Rogue Squadron- Jank Tank II

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 and then give you the lowdown on how best to fly it. Strap in and get ready to fly.

All Wings Report In

(Dropped upgrade and replaced upgrade are highlighted in blue)

Z-95-AF4 Headhunter “Airen Cracken” (40 pts) (I5)

After you perform an attack, you may choose 1 friendly ship at range 1. That ship may perform an action, treating it as red

• Ship Ability – None
• Modification – Static Discharge Vanes
  • Before you would gain 1 ion or jam token, if you are not stressed, you may choose another ship at range 0-1 and gain 1 stress token. If you do, the chosen ship gains that ion or jam token instead, then you suffer 1  damage.

Sheathipede Class Shuttle “Ezra Bridger” (47 pts) (I3)

While you defend or perform an attack, if you are stressed, you may spend 1 Force to change up to 2 of your Focus results to  Hit/Evade results.

• Ship Ability – Comms Shuttle
  • While you are docked, your carrier ship gains Coordinate. Before your carrier ship activates, it may perform a Coordinate action.
• Astromech – R2 Astromech
  • Charges: 2
  • After you reveal your dial, you may spend 1 Charge and gain 1 disarm token to recover 1 shield.
• Crew – Chopper
  • During the Perform Action step, you may perform 1 action, even while stressed. After you perform an action while stressed, suffer 1 Hit damage unless you expose 1 of your damage cards.
• Force Power – Compassion
  • Before another friendly ship at range 0-2 would be dealt a faceup Pilot or Crew damage card, you may spend 1 Force. If you do, that damage card is discarded instead, and you are dealt 1 facedown damage card. Then, if you have 2 or more damage cards, recover 2 Force.
• Modification – Angled Deflectors
  • Lose 1 Shield
  • Adds Reinforce Action
• Title – Phantom
  • You can dock at range 0-1.

A/SF-01 B-Wing “Blue Squadron Pilot” (57 pts) (I2)

None

• Ship Ability- None
• Cannon – Autoblasters
  • Attack 2, Range 1-2
  • If the defender is in your Bullseye, roll 1 additional die. During the Neutralize Results step, if you are not in the defender’s Front Arc, Evade results do not cancel Crit results.
• Cannon – Jamming Beam
  • Attack 3, Range 1-2
  • If this attack hits, all Hit/Crit results inflict jam tokens instead of damage.
• Configuration – Stabilized S-Foils
  • Closed
    • Adds Reload, Barrel Roll –> Evade
    • Before you activate, if you are not critically damaged, you may flip this card.
  • Open
    • Adds Barrel Roll –> Lock
    • After you perform an attack, you may spend your lock on the defender to perform a bonus Cannon attack against that ship using a Cannon upgrade you have not attacked with this turn.
    • Before you activate, if you are not critically damaged, you may flip this card.
• Modification – Munitions Failsafe
  • While you perform a Missile or Torpedo attack, after rolling attack dice, you may cancel all dice results to recover 1 Charge you spent as a cost for the attack.
• Sensor – Collision Detectors
  • Charges: 2
  • While you boost or barrel roll, you can move through and overlap obstacles.
  • After you move through or overlap an obstacle, you may spend 1  to ignore its effects until the end of the round.
• Title – B6 Blade Wing Prototype
  • Adds Gunner Slot
• Torpedo – Ion Torpedo
  • Charges: 2
  • Attack (Lock) 4, Range 2-3 (munition)
  • Spend 1 Charge. If this attack hits, spend 1 Hit or Crit result to cause the defender to suffer 1 Hit damage. All remaining Hit/Crit results inflict ion tokens instead of damage.

Z-95-AF4 Headhunter “Bandit Squadron Pilot” (29 pts) (I1)

None

• Ship Ability – None
• Missile –  XX-23 S-Thread Tracers
  • Charges: 2
  • Attack (Focus, Calculate, Lock) 3, Range 1-3 (Munition)
  • Spend 1 Charge. If this attack hits, each friendly ship at range 1-3 of the defender may acquire a lock on the defender. Then cancel all dice results.
• Modification – Targeting Computer
  • Adds Lock action

Z-95-AF4 Headhunter “Bandit Squadron Pilot” (27 pts) (I1)

None

• Ship Ability – None
• Modification – Static Discharge Vanes
  • Before you would gain 1 ion or jam token, if you are not stressed, you may choose another ship at range 0-1 and gain 1 stress token. If you do, the chosen ship gains that ion or jam token instead, then you suffer 1  damage.

Lock S-Foils in Attack Position

I played in my first online X-Wing event last week, the Jank Tank II. I had avoided playing in online events because of past experience with Table Top Simulator failing to cooperate. But despite vaccinations and some stores beginning to have play again, I haven’t been able to make it to very many events due to conflicting schedules and long drives. So I thought I’d give it a go.

The TTS module has improved dramatically over when I tried it years ago. There is handy automation for list generation, ship movement, range checks, actions. It’s harder to screw everything up because you don’t know what you’re doing. There is a learning curve but it is not severe. The guide videos provided were enough to get me through the door and going.

The idea behind Jank Tank is you are given two randomly generated lists and must pick one to play. You are allowed to drop one upgrade and add one. Some special considerations are taken for truly useless and expensive upgrades (such as a 6pt Trajectory Simulator and no payload slot or a gunner that require a mobile arc on a ship with no mobile arc) but beyond those special cases, you need to play what you get. As you can see from my list above, I had a fair mix of less than ideal upgrades, some of which were literally useless.

My opponent was a god-awful, surly, rude, terrible, no good, very-bad, monster named Tom (that enough of a roasting Tom?). In truth, he was an excellent opponent. Friendly and relaxed which made for a fun game. He had some experience with TTS so was very helpful in getting past the newbie mistakes. Jank Tank runs on a max of 12 turns rather than a 75min timer so our game took a bit longer than normal but it never felt like it was dragging.

Compared to mine, Tom won the Jank Tank lottery with his list, having Rey in the Falcon and a BB-8 Pod with C-3P0. He added GA-97 with his upgrade addition, which allowed BB-8 to coordinate him from anywhere on the board. GA-97 also allowed him “It’s the Resistance!” to bring his Fireball in behind my list at a great time.

But don’t mistake me, his list was not overpowered nor was mine complete garbage. That’s the fun of Jank Tank. Making the best use of what you have. He played well and made excellent use of the pieces he was given. I made more mistakes than I care to admit. Dice certainly played a role, killing a three health Ezra, range three, through a rock when he rolled no evades on those four dice.

Overall, it was a fun game and I wish him luck in the next round. My main disappointment is this is a single elimination event so that’s it for me. I might look into more online events. With omicron spreading like wildfire, I doubt we’ll see an increase in local tournaments in the near future.

Variations

This list, as generated, has 10 points of completely useless upgrades. Targeting Computer on a Z-95 does nothing since it already has the Lock action. R2 Astromech and Angled Deflector cancel each other out. And the Blade Wing Prototype is paying 1pt to gain a Gunner Slot you don’t use. There were a further 22pts of not very good upgrades. Static Discharge Vanes are pretty bad. Munitions Failsafe and Ion Torpedo aren’t particularly valuable, especially on an already expensive B-Wing that wants to fire cannons anyways. Compassion isn’t completely worthless, especially at only 1pt, but its better on a higher hulled ship or pilots with multiple Force.

I opted to change Angled Deflectors to Chopper because that was a 6pt combo of uselessness. Ezra wants to Coordinate as much as possible so he isn’t likely to Reinforce. Chopper gave me the option to Coordinate on turns he takes a red maneuver, which with Ezra’s ability, enhances the value of his Force point. The combo never came up in this one game but it could have.

If you wanted to fly this combo of ships, you’d probably want to move the XX-23 to Cracken since he fires first. Then, with the other 32pts of upgrades, you’re better off getting another Z-95, FCS on the B-Wing, a 1pt Talent on Cracken, and Leia as a crew on the Sheathipede. I had one turn where everyone took red and, if I had had Leia, the whole game might have gone differently.

Barring that, you’re honestly better off taking that 32pts and turning the two Bandits into X-Wings.

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