X-Wing: The Emperor’s Flight
When the Emperor says, “Prepare my ship,” who flies as his vanguard? Lets find out!
Hey BoLS Readers! AdamHarry back with more Star Wars X-Wing fun. A few short weeks ago Fantasy Flight Games announced that the Emperor himself was on the way to a table-top near you. He was going to arrive with the new Imperial Raider Expansion for X-Wing. Not only is this Expansion the first of the Imperial “Epic” size ships, it’s supposed to fix the issues with the TIE Advanced, equal the epic playingfield and cure cancer – Emperor Palaptine is also included to scare the rebellion out of players across the table! I mean just LOOK at him.
Sure he’s 8 points and takes up TWO crew slots – but once per round you can change a friendly ship’s die result to any other result! That’s pretty cool! I blame the force and all. So this got me thinking of a cool theme list to run with the Ol’ Emperor. So naturally I did some research on who rides shotgun for Palpatine. But first I needed to know who drives his ship!
According to the background Captain Kagi is the pilot for the Imperial Shuttle when the Emperor needs to float through space. Well, technically he was the pilot of the Theta Class shuttle…but we’re going to use the Lambda instead because it’s in the game…and Kagi already has a card:
That pilot ability doesn’t really bode well for passengers…but thematically I think it makes a lot of sense. If the rebels knew the Emperor was on that ship and they wanted to kill him…so…Target Locks away! But from a competative standpoint we’re going to need to call in some serious back-up. So lets call in the Royal Guard!
These two pilots are pretty much mandatory – They are the Royal guard after all! And because it’s free lets throw on the Royal Guard TIE Title because…it’s free!
With the Emperor clocking in at 8 points, we don’t really have a TON of points to play around with. But I still wanted this list to have some teeth and really take advantage of the Emperor’s ability. Here’s the list a put together:
Emperor’s Flight List – 100
Captian Kagi – 43
- Emperor Palpatine
- Mangler Cannon
- Engine Upgrade
Carnor Jax – 31
- Royal Guard TIE
- Push the Limit
- Autothrusters
Kir Kanos – 26
- Royal Guard TIE
- Autothrusters
I don’t think this list is terrible – it’s certainly not ground breakingly mean either. Carnor Jax is a force to be reckoned with no matter what. Giving him the ability to dodge arcs effectively with Push the Limit and Autothrusters to help him avoid turrets and long-range shots is already a combo you’re going to see more & more. I was also thinking about Predator as an option – but the Emperor will ensure that he’s going to get a hit in. If you’re in range one you can always turn that into a Crit that’s basically unavoidable. Kir isn’t a push over and with Autothrusters he can dance in the backfield of range 2-3 and really be a pain to pin down. Finally I gave the Emperor’s Ship an Engine upgrade (because large ships with a boost are HILARIOUS) and a Mangler Cannon because those are just plain GOOD.
The Lambda is going to get the brunt of the fire directed against it so you’re TIE are going to have to dog fight with the best of them. I know I said Kir can sit back and dance – but that doesn’t mean he MUST stay back. He’s just pretty good at the long game.
I really wanted to build this list and come up with a scenario around a Rebel list attacking the Emperor and his Guards. Obviously the Emperor would live because everyone knows Vader tosses him down a hole so who cares! Wait…you didn’t know that? What do you mean that was a HUGE SPOILER? Next you’re going to tell me you didn’t know Vader IS Luke’s father!! Oops…Spoiler Alert?
Something Something Darkside. Something Something Complete.
