Drawing inspiration from Rakky Wistol's Scarlet Cowgirl post, I decided to post a list I've been toying around with. I plan on posting each iteration of the list as I go and detailing it's performance.

Theory: The basic gist is to Stress and Ion an opponent at the same time thus locking down nasty things like: Interceptors, Defenders, Phantoms, B-Wings and the occasion large ship. To do this, the core of the list revolves around Hobbie packing R3-A2. Why Hobbie? His ability is a great match for R3-A2. Take a target lock, use R3-A2 when declaring your attack, spend your target lock, clear your stress. To accomplish the Ion part of the equation, we have 3 options currently in standard. Y-Wings and the HWK-290 with Ion Cannon Turrets or B-Wings with Ion Cannons. Each option has their plus an minuses which I won't necessarily get into right this moment. For the final ship in the list I went with Tarn Mison as he fit's the bill in terms of points and his ability gives hime some closing potential.

First Evolution:

Hobbie w/ R3-A2 27

Tarn Mison 23

Blue Squadron Pilot w/ Ion Cannon 25 x2

So the first attempt at this list was played today. I decided to roll with B-Wings in the first iteration. Small tourney and all my opponents were playing Imperial. I was up against mostly higher PS Interceptors and Tie Fighter's the first two rounds (also had Vader to contend with in the second round...) and then Krassis with an HLC, Flight instructor and Engine upgrade in the last round. Performance wise I was sorta satisfied with my choice of the B-Wings. They were absolutely critical in the 3rd round where they enabled me to Ion Krassis at range 3 after Hobbie put a stress on him which lead to Krassis narrowly not being able to turn soon enough to avoid flying off the board. That said, the B-Wings were not surprisingly hurt by the higher skill Interceptors avoiding their arcs. I also rolled some hideously bad attack rolls at times which may have changed my overall fate for the day but the list ended up 2 and 1. I really felt that there were more times that the Ion Turret on a Y-Wing would have helped me more than the R3 shots that I could put out with the B-Wing. My next run on this list will swap the Blue Squadron Pilots with Gold Squadron Pilots which incidentally frees up 4 points. I feel there are 3 different directions I can take with the 4 remaining points. In order of what I'm feeling the best options are:

1. Flechette Torpedoes on Tarn Mison, R2 Astromechs on the Golds- This would increase the options for putting stress on some opponents and even if not it's 3 attack die at R3 without the benefit of the bonus Agility dice. The R2 Astromechs then give the Y's some more flexibility in terms of maneuvers

2. Flechette Torpeoes on both the Golds- The idea is to give the Y's an extra Range 3 punch (and stress causing capability)

3. Upgrade the Golds to Grays- Purely a pilot skill build. Not so keen on this at this point but it's an option on the table.

Please feel free to post your thoughts and/or criticism. I'll be updating this again for sure next Sunday, possibly sooner if I get the opportunity to get a game in during the week.

So, after playing around with Hobbie for the last few weeks, here's what I've learned. A single stress isn't worth much by itself, so his ability coupled with R3-A2 alone isn't that great. However, if you give him a Flechette, he can put 2 stress on a ship, and then remove his own. This is compounded with the fact that the first round is often at R3, where the golds can't ionize it. I would also point out that the 3 dice (w/o TL) at R3 (denying an extra evade) is almost as good as the regular shot w/ the TL...

vs. 1 agi, 1.47 vs. 1.17 dmg

vs. 2 agi, 1.22 vs. .88 dmg

vs. 3 agi, .95 vs. .67 dmg

About .3 damage less regardless of who you're shooting at.. but a second stress token. Once a ship is double stressed, you can then keep putting 1 stress on via hobbie each turn, or hand it off to a gold to ionize and keep the 1 stress on it while Hobbie goes for someone else (or more likely dies).

Now then, you originally talked about B's with Ions... I could see the following working relatively well:

Hobbie w/ R3A2 + Flechette

Red w/ Flechette

Blue w/ Ion

Gold w/ Ion

The goal would be to have Hobbie lock down one ship himself. The Red and Blue could lock down a second ship together. The Gold would often not have a round 1 ion shot, but I don't want to put the Flechette on him since he's a lower PS. With this method, you could lock 2 ships from the beginning, and then have the gold take over on Hobbie's ship, as he stresses a second ship, that the Blue locks down. You can now maintain 2 stressed ionized ships, and have 2 X wings to deal with the rest of the squad. At this point, you can K turn behind them or swoop past those two ships and not worry about them, cutting his force in half (if he's a rebel / elite PS build)... Not bad...

An interesting thought. I have considered going with a Blue and a Gold, and will likely give it a go here after running one of the three options above. Why Red Squadron over Tarn if I may ask? Dropping 1 PS for Tarn's ability seems like a very fair trade in my book.

So, after playing around with Hobbie for the last few weeks, here's what I've learned. A single stress isn't worth much by itself, so his ability coupled with R3-A2 alone isn't that great. However, if you give him a Flechette, he can put 2 stress on a ship, and then remove his own. This is compounded with the fact that the first round is often at R3, where the golds can't ionize it. I would also point out that the 3 dice (w/o TL) at R3 (denying an extra evade) is almost as good as the regular shot w/ the TL...

vs. 1 agi, 1.47 vs. 1.17 dmg

vs. 2 agi, 1.22 vs. .88 dmg

vs. 3 agi, .95 vs. .67 dmg

About .3 damage less regardless of who you're shooting at.. but a second stress token. Once a ship is double stressed, you can then keep putting 1 stress on via hobbie each turn, or hand it off to a gold to ionize and keep the 1 stress on it while Hobbie goes for someone else (or more likely dies).

Now then, you originally talked about B's with Ions... I could see the following working relatively well:

Hobbie w/ R3A2 + Flechette

Red w/ Flechette

Blue w/ Ion

Gold w/ Ion

The goal would be to have Hobbie lock down one ship himself. The Red and Blue could lock down a second ship together. The Gold would often not have a round 1 ion shot, but I don't want to put the Flechette on him since he's a lower PS. With this method, you could lock 2 ships from the beginning, and then have the gold take over on Hobbie's ship, as he stresses a second ship, that the Blue locks down. You can now maintain 2 stressed ionized ships, and have 2 X wings to deal with the rest of the squad. At this point, you can K turn behind them or swoop past those two ships and not worry about them, cutting his force in half (if he's a rebel / elite PS build)... Not bad...

I liked the build you played at regionals. Hobbie seemed to be doing very good for you there. I can see Hobbie playing more of a role in the meta as wave 4 comes out and stress will happen a lot more. The what if for Hobbie for me is if he had the Elite Pilot skill slot, oh the possibilities!

Hobbie w/ R3A2 + Flechette

Red w/ Flechette

Blue w/ Ion

Gold w/ Ion

I was thinking the same, except I'd drop the Flechette Torps to upgrade the Blue to a Dagger (or toy around with giving it a FCS). Also the Ion Cannon Turret on the Y-Wing is five points not three, so you'd have to drop one set of torps from your list.

Alternatively you could run this:

Hobbie - R3-A2

Biggs

Blue - Ion Cannon

Gold - Ion Cannon Turret

Have you considered pairing it down to one ion source? The squadron has cool, but obvious synergy. The more you build toward that synergy, the more killing Hobbie becomes mandatory.

With that in mind, I like Eltnot's suggestion of fitting Biggs in there.

Otherwise I just wouldn't go out of your way to squeeze flechettes, Hobbie, and 2 ions in there. A single stress isn't as good as two, obviously, but it does make the enemy's movements more predictable. If you know the greens they've got available then you have a good idea where they'll be. Rather than focus too much on overloading them with ion and stress, hit them once and plan on darting in for the kill after. I think an AS B-wing would serve you better than an ion one, in that regard.

Besides, if your opponent decides not to pull a green because it is too obvious, then Hobbie can just stress them again.

Blount with ion pulse missiles will be an awesome edition to this list in a month or two!

Until my mind fried, I had quite a bit of success with the following list at Monroeville Regionals:

Hobbie w/ R2A3 + Flechette

Biggs

Green w/ PTL

Gold w/ ICT

Hobbie was protected from Biggs because he was clearly my #1 target. PTL wasn't a problem at all because I could chose to double stress you or ionize you, either way you're taken out of the fight. Pretty much the same thing with the B wing, Hobbie + Ion is deadly against B wings. The torp helped to setup the initial double stress on ships that were smart enough to not PTL/opp or didn't have a stress inducing EPT. As I said earlier, during my play testing, I found giving a ship 1 stress wasn't that useful since they would likely just slow roll and clear the stress... and in most cases, they'd likely be slow rolling anyways. And I found that the Gold usually didn't have an ion shot in the opening rounds, so the double stress was necessary.

The reason I suggested a Red over Tarn is specifically for PS to get the torps off on turn 1. If they're not off on turn 1, they're pretty much useless then. But if your local meta is full of PS1 and PS2, then Tarn would be fine.

Hobbie + R3-A3 + Flachette

Red + Flachette

Blue + Ion

Gold + Ion

This sounds like an awesome list, but doesn't it go over the 100 points?

Hobbie + R3-A3 + Flachette

Red + Flachette

Blue + Ion

Gold + Ion

This sounds like an awesome list, but doesn't it go over the 100 points?

With Red+Flechette, yes, 102, with Rookie and Flechette, even 100

Yeah... my bad, I was rearranging squad points in my head and overspent by two. If you're going to have to downgrade the Red to a Rookie, might as well put the Flechette on the Gold, that way everyone is shooting with 3 dice the on the opening exchange.

Hobbie w/ R2A3 + Flechette

Biggs

Green w/ PTL

Gold w/ ICT

This sounds like a fun list! Did you consider putting Tarn in instead of the Green?

I think PS 2 pilots with flechettes are a mistake. A savy opponent will avoid it until they kill the rookie/gold. Useable against PS 1, but they aren't an ideal target anyway.

I think PS 2 pilots with flechettes are a mistake. A savy opponent will avoid it until they kill the rookie/gold. Useable against PS 1, but they aren't an ideal target anyway.

Agreed, and a PS2 pilot will struggle to get a target lock on his target and ensure that the target is still in his firing arc when he gets around to shooting.

Which is why going all in on this build starts fighting against itself. Too many flechettes and ions, and you don't have the PS to pull it off. Spending too much on higher PS and ions are shooting before tokens are gone. Putting flechettes on Hobbie paints a giant bullseye on his cockpit.

I really like Hobbie with R3-A2, and I think he could become one of my regulars. But I'll settle for minor disruption and some teeth over major disruption and gums. Confused target priority goes a long way.

My next run of the list will be:

Hobbie w/ R3-A2

Tarn w/ Flechettes and an R2 astromech

Gold Squadron with ICTs

For 99 points and a bid to pick initiative.

This will mainly be to see how effective it is, but somehow I get the feeling the feeling the 3rd evolution will end up with Tarn dropping the R2 and swapping a Gold for a Blue Squadron with Ion Cannon.

I was tinkering around with this, and it was fairly fun:

Hobbie: R3-A2, flechette

Blue: ion, flechette

Rookie: flechette

Rebel Operative: Ion turret

It hands out a crud-ton of stress, and then you can ion them to prevent removal and hit them pretty hard. The Blue was a good flexible option, as it could ion someone or crush them at range one as needed.

Hobbie w/ R2A3 + Flechette

Biggs

Green w/ PTL

Gold w/ ICT

This sounds like a fun list! Did you consider putting Tarn in instead of the Green?

Honestly, no. I decided I wanted to make a Hobbie list, so I added him w/ R2-A3.. That's 27 points. My next add was the Green w/ PTL bringing me to 49 points. And then I filled it out with Biggs, Flechette, and Gold w/ ICT, all of which were from tinkering with the list. I really didn't want Biggs in there, but there's not much else you can fit. The ICT I decided was necessary, though I did contemplate a Rebel Op. So then you're left with a maximum of 31 points, and you need someone to steal the hate from Hobbie.

Though now that I rationalize it that way, Wedge might have been a better target than Biggs.

Hobbie w/ R3-A2

Wedge

Green w/ PTL

Rebel Op w/ ICT

That's interesting; I might have to play around with that a bit more. I could downgrade the Green into a rookie and put ST or Flechette's on Wedge... Or I could trade out Wedge for Wes....... Interesting....

Hobbie w/ R2A3 + Flechette

Biggs

Green w/ PTL

Gold w/ ICT

This sounds like a fun list! Did you consider putting Tarn in instead of the Green?

Honestly, no. I decided I wanted to make a Hobbie list, so I added him w/ R2-A3.. That's 27 points. My next add was the Green w/ PTL bringing me to 49 points. And then I filled it out with Biggs, Flechette, and Gold w/ ICT, all of which were from tinkering with the list. I really didn't want Biggs in there, but there's not much else you can fit. The ICT I decided was necessary, though I did contemplate a Rebel Op. So then you're left with a maximum of 31 points, and you need someone to steal the hate from Hobbie.

Though now that I rationalize it that way, Wedge might have been a better target than Biggs.

Biggs w/ R3-A2

Wedge

Green w/ PTL

Rebel Op w/ ICT

That's interesting; I might have to play around with that a bit more. I could downgrade the Green into a rookie and put ST or Flechette's on Wedge... Or I could trade out Wedge for Wes....... Interesting....

Wait... there's no Hobbie in your Hobbie list!?

I was thinking of taking this list to Regionals:

Hobbie + R3-A2

Biggs

Blue + Adv. Sensors

Gold + Ion Turret

It's very similar to Khryos but I wanted the firepower of a B-Wing. Having Adv Sensors means I'll never lose an action, which is the only way to run a Blue, imo. I think most opponents will go after the Blue after Biggs is dead, which leaves them open to ion and stress combo.

My main concern is that this list lacks punch against swarms or large ship builds. However, I think this list is good against 3-4 ship rebel builds which seems to be the meta at the moment.

Hobbie w/ R2A3 + Flechette

Biggs

Green w/ PTL

Gold w/ ICT

This sounds like a fun list! Did you consider putting Tarn in instead of the Green?

Honestly, no. I decided I wanted to make a Hobbie list, so I added him w/ R2-A3.. That's 27 points. My next add was the Green w/ PTL bringing me to 49 points. And then I filled it out with Biggs, Flechette, and Gold w/ ICT, all of which were from tinkering with the list. I really didn't want Biggs in there, but there's not much else you can fit. The ICT I decided was necessary, though I did contemplate a Rebel Op. So then you're left with a maximum of 31 points, and you need someone to steal the hate from Hobbie.

Though now that I rationalize it that way, Wedge might have been a better target than Biggs.

Biggs w/ R3-A2

Wedge

Green w/ PTL

Rebel Op w/ ICT

That's interesting; I might have to play around with that a bit more. I could downgrade the Green into a rookie and put ST or Flechette's on Wedge... Or I could trade out Wedge for Wes....... Interesting....

Wait... there's no Hobbie in your Hobbie list!?

Edited it to correct it... It was supposed to be Hobbie not Biggs =P