On the phantom's case. more like your opponent was playing whisper, didn't really take into account opportunist. If he just get an evade and then focus token after shooting, he is inmune to opportunist, not allowing Keyan to stress himself neither get the extra dice. Not to speak about arc dodging it in the first place.
List: Your Gonna Go Far(lander), Jan.
On the phantom's case. more like your opponent was playing whisper, didn't really take into account opportunist. If he just get an evade and then focus token after shooting, he is inmune to opportunist, not allowing Keyan to stress himself neither get the extra dice. Not to speak about arc dodging it in the first place.
This is true, which is why Wes is so important. I originally ran the list with Biggs instead of Wes and while it did well, it was because my opponent didn't realize that saving his focus token for protection against Farlander was far more important that not taking a hit or two from Biggs (with R2 and VI) or Jan's ion cannon.
If be afraid that this list lacks damage. I'd almost never play a support in a three ship list, but maybe that's me. Once Keyan dies, and he will almost inevitably be the first, more than half of your damage output potential dissolves. Now, I love the combo of Wes and Keyan and opportunist, but I would fit in a third damage dealer like Hobbie with R2D6/opportunist or a protective ship with damage potential like Biggs. Two ships with opportunist might mess with their target priority, as it may be more beneficial for then to go after Wes first before Keyan. I also agree that the only ept for Wes is Vet instincts.
The list actually doesn't lack damage. It lacks maximum damage potential (10 maximum damage per turn with a list using Jan's ion turret vs 14 with 7 tie/ln or 12 with XXBB), but it has actually much better reliable damage output from a statistical perspective (not a maneuvering one, which is debatable).
Assuming shooting at range 2 and everyone has focus:
4 ships at 3 attack (XXBB, 4 interceptors, etc.)
vs ships with 3 agility: 1.5 damage a turn on average.
vs ships with 2 agility: 4 damage a turn on average.
6 academy pilots plus howlrunner (7 tie/ln swarm)
vs ships with 3 agility: 0 damage a turn on average. *
vs ships with 2 agility: 4 damage a turn on average.
SLC (Farlander with opportunist and HLC and TL instead of focus, Wes, and Jan with blaster turret (with ion turret it'll be similar damage since she's unlikely to do more than 1 anyway))
vs ships with 3 agility: 5.25 damage a turn on average.
vs ships with 2 agility: 6.875 damage a turn on average.
SLC is shooting at PS 7/8/8, XXBB and the swarm are mostly shooting at 1-2 PS besides howlrunner.
* 6*((2*3/4+2*1/4*3/4)-(3*5/8))+(2*3/4)-(3*5/8) = 6 attacks at 2 dice plus a reroll and 1 attack at 2 dice... TIE swarms really need to get in range 1 vs 3 agility to do anything, or focus fire at one target. Remember, the math here is assuming every shooter and every target has a focus token except for Farlander, who TLs instead of focuses because he gets a free "focus" and his target doesn't have a focus because of Wes.
Edited by KoshinnEven with Wes, Whisper is inmune to opportunist from just one ship if your opponent is smart enough (he gets one token from attacking, he gets another from action, and Wes can only remove one). I had been playing with the Wes + Wedge + Luke build lately for funsies, and i had faced phantoms doing that, luckily with two opportunist ships it is more manageable, but with only one, i wouldn't let Keyan use opportunist ever. But to be honest, i would try to arc dodge it from the beginning and train him with the swarm.
Even with Wes, Whisper is inmune to opportunist from just one ship if your opponent is smart enough (he gets one token from attacking, he gets another from action, and Wes can only remove one). I had been playing with the Wes + Wedge + Luke build lately for funsies, and i had faced phantoms doing that, luckily with two opportunist ships it is more manageable, but with only one, i wouldn't let Keyan use opportunist ever. But to be honest, i would try to arc dodge it from the beginning and train him with the swarm.
Whisper is still taking a 5 shot HLC with TL, even without opportunist, which is still one to two damage a turn. And it also means Whisper can't use a focus defensively against both Wes and Jan, which could be another one damage. And this is assuming Whisper hits with his attack.. which is very likely, but not guaranteed. I definitely considered running VI and R3-A2 on Wes specifically to fight phantoms with advanced cloaking device, but I don't think it's worth it at this point in my meta. If I did that, the list would change to:
Farlander w/ opportunist and HLC, Wes with VI and R3-A2, Jan with wingman or intimidation and nien nunb.
It'd make Jan completely support, which I'm not sure is worth it.
Phantoms are definitely a tough fight for this list, but it's not impossible. The toughest part of the fight is phantoms avoiding arc, not whisper's ability.
Edited by KoshinnBy definition, the phantom can't have a focus against a 6 shot because a 6 shot isn't possible against someone with a focus token.If your opponent is a Phantom with 4 defense dice and a focus token, your 6-dice shot has about 2:1 odds against killing it in one shot (a 37% chance to do it). So no fear! You were rolling hot--or rather you were rolling right on target, and your opponent was rolling cold.
Derp. That makes the chance of a kill 72%, not 37%, which is awfully nice to have in your pocket.
Assuming shooting at range 2 and everyone has focus:
4 ships at 3 attack (XXBB, 4 interceptors, etc.)
vs ships with 3 agility: 1.5 damage a turn on average.
vs ships with 2 agility: 4 damage a turn on average.
6 academy pilots plus howlrunner (7 tie/ln swarm)
vs ships with 3 agility: 0 damage a turn on average. *
vs ships with 2 agility: 4 damage a turn on average.
SLC (Farlander with opportunist and HLC and TL instead of focus, Wes, and Jan with blaster turret (with ion turret it'll be similar damage since she's unlikely to do more than 1 anyway))
vs ships with 3 agility: 5.25 damage a turn on average.
vs ships with 2 agility: 6.875 damage a turn on average.
Just to be precise, again--hopefully without the error on my part--you can't find the expected damage of an attack by subtracting the expected value of the defense dice from the expected value of the attack dice. By doing so, you're actually averaging in negative damage values; the more likely it is that the defender's number of evades exceeds the attacker's number of hits and crits, the less accurate it will be to just use the expected values.
You actually have to go around this problem the long way: it requires that you know the distribution of the attack roll and defense roll, and then take the convolution sum of the two to find the distribution of damage. So looking at 3 attack dice against 3 defense dice, assuming everybody has focus for every roll, the average per attack is 0.64, not 0.375, for a total of 2.55 damage per round (a nice increase over 1.5). The Howlrunner swarm gets all the way up to 2.14 damage against the 3 Agility list, even in the unlikely case that a single target has 7 focus tokens, which is a huge increase over 0 damage.
If you remove the defenders' focus tokens, you get 4.87 for the BBXX list, 5.51 for the swarm (not a typo), and Keyan's list checks in as the king at 6.44 damage. Of course, most of that is Keyan's own damage, which means you have to protect him...
Yes you have to protect him big time, and the B's dial doesn't help a lot in that regard, and if you face a list with Biggs + R4D6, you are in big trouble already.
Edited by DreadStarThe other tricky thing is that two of your ships rely on stress abilities, so if your opponent has ways to dish out extra stress, that could really hamper your squad.
I wonder if there are any lists that do more damage than this on a consistent basis (5 prototypes with proton rockets doesn't count) vs 2 and 3 agility targets.
I wonder if there are any lists that do more damage than this on a consistent basis (5 prototypes with proton rockets doesn't count) vs 2 and 3 agility targets.
Well to do that you need access to a cannon slot, and an EPT. Then find a way to make oppertunist work or have Jan Ors in your build.
So I played this list today. One of my shots was 1 hit and 5 misses. I rerolled with TL another 2 hits and a focus, totalling 4 hits. I'm a 5%er! Is it bad that I was momentarily depressed that I only rolled 4 hits in a single attack?
Then he rolled 2 evades. That was one of many things to go horribly wrong that game.
I'm considering now changing up to:
Farlander, opportunist, HLC, E2, C3PO
Wes
Biggs, R2-D6, VI
That should add a lot of survivability to Farlander at the expense of an attack die (sad...). Not sure if it's worth it, since that extra die is likely worth more than Biggs is in damage output. But Biggs means 5 more HP for Farlander and C-3PO is another 5/8 more HP every turn he's shot.
Edited by KoshinnOther than shenanigans with Nera and APT's, I have been running this list:
Farlander
-Oppertunist
-Heavy Laser Cannon
Jan
-Ion Cannon Turret
-Nein Numb
Wes
100 points
One thing that I notice is Wes dies after the first 2 or so rounds of shooting. That is 1-2 rounds of shooting with Farlander Death Beam of Death, and that means 1-2 high point ships dead. Then the fur ball happens, and oppertunist tends not to trigger again.
That Ion cannon has saved my butt many times, either forcing opponents to spend tokens to prevent being ironed, hence allowing Oppertunist to trigger or they become ionned, and in general being annoying and forcing opponents to target her.
My friends now refuse to play against me now, complaining that no matter how hard they try, the heart of their list is torn out by turn 2-3, and everything is downhill from their.
Good news though. Fat falcons and phantoms have basicly vanished from standerd play, now there are a bunch of buzz saw shuttles and tie swarms and b/x wing builds popping up, primarily because they tend to beat me easier if they don't have a 40+ point ship I can kill at the start of the game.
Oh! One friend flew a mirror build against me, and it ended up on turn two, both of the Wes's shooting at Farlander, and then the Farlander both simultaneously killing each other. At that point we had a good laugh and called it as a draw.
By definition, the phantom can't have a focus against a 6 shot because a 6 shot isn't possible against someone with a focus token.
TIE phantom at Range 1 with Expose, or a Rebel 3-dicer with Expose and Jan at Range 1.
You need to have Wes shoot something to remove token. Then you need Jan to buff Keyan, and then Keyan fire. The moment something starts messing with that order, the combo falls apart.
False. Can't strip tokens? One less die. Jan can't buff this round? One less die. Given this list has six dice when running at optimum, you're still looking at a TIE phantom level attack from Keyan.
Wes enables Opportunist by stripping tokens that may be there. Jan can buff Keyan as Keyan shoots (not on Jan's turn as some seem to think), Keyan internally spends his Opportunist stress to focus his attack.
If Keyan has no shot, Jan can buff Wes.
If Wes has no shot (or is dead) and Jan's turret attack can't strip any focus tokens then Keyan is still hitting with five dice thanks to Jan.
If Jan is taken out of the picture due to stress or death, Opportunist is still running, so if the target's lacking in tokens (Keyan shoots last of the three) he can still fire off a five dice attack.
If both Opportunist and Jan can't trigger in a round, we're still looking at a four dice attack.
If Keyan goes down, we're still looking at a four dicer X-wing from Wes and Jan.
This isn't some crazy interlinked combo where if one cog falls out it dies, all the little bits do their thing and if you blow up a little bit it keeps going at slightly less power, just like any other list in the game.
Edited by LagomorphiaLagomorphia, I agree with your assessment completely. Probably explains why everything doesn't fall apart immediately when Biggs dies.
I don't think the game is ready for 5-6 dice at range 1-3,