Rogue Squadron- Blario’s (Blue) Beefy Buddies

Welcome to Rogue Squadron, pilot! In this series, we will be looking at different squadrons you can fly in Fantasy Flight Games X-Wing miniatures game. We give you the squad, what expansion pack all of the upgrades come from and then give you the lowdown on how best to fly it. Strap in and get ready to fly.

All Wings Report In (Extended)

RZ-2 A-wing  “Ronith Blario” (Hotshots and Aces) (39 pts) (I2)

While you defend or perform an attack, if the enemy ship is in another friendly ship’s Mobile Arc, you may spend 1 focus token from that friendly ship to change 1 of your Focus results to an Hit or Evade result.

Refined Gyrostabilizers: You can rotate your Mobile Arc indicator only to your Forward or Rear. After you perform an action, you may perform a red Boost or red Rotate action.

• Talent- Heroic (Wave 2):While you defend or perform an attack, if you have only blank results and have 2 or more results, you may reroll any number of your dice.
• Tech (Add in Variant Option)– Advanced Optics (Wave 2): While you perform an attack, you may spend 1 focus token to change 1 of your blank results to a Hit result.

RZ-2 A-wing  “Blue Squadron Recruit” (Wave 2) (33 pts) (I1) (Remove in Variant Option)

None

Refined Gyrostabilizers: You can rotate your Mobile Arc indicator only to your Forward or Rear. After you perform an action, you may perform a red Boost or red Rotate action.

• Talent- Heroic (Wave 2):While you defend or perform an attack, if you have only blank results and have 2 or more results, you may reroll any number of your dice.

Scavenged YT-1300 “Resistance Sympathizer” (Wave 2) (73 pts) (I2)

None. 

• Crew- Perceptive Co-Pilot (Wave 1):After you perform a Focus action, gain 1 focus token.
• Illicit- Feedback Array (Wave 1): Before you engage, you may gain 1 ion token and 1 disarm token. If you do, each ship at range 0 suffers 1 damage..
• Title (Add in Variant Option)– Rey’s Millennium Falcon (Wave 2):If you have 2 or fewer stress tokens, you can execute red Segnor’s Loop maneuvers and perform Rotate and Boost actions even while stressed.

MG-100 Starfortress “Vennie” (Wave 2) (88 pts) (I2)

While you defend, if the attacker is in a friendly ship’s Mobile Arc, you may add 1 Focus result to your roll.

• Crew- Perceptive Co-Pilot (Wave 1):After you perform a Focus action, gain 1 focus token.
• Gunner (Add in Variant Option)– Rey (Wave 2): Force 1. While you defend or perform an attack, if the enemy ship is in your Mobile Arc, you may spend 1 Force to change 1 of your blank results to a Hit or Evade result.
• Gunner (Add in Variant Option)– Finn (Wave 2): While you defend or perform a primary attack, if the enemy ship is in your Forward Arc, you may add 1 blank result to your roll (this die can be rerolled or otherwise modified).

Lock S-Foils in Attack Position

While preparing for a review of the RZ-2 A-wing I put this together to try out Blario’s ability. This list is a synergy list, so it falls apart as soon as you make contact with a skilled enemy. But its synergy revolves around mobile arcs for the most part which, unlike range 1 bubbles, you have a lot of flexibility to keep it going after that first encounter. I became quite fond of the name more than anything.

Blario gets to borrow focus tokens from allies if the enemy is in a friendly ship’s mobile arc. Naturally, the starting point for this was to utilize ships with mobile arcs. A-wings are the natural choice but why not the big boys with bow-tie arcs and large bases? And why not take Vennie who also benefits from the same thing? The next step was to maximize the available Focus pool. So Perceptive Co-Pilots are a good choice.

The list is quite beefy with the two large ships and the two A-wings add in a dimension of maneuverability. With all the focus available Blario and Vennie can be quite resilient. The four mobile arcs help balance out the low initiative. You can flank with the large base ships on either edge of the map. Then send in the A-wings to support which ever one the enemy goes after.

Variations

The original version of this list didn’t have the Blue Squadron pilot and had Rey and Finn on Vennie along with Feedback Array on the YT-1300.  It’s a fun combo and allows Vennie to crank up the damage potential. For a ship in mobile and forward arc, you have good odds of landing four hits.  Rey also gives you a Force to play with for other things if need be. However, this also makes Vennie the primary target and even with his ability, plus a Force and two focus tokens effectively negating a damage from up to three attacks, he still can drop quickly. Worth a whole A-wing? Up to your play style.