Is it Time to See the Tie Defender in Competitive Play?

When Fantasy Flight Games announced their new Core Set for X-Wing Miniatures Game, my first thought was how cheap the new units seem. Loaded capabilities and speed, and better stats for so little points compared to already circulating units.

Yet my favorite fighter, the Tie Defender, was left in a deep dark hole of being way too expensive to be even competitive. Designed to be outnumbered in battles when the Imperials typically are the ones doing the outnumber of their foes. The Tie/D was was about superiority, firepower and survivability, and so it was expensive. Tie Defender as a dog-fighter than is nothing less than a monster to its foes. In X-Wing miniatures its current cost in points it's too expensive to field effectively.

	Pilot Rating	Attack Dice	Defense Dice	Hull	Shields	Points	Actions
X-Wing (T-65) Rookie Pilot	2	3	2	2	2	21	Focus Target Lock
T-70 X-Wing Blue Squadron Novice	2	3	2	3	3	24	Focus Target Lock Boost
Tie Defender Delta Squadron Pilot	1	3	3	3	3	30	Focus Target Lock Barrel Roll

For 3 more points the T-70 X-Wing gets 1 more shield (equal to a 4 point card), Talon Roll Maneuver on its dial, and Boost Action (also equal to a 4 point card). So for 3 points it's a major bargain, and this is why the T-70 is showing up on most champion competitive lists.

Comparing the basic variant of Tie Defender with basic variant of the T-65 X-Wing (Original) and T-70 X-Wing (Force Awakens), you can see the stats are pretty close, but Tie Defender is 6 points more than the T-70. This is where weird math doesn’t add up on the T-70.
So on the Tie Defender you might think what about those 9 extra points versus the X-Wing, or 6 verse the T-70 X-Wing? Extra defense die (equal to 3 point card, but might be worth more), a Barrel Roll Action, and Speed 5 Green maneuver, and most important of all White K-Turn. Now the White K-turn is amazing and deadly if used correctly. Still it's hard to see why the Tie Defender is so costly, especially compared to the T-70.



FFG designers figured out a way to tune their previous releases of units without invalidating units in a collection. When the A-wing wasn’t as cost effective as the Z-95 that was added to the game later, Fantasy Flight added a card that brought life back to the A-wing, the Chardaan Refit. Adding this card to an A-wing you gave up a missile slot, and lowered the cost by two and made the A-wing cost competitive again.
Now with announcement of new Expansion Pack that focuses on the Tie Defender and Tie Bomber. With this pack comes two refits for the Tie Defender! Each makes the Tie Defender not only useful but deadly.

I am super excited by the new Tie/x7 upgrade. The history of Tie Defender: It was by far more maneuverable than the Tie Advanced. Something that 3 defense dice does live up to. With the Tie/x7 upgrade you get back 2 points and gain evade token for doing the one thing the Tie Defender was built to do: going fast!

Attacker with 3 Attack Dice Verses

	Chance for a Total Miss	Chance for one Hit	Expected Damage for this attack
Tie Defender	53%	29%	.67
Tie/x7 (Evade Token)	82%	15%	.21
Tie/x7 with Focus	94%	5%	.07

So now the the gap with the T-70 X-Wing closes to 4 points, and the Tie Defender is much harder to hit. Now you have a unit that can charge right in and put pressure on a target. With 3 attack dice, it is not something you can ignore for long.

Finally there is Tie/D Upgrade ... which can only lead to the Dark Side. Historically Tie Defender had 6 weapons, 2 ion cannons and 4 laser cannons, which made it hit hard, really hard hitting. Yet 3 dice didn’t feel quite up to the power of the Tie Defender I knew. Now with Tie/D you get back to the terror that this ship can invoke on its targets. Armed with Ion cannons for example, this fighter can be rolling a minimum of 6 dice against a target.

With the secondary weapon firing first, your targets have to decide whether to use their tokens on the secondary weapon or face the side effects of things like Ion, Tractor beam or Stress Token. This might force the Defender burn their defensive Tokens on the secondary attack, which add to the success of the following heavy hitting attack for damage.

This might not seem like a lot, but when you put this card on an ace like Colonel Vessery, it can become pure evil. For example here is an idea for a Squadron I’m going to try out when the Expansion Pack is released...

Critical Lock-on - 100 points 

Colonel Vessery (41)
TIE Defender (35), Ion Cannon (3), Lone Wolf (2), TIE/D (0), Twin Ion Engine Mk. II (1)

Rexler Brath (36)
TIE Defender (37), Veteran Instincts (1), TIE/x7 (-2)

Lieutenant Colzet (23) 
TIE Advanced (23), TIE/x1 (0), Long Range Scanners (0), Accuracy Corrector (3)

Imagine this, Rexler Brath barrels into the fight drawing fire. Lieutenant Colzet sits back way out of range locking onto a target with the Long Range Scanners. Colonel Vessery using Colzet lock to maintain Locks for re-rolls for both ion cannon and main attack sets of rolls. At the end of the round, Colzet turns his lock into a critical hit.

Rexler is just a placeholder for now, as there will be new pilots in the expansion which I hope to use. So far, this is looking quite deadly as a combo. Oh man, I can’t wait.