Last week I wrote about the Star Viper, and I waxed lyrical about just how much I love it. BECAUSE IT’S SO MUCH FUN. I also mentioned that a certain Mr Hills had rather a successful time with a list full of harpoons, and I’ve previously written about how freaking excited I am for these munitions… so this week I’m taking a break from long games with bendy barrel rolls and going for maximum damage output in minimum game time. It’s Kihraxz time.

Captain Ahab III (96)

Talonbane Cobra Viktor Hel Captain Jostero Vaksai Vaksai Vaksai Swarm Tactics Veteran Instincts Deadeye Glitterstim Scavenger Crane Black Market Slice Tools Harpoon Missiles Harpoon Missiles Harpoon Missiles Guidance Chips Guidance Chips Guidance Chips Stealth Device Stealth Device Pulsed Ray Shield Vectored Thrusters Vectored Thrusters Weapons Failsafe

It’s not subtle, it’s not pretty but it could be effective. Three harpoons at PS9 could do very bad things to people. The PS11 Alpha’s on the Imperial side could be an issue for it, and I’m expecting the current meta to evolve into big ships with Counter Measures stapled to them.

If I owned three Quadjumpers then I’d probably be running three Scavenger Cranes, but the Stim on Talonbane makes his alpha strike ridiculous, and the Slicers on Jostero are a great threat for taking advantage of the stress someone gets from shooting Victor. So a bit of diversity on their load out isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

This weekend I’m really excited to be visiting the Consulting Gamer in Ashford, Kent. It’s their first ever X-Wing tournament with a modest field of 10 players, but they have sold out. It’s great to have new venues opening their doors to the X-Wing community and to see the community responding by making sure they sell out. There were even a couple of pilots flying in their first ever tournament, which is fantastic.

The first game was against Fred Bettesworth flying the daunting prospect of Dengar and Ventress. Even post nerf expertise Dengar with a K4 Security droid carries a lot of threat, and Ventress really takes some killing. But the ability of my three ships to unload their arsenal at pilot skill 9 with brutal efficiency made short work of both ships and within 15 minutes one Kihraxz had been traded for two big ships, the Khiraxz that died doing so from being too close to an exploding Dengar. All the while watched by this familiar chap:

My next match up included one ship I really didn’t want to see, PS11 Vader and a shuttle with Kylo Crew. Ashok Photay knew of my dislike for a certain force user… and part of me wanted nothing more than to gun for the shuttle. But the threat in the list was Vader. Had Vader decided to dance away there is little this list would be able to do about him picking off one ship at a time. However landing a block on him with Jostero, allowing Talonbane to deliver a coup de gras early in the game meant that the shuttle and the Inquisitor were on the back foot, at which point the Kihraxz were able to push home their advantage.

More familiar ships awaited in game three, Han and Miranda, both able to absolutely motor around the board without a care for firing arc, a list with a lot of damage potential. Andi Robb went evasive, knowing how much damage my little ships could do. He skirted around the edge of the board so forcing the Kihraxz to navigate the asteroids in the middle of the table was a good ploy. This was the first instance of the day where I was left somewhat speechless by the potency of the Harpoons. Miranda just evaporated. Passing damage off onto Han, at this point Han did what he could to make a fight of things, but between Jostero becoming his personal blocker and the rebel desperate not to get cornered he turned into a world of range one Kihraxz shots.

If game three had made me speechless the my final game, against one of my favourite people in the X-Wing community, Alex Krysta was a whole other level. Alex had jumped on the deadeye/harpoon train with two Scurrgs and Victor Hel. Because he had lower PS ships than me I got to know exactly where he was going to be deploying and set up for the joust. 25 health is initimidating, and due to my significant PS advantage I knew I was going to unload my munitions first. Round one, 2 forward. Round two, 2 forward and missiles flew.

Holy hell, 18 damage across Alex’s 3 ships in one turn of shooting was more than I could have anticipated. One Scurrg and Victor never even fired. Three damage from harpoons exploding taking over half the shield of the other. One more turn and it was game.

It was an interesting experience. I don’t think I’ve ever played four games in a row and only lost one ship over the course, and I wonder what this could do in the hands of a genuinely good pilot! I think it has it’s limitations, just like anything that relies on alpha strikes and doesn’t have strong green dice, but the threat for people flying against it is to get the damage through faster than the kihraxz can give it to them.

So, hypothesising a bit: PS11 Alpha strikes, Deadeye, these things feel like they could be a big part of the meta going forwards. Things that negate munitions could well be a good call at the moment. Personally I’m happy to see ships that need to be looking at what they’re shooting being present in the meta!

So if this is the evolving meta, what could be a good counter for it?

Deadeye Me Then (98)

Han Solo Poe Dameron (Ps9) Veteran Instincts Veteran Instincts Hotshot Co-Pilot Black One Gunner BB-8 Counter Measures Autothrusters

Whilst both are not quite optimised they are both very good at either getting rid of target locks or getting out of arc. Their damage output might be limited and their action economy isn’t great, but neither of them are going to be eating any munitions anytime soon. Poe can dodge them and get rid of target locks with Black One and Han can either shrug off locks with Counter Measures or use his gunner and hotshot combination to strip threatening focus tokens off, all at pilot skill 11 with a fairly solid initiative bid.

Guns for Hire offers two very cool ships, but which one do I prefer? My normal playstyle is to just of go for the throat so the Kihraxz is should be a natural choice. There’s just something special about the Star Viper, it’s almost everything that I want to play in X-Wing. The only complaint I have is that there isn’t a natural PS8 or 9 in the toolbox.

One thing I’ve been thinking in the last few days, and have bounced it off some people is a change I would love to see in the game: cap Pilot Skill at 9. It would mean that top tier pilots like Poe, Vader, Soontir would be the best pilots and have the freedom to pick any EPT they want.

A PS 7/8 pilot could boost to 9 to stay on level pegging with the true aces but the advantage would remain with THE BETTER pilot. If it was capped at 9 then Nym couldn’t jump to 10, put pressure on Vader/Quickdraw to go to 11… it would redefine the meta and open up a world of list building possibilities.

There are so many cool Elite Pilot Talents out there that just get pushed to the side because Pilot Skill advantage is SO strong in the game. It’s a simple idea, but I really think it would improve the game.

Anyway.

The Kihraxz have been a lot of fun… but…

THE STAR VIPERS WILL RETURN!

If you’re looking for local tournaments head over to the 186th Tournament Calendar and get involved.