X-Wing: The Rebel Bus (Transport)

Usually I am not a fan of “big games,” but this unit is HILARIOUS. We have nicknamed it as “the bus” as it pretty much handles like one stuck in first gear. Here are the results of our first game with it:

The first thing I will say is that it is VERY balanced. It isn’t like an emperor class titan walking around the 40k board demolishing EVERYTHING. The transport can be killed quite easily if you focus all of your fire at it. In our first game with it, it died second turn as Spicerack put an immense amount of damage into it. However, this in itself can be a huge advantage for the Rebel player. Whilst the Phantoms aren’t shooting your B-Wings, you can shoot as much into them as possible. 

I have heard some players say “just ignore it.” Well, quite frankly, you can’t. This thing just parks itself smack bang in a space lane with asteroid making it even more difficult for you to navigate. The support role is definitely the way to go (as opposed to assigning stress and then using slicer tools). Comms Booster and Coordinate are INSANELY good. Especially with advanced sensor B-wings that can target lock, K-turn, have all their stress taken off and get a focus. Jam is also particularly hilarious versus ships like Phantoms. No cloaking for you! 

The only real problem is that after a few rounds, you are basically forced into regenerating shields EVERY turn to keep it alive. Especially once you start to drive it into enemy ships and/or obstacles. Speaking of which, the entire mechanic of destroying ships by landing on them is great. You could, if you wanted to, equip and engine booster and take a Navigator as a passenger. This means that once everything else has moved, you may choose to go from moving “1” forward, to boosting and then moving “4” forward to crush the enemy ship. I don’t want to hear anyone say “just avoid being run over.” It doesn’t always work, and if you are thinking about the possibility of being run over, I can use that to my advantage. 

Long story short, If you want to add a bit of flavour to your games, pickup the epic ship and give it a go. You will have a of fun with it. I can’t wait for the Imperial epic ships to come out so we can start to have 200 point epic battles!