'Murdersquishing' or How I learned to quit worrying and stop rolling dice.

By Coshuda, in X-Wing

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I am a little surprised no one has discussed this yet. But as soon as I saw it I had a crazy idea to employ a seven Z-95 swarm with Feedback array.


Mass volleys of Z-95 have (in my experience) worked fairly well against the high health, low agility ships. B-Wing, Y-Wings, even the Falcon. Some people dislike the Headhunter swarm as it lacked Howlrunner equivalent, but I found it treated me well when I just ignored any kind of formation flying. Going beehive style on people tends to put them on their toes.


I have generally struggled to deal with many agility 3 ships though. Not so much as they are more maneuverable, but actually getting my damage to stick. While I know this takes some pretty fancy flying, mass feedback array would seem to absolutely tear through those targets. I don’t need to keep them in arc, just in range one. With seven ships to avoid, I see very little way to get around them. Furthermore with good blocking and coverage I could get a reliably set up a kill a turn on Interceptors, Tie Fighters or even the dreaded phantom. Especially as this bypasses agility dice, focus and evade tokens. As well as bypassing dependence on those fickle Archimedian solids to land damage. Truth be told, I rarely bank on them doing much more than one damage anyways.


This seems an equitable trade, given my normal shots were unlikely to do much of anything against those targets. I take a damage, and limit my movement option next turn, though I feel this could be mitigated with proper use of all seven ships as I have no need for a traditional formation.


There are still a great deal of variables to consider, but just the thought of a list that doesn’t actually intend to use dice its very intriguing…


I shall refer to this as the ‘Murdersquishing’ approach to space combat in honor of the Japanese Honeybee. For those wondering read more here:

Edited by Coshuda
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Your grey text. It is unreadable. I am sorry.

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Your grey text. It is unreadable. I am sorry.

Tried to change it twice, but wouldn't change. Weird. But looks good now.

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binayre-pirate.pngfeedback-array.png

they would make for a crazy swarm.

I personally would only upgrade three of the seven that way and hold them back to use them as finishers.

That'd leave you with 10 points to upgrade the others as front-line fighters.

Edited by gabe69velasquez
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B-wings like lol.

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B-wings like lol.

Against the B-Wings you just go back to play as usual, using large quantities of 2 dice shots against their low agility. It is not really a struggle against B-Wings with Z-95's.

The feedback array is employed against those ships that normal TL/Focus 2 shots can't seem to touch.

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I think this was actually mentioned in the S&V preview. Looks nasty.

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That looks very interesting indeed. The design philosophy behind scum also is more on ships flying independently, so flying a loose swarm fits that bill.

The only issue i can see is that it is range 1, so after you loose a few bodies and can't saturate the board, a good player could very well just stay at range 2-3 of your ships (especially phantoms). I'm keen to see what other S&V ships could plug that gap.

Edited by Innocent
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ya, I proposed this yesterday in a topic called Z-95 swarm with feedback array...phantom counter?

I still think it is a decent tactic, 7 mini doomshuttles flying about like a variable mine field.....

plus 7 Z-95s aren't that terrible on their own even if the trick doesn't activate that often.

or maybe mini Z-95 swarm+FBA (like 3 or 4) and a firespray?

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or maybe mini Z-95 swarm+FBA (like 3 or 4) and a firespray?

Or Xizor or IG88 depending on points and PS :) but yes, this looks like a good build.

Those z95 are also perfect blockers: block the target, and you can still zap it while keeping a focus for defense.

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ya, I proposed this yesterday in a topic called Z-95 swarm with feedback array...phantom counter?

I still think it is a decent tactic, 7 mini doomshuttles flying about like a variable mine field.....

plus 7 Z-95s aren't that terrible on their own even if the trick doesn't activate that often.

or maybe mini Z-95 swarm+FBA (like 3 or 4) and a firespray?

or maybe mini Z-95 swarm+FBA (like 3 or 4) and a firespray?

Or Xizor or IG88 depending on points and PS :) but yes, this looks like a good build.

Those z95 are also perfect blockers: block the target, and you can still zap it while keeping a focus for defense.

I think IG-2000 would be where I lean here. Using advanced sensors with the boost action and the new loop provide some much needed maneuvering and all on an impressively durable ship.

Taking a moderately kitted out Aggressor will still leave room for four of the murdersquishing headhunters, which is more than sufficient to deal with some wily foes...

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You'd have to buy one hell of a lot of Most Wanted boxes.

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Feedback array is anti-arc dodgers. It does a better job than auto-blaster turret.

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You'd have to buy one hell of a lot of Most Wanted boxes.

Assuming multiples don't come in the set, or that it doesn't come in multiple scum and villainy ships.

Even so, this is something I am willing to go for. :)

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actually with practice, blocking decloak lanes for Phantoms is doable. If you can block them, they remain cloaked, adn you dont take massive massive damage that turn. With some decent other flying, you could easily pull out a possible win against Phantom 5 ties. I'm practicing it now! Also cool is that a decloak block is R1!! and remains R1! if they move and dont decloak!

Edited by Blail Blerg
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You'd have to buy one hell of a lot of Most Wanted boxes.

Assuming multiples don't come in the set, or that it doesn't come in multiple scum and villainy ships.

Even so, this is something I am willing to go for. :)

Judging from the first S+V preview, not only would you have to get four most-wanted boxes (for the Z-95's) you'd have to get at least four, and possibly seven IG-2000's, as it seems to be the only expansion which will have Feedback array :( (It's not clear from the cards laid out for the IG-2000 pack whether the last covered up upgrade is a second copy of Feedback array or something else).

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I thought this was going to be about Ouicunn!

Feedback Arrays do seem like very good ways to ensure ships don't get away with 1 Hull. In fact, it's probably ultimately better at it than Vader and can go on tons of cheap ships...

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Mini Vader's

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I love flying the Z-95 swarm. It's sweet. I immediately loved the idea of the Z-95+Feedback Array combo. Let the MURDERSQUISH commence! MUAHAHAAHAHAHAAH!!! :D

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I dunno.

Seems ungodly boring to play with and against. Mass ioning yourself doesn't seem like the best way to win against things that can get behind you the next turn.

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I dunno.

Seems ungodly boring to play with and against. Mass ioning yourself doesn't seem like the best way to win against things that can get behind you the next turn.

Well, you don't use it all at once, only if really neccessary, like someone out of arc or if the opposing ship is almost dead anyway.

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I dunno.

Seems ungodly boring to play with and against. Mass ioning yourself doesn't seem like the best way to win against things that can get behind you the next turn.

There is also the fact that things can't get behind you if they are dead...

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I dunno.

Seems ungodly boring to play with and against. Mass ioning yourself doesn't seem like the best way to win against things that can get behind you the next turn.

There is also the fact that things can't get behind you if they are dead...

Onward! Onward to Murdersquishing!

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I think more than anything what I like about the idea of this list is that it opens up a completely different play style that we haven't seen before. Suddenly it is viable to play a game of pure maneuvering, in which the dice have almost no need on your side of the table.

In a more practical sense by dropping one ship from the beloved 8 swarm (which has shown itself to be effective in its own right) you get a very devastating response to all of the hard counters to that list. In short, this shores up a ton of weaknesses for the Z-95 swarm, while not giving up much in return.

Some may call it boring, but I am really looking forward to gratuitous murdersquishing!