List (Imperial): Hammer & Nail

By Cremate, in X-Wing

This list goes against my instinct to not load my ships too heavily with updates, bloating them with points, yet it is fun to fly and surprisingly effecient. Here's my Hammer & Nail.

The Hammer (57)

Captain Oicunn (42)

Daredevil (3)

Engine Upgrade (4)

Dauntless (2)

Navigator (3)

Mara Jade (3)

The hammer is big and heavy and it is meant to be waved around. And it is pretty good at flattening things.

Engine Upgrade and Daredevil makes the Decimator very maneuverable with all the five different Speed-1 moves available as actions. Two of them, the sharp turns, even count as a maneuver because of Daredevil allowing Oicunn to use it to ram into enemies as his action. With the Dauntless title he might even do that to ships he is already touching and already rammed once, effectively bulldozing them down (for the cost of two stress).

The Navigator allows for flexible planning, making you better able to ram your enemies, just as Mara Jade makes it harder for your enemies to escape once they've gotten too close to the Decimator (I cannot begin to describe the joy of stalking a B-wing the other night, stressing it each round making it impossible for it to get away or even to turn around and face me, because of the constant stress and his poor red b-wing dial).

Now, at first my thought was that Oicunn was a funny gimmick I wanted to try a few times for the laughs before moving on to other more endurable pilots in the Decimator. However, having flown this heavily loaded Oicunn, I'm surprised how viable he is.

Ships with turrets might be forgiving to play as your almost always have a firing solution on an enemy ship because of your turret, but the trick to fly large turreted ships well isn't to fly it haphazardly; it is to fly so that you minimise the number of enemy firing arcs able to peg you each round. The straightforward way to do this is by using your mobility to arc-dodge. But there is also a different way to reduce the number of firing arcs - by ramming into and touching one or more enemy ships. This strategy might not have been as favorable on previous ships with a turret, as you loose your precious actions. With Qicunn at the helm of the Dauntless this changes as you are not only able to do actions anyway, you will also damage your enemy while doing it. So ram into one or two ships while firing your own weapons at a third ship, while heavily reducing the number of enemies that can fire at your agility-less hull.

Ramming might not always be the best course of action and with the wonderful dial and high mobility of this otherwise bulking ship, the trick is to adapt each round whether to ram one (or more) enemy ship(s) or whether to nimbly arc-dodge. The navigator + daredevil + engine upgrade gives you infinite options, while Mara Jade will limit those of your enemies.


The Nail (42)

Echo (30)

Gunner (5)

Fire-Control System (2)

Veteran Instincts (1)

Advanced Cloaking Device (4)

The Nail is small, fast and it strikes with pin-point accuracy. It is a loaded phantom - not unfamiliar to the forum - using the gunner to asure it's deadliness allowing it to use its actions for defensive measures when needed.

Its job is to do precision-strikes on your enemies while the Hammer rams and hampers them.

It seems an odd couple with these two point-bloated ships with very different capabilities, but they share one feature: both of them forces your enemies to fly in unusual patterns. The Hammer because of its ramming, its turret and the stress it applies on them - and the Nail because of the usual challenges with predicting and hemming in Echo. Now they would likely be smart to either focus one or the other down first, but which-ever they focus on, the other will catch up and hurt them bad if ignored.

EDIT: I completely forgot to add that if you don't mind pushing your list to a 100 pts, you could add an Intelligence Agent on the Decimator for the last point. While it doesn't help you ram into enemies it does make it easier for you to either block or arc-dodge enemy pilots with a higher PS than your own.

Edited by Cremate

If I'm flying only 2 ships in the Empire, both of which with crew slots, and I don't find the points somewhere for a Rebel Captive, then I'm slightly ashamed of myself.

In this case, I think I might drop the Engine Upgrades in its favor.

Weird? Yes. By losing Boost, you take an average of 1 damage each time you Daredevil.
However, as you cannot Boost into a collision, but you can still Daredevil into a double-bonk with your current build, risking 1 damage with a 50% spread on variance to guarantee 1 additional damage to a collided enemy is still very much worth it.

Alternatively, you can cull Navigator, but that crewman is so bloody useful when your enemy has surprised you that I'd suggest leaving it on.

A second alternative is trading in the 7 point Gunner + FCS combo, netting you 3 points for Rebel Captivity on your Hammer, and 4 points for your Nail. Lots of options here, but I really like your current choices as well.




Either way, I'd get some sort of screw added to your Hammer, as it's literally your only viable target for them to attack. RC's great for this, but anything else you can do to keep them screwed as you attack....

Only problem with the Title+DD is that it will take two turns to shed the stress.

Only problem with the Title+DD is that it will take two turns to shed the stress.

...I am now considering running a similar build, with multiple Black Squad Wingmen.

Black Squad Wingman is awesome. I'm loving a Howlie PTL and a BSP with wingman next to her. BSP shuttle, BSP Decimator, BSP phantom, so many uses!

Thank you for all the feedback. I haven't struggled too much with the double-stress so far. The Decimator dial is so forgiving and being sure that I can do actions on the second turn no matter what (because of Dauntless) makes it less of a set-back. It is definately important, though, to assess when it's worthwhile and when not and what kind of ship - and how many of them - will be hit by doing the double-ramming.

I'll keep the suggestions in mind as I get to test drive this build more - something that will take some time, as it is still not legal at the tournaments.

Also, I forgot an additional note when I posted this morning and I've added it now (the Intelligence Agent-option).

If all you got is a hammer then everything looks like a nail!!!

I don't like the idea of running two ships. Especially one that has no agility. Oiccunn plus some ties sounds like all the fun I need, though.

Deci + Echo is actually a pretty workable and powerful squad. Lots of options for the Decimator, as well.

Having had the time to play with different alternatives, those who would prefer a screwdriver to a nail it's certainly viable to swap out Echo for Boba Fett+ VI (with two points to spare to add upgrades or bid for initiative). He is very good at turning, he is more durable than Echo but still very good at hunting down enemy flankers.

Having had the time to play with different alternatives, those who would prefer a screwdriver to a nail it's certainly viable to swap out Echo for Boba Fett+ VI (with two points to spare to add upgrades or bid for initiative). He is very good at turning, he is more durable than Echo but still very good at hunting down enemy flankers.

Having been on the receiving end of both builds, I can attest to the durability.

When I flew against the original Hammer and Nail list, I managed to beat it in a very close match with two elite A's (Farrell and Gemmer) and two Blue Sq B's. Jake Farrell managed to take the Devastator with only one hp remaining, with a hail Mary shot through an asteroid.

Last night, I faced the Boba Fett version with Arvel Crynyd, Keyan Farlander and Nera Dantles, and got sorely beaten. The VT-49 soaks up hits very rapidly with it's 0 agility, but I still wasn't able to concentrate fire quickly enough to take it out so I could concentrate on Boba. The combination of the VT-49's very good dial combined with EU means that it moves very fast, and I had to choose between dodging and getting steamrolled with the ramming + Daredevil 1-2 combo for a certain 2 hits.

Both list are a challenge to fly against, and I'm still not sure of the best way to consistently beat them.

A really fun idea. I'll try it out as follows once I get my Decimator.

Hammer and Nail (99/100)

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VT-49 Decimator: Captain Oicunn (42 + 13)

+ Daredevil (3)

+ Mara Jade (3)

+ Intelligence Agent (1)

+ Dauntless (2)

+ Engine Upgrade (4)

TIE Phantom: "Whisper" (32 + 12)

+ Veteran Instincts (1)

+ Gunner (5)

+ Fire Control System (2)

+ Advanced Cloaking Device (4)