exactly, what the heck is a tie defender good for? I dont think it does anything best.
It's a solid all-rounder as a ship that sports what is probably the most durable small-ship profile (between solid hull, shields, and 3 agility), held back mainly by its lack of viable pilots (with the generics being really silly expensive and Rexlar being incredibly expensive and situational, imo)
It's big defining gimmick is the white K-turn, which players new to it really love to over-use and render themselves incredibly predictable
Apart from jousting superiority (which is noticable, but as said predictable) it's fun to fly behind a formation and then used to intercept ships that can outmanuever the main body of the squad.
The Defender (Vessery) is also one of I think 3 ships the empire has that combines 3 red dice with decent durability & cost, the others being the Firespray and the Shuttle. I also like that, while it has 3 agility, it doesn't spontanesouly combust when RNGesus coughs on it (unlike other Ties I could mention..).
I hold Colonel Vessery to be a very solid list option, because he is one of few imperials that can nab himself an easy TL + Focus combo (provided you have another TL floating around) while remaining fairly durable and decently priced. His combination of accuracy and manueverability is not something you can match with the Firespray (manueverability enhanced, imo, by the rear arc) or Shuttle (system and crew slots provide accuracy...but dat dial).
Agreed with Vessery's quality dice.
but what im really asking about is not how the function but what function do they serve? roles? what specific problems do they address? what weaknesses do they shore up?
The most competitive lists in the worlds results were Vessery, shuttle, int/phantom builds. typically soontir.
The attempt was to put two beefy tanky ships into play that could damage the falcon. sadly, the falcons really good dial and boost makes it much easier to dodge both of those ships. and taking down soontir is relatively easy. just one or two turns or damage will do the trick. something you can easily afford with Han and the 3Zs to run interference on vessery and the shuttle. boosting out of arc with the falcon will be much better in this limited ship match up.
i for one dont really want to play tie swarm. not good enough yet, dont have that many ties. and i hate seeing them get one shot and chewed up with my bad green dice luck. seriously. my opponent's ties never die fast enough. mine get one shotted, 3 hits, or 1 hit 1 direct hit every time i play them. There are times where I am at R3 with an evade, and showing much more promising targets and my opponents says: "ill try my luck with the tie AT RANGE THREE WITH AN EVADE"
Oh, hit crit crit. youre gonna dodge that surely right?
blank blank blank FOCUS. spend a evade, take a direct hit. rage quit.
Edited by Blail Blerg
