Rogue Squadron- Ruthless Fours

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 (Hyperspace)

TIE Reaper “Major Vermeil” (Wave 6) (53ts) (I4)

While you perform an attack, if the defender does not have any green tokens, you may change 1 of your blank or Focus results to a Hit result.

Adaptive Ailerons: Before you reveal your dial, if you are not stressed, you must execute a white 1 straight or 1 bank maneuver.

• Modification- Hull Upgrade (Wave 1): Add one hull point.
• Talent- Ruthless (Wave 1): While you perform an attack, you may choose another friendly ship at range 0-1 of the defender. If you do, that ship suffers 1  damage and you may change 1 of your die results to a Hit result.

TIE Advanced x1 “Ved Foslo” (Wave 1) (47ts) (I4)

While you execute a maneuver, you may execute a maneuver of the same bearing and difficulty of a speed 1 higher or lower instead.

• Sensor- Fire Control System (Wave 1):While you perform an attack, if you have a lock on the defender, you may reroll 1 attack die. If you do, you cannot spend your lock during this attack.
• Talent- Ruthless (Wave 1): While you perform an attack, you may choose another friendly ship at range 0-1 of the defender. If you do, that ship suffers 1  damage and you may change 1 of your die results to a Hit result.

TIE Striker “Pure Sabaac” (Wave 3) (50ts) (I4)

While you perform an attack, if you have 1 or fewer damage cards, you may roll 1 additional attack die.

Adaptive Ailerons: Before you reveal your dial, if you are not stressed, you must execute a white 1 straight or 1 bank maneuver.

• Modification- Hull Upgrade (Wave 1): Add one hull point.
• Talent- Ruthless (Wave 1): While you perform an attack, you may choose another friendly ship at range 0-1 of the defender. If you do, that ship suffers 1  damage and you may change 1 of your die results to a Hit result.

TIE Striker “Countdown” (Wave 3) (50ts) (I4)

While you defend, after the Neutralize Results step, if you are not stressed, you may suffer 1 Hit damage and gain 1 stress token. If you do, cancel all dice results.

Adaptive Ailerons: Before you reveal your dial, if you are not stressed, you must execute a white 1 straight or 1 bank maneuver.

• Modification- Hull Upgrade (Wave 1): Add one hull point.
• Talent- Ruthless (Wave 1): While you perform an attack, you may choose another friendly ship at range 0-1 of the defender. If you do, that ship suffers 1  damage and you may change 1 of your die results to a Hit result.

Lock S-Foils in Attack Position

I’ve been toying with Strikers for the next ship review. The two most aggressive Striker pilots are I4. So, I thought, why not double down on that aggressiveness and use Ruthless?  There is enough hull spread around the list that they can afford to use Ruthless when it earns them good damage on their opponent. Pure Sabaac would prefer Extended and a shield upgrade but since they’re all I4, fire with him first and pass damage on to him only after he’s lost his ability. Countdown can afford to absorb a Ruthless shot thanks to his ability to mitigate incoming damage.  That way you can use Ruthless with ruthless abandon.

I originally paired them with a bunch of TIE Fighters but then thought better of it. They have such few hull points. Ruthless needs some beefy allies. Reapers are tough and hull upgrade is cheap on them. Ved Foslo fits in nicely with the remaining points. He’s not as beefy as a second Reaper but I don’t have two Reapers. Also, he doesn’t get enough love.

Vermeil wants to fire after the target has had its tokens stripped by your other ships and can end up with very reliable damage. With his medium base he’s comparatively easy to get into range for your other ships to trigger Ruthless. He also is your damage sponge for that.

Variations

You could trade the FCS in and move a hull upgrade from a Striker to the Advanced. Or switch to Extended and change the Strikers hull to shield upgrades.

You could trade Voslo in for Captain Feroph if you wanted some more hull. But he wouldn’t be able to take Ruthless himself and would have to fire last at I3.