Noticed some mounting hype about "hypermobile Dash", using Kyle Katarn and Push the Limit to get three actions, barrel roll and pilot skill advantage to keep TIEs out of his donut hole, and a turret mounted HLC to wreck the opposition.

Whether you believe the positive feedback thing or not (once a build publically does very well it gets copied and then there's more of them which do well which means it gets copied more et cetera) and whether you believe this Dash to be the new hotness in potentia or not, I'm pretty sure nobody wants to see the game dominated by a single popular turret brick again.

One of the things about the Falcon is that if you don't know how to fight it it'll maul you. So I figured, if everyone's well informed on how to fight the Rendar we might just nip it in the bud somewhat. It'll still be around but with a little luck won't explode into everywhereness.

So, GenCon attendees and masters of Vassal! What kills this thing?

Dash, and the other HLC outriders aren't as bad to deal with as the falcons I feel for several reasons.

1) 3 less hit points (though they do have higher agility)

2) Can't use gunner if they whiff on their attack

3) That range 1 blindspot while hard to get into is still one less area to get shot at compared to the falcon

4) No mf title, and likely no 3po either because of kyle, so ZERO GUARANTEED evades each attack round

5) They often use their actions to stay out of range 1, which means their attacks won't be as strong most likely

6) Blocking them hurts them much more than falcons

One of the things about the Falcon is that if you don't know how to fight it it'll maul you. So I figured, if everyone's well informed on how to fight the Rendar we might just nip it in the bud somewhat. It'll still be around but with a little luck won't explode into everywhereness.

So, GenCon attendees and masters of Vassal! What kills this thing?

It depends, actually: the hypermobile, three-action SuperDash that Norsehound and MajorJuggler have been talking about uses PTL + Kyle Katarn + HLC + Outrider + Engine Upgrade. That's different from beating a "base" Dash without PTL or the ability to boost, and that's going to be very different than any version of Dash without the Outrider title.

For the hypermobile version, though, markcsoul has already outlined some of the potential weaknesses: in particular, the Range 1 blind spot and the lack of Gunner. This version of Dash gets three actions per round, but has to execute a green maneuver to get them, and has to split those actions between offensive buffs, defensive buffs, and repositioning.

So the first part of the solution, to me, focuses on breaking that chain of green->PTL->green->PTL... Stress and ions can each disrupt half of that, and if you can manage both (which is harder in practice than in theory) you have a dead Dash on your hands. There's no need to list off individual game elements that can inflict stress, ions, or both on an Outrider, but I think it's worth singling out Rebel Captive.

A ship with Rebel Captive is a difficult hurdle for SuperDash, because it limits his actions to focus + free choice. That means less repositioning (no barrel roll + boost combo), and it also means he can't simultaneously buff attack and buff defense and reposition in the same turn.

So SuperDash isn't going to want to shoot at a Rebel Captive at all if he can help it--but that's a problem, too, because there's only about 40 points left in the list and that's not a lot of room for firepower. Accordingly, I think Rebel Captive Firesprays (particularly Fett, whose PS8 moves after Dash) and Decimators with Rebel Captive + Isard are going to be a very, very serious obstacle for SuperDash lists.

***

The second part of the solution is to force SuperDash to spend actions the way you want him to, rather than the way he'd prefer to. This is more a of a soft/piloting counter than a listbuilding one, but think it's important. As an example, a Y-wing with an Ion Cannon Turret (or a HWK with the same) isn't a huge threat to Dash on the first analysis, because (1) its offense is negligible compared to his hp, and (2) he can easily outmaneuver them.

But that means you can spend a relatively small portion of your (Rebel) list on area denial, which is important against a ship with that kind of maneuverability. Dodging arcs is going to be relatively easy with barrel roll + boost at PS7; dodging a Range 1-2 turret is more difficult (it covers about 20% of the field), and will require planning ahead and the use of at least one if not both reposition actions to avoid.

And the more you limit Dash's choices, the more fighting him is like fighting a "regular" YT-2400, and the lower the impact of those 12+ points of upgrades he's carrying.

Interceptors, once they are within one it is so hard to shake them.

On the rebel side I've been looking forward to running wedge with veteran instincts and engine upgrades. I was running this for a bit as a phantom counter and I think it'll work against dash as well.

Hate to break it to you but a gunner on Dash is a waste. With the PTL+Kyle combo and engine upgrade you have the option to boost+barrel roll but more often than not you will want to target lock and then choose one of the reactive movement options. Three, or even better four, hits can't consistently be dodged so gunner never triggers in the first place. Stressing him helps immensely but he still has Kyle on board so he will almost certainly still do damage. Since getting him at Gen-Con I have run him a crap ton and he has yet to lose at his 58 point build with rookie escort. At least I've lost with Han Solo. Fingers crossed that the rumored interceptors upgrade shuts these guys down

On the rebel side I've been looking forward to running wedge with veteran instincts and engine upgrades. I was running this for a bit as a phantom counter and I think it'll work against dash as well.

Run Wes with r3-a2 and vet instincts. You strip Dash's tokens and force him to double stress.

_{sounds like bumping will do wonders against it, as well as hobbie stress builds. I'd also imagine rebel captive phantoms and bounty hunters will be nice to have.}

so something that's still take all comers would look like hobbie + stress Droid, b-wing with adv sens and maybe hlc, and a bandit. (don't have my stuff in front of me to build it proper but I think this would have the tools, and an argument could be made for ion cannons if tailoring for matchup.)

edit: my phones bugging out with the font so sorry

Hate to break it to you but a gunner on Dash is a waste. With the PTL+Kyle combo and engine upgrade you have the option to boost+barrel roll but more often than not you will want to target lock and then choose one of the reactive movement options. Three, or even better four, hits can't consistently be dodged so gunner never triggers in the first place. Stressing him helps immensely but he still has Kyle on board so he will almost certainly still do damage. Since getting him at Gen-Con I have run him a crap ton and he has yet to lose at his 58 point build with rookie escort. At least I've lost with Han Solo. Fingers crossed that the rumored interceptors upgrade shuts these guys down

No one has suggested that Gunner is a good choice on Dash.

Dash, and the other HLC outriders aren't as bad to deal with as the falcons I feel for several reasons.

1) 3 less hit points (though they do have higher agility)

2) Can't use gunner if they whiff on their attack

3) That range 1 blindspot while hard to get into is still one less area to get shot at compared to the falcon

4) No mf title, and likely no 3po either because of kyle, so ZERO GUARANTEED evades each attack round

5) They often use their actions to stay out of range 1, which means their attacks won't be as strong most likely

6) Blocking them hurts them much more than falcons

I disagree on this somewhat.

1) As noted, it has fewer hit points but double the defense dice at range 1-2. It generally will have 50% more defense dice at range 3, and will probably be trying to maintain that range more often than not.

3) The blindspot is safe if you can get into it, but getting there is not going to be an easy trick. In general, a Dash pilot has zero reason to ever come at you head-on. You're going to have to flank it to force it to fly at you, otherwise he's going to be better served taking unconventional angles that make it hard for you to block him. At any range other than range 1, he's going to be throwing four dice and depriving you of an extra die at range 3. You'll be safe if you can get into range 1, but you have a very good chance of dying on the way there.

5) Again, throwing four dice thanks to the HLC and depriving you of your extra defense die at range. It's not like the Falcons are spending their actions modifying their dice, either. It's almost always an Evade.

Dash is not a brawler. He won't get in at range 1 and trade punches. He is a stick-and-move kiter who, if flown well, will do everything he can to avoid giving you the opportunity to block him.

Part of the Dash Cannon's success depends on what kind of support ship tags along. I was flying Jan with Chewie, an Ion cannon, Wingman, and an Engine Upgrade. That Ion let me lock down and destroy an AdvSensor Farlander, managed to kill stressbotWes after he went through an HLC barrage, and managed to hit Tycho after Kevin was trying to pump damage into Dash. All this while Jan was pumping the Dash cannon to 5 attack die.

You could also fit a couple of B-Wings under that list to fly opposite of Dash and flank. Or, at least, distract from Dash getting into position.

Three actions? I thought Dash was getting 2 and picking up a focus token. Two actions is bad because Dash can choose between both position actions on a large base, which lets him choose to cover more ground than a phantom, and with a cannon that fires just as many dice and in any direction. Worse is that he doesn't have to choose those actions... for instance, he could Barrel roll and TL his prey.

If the sky is crowded with interceptors trying to block him he could decide right there to just move, TL and focus one of them.

There's just so much flexibility out of this Dash combined with the HLC turret...

There are different kind of HLC Dash setups. First, we will assume that we are starting with Dash + Outrider + HLC. Most commonly I believe we will see these two types be the most popular.

PS9 Dash

Optional:

This is the "safe" approach, getting as high of a PS bid as possible, to mitigate your range 1 hole. In this respect it is very similar to ACD Phantom builds. It is more reliable than PS7 Triple Action Dash, since it does not need to perform a green move every turn to clear stress. However it has a weakness to PS10+ large base ships that have Engine Upgrade.

PS7 Triple Action Dash

PS7 Triple Action Dash: an absolute beast on offense and defense, but needs to pull a green maneuver every round to clear stress, unless you include ships with Wingman nearby. Against PS10+ Boost, this setup might actually do better than the PS9 version, since green move + Boost + Barrel roll has more flexibility and can potentially cover more ground than white move + Boost OR Barrel Roll. This version obviously has a huge weakness to getting blocked. The damage output on Triple Action Dash goes up with your maneuvering skill, because if you don't need to spend actions on boost / barrel roll, then you can token up instead and then really let the nukes fly.

Both squads are going to introduce a new meta-game shift: using debris fields. We will soon see some very interesting tactical meta game discussion of how to best utilize the debris fields. Dash's pilot ability to completely ignore obstacles during the activation phase is a really big deal. And since the debris clouds have no effect during the combat phase other than giving +1 defense dice for obstructing attacks, Dash can maneuver, boost and barrel roll, through, and even land on a debris field and not care at all. Therefore both squads are going to want to utilize a completely new strategy: force you to chase Dash through debris clouds. This was pointed out to me by Osoroshii as he was explaining his first TC vassal matchup.

So you not only have to try and chase Dash down, but you have to chase him down in the middle of an obstacle field that removes your action and gives you stress token. In this game of cat and mouse, Dash (mouse) can force the opponent (cat) into having to make sub-optimal moves, or even be forced to take stress and perform greens to clear stress.

Chasing down Dash when he has to pull a green move before boosting or barrel rolling sounds not too difficult when you have a PS10+ ship with Engine Upgrade. However, if you are trying to chase down Dash when he boosts and barrel rolls through a dense obstacle field, and you have to pull a green maneuver to clear your own stress, is going to be significantly harder.

So far this is my favorite counter to PS9 Dash. I call this squad:

"The Interdictor"

+

4x

The idea is simple. You get to see his dial if you are at range 1-2, allowing you to barrel roll your Academy TIE Fighter pilots in his way to block him. Then, your PS10 Engine Upgrade Rear Admiral gets in range 1 of Dash.

Other variants of this could include dropping 1 Academy to get some upgrades on the Admiral like Ysanne Isaard, Mara Jade, Rebel Captive, or Gunner. You have 3 crew slots on the VT-49, and you can certainly use them all.

So far this is my favorite counter to PS9 Dash. I call this squad:

"The Interdictor"

+

4x

The idea is simple. You get to see his dial if you are at range 1-2, allowing you to barrel roll your Academy TIE Fighter pilots in his way to block him. Then, your PS10 Engine Upgrade Rear Admiral gets in range 1 of Dash.

Other variants of this could include dropping 1 Academy to get some upgrades on the Admiral like Ysanne Isaard, Mara Jade, Rebel Captive, or Gunner. You have 3 crew slots on the VT-49, and you can certainly use them all.

These boards in 2 months:

"How do I beat decimators?"

"Nerf decimator please"

"Chirenau literally unstoppable, wut do?"

How has ion missiles not been mentioned?

You pack one or two on a pair of bombers or on a firespray and setup the range 1 spot to be, particularly if Dash has a build that needs stress.

Fire one off at Dash and get him ionized. Next round, everyone moves to range 1 to say hello.

The attack still has to hit Dash though. With a hyper mobile dash he'll be trying to put himself in range 2-3 to get shots, which means part of the time he's getting agility 3.

Blount is the obvious tool for this, but then Blount is staring down the face of a 4-5 dice cannon that might be able to modify his results. How's agility 2 going to save you? Veteran Instincts might though, then the effect is applied and Dash has no incentive to wipe out Blount.

How has ion missiles not been mentioned?

You pack one or two on a pair of bombers or on a firespray and setup the range 1 spot to be, particularly if Dash has a build that needs stress.

Fire one off at Dash and get him ionized. Next round, everyone moves to range 1 to say hello.

This is harder than it sounds.

For one, unless you have a PS advantage you're going to have a very hard time getting the lock-and-fire, at least not for several turns. Dash can close from lock distance to in-your-face (and probably out of your arc) in zero time. That limits your platform choices dramatically - Bombers won't do it, unless you dump VI on Jonus, and leaves Fett, and Vader as the only possibilities (Kath if you're willing to trust initiative). Vader's basically out, because he can't keep up, and 2v2 or 2v3 isn't going to accomplish much. The Rebels are basically stuck with Airen and Tycho, again unless you want to risk the initiative check with Jake.

Even if you get it off, unless you manage to block him a boost+Barrel roll ends up being the equivalent of about a 3+ move, and you're no longer in Range 1.

Hate to break it to you but a gunner on Dash is a waste. With the PTL+Kyle combo and engine upgrade you have the option to boost+barrel roll but more often than not you will want to target lock and then choose one of the reactive movement options. Three, or even better four, hits can't consistently be dodged so gunner never triggers in the first place. Stressing him helps immensely but he still has Kyle on board so he will almost certainly still do damage. Since getting him at Gen-Con I have run him a crap ton and he has yet to lose at his 58 point build with rookie escort. At least I've lost with Han Solo. Fingers crossed that the rumored interceptors upgrade shuts these guys down

No one has suggested that Gunner is a good choice on Dash.

marksoul's #2 actually kinda does, or at the very least implies that not being able to use Gunner well is a drawback.

Hate to break it to you but a gunner on Dash is a waste. With the PTL+Kyle combo and engine upgrade you have the option to boost+barrel roll but more often than not you will want to target lock and then choose one of the reactive movement options. Three, or even better four, hits can't consistently be dodged so gunner never triggers in the first place. Stressing him helps immensely but he still has Kyle on board so he will almost certainly still do damage. Since getting him at Gen-Con I have run him a crap ton and he has yet to lose at his 58 point build with rookie escort. At least I've lost with Han Solo. Fingers crossed that the rumored interceptors upgrade shuts these guys down

No one has suggested that Gunner is a good choice on Dash.

marksoul's #2 actually kinda does, or at the very least implies that not being able to use Gunner well is a drawback.

I understood his post as saying that it's a drawback in comparison to Fat Falcons. Missing out on Gunner means the Outrider is more action-dependent than the Falcon: Gunner smooths out attack rolls without using an action, so losing access to it is definitely a cost of moving from one Rebel pancake to the other.

Or, to put it another way, Han can take Gunner + Threepio + Engine Upgrade and know his offense and defense are well supported regardless of what he does with his actions, and in fact regardless of whether he even gets an action. Dash doesn't have that option, so he has to be much more of a miser about his actions.

I understood his post as saying that it's a drawback in comparison to Fat Falcons. Missing out on Gunner means the Outrider is more action-dependent than the Falcon: Gunner smooths out attack rolls without using an action, so losing access to it is definitely a cost of moving from one Rebel pancake to the other.

Or, to put it another way, Han can take Gunner + Threepio + Engine Upgrade and know his offense and defense are well supported regardless of what he does with his actions, and in fact regardless of whether he even gets an action. Dash doesn't have that option, so he has to be much more of a miser about his actions.

I don't think there's any loss of attack quality between the two. Even if blocked Dash'll usually have a focus available, and the HLC means that you're at a solid dice advantage in the first place. Through the course of two games (small sample, admittedly) against Norsehound the Outrider never missed once. Who needs Gunners?

And defensively he's in at least as good a position as Han with an evade, assuming both have their actions available, and probably better against multiple attacks.

So while you're right that Gunner and Han help attack quality without needing an action, SuperDash more than compensates for it in other ways. It's kinda like complaining that going from a TIE Advanced to a Phantom costs you a missile slot.

I understood his post as saying that it's a drawback in comparison to Fat Falcons. Missing out on Gunner means the Outrider is more action-dependent than the Falcon: Gunner smooths out attack rolls without using an action, so losing access to it is definitely a cost of moving from one Rebel pancake to the other.

Or, to put it another way, Han can take Gunner + Threepio + Engine Upgrade and know his offense and defense are well supported regardless of what he does with his actions, and in fact regardless of whether he even gets an action. Dash doesn't have that option, so he has to be much more of a miser about his actions.

I don't think there's any loss of attack quality between the two. Even if blocked Dash'll usually have a focus available, and the HLC means that you're at a solid dice advantage in the first place. Through the course of two games (small sample, admittedly) against Norsehound the Outrider never missed once. Who needs Gunners?

And defensively he's in at least as good a position as Han with an evade, assuming both have their actions available, and probably better against multiple attacks.

So while you're right that Gunner and Han help attack quality without needing an action, SuperDash more than compensates for it in other ways. It's kinda like complaining that going from a TIE Advanced to a Phantom costs you a missile slot.

I'm not saying that one or the other of HLC or 3 Attack + Gunner is better. My general point is that YT-1300s can often rely on Gunner in place of an offensive action, while Dash needs the action itself for the same effect. That means in turn that he has to figure out a way to get that action or token, which means it counts against his allotment for the round; he's vulnerable to action denial in a way most of the current Falcon builds aren't.

Or, to put it another way, the inability to bring Gunner isn't a handicap, but it does give you some strategic and tactical options that wouldn't work against a Chewie or Han build.

Why no one hyped about Tycho + PtL + CR + ATP + EH + EI?? :(

Why no one hyped about Tycho + PtL + CR + ATP + EH + EI?? :(

Probably because he's still locked into 2 Attack, which makes it hard for him to be a threat to game balance (or, more on-topic, to Dash Rendar).

Why no one hyped about Tycho + PtL + CR + ATP + EH + EI?? :(

I actually tried this exact list (minus the Experimental Interface, since it's not out yet) against Dash last night. I actually had a hard time getting into the donut hole even with that.

If you haven't actually seen the thing move on the board, if you haven't laid out templates to look at the vast amount of space it can cover with different move choices even before considering that it can ignore obstacles but you can't, it's hard to really appreciate just how hard it is to stay close to the thing.

Small bases aren't as awesome as large bases that fire anywhere out of their larger footprint!

The power of Dash is shooting high and being able to willfully cover so much ground, on command, outside the locked planning phase. To an extent this was already happening with Interceptors and Phantoms but they at least have their own problems and don't use turrets.

Hate to break it to you but a gunner on Dash is a waste. With the PTL+Kyle combo and engine upgrade you have the option to boost+barrel roll but more often than not you will want to target lock and then choose one of the reactive movement options. Three, or even better four, hits can't consistently be dodged so gunner never triggers in the first place. Stressing him helps immensely but he still has Kyle on board so he will almost certainly still do damage. Since getting him at Gen-Con I have run him a crap ton and he has yet to lose at his 58 point build with rookie escort. At least I've lost with Han Solo. Fingers crossed that the rumored interceptors upgrade shuts these guys down

No one has suggested that Gunner is a good choice on Dash.

Correct. But it was suggested that the lack of it was a weakness. I was targeting this view. My point is not being able to take Kyle and a Gunner simultaneously isn't a weakness if it never needed it.

Edit: Sorry, missed a few posts. I'm caught up now. My bad. Actually in a way Han is a bit more action dependent. With him I find it often a necessity to focus for a turn to make sure a TIE is absolutely not making its shot. Once I've got you chasing me then I'm really wishing I had that and my evade token but I have to choose, and if I lose both in a block then I'm screwed. With Dash I can fly places you wouldn't dare due to asteroids so blocks are still hard. (You could really screw with his head by figuring out which asteroid he is going to fly on/over and purposely land on it.) And even then as was stated I'll still have a focus for free that turn. While I have thought for a while Big Birds were a tad too high above the curve. I'm really concerned about what Dash does.

I have noticed that in these threads about Big Birds and Dash and Slash we rarely talk about the rest of the list outside of token commentary. Why is that?