DISCLAIMER: As of 2/28/19, FFG has adjusted points so that running Tripsilon is now no longer possible. Rest in piece, you monster list.

Most X-Wing players are probably familiar with the “Rule of Eleven.” For those who may not be, I’ll give you a brief summary. The Rule of Eleven says that if both players in a game of X-Wing set up directly across from each other and as far forward as they can, it will take them a combined total of eleven base lengths of movement toward each other to be within range for combat. Throughout most of First Edition and, until recently, Second Edition, it was a hard and fast rule that you had to cover at least those eleven base lengths to begin combat. But now that Lieutenant Dormitz and Hyperspace Tracking Data have been released in the First Order conversion kit, they have initiated a new rule into X-Wing: the Rule of Four.

When the lists that were submitted to Outryder Cup VIII were released, I was shocked to see that five out of nine teams had submitted a triple Upsilon list as one of the lists they were bringing for the two Hyperspace rounds. I had heard mention that triple Upsilon might be a relevant list, but I had kind of dismissed the idea. I had played against Upsilons in First Edition, and while they seemed like they were somewhat improved in Second Edition, they still didn’t have any means of turning around even remotely quickly. All you have to do is get behind them, right?

Well, when I saw how plentiful they were going to be at this tournament, I decided that I really needed to get some table time in against them to see what the draw was. Two days later, I set down my committed Outryder list, Poe, Nien, and Lu’lo, in the basement of a fellow Arch Alliance member, and we set out to see if we could figure out a win condition for me against the Tripsilon list.

Hyperspace

(68) Poe Dameron

(2) R4 Astromech

(0) Integrated S-foils

(1) Heroic

(5) Pattern Analyzer

(2) Black One

(9) Proton Torpedoes

Points 87

(55) Nien Numb

(0) Integrated S-foils

(1) Heroic

(5) Pattern Analyzer

(9) Proton Torpedoes

Points 70

(38) L’ulo L’ampar

(1) Heroic

(4) Advanced Optics

Points 43

Total points: 200

Triple Upsilon

(60) Lieutenant Dormitz

(2) Hyperspace Tracking Data

(5) Collision Detector

Points 67

(62) Lieutenant Tavson

(5) Collision Detector

(2) Hyperspace Tracking Data

Points 69

(56) Starkiller Base Pilot

(5) Collision Detector

(2) Hyperspace Tracking Data

Points 63

Total points: 199

Now, I’ll make no claims that my Hyperspace list is the best out there, or that I’m amazing at playing it. But I do think it’s fairly solid. I’ve won more games with it than I’ve lost, and my losses were reasonably close. Until these games, that is. Thus far in my experience with Second Edition games, I’ve found it to be generally true that if your list was decent and you were good at playing it, you had a chance against almost anything you might run into. Maybe it wasn’t much of a chance, but if you flew really well, if your opponent made a few mistakes and the dice went your way, then amazing things could happen. Even against the current meta boogeymen of Whisper/Soontir/Redline, the games still felt winnable.

But that Sunday afternoon we sat for two hours and tried to figure out some sort of setup that would give me a chance to turn these match-ups into even a semblance of a game, and we came up with nothing. I haven’t felt that helpless in a game since playing against Ghost/Fenn in the waning days of First Edition, after FFG seemed to have given up even trying for any sort of balance in the game. After those two hours of trying different setups to see if anything could give me any sort of an edge, we concluded that, much like when I had to face Ghost/Fenn, my best bet was to try to snatch what few points I could for some MOV, then concede to the inevitable and rest up for the next game.

Ghost/Fenn. Not a negative gameplay experience in the slightest.

For those unfamiliar with how the squad works, I’ll go into a bit of detail. Hyperspace Tracking Data is the first part of the glue that holds this squad together. All three Upsilons have it equipped. The first part of the card reads, “Before placing forces, you may choose a number between 0 and 6. Treat your initiative as the chosen value during Setup.” So you have the option to place all three of your ships with nearly perfect information at I6. First, you place Lieutenant Dormitz, likely almost exactly straight across the board from wherever your opponent set up either his entire squad or the ship you want off the board first. Then Dormitz’ ability will allow you to place your other two ships out to range two from his location. Thus, if you place Dormitz to the edge of range one, your other two Upsilons will be able to place with the rear of their bases at the edge of range three from your board edge. Because the ships are large bases, the front of your forward ships are only half a small base length shy of being set up at range four from your board edge. If you were to set up at the edge of your range one border, the total number of base lengths that need to be covered to initiate combat is four.

Disclaimer: The Resistance setup is a placeholder. It does not represent optimal setup against Tripsilon.

Now the second part of Hyperspace Tracking Data kicks in. “After Setup, assign 1 focus or evade token to each friendly ship at range 0-2.” Because each of your ships have Hyperspace Tracking Data, all three of them start the game with both a focus and two evade tokens. With the large base, if you dial in a three forward, you will be in range to acquire a target lock even on a small base ship that was set up as far back as possible. So typically all three of your ships will move three forward, the front two will target lock, and Dormitz will coordinate a reinforce to the Starkiller Base Pilot.

Before Nien, Lu’lo, or Poe have moved, they are all in range of being shot.

Combat happens on the very first round of the game. The Upsilons typically enter the first round of combat with fully modded four dice shots, double evades across the board, and reinforce on the Starkiller Base Pilot. If your opponent chooses to target Lieutenant Tavson, his ability will allow him to take an action if he takes damage, so he gets a reinforce as well. If your opponent chooses to bump or block one of the front two Upsilons, that puts them in range of Dormitz.

If I chose to joust with my Poe/Nien/Lu’lo list, if everything went my way and I got full hits across two Proton Torpedoes, and had Lu’lo range one and stressed to throw four dice, also with full hits, that is a total of twelve hits and crits. Three shots fired with full hits means that reinforce takes away three of those hits. The evade tokens guarantee two more hits mitigated. If any natural evades are rolled then I’m just barely getting through the shields of one Upsilon; maybe I get one or two hull damage. The X-Wing Probability Calculator says that the expected damage to the Upsilon is only 2.9 hits. In return, my T-70’s will take 5.2 hits on average, and Lu’lo would vanish in a puff of smoke if he were targeted. One shot from a range one Upsilon kills him on average, with 3.9 hits expected.

If I chose not to joust, then the Upsilons can still force a turn one combat scenario, with probably much worse first round results, because they will be taking free shots with no return fire to worry about.

Either way, one of my ships is likely to be almost destroyed on the first round of the game, in return for maybe taking a few shields. After that, the maneuverability of my ships comes more into play, and I can begin to make up some ground. However. What I found in my play-testing was that I spent so much time and energy simply trying to avoid getting caught in those three huge large based arcs that I barely got any meaningful shots in. Each game, after the first round, two of my ships were constantly in danger of getting one-shotted; so, I was never able to make much headway.

Now, I’m not saying it isn’t possible to beat it, only that for most lists it will likely be an uphill climb. In our testing so far, we’ve found that very fast ships have about the only chance of successfully evading the first round alpha strike from the Tripsilons. Setting up near a corner, against your board edge, and facing towards the center of the board with small base ships that have a five forward and a boost can mostly get you out of the initial damage. Of course, there is counter-play possible from the Tripsilon player to set up closer toward the center, but then it largely becomes a 50/50 as to whether you five forward boost, or hard turn towards your opponent’s board edge as short as you can. If they call which 50/50 you go for, you’re likely screwed. But if they don’t make the correct call, you can begin your uphill climb toward a possible victory. If the Tripsilons are built out incorrectly and don’t have Collision Detector, then, of course, rock placement becomes of paramount importance, and you can set up rocks to interrupt the ideal location for their round one engagement.

Fortunately, the Tripsilons do actually require some skill with large bases and some foresight in playing against a prepared opponent, so not everyone who picks up this list and throws it on a table will be able to make it work to its full effect. And if your squad can survive the first round of the game largely intact, the Tripsilons will never again have that same level of token stacking available to them. It isn’t a full on monster, but it will be a gatekeeper list in the coming months. Provided, of course, that FFG doesn’t change points around on the 28th to make the squad unplayable. But only time will tell.

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