From Imdaar With Love

For nearly a year, I've been a man with a dark (and somewhat open) secret. With Worlds finally behind me, the time has come for me to step into the light and declare with pride: I am an Imdaar Test Pilot enthusiast.

And you should be too. Because this ship is one of the most criminally underplayed and underrated ships in our current game of X-Wing.

Is Ruthless Garbage?

tl;dr - No, but it’s not exactly a world beater.

I confess, I used to be like you, once before I took an arrow to the knee. I thought that Ruthless was the worst upgrade in the game, a bad joke played upon the players by the dev team. At the very least, it was clear evidence of the very well-known-and-definitely-a-real-thing anti-Empire bias exhibited by FFG (aside from those times when the Empire is dominant, which I can only assume are just momentary lapses in their ability to suppress the one faction that they want to produce product for but also not sell).

Then, I looked at Ruthless more. And I tried it a few times. And I realised that it’s perhaps not the worst upgrade. Not great, perhaps. But not the worst!

So how do we use Ruthless in such a way that our opponent does not ridicule us? How can we even, dare I be bold, win a game with Ruthless?

The best TIE Reaper isn't the one you've been using

The TIE Striker's bigger, chunkier brother, the TIE Reaper, offers an interesting option for a 3-die attacker to Imperial lists, as well as a crew carrier with a very different combat profile than the Lambda. If you've flown Imperial in Hyperspace, you've probably used the Reaper. If you're like many tournament players, you've probably been using Major Vermeil.

But is Vermeil really your best option?