Friday, December 30, 2016

Commander's Guide - Z-95 Headhunter

It takes a while to clear out actual ships, but squadrons are fast!  I can do a squadron Monday - Friday and probably fit the Pelta in there somewhere next week.  Sounds good?  We are going to talk about the new Wave 5 Rebel squadrons today, specifically the Z-95 Headhunter, the predecessor to the X-Wing and all-around cheap, crappy squadron.

The cheap Z-95 Headhunter




Z-95 Headhunter - 7 points

With this that the Rebels take away the last advantage the Imperials had in terms of cheap things to pad their lists.  While the TIE Fighter and 8 points was the cheapest squadron (and thus 16 points the cheapest deployment) the Rebels now can field far more things than the Imperials ever could with a 7 point squadron and 14 point deployment.

This alone is a dramatic meta-shift from before - Rebels could get a GR-75 for 18 points, or squadrons with 2 Y-Wings for 20.  But now they are able to outpace the Imperials with cheap Swarm fighters.

Is it a good fighter?  3 Speed, 3 Hull, 3 incredibly fickle Red Anti-Squadron dice, and 1 incredibly fickle Red Anti-ship die without Bomber.  Even Swarm doesn't make this "good", it just makes it "not terrible".  So probably just worth the 7 points.  They'll get out positioned and die very quickly (if you've ever run a TIE swarm you know just how fast 3 hull squadrons go POP!)


Lieutenant Blount - 14 points

The Howlrunner that makes Z-95s work.  (And makes Dagger Squadron better)  Lt Blount is in other ways the same as any other Z-95, just add Brace and Scatter, but his special ability gives a free reroll to any Swarm squadron in range 1,  Note, he just gives it.  Swarm's engagement rules don't have to take effect for him to pop his ability.

Look for him in the middle of the Z-95 blanket, if you or your opponent are taking more than just 1 or 2 to fill out the final squadron(s) on a list.  He has no business stopping by unless you have a critical mass of Z's.

2 comments:

  1. If you like swarms of cheap stuff, these are great for squadron superiority. Z-95s with YT-1300 escorts can chew through more expensive fighters.

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  2. Given the very low cost, z-95 magnify the usefulness of flight controllers. Something to take into consideration: I don't know exactly where the break-even point is, but somewhere in between 3-5 z-95s feels like the break-even point where the spend on flight controllers over another almost one more z-95 starts paying dividends.

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