{"id":5068,"date":"2016-12-04T00:21:47","date_gmt":"2016-12-04T05:21:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocketshipgames.com\/blogs\/tjkopena\/?p=5068"},"modified":"2022-07-01T22:10:26","modified_gmt":"2022-07-02T02:10:26","slug":"x-wing-beginner-squad-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocketshipgames.com\/blogs\/tjkopena\/2016\/12\/x-wing-beginner-squad-building\/","title":{"rendered":"X-Wing Squad Building for Beginners, and Better B-Wings"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple friends recently\u00a0started playing\u00a0X-Wing<\/em> miniatures, so I’ve put together here some links I’ve found useful and a few of my ideas toward\u00a0constructing\u00a0your first full squads beyond the introductory scenarios and ships in the core sets. This post\u00a0is not a comprehensive guide to getting started in\u00a0the game.\u00a0As you might guess for a\u00a0well designed Star Wars game featuring\u00a0cool little models,\u00a0there is A TON of blogs, forums, etc., out there.\u00a0Searching around will quickly yield\u00a0lots of good stuff, including many detailed beginner’s tutorials. My intent here is just to provide links to a few tools\u00a0and some ideas to keep in mind\u00a0putting together your first standard 100pt dogfight squad, including an introduction to some very simple quantitative analysis supporting them.<\/p>\n

Along the way I also develop a solid, quantitatively supported argument that my Bey’s Bees<\/a> squadron is very similar to but might work better for many fellow B-Wing aficionados than the frequently suggested BBBB and BBBBZ<\/a> formulas.<\/p>\n

\"Shara<\/a>

Shara Bey’s ARC-170 tailgunner fights to keep off Carnor Jax in his TIE Interceptor.<\/p><\/div>\n

Research<\/h2>\n

Many resources exist for looking up cards, but the X-Wing Wikia<\/a> is my go-to. It has too many ads on mobile or without an ad blocker, but is otherwise very good. \u00a0If you want to know what a card does, Google “x-wing [card name],” go to the Wikia link, and you’ll get the details. \u00a0It has info on every ship & card in the game, and many pages have extensive threads\u00a0discussing how cards work as well as strategies for their\u00a0use.<\/p>\n

Fab’s Squadron Generator<\/a> has a page that I personally find unfortunately\u00a0hard to read for the details (hover over the card names for info), but it is a good visual overview of every product in the game.<\/p>\n

For every\u00a0expansion\u00a0that comes out, Fantasy Flight publishes a preview article that generally does a good job\u00a0explaining the main features of that ship or set, the new capabilities it brings, and why they’re interesting. So looking back through these archives can help understand what role particular ships are supposed to have. You can find these linked from the product pages<\/a> on their site. If you search for “Fantasy Flight Turn Zero,” they’ve also published several good articles by a 3-time world champion covering some fundamental ideas of\u00a0basic tactics and strategies in\u00a0the game.<\/p>\n

Building<\/h2>\n

There\u00a0are a whole bunch of online X-Wing squad building tools, making it faster & less error prone to construct and think about\u00a0lists. I personally prefer Voidstate’s app<\/a>. It has a nice & attractive user interface,\u00a0presents all the ship & card details nicely, and includes useful\u00a0tools to track your collection and highlight the ships & upgrades\u00a0you already own when making choices. One clear downside though is that it’s not usable\u00a0on phones; the mobile-compatible\u00a0version only supports browsing previously made lists. If that matters to you, many other options\u00a0can be found by Googling around. I’m not personally a huge fan of it—though it’s certainly functional—but the app by geordanr<\/a> is the squad builder\u00a0I probably see linked most often in\u00a0discussions on Reddit.<\/p>\n

\"Voidstate's<\/a>

Voidstate’s squad builder.<\/p><\/div>\n

Design<\/h2>\n

My battle report from my local shop’s\u00a0tournament this past August<\/a> talks a bunch about my usual personal approach to designing and evaluating squadrons that I intend to be somewhat more competition-oriented (though my focus even then is\u00a0flying what I will enjoy rather than purely what I think will win the most). The battle report from my first tournament<\/a>, last holiday season, also talks a bit about list design for beginners as well as being\u00a0a bit of an introduction to what a tournament is like.<\/p>\n

I place a lot of emphasis in squad design on simplicity and robustness, which I argue is a good mindset\u00a0for many beginners, following a simple 4 point rubric:<\/p>\n