Dash Rendar + Veteran Instincts + Heavy Laser Cannon + Outrider (49)

We all know how devastating a HLC can be. Either on a Firspray, Defender or B-Wing, we have all lost ships to the 4 dice attack. When the YT-2400 was introduced to us we got the Outrider Title card to go with it. This gives us the ability to fire the Heavy Laser Cannon outside our arc but taking away the use of the primary weapons. We all knew this would create a blind spot at range 1 of the HLC and Outrider combo.

I have played 5 games now using the HLC on a swivel with Dash as the pilot. I am very impressed with the performance of this ship. The Barrel Roll action on the YT-2400 keeps it out of harms way. Pushing the Pilot Skill to 9 on Dash will have him moving last most times and the ability to see whee he needs to go with that barrel roll to prevent ships from getting into this blind spot. In those 5 games I never got shot at from the blind area around Dash.

2 of these games were against the dreaded Phantom. One game the Phantom took initiative and the other it was given to me. Neither of these options seemed to help the Phantom survive any longer then the other. You are either giving the Outrider a chance to barrel roll out of arc as you move first and shoot first. The other has a 4 dice attack crippling the 2 agility of the phantom, as you shoot first before the recloak.

Here is the full squad I played for 5 games and went undefeated in all of them.

Dash Rendar + Veteran Instincts + Heavy Laser Cannon + Outrider (49)

Chewbacca + Chewbacca + C-3PO + Millennium Falcon (50)

Correction on the squad:

Dash Rendar + Veteran Instincts + Heavy Laser Cannon + Outrider (49)*

Chewbacca + Gunner *+ C-3PO + Millennium Falcon (51)

At 100 points this seems to be a very solid squad, what do you guys think?

That's an illegal squad. You can't take the Chewbacca crew card and the Chewbacca Falcon in the same list.

Here is the full squad I played for 5 games and went undefeated in all of them.

Dash Rendar + Veteran Instincts + Heavy Laser Cannon + Outrider (49)

Chewbacca + Chewbacca + C-3PO + Millennium Falcon (50)

You played Chewbacca with Chewbacca?

Other than that, yeah: I suspect Chewie/Dash and Lando/Dash will both be popular choices.

Great minds eh,

We created the almost exact same build in the "how to break Wave 5" think-tank about a month ago, it is insanely strong in the normal timed game format. No Double Furball though!

Go for the Outrider (you kinda have to) and try to burn it down, then you're left with Chewie.

Go for Chewie, well...

That's an illegal squad. You can't take the Chewbacca crew card and the Chewbacca Falcon in the same list.

Was just using a copy paste form a squad builder and didn't noticed I clicked on the wrong Crew card. Gunner is on Chewbacca.

Where you using the half template barrel roll mechanic for the Outrider?

Is that because gunner has a wookie on it? Are you being wookie racist? Not all wookies are Chewie .

Well, first of all, you can't put Chewbacca as crew on a Chewbacca piloted ship. Just bump him to a gunner and go the full 100 or turn him into a shield upgrade if you want to keep the 99 initiative bid.

I've been running Dash+Outrider+HLC+PTL+Recon Spec this past week and it's been doing pretty awesome. I only utilize PTL sparingly for those turns where I've got to use barrel roll, but still want some offensive/defensive help with the double focus from recon spec or when I really want to maximize my chance to dump damage on something I can TL+focus. My support for the build has been 2 green squads tricked out with PTL and Predator.

I've noticed something in the build and made a slight tweak last night which, so far, has really helped out. The PS3 on the GSPs has backfired on me, so I swapped out Predator for VI on the GSPs. That gave me the perfect 4 points remaining to give Dash an engine upgrade. Having the ability to boost and barrel roll really makes him elusive, especially with the ability to ignore those asteroids while doing so. It's a pretty crazy 58 pts. put on Dash, but so far it's been surprisingly effective.

All in all, I've been pleasantly surprised how viable the 12 pt. HLC+Outrider combo seems to be, at this point. My first impression was that it was going to be one of those very common point sink traps. So far, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Unexpected to be honest, there are only a few very fast ships able to keep up with a Dash + VI rendar, and if they miss one turn, the laser fire can be brutal to them. I am thinking about playing him with corran, but i can see te benefits of having a true tank with Dash instead.

Wookie racism is wrong, we need to stamp it out by killing everyone of them, its the only way.

Frankly i'd tear that apart with two defenders and a firespray you'll never avoid my fire arcs and you have to deal with as many hit points but way more green dice and more red.

I think you're a very bad person and should rethink your life choices.

I kinda like this,

I call it the "Showboaters" in honor of these two being in "friendly" competition with each other.

Where you using the half template barrel roll mechanic for the Outrider?

He was, yes. (I talked to him about his games yesterday.)

I've seen the Outrider+HLC in action in two games (and played against it in one of them). The fellow ran Dash + Leebo + Experimental Interface, which was the only thing that saved him from being ion-ed onto an asteroid in one game, however, he had a much more difficult time in the second game where I ran Echo + VI + Gunner + ACD and Kenkrik + Lone Wolf + Mara Jade + Ysanne Isard + Rebel Captive. The stress really shut down his mobility so that's something to watch out for, I even managed to get to Range 1 with the VT49 at least twice. As an aside, I expect Kenkrik + Isard + RC to be a popular VT49 setup, as it's surprisingly resilient.

This is what I feared when the YT-2400 came out. It deserves 8 Ties.

I've seen the Outrider+HLC in action in two games (and played against it in one of them). The fellow ran Dash + Leebo + Experimental Interface, which was the only thing that saved him from being ion-ed onto an asteroid in one game, however, he had a much more difficult time in the second game where I ran Echo + VI + Gunner + ACD and Kenkrik + Lone Wolf + Mara Jade + Ysanne Isard + Rebel Captive. The stress really shut down his mobility so that's something to watch out for, I even managed to get to Range 1 with the VT49 at least twice. As an aside, I expect Kenkrik + Isard + RC to be a popular VT49 setup, as it's surprisingly resilient.

What good does an Ioning Dash onto an Astroid do? Unless he was stress and ioned, he wold simple barrel roll off it.

Where you using the half template barrel roll mechanic for the Outrider?

yes, i was using the correct barrel roll with the large base ship.

Correction on the squad:

Dash Rendar + Veteran Instincts + Heavy Laser Cannon + Outrider (49)*

Chewbacca + Gunner *+ C-3PO + Millennium Falcon (51)

At 100 points this seems to be a very solid squad, what do you guys think?

That is just diabolically evil on the target priority. It looks really effective.

If you kill Dash first, then Chewbacca is nearly invincible in the end game. If you kill Chewbacca first, you are getting your face smashed in with HLC shots. And TIE Phantoms will have trouble with both ships!

Maybe try the R2 crew in place of putting chewie on chewie. Two chewies on one falcon just results in an epic battle between who won the weird space chess game hologram which ends with someone losing an arm.

Phantoms will be already dead by wave 5. Between Kenkirk RC + Ysane and various 1-2 Big turret ships by the rebels, i don't see how you would like to gamble on phantoms that much.

By the way... What if I told you that you can get up to 6 die on that HLC?

By the way... What if I told you that you can get up to 6 die on that HLC?

With the addition of Opportunist(or expose) and Jan Ors you could get to 6 attack dice on the HLC. I'm not sure by adding in these unnecessary pieces makes the list stronger. What list would you build to get 6 attack dice?

I REALLY like Recon Specialist on the YT-2400.

VI on Dash looks pretty strong. High PS + Barrel roll means minimal chance that the target you want to shoot at will get range 1. Super tank Chewy fits right in that squad pretty perfectly. Nice idea.

What are your thoughts on the mercenary crew member with the outrider? If you're going to be trying to hang back with it anyways it might not be a bad investment with that HLC

I think lists like this have two big problems currently:

First, they're overinvested in offense against targets with low or even moderate Agility (Outrider + HLC and Chewie's Gunner cost 17 points, together). You have, fundamentally, two attacks per round; both are strong and accurate, but unless you're shooting at something very dodgy, you're probably paying too much to acquire those two attacks. Consider, for instance, that four X-wings bring better overall durability and (estimating here) about half again the firepower; I would expect Chewie/Dash lists to match up poorly against something as simple as 4x Rookie Pilot + Shield Upgrade.

Second, they're poorly positioned to deal with ordnance lists. I've been saying this around here for a while, but ordnance lists--particularly Jonus lists--are really nasty competitors against Large ships. Dash's destruction is the likely result of attacking him with a Homing Missile from Jonus and two Proton Torpedoes from his wingmen; if he reserves a token to spend on his defense then he's "only" about 30% likely to die (except that I haven't figured in the results of an attack from the TIE Fighter or Interceptor you brought along as your cleanup hitter).

And a list with only two ships is going to really struggle if it loses one of those ships at the bottom of the opening round.

***

The list also has one future problem: the hinted-at adjustment in Wave 6 to the matchup between arc-dodgers against turrets is going to cause fits for lists that have only turrets. Falcon/Outrider lists might be tough for a little while, but I don't think they'll survive the S&V release as huge players in the metagame.