proton Torpedoes	9
R2 Astromech	6
Servomotor S-foils	0
Ship Total: 68

Mind, it IS a 2 Ship list.  And the low Ship count combined with the now absolutely terrifying Damage Deck (well, the Criticals at least) I suspect are discouraging most players from even attempting to bring these ships…  But on paper at least, Dash can throw out 2 x 5 (!!!) Dice Attacks each turn against ships that do not gain additional Agility for being behind cover.  Not EASY to set up, but it certainly should be possible as he completely ignores terrain for movement and I AM bringing even more terrain to hide behind.  Debris of course for me as I do NOT want to land on the rock without being able to shoot very often…  Removing Red/Orange tokens for moving across Terrain is also going to be something I think…  All theoretical of course as I JUST broke out the cardboard for Dash today…  Does at the least sound like fun as I still have a special liking of the old YT-2400…  Will at the least be a rude surprise I suspect for a few folks when they DO see it…