Just to clarify, it's not just my kooky hypothesis that the X-wing isn't too great a ship at the moment. Some of the best players in the community, people like two-time worlds champion Paul Heaver, have brought up and discussed this topic multiple times over the years. The consensus is that the X-wing (particularly the generics) are overcosted by about 3 points. The developers have actually gone on record saying they're looking into a fix for the X-wing. They've done a great job of fixing the TIE advanced, so I can't wait to see what they have in store for the iconic X-wing.
Oh, I don't know.
My better amounts of success has been with a Gray Y, two Red X and Biggs
Your list alone isn't everything in X-wing. It also depends on how well you list counters you opponent's and obviously how good a player you are. I suspect one or both of those factors are in your favour. :good:
About X-Wings; I'm not sure how 2 shield, 3 hull and 3 attacks is "glass cannon"?
They are not "amazing" by any stretch of the imagination, but they are NOT a glass cannon.
When I say glass cannon I don't just mean a ship that is easy to kill, what I mean is a ship that has an imbalance between it's offence and defence tilted towards the offence. The PS1 TIE interceptor is the classic example of this; it hits hard, but can't really take a hit.
It's true the X-wing has 5 HP, but the problem is you're only taking half of the equation into account. How tough a ship is when it's being shot at depends on two main things; it's HP as you say, but also the ship's agility. Having 3 HP remaining on an agility 1 ship is very different to having 3 HP remaining on an agility 3 ship. The agility 1 ship is in major trouble, whereas the agility 3 ship is still quite happy.
If you crunch the numbers the B-wing, the X-wing's chief competitor, takes on average a whole shot more to kill than the X-wing pretty much no matter the circumstances. That's
massive. That can mean the ship gets in a whole extra shot, or escapes and forces the enemy to chase it, or a whole host of other things. Throw in the fact that the B-wing is more manoeuvrable, and has access to better upgrades, and it's no surprise why people prefer the B-wing to the X-wing.
TIE Fighters are glass cannons, the closest thing to a glass cannon for the rebels is the A-Wing, and thats just because they are ridiculously expensive with any missile armament. I would say that the Z-95 is less so, because it is so much cheaper that it doesn't feel like a bad loss when/if it dies.
Again, just because the TIE fighter is squishy, doesn't mean it's a glass cannon. The TIE fighter isn't very tough with it's 3 hull, even at agility 3, but it also doesn't hit all that hard with it's attack 2 gun, which is why it's fairly balanced between offence and defence. The Z-95 is in exactly the same boat, 4HP at agility 2 isn't very tough, but it's attack 2 gun also isn't particularly threatening. The A-wing is actually tilted towards the opposite end of the spectrum and ends up being a defensive ship (slightly tougher than the X-wing in fact) with a weakish attack.
Here's a question to illustrate the point that X-wings
are glass cannons and Z-95's are not. You're playing against this list:
63 (3x) Rookie
36 (3x) Bandit
My question is this: which ships do you focus-fire down first, the X-wings, or the Headhunters? To keep it simple, just assume all of your ships are range 2 of all of his ships, and all of his ships target locked.
I find that X-Wings are run best in pairs, with two named pilots. I particularly enjoy Garven and Dutch playing off each other to grant focus and Target locks to both, and they play really nicely with a Kyle Hwk-290 or Jan crew member, or R5-K6 on Dutch. Wes or Wedge probably takes my number two spot after that.
Here a pair of X-wings I really like running together:
30 Garven w/ R2D6, Predator
25 Biggs
Garven always focuses, which paired with predator, gives him a focus and pseudo-target lock on offence. He then passes off his focus to Biggs who target locked, giving him a focus and target lock for offence too. Attack 3 ships that can get focus and target lock for offence are deadly (it's 3 hits ~80% of the time). Normally your opponent will realise that Garven is the threat here and try to focus-fire him down quick to rob you of that synergy, and because Garven's pretty squishy it's not hard for an enemy to take him out fairly fast. Biggs protects Garven (for a while) and allows him to buff your squad for longer than he would be able to on his own.
I like the combo so much I even have an all X-wing list that I feel is pretty competitive:
30 Garven w/ R2D6, Predator
26 Biggs w/ R4D6
23 Rookie w/ R3A2
21 Rookie
The only problem is it's a pretty squishy joist list (a well played Biggs can help mitigate that), and it has no direct way to counter Phantom (R4D6 and R3A2 help, but they're not 'proper' counters).