Yeah, the PS 1 and PS 3 (w/ no EPT) pilots on the Defender puzzle me. The Defender was meant for elite Imperial pilots only. I get the argument about the defender being a newer ship and harder to fly, but a seasoned Squint pilot isn't all of a sudden going to go dumb and forget how to fly.

It would be like putting a veteran F-15 pilot in an F-22. He wouldn't all of a sudden become a rookie as far as piloting skill. He might not be able to make full use of the airframe right away, but he wouldn't have trouble in a fight against rookie pilots.

I find your lack of EPT's disturbing.

The only thing I can think of is some big future combo the dev team is aware of that would make it bonkers good. I suspect the same Re: Kir Kanos and to a lesser extent Lorrir.

Ship Title: All Tie Variants

Advanced Combat Training: The EPT upgrade is added to your upgrade bar. Your Pilot Score must be 3 or higher.

Point cost: 1

Wishful thinking

I think I need to point out something no one seems to have brought up that makes the White K-Turn an incredible tactic that can change the game. Yeah, you make have to take a stress to do a one hard. But you can K-Turn while stressed. Let that sink in for a moment.

There are lots of ways to give out stress these days. And in a clash, stressing an enemy ships means that you can get behind them because they can't turn to face you. The Defender doesn't care. So I don't get my action. I can still turn all the way around and shoot you. And again if needed.

The Defender is going to be wave 4's black sheep. You may as well start coming up with synonyms of "three" to apply as a nickname.

I think I need to point out something no one seems to have brought up that makes the White K-Turn an incredible tactic that can change the game. Yeah, you make have to take a stress to do a one hard. But you can K-Turn while stressed. Let that sink in for a moment.

There are lots of ways to give out stress these days. And in a clash, stressing an enemy ships means that you can get behind them because they can't turn to face you. The Defender doesn't care. So I don't get my action. I can still turn all the way around and shoot you. And again if needed.

The Defender is going to be wave 4's black sheep. You may as well start coming up with synonyms of "three" to apply as a nickname.

. You may as well start coming up with synonyms of "three" to apply as a nickname.

The EU uses "trip" I believe, like how interceptors are squints

Let's revive this.

I found this build as extremely effective:

Rexler Brath

Push the limit

Heavy laser cannon

Twin Ion Engine MkII

Howlrunner

Swarm tactics

Black squadron pilot

Swarm tactics

Black squadron pilot

Wingman

Deals 10 dice of damage allowing Rexler to shoot last with target lock and focus, with the target potentially stripped of every focus/evade.. Not to mention that Rexler is stress-free due to wingman.

B-Wings are slaughtered in one turn, most of the time. Dash was smashed in two.

E

Even with TIE Mark II I find the defender overpriced for what it does tho, and the new engine uses up the modification slot, so no boost anymore.

Just thought of something...If you slap an Engine upgrade on it, wouldn't that also give you a no-stress-but-no-action-3-K-turn? make your 4, boost one? Not sure how great that'll be, but hey, it's there. Something to think about. Not to mention you could bank instead for some weird possibilities.

Remember the base fills space too. That'd be an effective K2, not K3.

EDIT: aaaah its a zombie thread

i fell into quattro's cunning trap

Well, I imagine the Tie Defenders as the ME262, which was very fast, indeed too fast for the common fighter tactics at that time - the time window to aim and shoot the cannons was small - and they could adept their speed only very slowly and carefully - throttle back too quickly and the engines would went off with no chance to get them go again - throttle up too quickly and the engines will get too quickly too hot and catched fire - which was not good either.

So they needed to get their time to hit their max speed and to keep it during air battles they kind of strafed air targets with their 4x30mm cannons, came around in a whide curve or loop and strafed again and so on.

Thats more or less what a Defender with a HLC in X-Wing does.

holy necro batman!

I was trying to put some TIE/D builds on a squad builder just now and realized... No EPT's on the generics?! You are telling me the ship that was ONLY given to the best of the best of the empires pilots in the lore is only given to academy pilots and obsidian pilots who have only basic flight experience in the game?! What gives! Almost makes me throw them into the useless bin... So many new EPT's and combo's wasted... Makes me sad.

Same thing with the E-Wing. Most advanced fighter they have, given to pilots worse than Rookies and Reds. Just doesn't make sense. If anything they should have the ships and pilots in brackets that reflect the cost of the ship and the skill of the pilot.

PS1/3: TIE Fighter, Headhunter

PS2/4: TIE Interceptor, TIE Bomber, X-Wing, B-Wing

PS3/5: TIE Defender, TIE Phantom, E-Wing

I was trying to put some TIE/D builds on a squad builder just now and realized... No EPT's on the generics?! You are telling me the ship that was ONLY given to the best of the best of the empires pilots in the lore is only given to academy pilots and obsidian pilots who have only basic flight experience in the game?! What gives! Almost makes me throw them into the useless bin... So many new EPT's and combo's wasted... Makes me sad.

Same thing with the E-Wing. Most advanced fighter they have, given to pilots worse than Rookies and Reds. Just doesn't make sense. If anything they should have the ships and pilots in brackets that reflect the cost of the ship and the skill of the pilot.

PS1/3: TIE Fighter, Headhunter

PS2/4: TIE Interceptor, TIE Bomber, X-Wing, B-Wing

PS3/5: TIE Defender, TIE Phantom, E-Wing

Perhaps PS is relative. z-95s have 2 as the lowest because it's easy to fly them, while a-wings and TIE Defenders are much harder to fly so even elite pilots have a relatively low PS rating when flying them. Even Vade might only be PS 8 while flying a Defender.

Considering its price tag, it seems like it would benefit a lot from an Engine Upgrade. That would allow it to do right turns in a manner similar to the Buzzsaw Shuttle, while adding extra tricks such as boosting out of a K-Turn.

This.

Don't get me wrong, the white K-Turn is very cool. But it's like the only interesting thing about the ship, so it makes it very predictable. Boost would at least let you adjust your facing a little after the K-Turn, catch enemies that set their dials based on your K-Turn.

alright, so we all know the defender is a **** jouster

so, how do we transcend jousting especially using the white-4k we paid so much for

1.) vessery

his ability is awesome and actually gives him some incredible jousting value when active

2.) crackshot (or Vessery, part 2)

it doesn't matter how amazing a jouster/ace you are if you're dead

crackshot is probably the first one-use offense in X-wing to accurately capture the power of a one-shot upgrade. It only works once, but it'll punch right through your ship's normal maximum offensive capability and slay the **** out of the so-dreaded soontir/vader and other high priority targets. It turns even the humble not-K-wing into a silver bullet, using crackshot + stims + TL to force a fully modified shot down some poor, expensive bastard's throat

no imperial ship can exploit this better than Vessery. His ability makes the generally no-brainer Predator utterly redundant, and as a cannon-bearing defender he can rock the HLC.

imagine, if you will, 4 fully modified red dice smashing into ace de jour (allowing no range 3 bonus) with an automatic cancel to one evade result regardless of source (natural, focused, evade token, c3po, thrusters...)

Crackshot Vess is a sniper assassin, you just need someone else to paint the target

3.) ion or flechette cannons

ion is to jousting what tire ions are to knees

you can't joust if you're only moving 1-foward, and only the defender can do a natural focus action after a 4k to keep your ass ionized

stress works similarly, but less flexibly against small ships; more flexibly against large (only need to hit once to control a large ship, as opposed to 2 ion snots)

flechette defenders are hilariously effective against aggressors

1.) vessery

his ability is awesome and actually gives him some incredible jousting value when active

Indeed. Someone said something about the defender and bombers working well together. Jonus plus HLC defenders is nice but so are generic bombers plus vessery - a TIE bomber is a decently tough ship that doesn't really need its action for survivability (TIE punishers are even more so if you want to spend the points).

That gives you a solid 'anvil' you can trust to get a target lock and not die before Vessery gets to shoot.

Two Cutlass Squadron Pilots with Fire Control Systems plus Colonel Vessery leaves you 19 points to buy ordnance, cannons, modifications and elite pilot talents.

So, I haven't played it yet, but from Theorycrafting and the MathWing side of things, I can say this:

1. It's not going to be a good jouster, even if using a white K-turn allows it to keep its action 100% of the time.
2. But what the K-turn does is open up new tactical opportunities that get you better positioning. It can keep your enemies in arc more of the time, which directly translates into a higher damage output. You will need to abuse this to make the ship cost efficient.
3. Conversely, if your opponents get the opportunity to put some good shots on it, it is only marginally more durable than a pair of TIE fighters.

It's really hard to quantify the second factor. I think it will be some time before the dust really settles and we get a verdict on this ship.

Point 3 is the biggest. The thing cost more than 2 TIE Fighters but it is harder to kill 2 TIE Fighters than 1 TIE Defender and 2 TIE Fighters pack more punch even if you put HLC on the Defender.

However here is the biggest problem and it is not just the TIE defender and that is hard damage mitigation. At the start of X-wing the only hard damage mitigation was the evade action and R2-D2 provided some recovery. Everythign else was soft mitigation and just good old hit point endurance. When C-3PO came out the Falcon became the first ship with 2 Hard Damage mitigation a turn having both evade and C-3PO.

Now there is a whole lot more damage mitigation with Issard, Emperor, Poe, and Autothrusters. You have to be building a ship with hard damage mitigation. Plus there are card meant to counter all that but because they are so strong they also do great with ships that don't have the high defense. So we came to a point in the game where the meta shifted on hard defense to now even harder offense which just makes TIE defenders and their soft damage mitigation even more vulnerable still at their point cost.

As for their maneuverability with the white K-Turn. It is still fairly rigid and Soontr loves nothing more than prey that can't make lateral turns as well. Making it flanking runs the safest in the game.

So there are the problems with the TIE defenders we got overwhelming firepower that can blast through 3 agility without autothrusters, and arc dodgers who have an easy time with small base single firing arcs that lacks the ability to change their declination and little lateral movement. 6 hit points with 50% shield coverage may seem like a generous amount when compared to a Z-95 or TIE Fighter, but at almost three times the cost not worth it. Especially if you have ships that have just as much hit points but can pull hard damage mitigation with autothrusters, yes I am talking about the T-70, it has better stats for less (when including autothrusters).

So, I haven't played it yet, but from Theorycrafting and the MathWing side of things, I can say this:

• It's not going to be a good jouster, even if using a white K-turn allows it to keep its action 100% of the time.
• But what the K-turn does is open up new tactical opportunities that get you better positioning. It can keep your enemies in arc more of the time, which directly translates into a higher damage output. You will need to abuse this to make the ship cost efficient.
• Conversely, if your opponents get the opportunity to put some good shots on it, it is only marginally more durable than a pair of TIE fighters.

It's really hard to quantify the second factor. I think it will be some time before the dust really settles and we get a verdict on this ship.

Point 3 is the biggest. The thing cost more than 2 TIE Fighters but it is harder to kill 2 TIE Fighters than 1 TIE Defender and 2 TIE Fighters pack more punch even if you put HLC on the Defender

That last statement is just not true. 4 dice from the HLC is far more potent than 2 2-dice attacks. It is opposed by a single defense roll instead of two, and that's before range modifiers come into play. At long range the HLC is more heavily favored, at short range, it gets to be pretty dependent on the target's agility. The Fighters are obviously better vs a Decimator at Range 1, but the Defender starts being better against AGI 3.

I called 3 PS1 defenders with Ion Cannons "The Ion-mongers of DOOOOOM" ran it at a tournament and was surprised

Sure it went pop fairly easily, but did cause people issues. took out whisper in a round of shooting and an ion onto a rock, then followed the decimator around ioning it off the board, needed some decent evade dice cause of that accursed turret but was off in 4 turns only lost one all game that time.

It's not great but it is fun! which is the reason I'll fly it again sometime

So, I haven't played it yet, but from Theorycrafting and the MathWing side of things, I can say this:

1. It's not going to be a good jouster, even if using a white K-turn allows it to keep its action 100% of the time.
2. But what the K-turn does is open up new tactical opportunities that get you better positioning. It can keep your enemies in arc more of the time, which directly translates into a higher damage output. You will need to abuse this to make the ship cost efficient.
3. Conversely, if your opponents get the opportunity to put some good shots on it, it is only marginally more durable than a pair of TIE fighters.

It's really hard to quantify the second factor. I think it will be some time before the dust really settles and we get a verdict on this ship.

Point 3 is the biggest. The thing cost more than 2 TIE Fighters but it is harder to kill 2 TIE Fighters than 1 TIE Defender and 2 TIE Fighters pack more punch even if you put HLC on the Defender.

This is an old post, so some updates / clarification: the TIE Defender is actually slightly less durable than a pair of TIE Fighters despite having exactly twice the hit points but half of them are shields. This is because one TIE Defender only requires one "kill shot" to remove from the board, but two TIE Fighters requires two kill shots. I discovered and quantified this when I started calculating durability by the actual number of shots required to kill a target, and not merely average damage intake. As a result, a 3/3/3/3 statline is worth about 23 points in raw dice. The PS1 Defender is essentially paying a 7 point tax to get the white K-turn.

How many squad points would an Academy Tie Fighter be to hit the efficiency of a PS1 Tie Defender?

My main issue with the PS1 Defender is exactly that, the pilot skill is 1. 1. For being the more elite pilots in the Imperial Fleet, you'd think the PS1 Defender would at least be higher.

This is because one TIE Defender only requires one "kill shot" to remove from the board, but two TIE Fighters requires two kill shots.

Isn't that actually an advantage though? Because even though they have the same amount of health, the Defender doesn't have the potential to lose half of it's firepower after it loses half it's health(as the two Fighters would if one of them was shot down).

PS1's probably the best skill for it, given how blockable that white K is. I'd rather 1 - 3 generics over 2 - 4 generics.

PS1's probably the best skill for it, given how blockable that white K is. I'd rather 1 - 3 generics over 2 - 4 generics.

Is there some rule generics have to be separated by 2 points?

Why can't, you have, like, a 1 generic and a 5 generic?

How many squad points would an Academy Tie Fighter be to hit the efficiency of a PS1 Tie Defender?

The numbers in the public MathWing post (which will be updated sometime after Worlds) say the TIE Defender has a jousting efficiency of 23/30 = 76.6%, so the PS1 Academy TIE would need to be 12*30/23 = 15.65 points to have the same raw stat line efficiency as the TIE Defender.

This is because one TIE Defender only requires one "kill shot" to remove from the board, but two TIE Fighters requires two kill shots.

Isn't that actually an advantage though? Because even though they have the same amount of health, the Defender doesn't have the potential to lose half of it's firepower after it loses half it's health(as the two Fighters would if one of them was shot down).

Example: you do 2-4 damage to a 1 hull TIE Fighter as you kill it. You still only do 1 hull of damage to remove the ship. Dead is dead. Then you need to kill the other TIE Fighter as well. However, if you do the same damage to a 3 hull/1 shield TIE Defender (already down 2 hit points like in the TIE Fighter example), it eats 100% of the damage. Having more hull and shields maximizes the offensive efficiency of the ships shooting at you.