I debated a lot about writing an article about list building because it’s a subject difficult to breach as it is largely based on preference and is always highly debatable. Any list I put together can be argued for or against and as such, suggesting lists to players is almost kind of a politically incorrect idea. Still, when I was a new player I found I lost a lot of my matches not because of what I did during the game, but the mess I created before the game while building my list. I’m going to focus more on general list building advice, things to consider, things to avoid and a few general lists that you always have to consider when building your own.

Getting Started With List Building
Naturally, your ability to build solid lists is going to be limited to the collection you have, so realistically speaking until you have collected a fair amount of ships and associated cards that come with them, it’s going to be difficult to build lists that are going to be competitive against players with a wider selection. Being competitive however isn’t about building really strong lists, but more about avoiding building weak ones and building counters to strong ones. What I’m referring to here is the concept of “people use what works” and as such, most X-Wing players are kind of predictable and so what you will be facing can sort of be predicted.

There are going to be three types of list you always have to be ready for, these lists come in many different forms, but they pose kind of general strategies that you always have to consider when building your own lists.

The Swarm
The swarm is typically done in Imperial lists, though these days it’s possible to face rebel swarms as well. The jist of the swarm is a list with a lot of, weaker ships, that when combined can create pretty significant firepower. They are in essence lists that rely on the statistical truth that the more often you roll shooting dice, the more likely you are going to succeed.

A very common form of this list is the Tie Swarm and when building any list you always have to consider “how will my list deal with a Tie Swarm”.

You have to imagine facing 8 Tie Fighters, coming down the center of the table, singling out one target and focusing all their firepower on that one target. Strictly speaking, with 8 ships shooting at a single target you are facing a minimum of 16 dice, broken down into 8 rolls which will yield an average of 8 hits, but you can expect divergence where you could end up with 10+ hits. Very few ships in the game can stand up to that kind of firepower.

Preparing to deal with swarms via list building is difficult, but the one strategy that you must always assume that you may need to employ when facing them is splitting up your squadron. In essence you want to make sure that your list can split up and still be effective and this should always be considered when building any list. If your list is less effective when it splits up, you are going to have a problem against swarms, so always make this assertion about what may need to happen when building your lists.

The Big Guns or Alpha Strike Lists
There are many forms of big gun lists, but in general a big gun list is one which there is a ship or ships, that can produce a lot of dice and or high odds of rolling hits (via re-rolls etc..) in a single round. In essence these lists are made for simply focusing on a target and taking it down in one shot. Very often these lists are built on a 360 degree firing arc, either because of the ship (like the Falcon for example) or because of the gear used. It’s not always the case but the point of the list is to get a target in range and roll lots of dice and do big damage in one shot.

You MUST always assume you will face Alpha Strikers. Dealing with lists like this must be assumed when you are building your own. How will your list deal with big Alpha Strikers. The solution for Alpha Strikers is all about having the means in your list to circumvent or reduce dice odds. You want to have something in your list that will throw a wrench into someone’s plan, a ship, effect or equipment that will reduce the effectiveness of a ship that can alpha strike.

Some examples of that are pilots like Biggs Darklighter, who forces ships to target him, allowing you to control who get’s shot (controlling the range) or having something like R2-D2 fixing his shields can buy you the necessary time to counter an alpha striker. Other ways is just using straight maneuverability, staying out of the fire arcs of Alpha strikers. Ionization is another method, controlling an Alpha Strikers movement can be very effective. Countering it with your own Alpha Striker is another method.

Point here is that you have to assume that you will be facing pilots with a high pilot skill that can do a ton of damage in a single round and have a plan on how you are going to deal with that situation when it comes up. Any list not able to deal with Alpha strikers is a weak one.

Maneuverability Lists
The final type of list you will certainly face are lists built around insane maneuverability. There are many incredibly maneuverable ships like Tie Interceptors, A-Wings, E-Wings and many more that can when combined with different types of equipment and specialized pilots produce unpredictable and impossibly agile ships that will stay out of your range and firing arcs at their leisure. You have to assume you will face such lists and have a plan for how to deal with them. Any list that assumes that ships will simply fly in front of you to shoot at them is certain to see a lot of losses.

The trick to dealing with agile lists is understanding that in most cases, agile ships give something up for that agility. For example Interceptors are incredibly agile, but fairly weak with only 3 hull, catch them once and they are dead. A-Wings are very agile but don’t have much firepower, so that agility while keeping them safe doesn’t offer much in the way of firepower threat. E-wings are very agile and have a lot of firepower but are very costly even for what you get.

The end result is typically agile lists, will have fewer ships and or less firepower, it’s the agile lists akiles heel. To put it simply, agile lists are best dealt with through focus fire and disruption of their advantage either through 360 firing arcs, using your own agile ships or Ionization. In particular ionization spells doom for most agile ships and the nice thing is that ionization based ships are generally dirt cheap.

For the most part however agile lists need to be dealt with on the field, there are things you can do to your build, but typically any list is capable of handling maneuverable lists through strategic positioning on the field, but you must assume you will face such lists and have a plan.

How I build Lists
Given the advice above let me tell you how I build lists, which, I will admit right out of the game is simply my preference. I make no vows or promises of success, but I find when I fly lists that play on my strengths in the game, I do better even if the lists themselves are not terribly strong.

I work on lists using a three step process.

First, I choose a single ship around which my fleet will rally. This is usually the ship that creates synergy or is somehow important to the strategy of the list, the gimmick of the list if you will. For example using a Han Shoots first, or a Vader Doom Shuttle, a stealthy Phantom or a synergy based B-Wing. Whatever the case may be, the point here is, that this ship, is what will define the strategy of the list.

I find this easier to do because once the ship (or concept if you will) is chosen, what else belongs in the list becomes very obvious. You start seeing the combinations and possibilities more clearly and the list practically builds itself. Without this I feel kind of lost and find it more difficult to sort of construct a force that works together.

The second thing I do is called “fat trimming”. This takes a bit of experience but I will give you an example.

Let’s say I want to add a ship to a list for an Ionization effect and I chose something like Horton Slam which allows me to re-roll blanks at range 2-3, a good ship to have when using Ionization effects. But he costs 25 points + equipment. I will pose the question, how important is it that I have a high pilot skill and the re-roll effect for this list? Can I get away with a Gold Squadron pilot for 18 points instead? This will of course depend on the type of list I’m building, but the idea is to really question the necessity of having more expensive pilots for certain goals of the list. Sometimes it’s vital, sometimes, it’s not. Trimming what is not is important because every point counts and you want that fleet as lean as you can get it. You can often end up with sufficient points to add a whole separate ship when trimming the fat and more importantly come up with more efficient squadrons. I do the same thing with equipment, I question the necessity and most importantly the value of equipment for a particular ship. I make sure that every piece of gear I have is something that is absolutely vital to the ship and strategy. If it’s not, it gets cut or replaced.

The third and final step is what I call the maneuverability test. Every list I make, must have a natural flow to maneuverability. I think about deployment and consider how these ships will enter the game, what position they will be in and try a few different configurations.

I find that by doing this I often find places where more cuts (trimming) can be done and sometimes where I have trimmed too much. Consider that pilot skill defines when ships will move, when mixing different pilot skills the result can be that certain ships must move too soon, while others move too late in the sequence that will be your turn. I want my fleet to move in a natural expected way on my turn and often I find that if the sequence of events aren’t efficient, there is an awkwardness to a squadron that makes it difficult to pull of a strategy.

For example let’s say I’m using a Firespray combined with interceptors and the Firespray has tactical jammers on him. If the interceptors move first, it can be difficult for me to guesstimate the position of where the firespray will end up on his move. As such, I might find that, while less effective combat wise, a lower pilot skill on the firespray is preferable for him to accomplish his main task in the fleet (as an obstacle).

These little details are important, I really need that movement to happen in a comfortable sequence and often making the adjustment makes the ships cheaper, allowing me to create more synergy and effects in other ships, or adding a whole extra ship into the fleet.

Final Thoughts
List building is actually more complicated than the game itself when it comes to Star Wars X-Wing, in fact I would say most people lose games more often because of bad list building than they do because of how they actually play. This can be frustrating for new players, but if you really consider the types of lists you will be playing against, and have a strategy or method if you will for building lists that works for your style of play, you will eventually find that you can build a wide variety of effect lists with a wide range of ships.

In fact, my personal strategy of choosing a single ship to represent the core strategy of a list is a very effective method for me and I think can be for pretty much anyone. It gives you a solid start and foundation for creating a list, and makes building the rest of it more natural and almost obvious.

It’s important to get good at list building but I think it’s a bad habit to copy other lists. This is still a skill based game and simply taking a championship list is not going to be sufficient to help you win because it’s understanding and knowledge of how to run that list that makes a difference. Its far better to create lists that feels natural for your play style.