This midweek post sees a rare “taking a break from Boba Guri” moment, because lets be honest, you’ve had nothing but Guri and Boba from me for the last couple of weeks. In the scum faction, after the Firespray and the Star Viper, there is one other ship I truly love. I do really want to give it a run out now the game has changed somewhat. The ship formerly known as the Protectorate, now known officially as the Fang. Ever since I first saw it in Rebels I have had a bit of a crush on it.

I’m quite excited now we have a distinct line between Extended and Second Edition, it will be interesting to see what the future holds. I’m getting the hang of Boba Guri and it is beginning to work well, but until Guri turns up in 2.0 she’s going to be Extended format only. What if events are purely Second Edition? (a fairly safe assumption that this will be the case at some point) For me the Fang is one of the few ships I can see trying to fill her rather large shoes.

A Chassis to Die For/In?

The Fang is still fundamentally the same in second edition to first. It has no shields, 4 hull. The dial is the same. The pilot abilities are the same. The changes that matter in 2.0 are:

No mod slot. One of the few ships in the game to not be able to take a modification. But is that an issue? I think it fits with the theme of the ship, a stripped back, sleek fighter. A shield or afterburner would be the mod of choice surely? But either of those would dramatically increase the cost of the ship and I’m not sure how much they would actually add.

No Push The Limit (also no Mindlink). One of the scariest things in first edition was Fenn Rau rolling up to you and taking a target lock and focus at range one. You just knew the pain was coming. He can’t do that in one turn now. To take a lock he has to risk having no focus token. And Fangs really like focus tokens. We’ll look at chain actions in a bit.

No Concorde Dawn Protector. Instead the vastly superior Concordia Face-Off. Just be being shot at range one and you get a guaranteed evade, seems good. Much easier to trigger than the Protector was and with free evades feeling very much a thing of the past now that Autothrusters are no more it’s a bit good.

Looking at the dial and the actions available the ship clearly fits into the dogfighter category. With quite a few things able to give out stress (looking especially at 4-Lom here, but the likes of Ventress, 0-0-0, Sabine are all things to be aware of too) chaining actions isn’t always the best option. I think this is true as a rule of thumb, often a single action and an open dial are better than restricting your dial by doing 2 actions every turn.

The Fang has such a good dial and personally I think running it stressed makes it a much less effective ship. The way the Fang is meant to fight means you’re going to want the hard one and the Talon more than you may on other ships. When the Fang is stressed it becomes uncomfortably predictable. It suffers from “Interceptor Syndrome” which means that your opponent can pretty much bank on you doing a hard 2 almost every turn to clear the stress. This gets you blocked. Blocked leaves you with no focus. No focus leaves you dead.

Why are Skull Squadron Cool?

They’re a bunch of Mandalorians who fought alongside the Galactic Republic in the Clone wars at the Battle of Mygeeto, turning the tide of the battle and saving the Jedi who were about to get wrecked by the Separatists. Considering Mandalorians and Jedi have a very patchy history I think that was kind of big of them. Fifteen years later and Fenn Rau got to become a B list character in Rebels, turning against those who were subservient to the Empire and joining the crew of the Ghost. He threw away his awesome fighter, started flying a Sheathipede and Co-ordinating Pilot Skill 11 boosts on the Ghost. Then X-Wing 2.0 was born and he went back to being fun!

The Pilots of Skull Squadron?

Fenn Rau (68 points) – Skull Leader is arguably the purest glass cannon in the game. Where Soontir Fel is a scalpel, Fenn is a sledgehammer. His main purpose: threaten, bully and intimidate. The amount of games I have played where the mere threat of running into Fenn has been enough to make my opponent make a mistake is in the tens. He is at his most durable and damaging at range one. It’s a good place to be, but be there at the right time and on your own terms.

Old Teroch (56 points) – The Bane of the TIE Defender. As much as Fenn wants to be at range one so does Old T. The value of his ability has arguably increased in 2.0. Where there are significantly less passive mods (such as Expertise) tokens are more important than ever when it comes to dealing or avoiding damage. His ability to nullify the green tokens means that he makes everyone shooting at the striken ship more vulnerable. Unlike Fenn though he is not a one man army, and he likes having friends to help him.

Joy Reckoff (52 points) – The Really Not So Good Wedge. I’m a bit lost as to what she is about. Her ability requires having a torp to make it work, which means spending at least 6 points) then you want to double down on that to make her really effective, so Outmanoeuvre as the talent. Which means you have spent 12 points on her to get her effective, and the torps trick only works twice in a game, making her 64 points seems a bit foolish, if she was I5 or 6 then she might be worth it. Pretty sure she’s not very good.

Kad Solus ( 54 points) – The Focussed One. Kad was one of my favourite ships in first edition. He was phenomenal as a mindlink battery as he would always give out a focus no matter what he did. His ability hasn’t changed at all. More than any other Fang he wants to keep his dial open and have the option to do those red moves. If he takes the initial joust on then jumps behind his opponent he gets to keep putting pressure on. His lower initiative value also makes him a very useful blocker against aces.

Skull Squadron Pilot (50 points) – Very good initiative for a generic ship, still has the Face-Off ability and the option on a Talent, but at 4 points less than Kad and 6 points less than Old T I can’t see these ships being go to options unless you really don’t have the points for anything more.

Zealous Recruit (44 points) – It’s an initiative 1 ship that wants to be at range one of things, it has 2 re-positional options. It might as well have the word blocker stapled to its forehead If it survives long enough to shoot it has a big gun and it’s pretty cheap.

Skull Squadron, and where you may find them.

Ah, it’s list building time. Both Fenn and Old T have found their way into an abundance of lists since they arrived in X-Wing. They are relatively cheap bit hitting ships that have valuable abilities. Ben Barber and George Barker have both been partnering them with a stripped down Guri. Jesper Winstrom and Dom Flannigan running Fenn with 4-Lom and Palob. Cormac Higgins has been bullying people with Han Solo and Fenn, the Fang fits into a lot of lists and can do a very effective job.

So far in 16 tournament games in 2.0 I have run into 7 Fenns and 5 Terochs, these boys are popular at the moment, even if you’re flying with them then odds are you are going to fly against them.

Personally I am less of a fan of using Fangs with other things. I like Fangs, Fangs and more Fangs, and there are two list that I think the purist Fang player should take some time to investigate. So here are a couple of Skull Squadron only lists to look at:

Skull Leader’s Training Day.

This one is dead simple. Fenn Rau and 3 Zealous Recruits is exactly 200 points. You get no Talents, no Initiative bid, but you do get 12 attack dice, three blockers and an ace. I think this list has real legs and I do want to give it a go. It should burn down what ever it is shooting at pretty easily provided they all get to shot.

Skull Squadron’s Triple Threat.

The top dogs of Skull Squadron get together, take the Talent that suits them the most, Fearless (it’s even got a picture of one of Skull Squadron flying a Fang on the card) and put them on the table. Fenn, Old T and Kad coming in at a measly 187 points. 3 Ships that have great abilities, can dodge, can joust, and should be able to close to range one of pretty much anything and smash it very hard in the face.

How to fly them?

You have to fly these ships well, they will punish you if you make a mistake. So “fly better”. I want to take a few moment to look at those two words, what do they actually mean? The concept means that you are responsible for your wins and loses. Your choices make a match up in your favour or your opponents, consistently choosing the right move and action for the ship you are flying is “Flying Better”

“Fly Better” does not mean that once in a while you won’t roll 4 Blanks that totally change the game, what it means is that should happen less (bad dice happen, it is one of the inevitable consequences of playing a dice game). If you are relying on naked dice then there is a good chance you have flown worse, you have made a decision that puts you in a vulnerable place.

“Fly Better” does not mean that you can choose to just be a better pilot than your opponent and win by default. A whole host of factors go into whether you win or lose a game that are decided before you even find out who you are playing. The first being what list they are using? Sometimes you will run into something that you are just going to find really hard to beat, welcome to X-Wing where well placed bombs wreck swarms, swarms flatten big ships, big ships grind down aces and aces wriggle around bombs… and any other number of combinations. Sometimes Fly Better is not an option when it comes to beating a list.

More importantly the person you are going to play is not a factor you can control. To brazenly say “well just Fly Better” in response to “how do I win this game?” does a disservice to your opponent, and assumes that you can just be better than them. Some people are just really good at this game, and they will out think you, outmanoeuvre you and beat you. These are the games you want. These are the most important games you can play, because these are the games you look back on and learn. Give your opponent the credit and ask “What did they do RIGHT?” before you ask the more egotistical question “What did I do wrong?” Identifying your own mistakes is vital, and you won’t get better without it, but learning from others experience could mean you make a whole lot less in future!

Occasionally there is the pure 50/50 moment. Where if you do A and your opponent does C then you get the drop on them. Conversely if they do D and you do A they get the drop on you, but if you do B then you get them. You’re both in a spot with two choices. You’re both literally trying to guess which of the two choices the other has made. This isn’t bad play, this is one of those X-Wing moments where you have go with your read on the opponent, either that or you toss a coin and see what side it lands on. When decision A and B are both equally valid don’t beat yourself up for going with the wrong one. Another day, another moment that same choice in that situation could have won you the game. So long as you know that you made the choice for the right reasons don’t beat yourself up over it.

However, if you find yourself relying on your dice to roll really well, or your opponent to roll really badly, then you have probably made a mistake on the way in. If you made every precaution and you still got wrecked then you can talk about being screwed by the dice. Other times, that Hail Mary might work and you win the game. Some people will say if you took on the that (against the odds) shot and got lucky you were “Flying Better”. Others will say that you just got lucky. Personally I think the only time you should every Hail Mary is when you have no other way to win the game: when you’re down on points and time is going to be called and that one off dice roll is your only option…

So, actually looking at how to fly them….

With Fangs “fly better” can basically be surmised with “don’t be at range 2”. At range 3 you have a lot of green dice and should have a focus. At range 1 you have Concordia Face-Off. Your opponent’s “Fly better” objective is to block you and hammer you at range two. Yours is to get to range one and mess them up. Learn the Rule of 11 (head to YouTube and search for it if you don’t know what it is), get your engagements right, range control is what wins or loses you games with these things.

Kill the right thing first. Fangs can deploy as a unit, or they can spread out. They are rapid enough to deploy apart and still support each other (especially if you don’t stress them) but they need to support one another and co-ordinate their attacks for maximum effect. If you get into a war of attrition eventually the dice will fall in favour of your opponent, they do not have the health to take repeated hits. Finish your target of fast, hit them hard then pick on the next thing.

Finally rocks, with small agile ships like these aim for a cluster in the middle. Try to channel your opponents ships into your guns and bring two or if possible three guns to bear on your target at as often as possible. When I’m flying them I want lanes of approach large enough to let me barrel roll, but in an ideal world my opponents lanes should be more limiting. Aim to have the rocks at your side of the asteroid field range 1.5 to 2 apart, but try to make your opponent have to approach with the minimum distance between them.

But be careful, give yourself escape routes, blasting fast past your opponents ships or diving out of the way with a hard turn is fine. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that just because Fangs excel at range one they need to stay there locked in combat all the time. Taking two or three turns to regroup and construct a proper second engagement is often better than keeping the pressure on your opponent with a less optimal engage.

A couple of things to watch out for:

After the TIE Interceptor the Fang is the ship least fond of bombs. Be very careful around them. You’ll feel the impact of one prox mine or proton bomb much more than most other ships will.

Things that strip tokens, like Teroch, Palob, and Ventress massively reduce your chance to survive incoming fire, avoid those triggers where possible. Kill them first where not. Think about initiative, not just for moving and shooting but for triggering start of combat abilities (like Old T). Sometimes moving first, even with Fenn is the right option, but you’ll have to make that on a game by game call. Moving first lets you set traps, moving second gives you the chance to avoid them.

Just because you can engage at range one head to head and trigger a load of abilities doesn’t mean you should. Getting shots in without getting shot back is still better than having Concordia Face-Off and Fearless trigger.

Conclusions?

Fangs are back, and they are able to mix it on the top tables. Flown well they are surprisingly durable, hard hitting and a lot of fun to fly. They provide an incredible play experience because every time those dice get rolled you clench a bit in anticipation that one of your ships is just going to go pop. I think they are at their best in a mixed squad, where you have some sneaky tricks to sharpen their cutting edge, but sometimes playing with a strong theme is just plain cool. If you’ve never picked one up, never flown one then have a play. You may be surprised at how something so simple can be quite so enjoyable.

Next Time: BACK TO B&G

If you are looking for X-Wing events then head to the 186th Tournament Calendar to see what you can get to.