Seeing as how I’ve actually had a weekend off playing X-Wing I thought I’d do something a bit different. There is one initiative value that contains pretty much all my Favourite ships, I’m not one for those low initiative generics, and as much as I love those super stars who qualify for the lofty heights of initiative 6 it’s the pilots at five who really get me excited when putting a list together, so I’ve made a list of my top 5 fives, and then tried to come up with five tips for getting the most out of them.

When I build ships I like to double down on their inherent qualities, it can make them very expensive and I like to run an initiative bid so I don’t tend to get a lot of ships in a list, it sometimes works, other times it really doesn’t.

Number 5

New in at number five we have Kylo Ren. I know Supernatural Reflexes is super expensive but I would quite happily get a copy of a that card and staple it to him. The ability to double re-position before revealing any one of your 8 blue moves and still take an action is pretty preposterous.

Kylo Ren Super Natural Reflexes Pattern Analyser Proton Torpedoes

The standard load out I would take on him is 117 points, but I could quite happily up that to 122 by changing pattern Analyser for Primed Thrusters.

Your opponent has to factor in your ability to spend a force point and perform anyone of 10 pre-positions you can go to (one being not moving), then they have to worry about the potential 9 second prepositions he can pull of after that. He’s totally unblockable, or should be. If your opponent blocks him it’s either cause you let them or they did a great move. When planning your moves you should have your “dream spot” in mind, but make sure that the same move can get you out of trouble if your opponent calls it. You can have a hard two end up in anyone of about 56 different places. The more you block off your supernatural options the easier you make your opponents job. You have the ability to wiggle and weave and stay in a fight. You’re also the fastest ship in the game. Disengaging is is a totally valid option when faced with overcoming odds. some times boost and a five forward are going to be the right thing to do. You can come back later. Only get stressed if you absolutely have to. Unless you are shelling out points for Primed Thrusters (which is kinda awesome) getting stressed will turn off your supernatural reflexes and means you’re likely to get stressed and stay stressed. If your opponent forces you to run on their terms and get stressed you are likely to end up stressed FOREVER. This is bad. I’ll Show You the Dark Side. Or rather I won’t. If it’s triggering you’re getting shot, which means you’ve got it wrong! Those force tokens are for two things, Supernatural and modding defence dice! Don’t spend excess force just because you have it. If you are going to use the ability the card to fish for is Panicked Pilot. Get Initiative Superiority. The rest of your list has one job, just one job, kill anything that moves after Kylo. If he is moving second you should have a field day picking your opportunities and taking them.

Kylo could be much higher in this list. I’ve only taken him to one event which knocks him down a bit, but I loved every second flying him.

Number 4

Old Teroch. Where Kylo wants to be moving second Old T doesn’t really care. Moving second is fine, moving first should be fine. Old Teroch is going to die. It’s the hard life of a Fang that they get popped, a lot.

Old Teroch Fearless

But Terry should be making sure that he is the single biggest thorn in your opponents side before he does.

Park him at range one of anything and invite them to “come and have a go”. Only thing is they get no tokens and you get Fearless,Concoridia Face Off and a focus token, and they get nothing. Don’t park him at range one of lots of things, or range two of anything. You’ll be surprises go fast he will die, or if you’ve flown a Fang before you’ll shrug and just accept your fate. Capitalise on your tokenless foe. Having Terry sit there and strip tokens is all well and good, but unless you have another ship tee’d up to come in and take advantage of it you’ve only done 50% of your job. Scum have an abundance of ships can do this. A lot of scum ships are basically great individuals that get thrown together into squads. Terry is not one of those, he is at his best being the anvil for the hammer of your list. Stress is optional. When I wrote the article focussing on Skull Squadron I was keen to point out that just because you can link actions all the time, you don’t have to. When a Fang isn’t stressed it is so much more mobile and harder to deal with. You’re really good at range one, but don’t be afraid to disengage. This is a GOOD rule for all ships but especially for the Fang. People generally expect these things to press the fight and stay up close and personal, so running a way for a turn or two to pick a better engagement is fine.

Number 3

Down one place to Number 3 from we have the great, the mighty, the ruthless Boba Fett. Where once he sat as my favourite ship in the game he has been pushed down by two others.

Boba Fett Slave 1 Trickshot

This build of Boba is cheap(ish) and effective. He’s wonderful with toys, but he can get wildly out of control very quickly.

Your rear arc is as good as your front arc. This is so obvious but the amount of people who seem to forget it amazes me. Boba has gone from being the consummate jouster to being a kite. Against Fangs for example Fearless doesn’t trigger if Fenn is pointing at your rear arc, nor does Concordia Face Off, but your re-rolls do if he’s at range one. With two arcs taking a talent that only triggers out of the front arc is just not good use of the points. You’re getting 50% use out of it, it’s why I love trickshot on him, he gets twice as many opportunities to trigger it. This ties heavily into point 1: TURN AWAY. Don’t turn into a fight, sure you’re tanky with those re-rolls but you not having to make them is even better. Reinforce is amazing. Boba parking at range one of multiple ships is ridiculous. When you’ve watched the blood drain from your opponents face as time and again their 3 hits turns into one and then you realise just how good it is. Don’t get blocked. It is better for Boba to be stressed and not blocked than not stressed and blocked. Use your three banks and Slave One to jump out of the way, jump over any potential blockers. The outcome is the same, that you don’t get actions, but you don’t get them on your terms, not your opponents. Expect to die, but do it right: die slowly. Boba isn’t your end game ship, he’s the threat that lets your end game ship get there. Be entirely prepared to sacrifice him, he’ll take a lot of killing and your opponent should get very badly hurt in return.

Number 2

Nien Numb has gone from being good to being great. He is incredible fun to fly. He doesn’t care about moving first or second, he’s just brilliant.

Nien Numb Black One Pattern Analyser Heroic

This build is one that I have been using a lot over the last few weeks and he has consistently made me go “Wow” at event after event.

Moving first: you have more Anchors for your ability. Moving second: you have more opportunities for arc dodging. Whatever you do your opponent is going to have to deal with Nien. He’ll take the heat off your other ships, or if they ignore him he’ll win you the game. He is the Ace Killer. No other ship I have come across can inflict so much pain so easily on higher initiative ships. They may have perfect knowledge of where you are after moving, but you have perfect knowledge of where they are before moving. Use it. A one forward can be as good as a talon roll, especially when your opponent is constantly expecting the red moves. Mix it up, don’t let your unpredictability make you predictable. Shield management is massively important for the T70 in general. You have three of them, don’t be afraid to let them go, even shieldless you are at full points. If you’re going to take points of damage on your hull then you spend it that focus but if not you might want to keep that focus for putting as much damage into your opponent as possible. Don’t rush in. Just because you can move super fast with Black One doesn’t mean you have to. Resistance lists excel at kill boxes, they are fast enough to get stuck in but that’s not always the right thing. The T70 itself is great at range one, range two and range three. There aren’t many ships that can say that. You’re not going to be the best at any of those ranges but you are far from the worst. Adapt your engagements depending on what you’re flying.

Number 1

And there was no surprise…. Guri has been my favourite ship since Guns For Hire came out. Those bendy barrel rolls took a ship that didn’t really have any character and turned it into the ship I love flying more than any other. In 2.0 it just got more toys.

Guri Virago Shield & Hull Upgrade Advanced Sensors

I run a fat relatively fat Guri because I am absolutely convinced that a fat Guri is a match for pretty much any other ship in the game one on one. But in this article she is the hardest to write tips for.

Learn your angles. How does a barrel roll back to the right then a hard one in look, where do you end up facing? How is that different to if you go forward right and then hard one? If you want to do well with Guri you’re going to need to understand every preposition that you can end up in and how it affects every angle your actual move is going to end up on. You need to know what everything looks like, especially with all your one speed moves. If someone wants a knife fight take them up on it. For those who don’t know the terminology a knife fight is a very close quarters engagement where you try to keep guns on each others ships for as long as possible. If they’re doing this against Guri they’ve probably got it wrong. Disengage but don’t go to far. Where Kylo might disengage with a boost roll and 5 forward to get into space Guri can disengage with a hard one. For her not getting shot for one turn is a disengagement. Stay close, keep your threat level up and try an force your opponent into making a bad move. When they do the rest of your list needs to take advantage of it. To this end, bumping is your friend. It’s better to bump and get shot once than not bump and get shot twice. Finally don’t get stressed. I don’t care that you want to roll and calculate, without those advanced sensor moves, and with a stress token you are going to get wrecked. Only do it if your survival depends on it, and if your survival depends on a calculate then you’re probably on the losing side of the game anyway.

There are loads of other ships that could have made this list, Thane Kyrell is the single scariest ship in 2.0 as far as I’m concerned. Luke, Norra, Duchess, Lando, L’Ulo, Ello, Howlrunner… you can literally list every I5 ships cause they’re all basically amazing. These ones are just my highlights from what I’ve flown.

Next Time: TO CARDIFF!

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