Hi there,

im attending an Escalation Tournament on Sunday and Fat Han is just bending my mind (respectively Fat Chewie). I tried to run 5 AP against him but i lost 2 games so far. The problem is, that with 60 points you can just put everything on the YT and i see no options. There are some anti-YT Rebel build i could think of, but when you play rebels you can go for Han/Chewie.

Is there any Imperial Option? I was thinking about Howlrunner and 3 AP:

Every Tie scores ~1,4 hits -> 5,4 hits

Howlie scores ~1 hit -> 6,4 hits

YT can evade at least 2 per round, maybe more -> best case is 4 hits per round.

So it would take me 4 rounds of shooting on him without losing a single Tie. That just isnt a good option. And i did the math in my favor. The Games i played so far where over after 20min.

Any ideas?

not if you dont want to die to Phantoms.

Imperials have no good choices.

Full YT is good against everything except 5tie. so... yeah, Escalation at 60 is very rebel biased.

--

I'd prefer to do an escalation of 24 point no uniques.

start 24

then add 24 to 48

then add 48 to 96.

Nothing is OP. Worst thing is 8 ties. Which you can easily accomodate for simply by using 2Zs.

Maybe a list where all of your ships have outmaneuver? That cancels Han's evade dice and removes C-3P0, leaving only a single evade from the title card. It's going to be hard though, with only 60 points. The best way to kill Han in a normal 100 point game is to focus 100 points of firepower on him and then clean up the escorts with whatever you have left once Han goes down, but that's obviously not an option here.

The other alternative would be missiles/torps/HLCs to maximize your damage output, but I'm not sure how you'd fit that into only 60 points. At 100 points you can throw in a TIE bomber alpha strike and still have a few points left, at 60 you're taking nothing but missile platforms and hoping for the best.

As a rebel player I do agree imperials are up against it. I have been looking at what would be the biggest threat to fat han. 5 ap can do it if you get han cornered, trying to block him in can help to stop the boost/evade. Have you tried Krasis with recon and HL with 1 ap to block movement and to ad a little weight of fire?

At 60 points imps will not easily take the yt out, but then you shouldn't be letting people take anything but fighters under 100 for exactly this reason the games balanced around 100 point games.

There's always TFG that will take advantage if you let them.

@Greedyfly

A well flown YT is hard to corner. But i agree, the Swarm should not stay in position. Instead i'll try blocking the YT and taking away the action.

We've just run two escalation tournaments in one week and Fat Han (and Chewie) were curb-stomped in every single game against swarms.

So yeah - 5x AP works just fine, provided you block.

Played Fat Han in Escalation recently and imho 5 APs are no threat if the Fat Han is equipped and flown correctly. Simply do not joust, stay at range 3, boost out of arcs, pick the APs one after another.

Maybe Corran Horn and R2D2 are an option, at least that's what I would try.

or 2 blues with HLC and Enhanced scopes. For imperial 60 pts doesn't stack well with a Fat Han.

Outmaneuver or blocking (denying the evade) and getting into range 1 with your 5 AP. 1 blocking and 2 at range 1 and 2 at range 2. Roll any damaged AP out to range 3 and move uninjured in close. Force him to shoot long range to finish off a tie or keep facing the same amount of dice.

@Farlander

My opinion, too. Arc-Dodging against 5 Ties is not a big problem. I have 2 options: Swarm or not. If i do the swarm, he`ll arc-dodge the whole time, if the fly on their own, he`ll pick them one by one.

Prediction is still an important aspect of the game.

If you succesfully block him there's no actions and no arc-dodging.

5(+) TIEs do fill up a rather large part of the board when flown at range 1 of each other.

Maybe Doomshuttle and 3 AP?

The shuttle can withstand the YTs Firepower und Vader can be the vital in late game to kill it. 3 APs should do at least a little damage and blocking.

I must be misunderstanding outmanuaver vs Han. It works if he is in your firing arc, but out of his. Since he has a turret arent you always in it?

I must be misunderstanding outmanuaver vs Han. It works if he is in your firing arc, but out of his. Since he has a turret arent you always in it?

Turrets let one shoot outside of an arc, but they don't make the arc universal. Han still has, and is ruled by for effects like this or munitions, a forward arc. You can see it on his base.

I must be misunderstanding outmanuaver vs Han. It works if he is in your firing arc, but out of his. Since he has a turret arent you always in it?

If you have noticed the two lines that points front, If you look at this FFG link New Starfighters Blast into Action you clearly can see the arc.

I must be misunderstanding outmanuaver vs Han. It works if he is in your firing arc, but out of his. Since he has a turret arent you always in it?

Although he can shoot 360 he still has a forward arc and if your outside that outmanoeuvre kicks in.

I have had one expereance with escolation, and I won that tourney flying 5 ints. granted the final match I was getting ate up pretty good, and the other player flew off his 2 untouched ships trying to cut off one of mine. BUT there were no Hans in the top, as they were taking loses early it seemed as they could not have a great ship on the front end.

Like hobo said, if a falcon has someone with outmanuaver on his tail, he is rolling zero dice on defense, and say an Awing with ptl and outman can take down that ship pretty darn quick.

Outmaneuver is a key card vs Fat Falcons.

60 point escalation anti Falcon swarm (60/100)

==============================================

TIE Fighter: Black Squadron Pilot (14 + 3)

+ Outmaneuver (3)

TIE Fighter: "Howlrunner" (18 + 3)

+ Outmaneuver (3)

TIE Fighter: "Mauler Mithel" (17 + 5)

+ Outmaneuver (3)

+ Targeting Computer (2)

Like hobo said, if a falcon has someone with outmanuaver on his tail, he is rolling zero dice on defense, and say an Awing with ptl and outman can take down that ship pretty darn quick.

Np really, he'll just use 3PO against something that doesn't have Outmanoeuvre.

A list like Bubble's on the other hand, that will give him fits - but it is only 3 TIEs.

Bubble's list is doing the best with limited resources but there's still a chance she could lose howl turn 2/3 with unfortunate doge rolls then you've lost most of your firepower and the falcon has alot of hit points.

Outmanoeuvre against han is more of a pipe dream at this points level. You either only have a couple of ships or still two few for it to be that effective. With the dial the falcon has plus boost its all to easy to either get to range 3 or behind an asteroid and then outmanoeuvre more or less counts for nothing. Imperials at best are what getting 3 ties, anyone falcon player worth there salt either won't be in arc to be shot at with only 3. Rebels will only have 3 at best as well and we are talking about ships that don't fair well against 360 gunner. When the decimator gets released imperials will then have a true counter to a fat han at this points level. Until then you need to decide do you want to go the swarm and have a go if you play the fat han or go for a different build altogether and hope you don't play him. Remember you are building to an overall list and its this first stage that you realy have to put in the expensive ship that you really want. After the first round fat Han don't look so bad.

I'm not meaning to sound negative either guys, I would honestly like a real alternative other than the swarm. I want the sides to be as even as possible so xwing doesn't turn into what 40k has become. Power list v power list

As a frequent falcon flyer, bubbles list is not even close to being a concern. Three ties? No stealth? Whatever. Target priority for mauler first, then pick one. If mauler made it to turn four/combat three it would still be down hill for the poor things. I will get the range I want every time since instead of trying to dodge you or hang out at three, I could purposely go for the bump-joust(preferably bumping mauler, switch priority to howl) and stick you with two ships shooting while I murder one and leave you with missed actions or shots after the break. I'm not trying to troll our be sarcastic here, honest. We were organizing a 60pt tourney for awhile but canceled it after play tests against lists just like these got rekt 95% of the time. It wasn't funny. And I was the one flying the falcon. I never dipped below 5 hull. It was disgusting.

Even in 100 pt games it punches so far above it's weight that I've killed entire tie swarms with Han alone. One game, My rookies got wasted and Han hadn't done diddle yet and the swarm was fresh as daisies. This is against a skilled imp player mind you. Things look grim. But my position looks good. So I literally fly in a circle, to the left if it intrests you, and as it always go goes kill one every other turn. New meaning to Solo. I have given serious thought to a single ship list that foregoes almost forty points to guarantee Han has maneuvering room and lone wolf always fires... You know I'll try that tonight after we finish the Hoth campaign. It will fail gloriously I'm hoping but at least I'll be rid of my curiosity haha maybe I'll bat-rep it for some community lol's. Never done a bat-rep before so what the hell right?

To be fair the other list that nixed our little tourney idea was the (expletive deleted) phantom. Just ask the TO to ban golden boy or restrict him till game three when every one is back to 100+points to deal with it.

Anything with 1 defense hates cluster missiles. If all you want to do is stick it to a Falcon build, I would go with 3 Scimitars each with a cluster missile. For a more well rounded Imperial build, I've had good luck with a naked Bounty hunter teamed with a Saber pilot with push the limit and a stealth device.

I feel like I am taking crazy pills here. Is this really a gaming community where 1 ship, taking up well over half of someones list, with only 3 attack dice a turn, is unbeatable? Yeah, Han is good. Han will kick you in the head if you don't know how to play against him. We call this kind of a list a 'noobslayer'. It's the same deal with Whisper. If you don't know what's happening, they will roll over you. If you know how to counter it though it's probably a fairly easy game. At least, no harder than any other game you will play.

And at 60 pts, he has no escorts. The escorts are what really kill you in a falcon list. But without them the game is so easy.

Don't forget either that, assuming nobody brought a really stupid list, 95% of games will be decided by who played better.

I'm not meaning to sound negative either guys, I would honestly like a real alternative other than the swarm. I want the sides to be as even as possible so xwing doesn't turn into what 40k has become. Power list v power list

This game has always had it's power lists though. Tie Swarm has been an incredibly powerful list since the game came out, and Han Solo has been a thing since he debuted. I don't really understand how people haven't figured out that Han is beatable yet, since all that has changed since wave 2 is the addition of the c3p0 crew card.

As far as this game turning into 40k, there was a serious level of diversity. Sure you had your power list archetypes, but they were pretty different in function up through 5th. The last 2 editions are, to my understanding, just incredibly goofy and great for hobby gamers. I hope this game turns into mid 5th edition 40k, then you might see more variety.

We've just run two escalation tournaments in one week and Fat Han (and Chewie) were curb-stomped in every single game against swarms.

So yeah - 5x AP works just fine, provided you block.

We had a fat Han and a fat Dash go 2-2 each at our last escalation. I playtested it, and found that Han's astounding 3 attack dice a turn were simply not enough to keep me from getting eaten alive by the many, many more dice of what my opponent brought. 5 AP=15 health and 10 attack a turn. Han=13 health and 3 attack a turn.

Anything with 1 defense hates cluster missiles. If all you want to do is stick it to a Falcon build, I would go with 3 Scimitars each with a cluster missile.

Excellent start to a Jonus fleet. You'd eventually want to sport something that goes hard against high agility ships (like Flechettes or Assaults).