Welcome to Capital Ship, the blog for X-Wing, Armada, and Imperial Assault. I hope you’ll enjoy our posts, and I’m looking forward to writing about these games for years to come. Before I get into things, let me introduce myself.

My name is Tom Bouwman-Wozencraft. I’m a game designer and writer living in wonderful New England enjoying the silly weather we get up here. I’ve been playing various tabletop wargames for over ten years, and was a huge card game fan for years before that. Now, in my mid twenties, I’ve finally caved and picked up X-Wing, and I’ve fallen in love with the game and pretty much everything published by Fantasy Flight Games. After placing in the top three in two straight store tournaments (before which I’d only played a couple games), I’ve managed to get a good grasp on the game and it’s tactics. I’m no expert of course, but I enjoy discussion, so now I’m sharing the insights I have to help fuel more thoughts about X-Wing and it’s upcoming spin-offs.

Now, without further ado, let’s talk tactics!

Positioning

History is full of battles won not because of technology, or numbers, but because one side or the other outmaneuvered their opponent. This holds true in nearly every strategy game in existence, particularly in X-Wing. As a 10-year veteran of Warhammer 40,000, I learned that setup and reaction can win or lose games regardless of the lists. While 40k has had some balance issues that made this less relevant, almost any game of X-Wing can be won by outmaneuvering your opponent, regardless of lists. Make a bad move, and you’re toast. Learn to either plan or react well, and you’ll fly straight to victory. Here are a few cards that help you improve your ability to react and adapt your positioning!

Maneuverable Ships

Some ships/pilots are great at maneuvering just on their own, or have excellent potential with the right upgrade. Most of these get even better with upgrades, so keep that in mind.

TIE Interceptor

Right at the top of this list sits one of the most famous ships for reaction movement and arc-dodging. The Tie/IN is the only ship in the game to come standard with both Boost and Barrel Roll on it’s action bar, giving it a wide array of options for getting into and out of any situation. A standard upgrade for the Interceptor is Push The Limit (allowing two actions), granting it incredible reactionary mobility. Unfortunately, the Interceptor suffers from a lack of a System upgrade, which means it will never have the chance to use it’s barrel roll to move out from behind an asteroid used as cover.

TIE Phantom / “Echo”

The other strong reaction tool, the Phantom’s decloaking can put it in all sorts of places, giving you multiple options to move *before* you even use your maneuver for the turn. The inclusion of a System upgrade allows it take Advanced Sensors, so it can use a Barrel Roll after it’s decloak maneuver. This can allow ridiculous maneuvers around asteroids, bump avoidance/creation, and the like. Although a Phantom can take Engine Upgrade to gain Boost, it’s at the cost of losing Advanced Cloaking Device, which is what will grant you that decloak maneuver every turn. As a personal note, make sure that if you miss your shot and didn’t get to cloak again, you aren’t counting on that cloak move when planning your next move (cost me a game in my last tourney. I crashed Echo right into an asteroid like a pro.)

“Echo” deserves a quick special note, as his decloak move turns rather than shifting the model straight to one side or the other. After using Echo in my last tourney, I was impressed with his capability to just…. be places he shouldn’t. When dialing in maneuvers for Echo, think about anywhere your opponent could be, and then dial a maneuver that will give you the most options of decloak locations. It’s tempting to lock into one fantastic move, but face it, you never know what someone will be flipping up. Far better to have a wide range of options than to lock into one that might not work out in the end.

Vader

Jumping the gun a little, but I want to talk Vader briefly. His two actions would be fantastic if he came standard with boost, but Engine Upgrade is necessary to turn him into the monster he can be. A week ago I wouldn’t have included him in this list, but the new spoiled cards from the Imperial Raider vastly improved the TIE Advanced. While it’s possible to throw Engine Upgrade and Push The Limit on any TIE Advanced with an Elite slot and give it the capabilities of an Interceptor, the cost is a little high. Vader negates this issue by basically giving you an advanced version of Push The Limit. Throwing Advanced Sensors on him with the upcoming X1 title card turns vader into a fast, reactionary monster able to get wherever he wants to. Just be aware that using Advanced Sensors will cut off your second action.

TIE Defender

Although not the best on the reactionary front, the Tie Defender is the only ship in the game with a white K-turn, which gives it a massive advantage that no other ship has. “yo-yo-ing” is k-turning every round with a Tie defender, taking shots at any target in range. Defenders are frustrating ships to chase down as a result, since they don’t have to care about making turns to get where they need to go.

Jake Farrell

Jake is unique in that he is the only A-Wing pilot with access to Barrel Roll, granting him extra mobility that the ship normally doesn’t have access to. In addition he synergizes well with other rebel ships, allowing him to take actions when another ship grants him a Focus Token. This can even lead to him potentially boosting/barrel rolling multiple times before he even activates. It also means there’s no reason at all to use the boost action on his card, since it’s better to just Focus and get the free boost instead. The exception would be if you’re using Push The Limit (Use Focus and Boost as your actions, with Barrel Roll as your free action from Focus). As an added bonues, teh A-Wing maneuver dial is one of the best in the game, so no matter what your goal is, it’s likely that Jake can get there.

YT-2400 / Dash Rendar

I’m a huge fan of Dash. The meta in my local store has been leaning towards Eaden Vrill for the YT-2400, but I prefer Dash’s ignorance of asteroids. The YT-2400’s ability to barrel roll gives it incredible mobility, and Dash in particular capitalizes on that. Ignoring asteroids means you can plot a treacherous path through the worst parts of the board (not easy for large ships) and come out unscathed on the other side. Unfortunately, landing on an obstacle once you’re finished with all your moves still disallows you from attacking, so be sure that whatever your plan, it leaves you clear once you’ve finished your actions. The YT-2600 doesn’t have a “go-to” Modification or Elite Talent, so taking Engine Upgrade and Push The Limit can turn this ship into a lightning-fast response unit.

B-Wing / Keyan Farlander

Not quite as powerful as the others mentioned here, Keyan is still a powerful mobility piece when used right. Though he technically can take Engine Upgrade, your Modification slot is probably better served by taking the B-Wing/E2 upgrade, as there are multiple Crew cards that the B-wing and Keyan in particular can benefit from. Instead, take advantage of Advanced Sensors and, on Keyan, his pilot ability. Keyan can then Barrel roll, K-turn, and have an offensive focus prepped that’ll clear that stress for your next turn. This also allows Keyan to “yo-yo” in a similar manner to the TIE Defender, assuming he has a shot every turn. Stay On Target also works incredibly well here because of Keyan’s stress-eating ability. Take your action first, barrel roll if necessary, and then turn the direction you need to. Eat the stress up for focus and be ready to adapt to the situation again next turn!

Upgrade cards

While there are a lot of good upgrade cards for mobility, i’m going to quickly cover the most important ones, all of which I’ve already mentioned.

Engine Upgrade

Arguably the most important card for adding mobility, Engine Upgrade can give boost to any ship. Boost is the best reactionary Action in the game, and can get you anywhere you need to be. More importantly, it can make normally slow ships like the Lambda shuttle into decently maneuverable tubs. Pricey, but often worth it. A boost can jump you from range 2 to range 1, closing for a killshot. Unfortunately this card is near impossible to get ahold of right now, but once Wave 6 and the Wave 1-2 reprints hit shelves, this won’t be an issue anymore.

Stay on Target

Stay On Target is a relatively new card, and I’ve been surprised not to see it used often in games yet. For two points, you can change your heading for the cost of a stress token. Especially good on any unit that loves stress tokens (looking at you, Keyan Farlander), this card is easily the best reactionary tool in the game. When paired up with Advanced Sensors, it even allows you to get in your action as well, which could even include a boost or barrel roll for even better reaction mobility. The downsides of this card are twofold. First off, unless you have a way of shrugging stress (such as Keyan or Captain Yorr), the card’s ability will only be useable every other turn. Secondly, without a System upgrade to buy Advanced Sensors, it prevents use of any actions. Fortunately, Keyan Farlander ignores both these things, allowing the ability to not only choose your course, but gain an offensive Focus (to be used to get rid of stress), as well as a target lock or pre-maneuver barrel roll. Overall, decent option for it’s points, unless it’s on Keyan, at which point it almost becomes a must-have.

Advanced Sensors

Although not immediately apparent, Advanced Sensors is a powerful maneuvering tool for two reasons. The first being the ability to Barrel Roll or Boost before moving normally, allowing asteroid dodging and trajectory changes. This already turns Advanced Sensors into a valuable reactionary tool. It’s second major use is to perform an action before taking a red maneuver, essentially giving you an action even though you’re stressing. Although not a direct increase of mobility, it does reduce the impact of taking a red move, which can turn K-turns into rather scary maneuvers for your opponent. Stay On Target works well with Advanced Sensors for this reason as well, ignoring the impact of the red maneuver you’re about to take. The downside of Advanced Sensors comes in the form of it’s upgrade type. Not many ships have access to System upgrades, so this limits the uses of this excellent tool.

Push The Limit

Easily one of the most used Elite Talents in the game right now, Push The Limit allows more frequent use of mobility actions, and works best on ships that have access to either Barrel Roll or Boost, particularly both. It’s practically required on any TIE Interceptor that can take Elite Talents thanks to the ship having both mobility actions built in, allowing the ship to easily get anywhere it wants. Push The Limit is also a way to preserve mobility while maintaining any firepower desired from taking Focus or Target Lock actions. Unfortunately, taking the stress can make PTL a difficult card to handle in some situations, particularly when a ship has very few green maneuvers on it’s dial. Also, PTL doesn’t work particularly well with Advanced Sensors, as taking that second action before revealing a red maneuver will mean handing your dial to your opponent.

Conclusion

Mobility and reactionary actions are the most powerful tools in a player’s arsenal in X-wing, and maximizing those capabilities is the first step to victory. I hope you all find these reviews helpful when designing your next squad, and I’ll see you all next time around!