On the subject of the Tie Defenders... ESPECIALLY the generics:

Do you feel like they should be able to evade? I feel like they should fluff wise and stat wise.

The Defender really excels in surviving for a long period of time and the high cost of one basically significally reduces the size of your fleet. Especially with the generics, they will not the be center of your squad, so it feels like you will be taking a very expensive 30 point filler ship.

Should the Defenders go down in cost by a bit? Feels like they're a little expensive and not that great for the cost.

Has anyone tried 3 Defenders with Hull Upgrade?

My friend tried 3 with Ion Cannons. They worked. but they weren't amazing. Sometimes also, the 3 defenders had a tendency to get caught in a lot of arcs, as that list had very few ships. Having an extra HP also seems to help a little bit.

... or even an extra evade die?

Not really they lost evade but gained shields that's a fair trade, even on fighters with evade its very rare I use it.

The k turn allows you to get behind less agile ships with actions it has to have some weakness, and getting focused down isn't a defender issue no ships immune to that.

Of course used as a long range support sniper the defender is in its element if you want a close in knife fighter you have interceptors and ties.

Use the ship for its intended role and it shines, rush it into a hairball with PS 1 your asking to lose it early.

They should've been the same cost as E-Wings. However, I'm assuming R&D determined that a 4k was something new and potentially too powerful, so they tried balancing it out by giving it a higher point cost, whereas the E-Wing has Astros, Systems and an Evade action over the Defs.

I don't think the Defender needs the Evade action at 3-3-3-3, but I also don't think it should cost so much.

If they had evade then the elite defender pilots would have been a nightmare to kill, PtL for Focus/Evade, plus the ability to restrict incoming firepower by k-turning/and or barrel rolling.

Generic defenders are hard enough to kill as it is, so I can see balance wise why they didn't get it.

Really? I find that its easier to focus fire them down as they dont have nearly as many ships.

They also statistically roll 1 evade per attack.

Really? I find that its easier to focus fire them down as they dont have nearly as many ships.

They also statistically roll 1 evade per attack.

I ran rexler and four ties Wednesday and the defender lost a single shield the whole game but gutted two fighters at range three, I've run two defenders and a firespray and only lost a shield from each ship while vapeing corran in a single turn.

If you run three interceptors you have nine hull points you run three defenders you have eighteen hit points to chew through with the same number of dodge die and attack.

I had one 150 point game where it took four rebel ships three turns to kill a single PS 1 defender, they are not fragile but like any ship suffer when the green dice betray them.

Yeah the variance is really high.

I had vessery survive 11 attacks of 3 dice focus fire over three turns. Only took off the 3 shields. (And two shields came off only because one attack was a five dice opportunist hlc keyan shot)

Delta's are really good as is. I think they will be one of the late-blooming wave 4 gems.

Really? I find that its easier to focus fire them down as they dont have nearly as many ships.

They also statistically roll 1 evade per attack.

3/8 * 3 = 9/8 = 1.125. They roll slightly better than one evade per attack, which is actually a lot when a ship with 3 Attack rolls 1.5 hits and crits. In fact, the average damage from a ship with 3 Attack is 0.67, with a mode and median of 0. (Actions and upgrades change things drastically on both sides of the equation, of course.)

Dice aren't particularly reliable friends, but that's no reason to undersell their expected performance over the long term.

Not my favourite ship (despite them putting in some of the best performances). My big issues?

1) stress - I like to make full use of a ship's dial and that often means a red manoeuvre one turn then shedding the stress with a green Asap, the issue? The defender's only green manoeuvres are straight meaning I seem to hang onto stress tokens way longer than I'd like (even my beloved space cow has green turns:-/

2) cost - the cost of a base bounty hunter vs onyx defender for me is a clear decision-bounty hunter...

Not my favourite ship (despite them putting in some of the best performances). My big issues?

1) stress - I like to make full use of a ship's dial and that often means a red manoeuvre one turn then shedding the stress with a green Asap, the issue? The defender's only green manoeuvres are straight meaning I seem to hang onto stress tokens way longer than I'd like (even my beloved space cow has green turns:-/

2) cost - the cost of a base bounty hunter vs onyx defender for me is a clear decision-bounty hunter...

1) Still haven't had a game where i had to use the red moves there are always other options and its not designed to be a knife fighter we already had the interceptor for that.

2) Bounty hunters a decent choice but again its filling a different role and cant avoid incoming fire as easily due to the big base, makes an excellent defender support ship though.

On the subject of the Tie Defenders... ESPECIALLY the generics:

Do you feel like they should be able to evade? I feel like they should fluff wise and stat wise.

The Defender really excels in surviving for a long period of time and the high cost of one basically significally reduces the size of your fleet. Especially with the generics, they will not the be center of your squad, so it feels like you will be taking a very expensive 30 point filler ship.

Should the Defenders go down in cost by a bit? Feels like they're a little expensive and not that great for the cost.

Has anyone tried 3 Defenders with Hull Upgrade?

My friend tried 3 with Ion Cannons. They worked. but they weren't amazing. Sometimes also, the 3 defenders had a tendency to get caught in a lot of arcs, as that list had very few ships. Having an extra HP also seems to help a little bit.

... or even an extra evade die?

Defenders don't need the evade action. Like you said, they really excels in surviving for a long period of time. Focus already do the job and the shields are there in case you get a bad roll, if they focus fire on your Defender, you will roll more than once and the odds of at least one focus result poping raise, so the situations where a Evade is better than a Focus are pretty low. And if you don't focus in defense, you can still use it in offense.

As for the Generic Defenders not being the center of your team, I'm not sure if I can agree with that. They are definetly not fillers. You don't build a team, are left with 30+ pts and put a Defender there just because you had the point, you would be better with Tie Fighters or Bombers in that case, those are fillers. When you take a Defender, it needs to have a purpose in your team: Sniping with a HLC; Controling with a Ion Cannon; Tanking. The ship needs to have a plan set for it, they don't fly with the pack, they're on their own. They are very versatile and can adapt to multiple situations, but they should not be included as an afterthought.

Should they go down in cost? Not from my experience. Except for my first game, I always had success with them and never felt disappointed or thought that I could have taken something else. As I said, they serve their purpose.

I never tried 3 Defenders with Hull upgrade but I flew 3 Defenders multiple time, my favorite being Rexler+Predator with 2 Deltas. It could be nice with Hull, but I don't feel the need for it, they are already very resilient. What you need is options, so I consider the 3 Delta with Ion Cannon a better team than 3 Delta with Hull Upgrade, at least the Ion Cannon can put an enemy ship out of combat for a round and help you get around the fact that all your ships are PS1.

One thing to consider is that I believe that teams made up of only the same ship is less and less viable: 3 Defenders, 4 X-Wing, 3-4 Interceptors, 5 Bombers, etc. With all the variety of ship in the game and all with different purpose, I think you are better to mix and match for competitive play. Still fun to fly in casual games though.

So, I don't think the Defenders need anything more than it already has. It's just a beast that needs to be tamed at first. Like the Interceptors. Did I mentioned that those are both my favorite ships?

Not my favourite ship (despite them putting in some of the best performances). My big issues?

1) stress - I like to make full use of a ship's dial and that often means a red manoeuvre one turn then shedding the stress with a green Asap, the issue? The defender's only green manoeuvres are straight meaning I seem to hang onto stress tokens way longer than I'd like (even my beloved space cow has green turns:-/

2) cost - the cost of a base bounty hunter vs onyx defender for me is a clear decision-bounty hunter...

1) Still haven't had a game where i had to use the red moves there are always other options and its not designed to be a knife fighter we already had the interceptor for that.

2) Bounty hunters a decent choice but again its filling a different role and cant avoid incoming fire as easily due to the big base, makes an excellent defender support ship though.

I'll grant you the firesprays are easier to draw a bead on and defenders have (despite my frustrations with them) consistently performed better than virtually any ship I've flown but it doesn't stop me preferring the way other ships fly (clearly I'm a barrel-rolling-fancy-footwork-interceptor-loving flier who simply wants his ships to dance rather than tank - In direct contradiction to my actual dancing technique paradoxically.... That'd be more the "float like a hippopotamus" school of artistry...)

I like nothing more than loading a heavy weapon and dominating one flank while my mini swarm takes the other blocking movement and generally being a cheap but dangerous distraction.

And if it does end up close and personal a k turn will work as well as a hard one for keeping things in arc and you have banks etc, they really couldn't give a white k turn without giving it a disadvantage.

If you want scary take two defenders with a firespray lots of hit points decent firepower and after the first pass you just k turn the defenders and shoot out the sprays rear arc there's no where for ships to hide.

The generics are too expensive by 2 points, the named by 1 point.

The Onyx are lacking EPT.

Imagine an 30 point Onyx with EPT. You could actually use Predator or Outmanouvre for good ...

Its almost the same like Gammas lacking EPT for the use of Deadeye.

I tried 3 Deltas with ions and its not worth it. They end to die surprisingly quickly. They shoot last. Thats a big deal.

If Deltas were 2 points less, maybe 3 of them with Autocannons would do the trick in close-quarter combat.

Maybe Assault Missiles would be worthwhile - PS1 would be an issue, true - but nevertheless a menace.

Vessery is useful, so too bad you can't go with Vessery + HLC and 2 Deltas for TLs.

Alltogether - you need only one Defender - Vessery.

Rexler is just too expensive with HLC and Predator.

Yeah. Urgh the expense.

I don't tend to see Deltas with a role as ion or HLC sniper as being particularly meta-competitive. Hmm.

Also, in the 3 or 4 games I've used Defenders, my opponents and I have only used a red turn maybe once. You get used to flying them like bombers, and they actually do have some good moves! That 4k is a really good option, makes the not having 1 and 2 non-red turns okay.

I don't think they will be happy when up against a Rebel Captive though.

I don't tend to see Deltas with a role as ion or HLC sniper as being particularly meta-competitive. Hmm.

I don't know, they have the Hit Points and agility to resist a couple shot, especially against 2 dice attack ship, and the firepower (with a HLC) to hurt a lot of ships. In the current state of the game, with Falcon everywhere, Defenders are one of the best counter for them. And the HLC is on par with a cloaked Phantom, if you can get a line of sight on them (easier said than done, I know) the odds are actually on your side. Regardless, that's a big zone you know the Phantom will try to avoid at all cost, so you can use that against him.

I could see a Delta+HLC with a miniswarm as a competitive team. It gives you more points to boost the swarm than running Brath.

Delta+HLC

Howlrunner

Obsidian Squadron Pilot

2x Scimitar Squadron Pilot

24 hit point total

Making some lists I realized the following:

Col. Vessery

PS 6 - 3 attack - 3 agility - 3 Hull - 3 Shields

Focus - Target Lock - Barrel Roll

EPT - Cannon - Missile

Powerful offensive ability, but totally depending on team sinergy, useless alone.

White 4K turn on an otherwise poor dial

IG-2000

PS 6 - 3 attack - 3 agility - 4 hull - 4 shield

Focus - Target Lock - Boost - Evade

EPT - Cannon - Cannon - System - Bomb - Illicit

Known ability doesn't require sinergy to work - STACKS abilities for free with other versions of himself when present.

Segnor Loop, Unknown dial (but I bet my ass it ends being a nice to awesome dial)

Vessery is 35 points, IG-2000 is... 36

Now, tell me with a serious face that the magic formula FFG uses to calculate ship value, determines that those 2 ships are worth almost equally.

Ah yes, the defender has a White 4K... *Apocalypse Trumpets*. Then, someone please guess an estimate value of how much is worth in points that K-turn.

Well, without the maneuver dial, it's really hard to tell, although Segnor Loop is a k-turn that I'm eager to use.

Other than that, there is not much I can say except that Vessery ability, although you do have to build around it, is really nasty. It's potentially a Focus+TL attack every turn. Also, FFG doesn't have a magic formula to calculate ship value, they playtest and give value accordingly. It doesn't mean that it's infallible, they kinda aknowledged that the generic E-Wing might be overcost. If you want a formula, ask Majorjuggler.

that segnor loop is probably in a way worth more or at least equal to 4kwhite.

Yeah. Idk. Those Defenders are just really overcosted. Also, something mechanical needs to be done about helping mid PS ships. They get expensive too quickly for no gain in this meta. I don't see it changing in Wave 5 or 6 as of our current knowledge.

Heres the problem:

Currently, we have a ultimate PS bid. Where slight PS bidding, half list PS bidding is pretty much no gain.

If we return back to the old meta where having two ships at a slightly higher PS means something, I think we will see a renaissance of different list ideas.

ex. having two Daggers vs two Blues, to negate some part of the enemy list. (Though I guess thats a bad example, as the swarm was all ps1)

Not my favourite ship (despite them putting in some of the best performances). My big issues?

1) stress - I like to make full use of a ship's dial and that often means a red manoeuvre one turn then shedding the stress with a green Asap, the issue? The defender's only green manoeuvres are straight meaning I seem to hang onto stress tokens way longer than I'd like (even my beloved space cow has green turns:-/

2) cost - the cost of a base bounty hunter vs onyx defender for me is a clear decision-bounty hunter...

1) Still haven't had a game where i had to use the red moves there are always other options and its not designed to be a knife fighter we already had the interceptor for that.

2) Bounty hunters a decent choice but again its filling a different role and cant avoid incoming fire as easily due to the big base, makes an excellent defender support ship though.

I don't think defenders do play a greatly different role to firesprays (supporting gun platforms rather than dog fighters) and I'm yet to play a game where a tight turn is not used by a ship (I'm clearly facing too many phantom/interceptor/a-wing flankers in my games:-/

I'll grant you the firesprays are easier to draw a bead on and defenders have (despite my frustrations with them) consistently performed better than virtually any ship I've flown but it doesn't stop me preferring the way other ships fly (clearly I'm a barrel-rolling-fancy-footwork-interceptor-loving flier who simply wants his ships to dance rather than tank - In direct contradiction to my actual dancing technique paradoxically.... That'd be more the "float like a hippopotamus" school of artistry...)

In my (limited) experience Defenders slow roll much better than Firesprays. That smaller base is a huge advantage over the bounty hunters best ride.

I cant put my finger on it, but I always feel like the defender is missing something for its price. I love the ship, I really do and I play it a lot. But with the lack of short distance turns, not having evade or boost and only straight greens (even a lot of them), and the price being really really up there, all for that 4k turn. It's high price for a really nice feature.

A ship that is hard to catch, has great defense and a punishing attack is wel worth 30 points. Vessery with or without upgrades in combination with an FCS ship is also great.

The trouble with the Defender is how to fit in this ship into a 100 point build.

A build capable of dealing with Fat Falcons, Tie Swarms and Phantoms.

I have not succeeded thus far in this. And I'd love to...

i have succeeded either.

heres my best guess: for the public good: