When I first started playing X-Wing, I got into the game with two friends. There were only three factions at that time, and one of my friends wanted to play Rebels and the other one wanted to play Empire. So, not having a very clear idea of how the factions within the game operated, I figured I should probably play the Scum and Villainy faction. At that point the M3-A Scyk Interceptor had just been released into First Edition, so I bought one because it was the Scum ship that was on the shelves at the local game stores. Even as a complete noob, I could quickly tell that this ship was way below par for the X-Wing course. So it never really saw a ton of play from me.

Nor did it see a lot of competitive play from much of anyone else even with the two title “fixes” that came with the C-ROC expansion. For a very brief moment in First Edition’s history there was a Scyk regularly included in one iteration of the powerhouse list Parattanni, but that was less because of any value the ship had, and more because it gave access to the cheapest Talent carrier Scum could bring to the table. So for a time, top tables saw a lonely M3-A Interceptor endlessly 1-turning in the corner, providing focuses to the real workhorses of the squad. Then the ship’s short time somewhat close to the limelight passed, and it hasn’t been seen on top tables since.

I had hoped that at the launch of Second Edition the ship would be priced decently. It was not. At the first points change, Scum generally got hit hard and the M3-A remained too pricey. In the second points change it still didn’t get any love from the powers that be at Fantasy Flight Games. All of the M3-A’s seem highly overpriced when comparing any of them to the price of the Resistance Transport Pod or the Alpha-Class StarWing. I can only imagine that they were waiting to see how the ship would perform after they released what might actually turn out to be the first truly decent cannon of Second Edition, the Autoblaster.

On the FFG forums theBitterFig started a thread all about how good Autoblasters actually are, and included lots of math stuff. I am not really a math kinda guy, so I’m forced to just believe that they actually did all those math-y things correctly. Those results confirm what my few games with them have told me: they’re pretty decent. Certainly not broken. But decent. If you can pair them with Marksmanship as a means to generate critical results, then maybe they edge a bit better than just decent.

I’ve been running three Tansarii Point Veterans all with Autoblasters and Marksmanship, paired with my standard Guri (Afterburners, Advanced Sensors, and Outmaneuver). Overall, the M3-A’s feel pretty darn good. They move a little faster than I would like them to at times, but a couple of 1 hard turns followed by barrel rolls and they slow down nicely.

I try to arrange my setup and initial play in such a way that my opponent has to choose between allowing an Outmaneuver Guri to get behind their list, or letting the Scyks with their then unblockable crits to flank them. It plays into a style of list I quite enjoy. Present my opponent with a couple of tough choices and try to make whatever choice they make the wrong one. I run the Scyks in a fairly tight triangle formation so that their bull’s-eyes will have less than a small base ship’s length in between them, and I typically manage to get at least one bull’s-eye to line up during most engagements. The biggest issue I’ve found with Autoblasters so far is that the heavy bull’s-eye dependency tends to encourage splitting fire. With this build-out, the Scyks have significantly more potential damage output in bull’s-eye than out of it. When you end up with two separate ships in different bull’s-eyes, it can be difficult to force yourself to take the out of bull’s-eye shot even when it really is the correct choice. If course, sometimes splitting fire can be the correct choice, especially in this world where every ship can give up half points: some damage on a lesser priority target is better than no damage on a worse shot at a high priority target. But you have to have either the experience or the math chops to know what the correct choice actually is in that moment.

On the subject of uncancelable crits, at first glance that seems awesome, and maybe even a little bit overpowered. But when you take into account the fact that critical results get cancelled last in the normal order of things… it isn’t quite as amazing. Against a high shield count, one defense die tank of a ship, it’s a bit underwhelming. But against a token-stacked, three green die, low health ace, it’s game changing when it pushes those crits through.

So, the list isn’t an amazing, unbeatable thing. I’ve managed to lose quite spectacularly with it, mostly because of my own incompetence. Like dropping Guri tokenless in multiple arcs because I misjudged a barrel roll. I feel like if I were better at the game, maybe there could really be something there. I’ll keep at it, and maybe with enough time and practice, I’ll win more games with the Scyks than I lose with them. And that will feel like quite the win.

I don’t see M3-A’s becoming meta monsters anytime soon. But I do think that Autoblasters could push them to the point that maybe, just maybe, you’ll start to see a few Scyks out in the wild, roaming around tables at your local gaming store, maybe even as a part of some winning lists. Maybe.

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