Unboxing – Tie-Interceptor Expansion for the X-Wing

The Imperial Tie Interceptor!!!

If you’ve seen some of my earlier X-Wing unboxings, you might know that I’ve explored the game from the Rebel side.

What about the Empire? Well, the most popular way to play the Imperials is arguably with large squadrons of Tie-Fighters. It’s a indubitably an iconic theme for Star Wars, and it works well with 2 X-Wing Miniatures game starter boxes. It just never seemed very interesting to me.

Now, with Fantasy Flight’s new Imperial Aces Expansion around the corner, I’m thinking I might build myself a small Imperial Squadron around Tie Interceptors, and not Tie-Fighters.

Who doesn’t love those sleek, “dagger-shaped” Interceptors?

So I start with the “old” Tie Interceptor Expansion.

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#1 – The Tie Interceptor: Miniature & Tokens

The Tie Interceptor Expansion gives you an Imperial Tie Interceptor… of course!

There are a lot of awesome classic designs in Star Wars, but the up-gunned, even-faster version of the Tie Fighter, the 4-gun Tie Interceptor, has always been among my favourites.

In the X-Wing Miniatures Game itself, the Tie Interceptor has been released parallel to the Rebel A-Wing. Both share the ability to do a boost action, though the Tie Interceptor is arguably even a little faster (though it lacks shields and missiles).

The tokens that come with it are fairly basic: focus, evade, pilot-base-inserts, etc.. .

Everything you need to play.

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#2 – The Tie Interceptor: Cards & Pilots

Where the A-Wing equivalent gave you lots of interesting missiles and tools, the Tie Interceptor expansion comes mainly with lots and lots of pilots, including 3 named pilots. Upgrades, however, are sparse: Elusiveness and Daredevil.

Most notably, the Tie Interceptor (independent of the pilot) comes with 3 Attack Dice, matching the X-Wing (and 50% more fire-power-dice than the regular Tie Fighter). It’s still fragile, but it gives Imperial players the guns to do some serious damage.

The named Pilots are:

• Soontir Fel, who matches Wedge Antilles and Darth Vader in his pilot skill. While Soontir Fel cannot outright ignore Stress Tokens the way Tycho Celchu does in his A-Wing, he does gain a free Focus Token to keep firing at top-efficiency and, obviously, synchs very well with the Tie Interceptor’s ability to boost.

• Turr Phenir is a Skill 7 pilot. Nothing to scoff at. I really like his special skill though, which grants him a free boost or barrel-roll after an attack. Combined with an Interceptor, he is possibly the most mobile pilot/ship around, though I fully confess it’s (currently) a bit beyond my skill with this game to use this ability effectively.

• “Fel’s Wrath” – It Will Not Die! Given how fragile Imperial ships can be, the ability to stick around for a last attack even after he “died” is a useful little bonus, though nothing to base a strategy around.

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#3 – Thoughts?

To be honest, the Tie Interceptor doesn’t feel like an easy ship to use. Maybe it is because I’ve played mostly Rebels so far, but there are none of the synergies or tactics that seem “obvious” to me as they did with, say, the HWK-290.

The pilots themselves are good, but getting the most out of it can be tricky (if you’re used to flying at X-Wing speed). The Interceptor lacks the alpha-strike missiles of the A-Wing and the cheap expendability of the regular Tie Fighter.

That said, the ship looks cool enough that I am motivated to “make it work”, hoping that the variants in the Imperial Aces expansion add a bit more synergies. As it stands, I mostly see the Tie Interceptor as an added gun used with regular Tie Fighters (Hull Runner, etc..).

So Rebel-bias and all, I’d still rate the Tie Interceptor Expansion slightly below the “counter-part” A-Wing expansion for content and innovation, even though the ship itself is probably cooler (visually).

Do You Play X-Wing the Miniatures Game?

If you have some experience flying for the Empire, I’d love to hear about some genuine “Tie Interceptor strategies”.

Leave a comment!

Z.