Taking on huge ships...any tips?

By Tiltowait, in X-Wing

Hey folks thought I'd reach out.

Played a scenario against the Rebel GR-75. I flew my fun list (Vader, Fett, Howl and Academy TIE-100 points). The other guy ran Dutch, Han Solo, plus a few other ships (150 point list) I forget along with the GR-75.

With the reinforce action, the ship had an auto 2 evade against every attack made. With 2 attack dice on Vader and the Academy TIE I only managed to ding the shields once by using Fett. I tried closing with Fett and he got rammed. By the end of the turn the shields were full up and I was left with ships with only 2AD.

What do you folks usually fly against these big ships? More ordnance? Bigger guns? Swarms? I suppose I could try a Space Cow list... :D

EDIT: Add we were playing a scenario. The points are set by the scenario. Imps got mines but only 1 was within range the entire game (made the transport go backwards 3 for one turn). The other mine got converted to Reb control courtesy of Solo. Reinforcements did not kick in either since no reinforcements for Pilots < 5 or if the ship dies from a ram.

Mission goals:

Rebs: get the transport off the opposite corner. "Get to the choppa!"

Imps: destroy fore and aft sections of transport.

I flanked the transport with Vader and TIEs on one side, Fett on the other. Basically the Rebs spent one turn (speed 3) building up energy and slapping on then double evade, one turn jamming (speed 3) and the rest heading full speed.

Edited by Tiltowait

heavy laser cannons on a firespray and shuttle

You were flying 100pts against his 150pts? Unless my reading comprehension isn't working that would have been your first problem.

Ions,friend, ions. Ioning big ships means they get less energy. Less energy means they can do less of all the things that make them interesting. If you're running Vader, stick an ion missile on him and do a damage, 2 ion tokens, and hold onto your target lock.

On Fet, well, ion cannons are a great idea.

Also: you really want to come at those bad boys from behind. Can't be rammed if you're not in front. :)

The double strength reinforce only works against the front, so as others have mentioned, get behind or beside the transport. I found it to catch fire and die pretty quick to interceptors and TIE Bombers with torpedoes.

Against a GR-75:

  • It can reinforce front or rear but the double-reinforce title card only works to the front. Come at it from the side and rear and hit fore and aft simultaneously so it can't reinforce both. Remember it only has a single pool of hit points
  • Don't attack from the front 90 degree arc. You're setting yourself up to be rammed. Give it a wide berth and come around behind it.
  • Remember the **** thing is tough but it has no guns pe se. If it's using reinforce every turn it's not using co-ordinate or jam which means it's making naff all contribution to the game.
  • Ion weapons are indeed awesome, but need to be backed up by actual guns - 1 damage per turn per attacker is too slow to really kill it in a meaningful timeframe.

Use lubricant.

Some things that work:

Ion Pulse Missiles

Bombers

Things that do well at extreme range (HLC, Merc Copilot, etc.)

If you get to tag it a bit early (while its escort is still close by) then Assault missiles. Only one section counts for "range 1" but that base is still larger than a Large ship.

Rexler Brath

Bombs and Mines

That's just the short list.

Edited by That One Guy

Rexler Brath with hlc has been a favorite of mine. Also bombers with cluster missiles and ion pulse missiles. Fly everyone near jonus and huge ships go down quicker.

Edited by hothie

You were flying 100pts against his 150pts? Unless my reading comprehension isn't working that would have been your first problem.

It kind of sounds like his 100pts against their 150+Transport... so 100 v. 200 pts.

That's not going to work!

The easiest way to deal with huge ships isn't to blow it up, it's to make it worthless and ignore it, and you do that by stripping all its energy. This is easy with the corvette, as you can easily take 3 ion cannons for less than 130points. For the transport it's a bit trickier, since you want to spend 20-30 points to get 2-3 ion tokens on it a turn. A TIE bomber with two ion pulse missiles fits the bill, but you're only taking it out of commission for two turns then so the rest of your list has to act fast.

The other way is take three academy ties, K-turn behind it, and do nothing but two forwards so you stay on the rear arc. It'll die eventually.

The other, other way, is if you're playing an even point game focus fire on it OR everything else. He has to get 40points of value from a ship that can't fire, so look at what he's taking and decide if it's possible to just ignore it. Then your 200 point fleet only has to kill 160 points of rebels or 40 points of transport, which it should be able to easily do.

Edited by What

Attack from the sides: since it cannot reinforce both sections, attacking from the sides allows you to hit a defensless section.

Opportunist on Interceptors works remarkably well since the transport cannot have focus or evade tokens.

Keep in mind that the transport can stress out pilots with 2 stress tokens. This is less important with generic pilots or pilots with passive abilities, but more important with pilots who need to take actions (such as Vader).

Critical hits can really hurt transports, specifically those on the back section.

That's all that comes to mind right now.

Hey folks thanks for all the advice. I will restructure a strike team to address those suggestions. I don't think I have all those cards but I know i have some of them :)