I'm thinking of fielding a 5 ship headhunter build, but wanted the thoughts of the community.

My initial thoughts are 4 Tala Squadron pilots all the munitions fail safe and and concussion missiles. Then Airen Cracken with the same, leaving 4 points.

Over to you guys?

Give the Talas assault missiles instead of concussion, and Cracken a cluster missile. will probably be fairly punishing.

Or Etahn + Predator and Tala x 5. I've been playing around with Etahn and four Bandits + Conc. Missiles, and I like it so far.

What about expose???, greettings.

Or Etahn + Predator and Tala x 5. I've been playing around with Etahn and four Bandits + Conc. Missiles, and I like it so far.

Etahn is the Rebel Howl. Not quit the same operating dynamic, but how he buffs the little ships equates. Some of those Crits are going to get through. Think I'd go for more defensive, or stress inducing upgrade for him though.

I have tried:

Blount + Assault missile + swarm tactics

Cracken + Clusters + swarm tactics

3x bandits with concussions with munitions

2x PS 8 shots

2x Ps 6 shots

or 3x Ps 8 shots

Cracken gives an extra 2 actions out when he fire his clusters ensuring TL/Focus on 2 bandits. My first battle I took out both Kath, Krassis and Dark Curse with only loosing 1 bandit.

My local club are making fun of these but they are awesome. I also run the "El Bandito's" with Han!

Or Etahn + Predator and Tala x 5. I've been playing around with Etahn and four Bandits + Conc. Missiles, and I like it so far.

Etahn is the Rebel Howl. Not quit the same operating dynamic, but how he buffs the little ships equates. Some of those Crits are going to get through. Think I'd go for more defensive, or stress inducing upgrade for him though.

What I've discovered through the course of many games is that Etahn doesn't really need a lot of upgrades to be effective, not even defensive ones like Howl. He's more of a support ship, as you're implying, so there's certainly no reason to kit him out like a dogfighter. Most of the lists you're going to put him in will already present your opponent with more convenient (or threatening) targets. Biggs is an obvious example, but almost any Z-95 will serve as low hanging fruit for your opponent if flown properly. Missile spam can be particularly dangerous, so your opponent would be foolish not to gun down your low PS fighters as quickly as possible, especially with Etahn hanging back at range 3 with a focus or an evade token. The reason why I recommend Predator is because there are going to be many times where you'll want to use barrel roll, not only to avoid opposing arcs but to maximize the effectiveness of his own, and the lack of offensive actions over so many turns is going to take its toll. It also frees you up to take a focus for defense on turns where maneuvering is less critical, while still having some offensive capability. I'll take that over the defensive upgrades any day of the week.

Makes a lot of sense. I would certainly agree about the the E wing not needing a lot of up grades, they are capable ships and thats reflected in the price. No need to throw more points at it. I would say the same applies to the Defender.

What about expose???, greettings.

Never, ever, ever... Focus always provides more overall damage. Yes, you could roll three hits, but it's very unlikely with unmodified dice.

Expose basically just sucks because it takes away your action.

My thought is something like this:

Cracken + Squad Leader

Blount + Swarm Tactics + Assault Missile

Tala + Assault Missile (x3)

Admittedly, it is an alpha strike squadron that really hopes to catch multiple ships in the Assault Missile Splash. The basic idea is that the Tala's can all use Focus as their action. Hopefully, when Blount moves there will be a target for him to lock onto. When it's Cracken's turn he can pass off his action (SL) to allow a Tala to TL on the best target available to it. Once the shooting start we want Cracken shooting at something and giving a different Tala the chance to TL on someone. Then we get down to PS 6 that's when Blount gets to fire his missile and hopefully splash another ship or four and one of the Tala's that TLed via Cracken will also get to shoot an Assault missile w/ Focus which should hit. When PS 4 comes you still should have one Tala with TL/Focus to unload an Assault Missile and the last Tala which may be sitting on it's missile until next turn comes around.

Now this may only be designed to fire three Assault Missiles the first round you should have some freedom determining which three of the four ships are firing them. If you want to shave a few points you could drop the Tala down to Bandits and may also change one of those Assault Missiles to something else since we don't plan on firing all of them round 1 anyway.

I have tried:

Blount + Assault missile + swarm tactics

Cracken + Clusters + swarm tactics

3x bandits with concussions with munitions

2x PS 8 shots

2x Ps 6 shots

or 3x Ps 8 shots

Cracken gives an extra 2 actions out when he fire his clusters ensuring TL/Focus on 2 bandits. My first battle I took out both Kath, Krassis and Dark Curse with only loosing 1 bandit.

My local club are making fun of these but they are awesome. I also run the "El Bandito's" with Han!

I have run this same list with the exception of the bandits all running Assault Missiles instead of the Failsafe + Concussions.

wit a couple guys getting TL + F for the missiles from Cracken you are more likely to hit and get splash damage from the assaults.

its very much a boom/bust list as if you dont take out enough hit poits in the initial attack your ships get eaten alive, and Captain Kagi is your worst opponent!

I think I'd run this:

Cracken + Cluster + Swarm + Shield - 29

Blount + Assault + Swarm - 24

2 x Bandit + Assault - 34

Bandit - 12

Total - 99

For attacking you shoot 8, 8, 6, 6, 2.

Cracken fires his clusters which gives free target lock actions to the two bandits with assaults who should have focused earlier. That should mean both of theirs do spash damage in addition to decent damage on the intended target. Also Blount will at a minimum get splash damage with his assault. The last bandit I left naked as putting anything on him means he probably dies before firing it off, so I gave a shield upgrade to Cracken with the remaining points instead.