Last Saturday, I went over to the Battlegrounds Cafe in Poulsbo for a couple of pick-up games, and since it did so well for me the other night, I decided to bring Finn and his crew back. I think it’s less about Finns power and more about the distraction he can provide for the rest of the list. The real heavy hitter, in my opinion, is Cova Nell. She may not have the dice mods of Finn or Greer, but her time on target is so much higher thanks to her constant back-pedaling that she averages more damage than anyone else on the team.

As a reminder, here’s the list:

I’m currently convinced that in this set-up, Ello is better than Nien Numb. Although the Rebel veteran is a point cheaper, without upgrades I feel like his ability will be harder to trigger and less reliable than Ello. Greer is the obvious choice over the other A-Wings, not only due to cost, but also because her action economy really fits in with the theme of the list. Everyone is extremely self-reliant, and can nearly always have dice mods, EXCEPT for Finn. He actually feels like the weakest link in the chain, to me.

For my first game, I squared off against Conner Elmstrom, who was flying his latest iteration of Darth Vader and Rear Admiral Chiraneau. He set RAC in the center and basically charged my list, while Vader set up to flank and I attempted to use Greer to foil him.

This went about as well for Greer as you can imagine, as she missed the arc on Vader and lost her shields for the effort. The rest of my list unloaded on RAC, who went after Cova. Finn blocked RAC the following turn, who didn’t care at all thanks to Dauntless. Ello ended up without a shot, but Greer escaped Vaders arc. More shots were exchanged, and still nothing dies this round, though Vader’s attack on Finn nearly killed him.

Cova begins her rearward escapades, causing RAC to continue bumping. Work continues to happen against the Decimator, while Ello and Cova actually manage to strip Vaders shields here. In exchange, Cova is nearly killed by Vader’s shot. Greer swings in and lands an amazing block by boosting in front of Vader, and ends up blocking both enemy ships! Vader, unfortunately, barely survives that trap and starts to escape up the board while more damage is done to both teams tanks.

This is the first turn that something actually dies, and as it happens, we both lose a ship! Greer is finally murdered by RAC, but Finn’s stupidly long range shot is enough to sneak the last damage through on Vader, taking the Sith Lord off the table. RAC is facing the wrong way to re-engage, and the rest of my list is coming in hard, so it only takes another round to finish off the Decimator for the win. Final score was 200-92, with only Ello having not taken enough damage to go to half.

My other game was also my first time playing against Mason Woodson. He also brought a TIE Advanced, but this one was Maarek Stele, leading Howlrunner, Iden Versio, Del Meeko, and Gideon Hask. I was able to set up a pincer with both classic ships while simply charging the swarm with the transport pieces. This time, I sent Ello to try to foil the Advanced, since he is far more likely to survive the encounter.

Many shots are exchanged, and I manage to burn Idens charge and still nearly kill a TIE in exchange for damage on Cova. The next turn goes very poorly for Mason, as Finn advanced while Cova backs up, which ends up blocking K-turns from both right-hand TIEs. Ello continues directly across the scrap to engage the TIE swarm, and my entire list focuses on Howlrunner, taking her off the table in exchange for some more shields off of my ships. The bumping continues on the following turn, with Cova backing up again and causing Iden to bump her.

Ello blows the upper TIE off the table, while elsewhere no damage occurs. The following round, Maarek lines up a Range 1 shot on Greer after I misjudge a movement and bump Finn with her. Mason lands hit-hit-crit on Greer, choosing a direct hit and taking down my A-Wing in a single shot! My other ships continue to chase down TIEs, with Ello and Cova switching targets.

Ello finally finishes off Iden while Finn and Cova start working on Maarek. The turn after this, the remaining Inferno squaddie swings into my sights, and erupts after landing the final blow on Cova. The final shot of the game is a ludicrous Range 3 shot from Finn, who does shenanigans to result in 3 hits and kills his second Advanced Ace of the day, giving me the 200-122 win.



The combined arms style of this list really goes with what I’ve been going for lately, with 2 or 3 different elements that can break off or engage as they need to. Getting the timing down for bringing in ships from multiple angles all at the same time was tricky at first, and will be the challenge with any new list I try out, but I’m sold on the power of this engagement style.

The RZ-2 A-Wing continues to confound me. Either it does insane things and survives all game and ends up being a contender for MVP, or it dies immediately and contributes nothing to the list. In 2 of these games, Greer has exploded in a single shot (and one time she even had a focus token!) In the other 2 games, she was mostly responsible for my win, killing half the Jedi Delta-7s herself and harassing and blocking Vader to set up his death.

Addressing the question at the end of the last Big Deal article, most people have responded that they’d fly Finn with Pattern Analyzer to guarantee his dice modification. I can see the benefit of this, but feel like his damage would probably suffer without the Advanced Optics. That card has given me probably 6-8 additional hits with this list in 4 games that I otherwise wouldn’t have gotten. The next time I fly this group, I’ll swap around some cards to give PA a try though. It sounds like a fun variation to the list.

For today’s question, which is the best non-Poe T-70 pilot to go along with this list? I’m still leaning toward Ello, but Nien is a point cheaper for the same initiative, and can occasionally pull off the same trick Ello can do. He can do it less consistently, but can also potentially end a 4-K stress-free, which Ello can never do. Snap could also be good, freeing up a couple of points and giving me another hyper-mobile ship. Jess Pava could free up even more points, and has a fairly potent ability as well, but I think she would encourage too much formation flying, which is counter to one of the current strengths of this list. What do you think?

Next time: The Circus Re-unites!