X-Wing Academy Lesson #4 - Action Denial

Remember in a previous post we talked about the importance of taking action? How action can increase your attack output by 50% and defense output by 66? Guess what:

Yup. Morpheus said it. Let's look at the ways to do it.

Bumping

Take a moment and consider these builds:

Squad Points: 100

Outer Rim Smuggler (ORS) x2

Y-Wing + Ion Turret x2

Squad Points: 100

ORS + Anti-Pursuit Lasers (APL) x2

Rebel Operative (RO) + Ion Turret x2

At first glance, it doesn't look impressive. 4 ships but total damage output (assuming no range modifiers) is only a measly 6 dice. Maybe the APL might give it more teeth. Then again it might not.

But wait! Look carefully and pay attention to their Pilot Skill (PS) level. Still don't see it? Let me rephrase this: Take your own build and imagine playing against either of these and ask yourself who moves first?

Chances are ORS will since he's only a PS1. Your opponents would have positioned his ORS and took his actions. Possibly, his Y-Wing might have done the same thing since its only PS2. Now, imagine yourself trying to fly your ships without bumping into any thing WHILE maintaining firing arc.

That's the beauty of these builds. ORS have such big bases that they take up a lot of real estates and with 2 being fielded, collision is bound to happen. The Y-Wings and ROs are there for ion to force your ships to move a 1-forward next turn and chances are there will be an ORS parked there first. If you're keen to learn more about these action denial builds, click here, here and here.

ORS's is not the only ship that's good at bumping. Any cheap PS1 or PS2 ships would do. In addition to ORS, the Rebels have Prototype Pilots while the Imperials have Academy Pilots (AP), In fact , bumping is what makes the humble AP so useful and part of the reasons why Swarms are so effective. 

In addition to action denial, bumping is a good way to control the movements of enemy ships. Figure your opponent is going to K-turn? Park an AP at the spot and have his ship facing the wrong way for at least 2 turns. If you want to be brutal, have all your ships pointing in the direction where's he's going to end up after bumping and blow it to pieces.

Ion Turret/ Cannon

Ion players will tell you that you could catch the enemy at a K-Turn and ion him. He'll never take an action ever again. Ion also have the added benefit of forcing enemy ships to make a 1-foward, thus knowing where it will end up and having your guns zeroed in on that area.

Carnor Jax

The new Imperial Ace carries one of the scariest pilots. Jax at range 1 nullifies focus and evades, an absolute nightmare for certain Imperial builds (Swarm and PTL Interceptors come to mind).