X-Wing/Tactics/Confederacy of Independent Systems

"Consider the lives of your crew." -Commander Needa

"Why should I?" -General Grievous

In a meta dominated by Rebels and Empire, the Separatists have begun to eke their way into the upper echelons of competition. With cheap droids, a decent fighter and a potent large base ship, the CIS is one of the more rewarding factions for those who are willing to invest in it.

Why play the Confederacy of Independent Systems

The other side of the Clone Wars, the Confederacy of Independent systems (CIS) went to war with a massive army of droids that they intended to use to bludgeon the Republic into submission.

Pros

• SWARMS
• Relays are unique upgrades to increase the effectiveness of your ships
• Most ships have an ability even without a unique pilot
• Very, very cheap ships that even have missiles, more than what the basic TIE can say
• A lot of unique upgrades and munitions such as buzz droids or Energy shells
• Many internal synergy options

Cons

• Most ships are droids, and use Calculate which just is not as good as Focus, requiring special abilities to get the most out of it
• Few stand out damage dealers, requiring internship team work or buffs
• Due to mostly being droids few ships have talent slots.
• You only have one ship with a crew slot.

Ships

Tactical Relay

Not a ship, but a central pillar of the CIS deserving of its own section. You can only bring one of these and whichever ship you attach it to is the de facto squad leader.

• Kraken: Allows 3 friendly ships at Range 0-3 to retain their Calculate tokens. Expensive, but it makes Vulture Fighters somewhat formidable.
• TV-94: Allows Range 0-3 friendlies spend Calculate to add a hit result to attacks in bullseye arc with 2 or fewer attack dice. If you happen to be fielding 8 Vulture or are playing an Epic match, you're bound to have frequent enough range 2-3 bullseye shots to see some real benefit, otherwise pass.
• K2-B4: Range 0-3 friendlies can spend Calculate when defending to force the attacker to add an Evade unless the attack chooses to become Strained. K2 certainly makes Droid fighters more annoying to kill.
• TA-175: When a Range 0-3 friendly Droid fighter is destroyed, all other Droid fighters in Range get a Calculate token. This obviously works best with a lot of low initiative Droids. Feethan Ottraw Autopilot is the natural carrier for TA.

Vulture-class Droid Fighter

A ship that's actually on par with a TIE/ln statwise. Cheap, janky and with only two agility, Vulture droids require tactical creativity to use to their fullest.

• Networked Calculations allow Vulture Droids to spend each others' Calculate tokens for the normal effect of changing one eye result when attacking/defending.
• Grappling Struts are an interesting configuration that allow you to dock with asteroids/debris and act as a stationary turret.
• Energy Shell Charges provide a significant (and cost effective) boost to their overall firepower, the only issue is that they have one charge and need to spend an action to reload it.

Pilots

• Trade Federation Drone: Academy Pilot has finally been dethroned as the cheapest deployment in the game. Seriously, you can stick ten of these guys in a squad. Is that a good idea? Maybe. Lanchester's square says Yes, trying to fiddle with ten dials without annoying your opponent say no.
• Separatist Drone: Like the Trade Federation Drone, but higher cost and init. No Talent slot.
• DFS-311: A Scouting Drone with Init 1. When Engagement starts, you can give one of your calculate tokens a range 0-3 friendly ship.
• DFS-081: Programmed for Preservation. When a friendly ship range 0-1 defends, it can spend a calculate token to turn all crits into hits. Only worth taking if Kraken is in your squad. Init 3.
• Haor Chall Prototype: A semi-limited ship. You can have up to two in your squad. When a ship in your bullseye within range 2 declares an attack on another friendly ship, you can perform a calculate or target lock action.
• Precise Hunter: You can have up to three Precise Hunters in your squad. You can reroll a blank result when attacking someone in your bullseye.

Belbullab-22 Starfighter

Seen only once when Grievous was trying to run from Obi-Wan, the Belbullab is the Confederate MEQ and is an overall decent ship with one glaring weakness: its best pilot is only PS4. This more or less puts it at a distinct disadvantage in any one on one dogfight, but with every pilot (besides the generics and Grievous) has an ability that plays off its droid wingmates, this makes it more of a support/dps hybrid.

• Impervium Plating allows you to spend one of two charges to discard an incoming Ship crit card. It can almost be thought of as having two additional shields. It's awesome.
• General Grievous's Soulless One title is pricey, but does wonders for your survivability. When a ship outside your firing arc attacks you, you can reroll a defense die. On top of that, 2 additional hull.

Pilots

• Feethan Ottraw Autopilot: The cheapest pilot, and the only Belbullab pilot that is a droid. A fair amount cheaper than the Skakoan Ace. The one thing it has over the rest of the Belbullab pilots, except the price which is it self a selling point, is the many opportunities for synergy the CIS has for the Calculate action.
• Skakoan Ace: Elite generic, Init 3, notable for being one of the few generic options for a talent upgrade the CIS have, the only other option being the various Nantex fighters.
• Captain Sear: A CIS Reasonable Marine who simply believed the Galactic Republic was counterproductive to liberty. Init 2. When a friendly ship range 0-3 attacks a ship in its bullseye arc, that friendly ship can spend a calculate token to cancel an evade result.
• Wat Tambor: The Techno Union foreman that cost the CIS a shoo-in victory when he delayed his part of the plan so he could loot the city. He works well around droids, at least, as he gets to reroll 1 attack die for each calculating friendly ship range 1 from the defender.
• General Grievous: A cybernetic killer of Jedi with respiratory problems and a tendency to execute underlings that annoy him. He was actually pretty scary in the OG Clone Wars cartoon, but got nerfed for Revenge of the Sith and CG The Clone Wars, but still assuredly TRAINED IN YOUR JEDI ARTS BY COUNT DOOKU. Init 4. When you attack from outside the defender's firing arc, you can reroll up to 2 attack dice. This nicely represents his affinity for attacking enemies that are vulnerable, and equipping Soulless One represents the zero fucks he gives about his personal safety in the process.
  • General Grievous as a crew has a non-recurring Surge that can be spent to cancel an incoming hit or crit if there are at least two remaining after the Neutralize Results step. His Surge is recovered when a friendly ship is destroyed. He's pretty good at protecting one important ship since you're going to lose Vulture Droids anyway.

Hyena-class Droid Bomber

A very interesting ship whose upgrade slots vary rather wildly from pilot to pilot. The only slots they all have are Mod and Configuration, the latter of which would be used for Landing Struts. Hyenas have 5 hull, very light for any sort of ordnance carrier, but it has red reload and Networked Calculations. Except DBS-32C. He has red jam instead of red reload.

Pilots

• Techno Union Bomber: Init 1 generic with 1 torp, missile, and bomb slot each. This guy would be part of your Vulture swarm.
• Separatist Bomber: Like the Techno Union Bomber, but with Init 3.
• Baktoid Prototype: An Init 1 Limited 2 pilot with Sensor and 2 Missile slots, so he can bring Barrage Rockets or Diamond-Boron Missiles. If a networked droid has locked onto a target, you can ignore a missile's token requirement. Notable this can let it shoot weapons that need focus to launch, something a drone can normally not use, lacking focus instead of calculate. Definitely a good idea to bring Passive Sensors or DBS-32C to compensate for the low initiative.
• Bombardment Drone: Init 3, Limited 3. Sensor and 2 Bomb slots. When dropping a device, you can choose to launch it instead, using the same template. The double bomb slots mean you can bring Bomblet Generator, but it's way better to have Proximity Mines and Delayed Fuses because sometimes, it's really good to be able to push a mine forward, fly through it, and leave some higher initiative chump to detonate it.
• DBS-32C: Many "Roger Rogers" will be said with this Droid Control Signal Relay around. He can bring a Tactical Relay and Sensor Upgrade. At the start of Engagement, he can spend a Calculate to Coordinate a networked droid. If there was ever a droid to put Landing Struts on, 32C is the one.
• DBS-404: An Init 4 unique who can perform primary attacks at Range 0, but when performing any attack at Range 0-1, you roll an extra attack die and then suffer a crit. For those keeping track that stacks with normal range one bonus for FOUR attack at range 1. 404 appears to be very much a Leeroy Jenkins fighter, and he most definitely is if you bring APT, but it can also serve as a handy bit of insurance with longer range munitions. A notable one might be cluster missiles because if both targets are in range one that lets him throw out 8 dice in one turn, against two targets mind you but that's still a lot of Dakka. Just because Little Orphan Annie closed the gap does NOT mean he is safe from having his face chewed off by this crazy fucker. Also, has Missile, Torp, and Bomb slots. And before you ask: no 404 does not play nice with 081, DFS-081: only helps when you take a crit when you defend not from an ability like 404, as thematic as 404 'preservation programing not found' working with 'Programmed for Preservation' 081.

Sith Infiltrator

The first large base prequel ship, it has a great dial, poor agility, Force tokens and the option to take a cloak.

• It's actually pretty customizable, with slots for a torp, cannon, bomb, two crew and a special "Tactical Relay" which is a CIS specific crew slot (basically a Confederate Astromech). Just be warned, this ship is a bit of a DISTRACTION CARNIFEX so unless it's necessary for your list to have it, it might be better to save the points for a bid instead. At the same time "DISTRACTION CARNIFEX" can be a legitimate tactic and with the ability to cloak due to the title, it might let you tank a lot of damage.
• The "Scimitar" title lets you take a stress to cloak and adds a Jam to your action bar. It also gives you the ability to give any enemy in your Bullseye arc a Jam token automatically when you de-cloak.

Pilots

• Dark Courier: a PS2 generic.

• O-66: A PS3 droid that trades a Focus for a Calculate and can use Calculate tokens to perform actions after defending.

• Count Dooku: An elegant, charismatic, gentlemanly Sith lord and master fencer who had dreams of liberating the galaxy from Republic control. A PS4 who can use the force to delete blue or red tokens (but only after defending and has an enemy in his arc) and can also spend a Force token to perform an action if he successfully hits someone. The Scimitar upgrade is must, as you can drop your cloak after being shot at, fire your own weapon, and then immediately recloak.
  • Dooku as a crew is worth bringing for the card art alone, but his ability has the highest troll potential of anything in the game. Before a range 0-2 ship rolls dice, you can spend your Force point (assuming it's full) to name a result. If the named result doesn't appear in the roll, the person who rolled must change one die to that named result. There's the obvious use of fucking with attack and defense rolls, but his ability can be applied to any dice roll, including obstacle collisions, Console Fire, Wounded Pilot, Illicit Cloaking Device, or just preventing your remote from getting roadkilled. If an enemy ship runs through a debris field, Dooku can guarantee they take the crit as long as he's close enough. Generally, his ability is better used when there are fewer dice being rolled, as he's more likely to actually affect the outcome. Just don't put him a ship with another Force user or you'll never be able to use the ability.
• Darth Maul: Before he took a lightsaber to his kidney(s), Maul was a PS5 pilot who could drop two Force tokens to make a bonus attack against a second target or the same target if he missed the first time. Overall a pretty cool guy who had a lot going for him.

Nantex-Class Starfighter

The Geonosian Nantex has a small base, a turret, and a bullseye only arc. The built-in Pinpoint Tractor Array allows it to tractor itself to rotate its turret in any direction except the rear, and RAW says it can do this even after a collision. On a normal maneuver, it can effectively boost/barrel-roll, rotate, AND focus in one round, all at the cost of one agility if you don't pull off an Ensnare (More on that in a minute). On the flipside, you must rotate your turret a different direction in order to get the movement benefit of tractoring, and the Nantex has the aforementioned, only bullseye arc so it needs it's agility to even get on target.

• Like the A-Wing, Nantex rookies have a Talent slot and aces have two.
• Ensnare is the go-to talent for high init pilots. At the end of Activation Phase, it allows you to transfer a tractor token to another ship (Hostile or friendly) range 0-1 inside your turret arc. You can do this even after bumping, which caused an outpouring of rage.
• Gravitic Deflection is another Nantex-exclusive Talent that allows one defense die to be rerolled per tractored ship in the firing arc. If you're flying a Geonosian swarm, the choice is obvious.

Pilots

• Stalgasin Hive Guard: Init 3 generic. Nantex fighters rely on high initiative more than most other ships, so it's no surprise that the initiative curve would resemble that of the TIE Phantom.
• Petranaki Arena Ace: You saw these dudes zipping around near the end of Attack of the Clones. Init 4 elite generic.
• Gorgol: FFG dug deep to find this guy who appeared in one comic in 2010. Gorgol has a crippling init of 2. His saving grace is the interesting ability to disarm himself in Systems Phase to tractor a friendly ship range 1-2 and then repair a faceup Ship crit card. No arc requirements. His engineering background translates to being the only Nantex pilot with a Mod slot, afterburners should be considered to try and get the bullseye weapon on target.
• Chertek: Init 4 ace, can reroll 2 attack dice when shooting a tractored ship. Ensnare is mandatory.
• Berwer Kret: A Hive Guard Captain who works well with droid allies. When he performs an attack that hits, any and all friendly droid fighters may perform a red calculate action. Not a bad choice if you need to bring a Tactical Relay that isn't Kraken, even though blue maneuvers on CIS droid fighters tend to be on the janky side.
• Sun Fac: The ultimate Nantex ace, despite canonically being killed by ground troops mere seconds after taking off, though in his defense it was Delta Squad. Gets an extra attack die when shooting at a tractored ship. Ensnare is once again essential, as you can tractor-roll yourself, then tractor-roll a victim into your bullseye arc, who will then have to contend with at least 5 attack dice while losing a defense die from the tractor token. Be warned that Sun Fac with Ensnare is EXPENSIVE and the numerous cries of NPE will keep it that way.

HMP Droid Gunship

A ship stated to be capable of strafing runs. Information is scarce, but from the preview, it has a 180° firing arc, 2 attack, 1 agility, 5 hull, 3 shields. The Networked Aim ship ability prevents an HMP from spending its target locks on rerolls, but can reroll one die per allied lock on the defender.

Star Wars Miniature Games Tactical Guides
X-Wing:	Rebel Alliance, Galactic Empire, The Resistance, The First Order, Scum & Villainy, The Galactic Republic, Confederacy of Independent Systems
Armada:	Rebel Alliance, Galactic Empire, The Galactic Republic, Confederacy of Independent Systems
Legion:	Rebel Alliance, Galactic Empire, Grand Army of the Republic, Confederacy of Independent Systems,