I haven't had the "pleasure" of facing a Fat Han build yet - but many of you have.

How does Fat Han work? When I look at the setup I'm not sure of how his re-rolls and other actions play out during his turn.

As an Imperial player I would like to be better prepared when I am finally matched up against this type of build.

First, Han at PS 9, with his special rule that allows you to reroll all your dice if you are unhappy with the result. It's a weak target lock, but it does increase the reliability of your shooting.

Take Millenium falcon title allows you to Evade as an action.

Take C-3PO as a crew member. His rule is, once per round when making an evade roll, guess the number of evades you will roll, and if you are correct, you get a free evade. The optimal strategy is to guess 0 evades every time, so if you don't roll and evade, 3PO will give you one, and if you do roll an evade, well, you have an evade.

This gives you a big ship that can reliably avoid 2 damage per turn, once from the evade, and once from 3PO. The 'problem' with this is that in early game it's not so bad, but late game when you're fighting 1 or 2 ships, 2 points of damage per round is most if not all of the damage you would expect to suffer per round.

Finally, you can throw in Gunner or Luke crew, so that if your first attack misses (due to evade dice etc) you can make a second attack, and Han can reroll *that* attack as well.

Finally finally, you can *also* take Push the Limit and Engine Upgrade, allowing you to Evade->Push-> Boost as actions, potentially putting you out of arc of your attackers limiting the expected incoming damage even more.

It's a 60ish point build and feels like throwing eggs at a wall, that is also dodging and weaving, and can throw boulders back at you from over it's shoulder.

I think it would be easier to show

Behold. Fat Han

First, Han at PS 9, with his special rule that allows you to reroll all your dice if you are unhappy with the result. It's a weak target lock, but it does increase the reliability of your shooting.

Take Millenium falcon title allows you to Evade as an action.

Take C-3PO as a crew member. His rule is, once per round when making an evade roll, guess the number of evades you will roll, and if you are correct, you get a free evade. The optimal strategy is to guess 0 evades every time, so if you don't roll and evade, 3PO will give you one, and if you do roll an evade, well, you have an evade.

This gives you a big ship that can reliably avoid 2 damage per turn, once from the evade, and once from 3PO. The 'problem' with this is that in early game it's not so bad, but late game when you're fighting 1 or 2 ships, 2 points of damage per round is most if not all of the damage you would expect to suffer per round.

Finally, you can throw in Gunner or Luke crew, so that if your first attack misses (due to evade dice etc) you can make a second attack, and Han can reroll *that* attack as well.

Finally finally, you can *also* take Push the Limit and Engine Upgrade, allowing you to Evade->Push-> Boost as actions, potentially putting you out of arc of your attackers limiting the expected incoming damage even more.

It's a 60ish point build and feels like throwing eggs at a wall, that is also dodging and weaving, and can throw boulders back at you from over it's shoulder.

Wow - that is a beast! Thanks for detailing your answer.

I see how this could be close to impossible to beat during end-game. I have faced MF + C3PO before and lost since we were down to a 1 vs. 1 battle at the end. I couldn't get any damage through with my Firespray. Fat Han just makes that even harder.

Well I see the most common 'fat Han' as being;

Han Solo

Predator

C3PO

Gunner

Engine upgrade

Millenium Falcon title

What this build is going to do, generally, Is skirt the edge of the board, using boost when possible to dodge arcs (at ps9, East to see when boost will be most effective) when it can't boost it'll take an evade through the title. When shooting, predator will enable a slight adjustment I'd your rolls are ok but not perfect, whereas a crap shoot roll will likely see Han trigger his pilot ability to reroll the lot. Against agile/token'd up opponents if the first shot doesnt succeed then gunner kicks in and he gets another go.

The ability to reroll 1 or all dice, and go again if you miss with the same privileges means Han doesn't need to take offensive actions at all. The situation is worse vs ps2 and under ships as he can reroll 1, 2 or all dice.

By skirting the edge of the play area Han limits the ability Of the enemy to surround hit, and thus makes it harder to gang up on him. The effects of this are twofold. 1) with less ships having an arc boost is much more likely to get Han out of harms way, especially when boosting at ps9 and 2) if boost wasn't possible (I.e bump, obstacle, would still be in arc) then the evade token Han has, plus the guaranteed evade from C3PO means he can cancel at least two hits per turn. By keeping the number of guns trained on you low, those two evades on a ship with so many hull and shields means it's going to take a long time to bring him down. This plays further to Han's strengths as whilst his 3 dice attack is likely to generate constant damage due to rerolls and gunner, it is still only 3 dice from ~60 points of ship, so Han is more of a chipper than a smasher and therefore keeping him alive is vital.

So, how do you beat him? Completely depends on you're list, but some general tips would be;

1) Han should be your priority, he is the ultimate endgame ship and you will struggle to beat him once most your squad is dead

2) it's a numbers game - Han is happiest getting shot once a turn, so to make him unhappy we need to be shooting him with multiple ships every turn. This enables us to overcome the title and C3PO much easier.

3)positioning - people make the mistake of letting the falcon fly where it wants, figuring I can't stop it shooting me so why try? Whilst this is true, the falcon still wants to position itself well, not for shooting purposes but for not getting shot purposes. To this end, you want to force the falcon into the board, don't let it just fly the edges. Block it, divert it, lure it, do whatever you need to do to get that bad boy surrounded.

4) crits - Han hates crits, especially the pilot ones, but really there aren't many which aren't absolutely crippling to Han. If you expect to face Han, you need the ability to land crits on him. Reliably. To be fair, in the days of decimators, yt2400's and Fat Han's, everyone should be thinking about crit infliction anyway. Just look at the team covenant vessel tourney last 8. Six of the final 8 are two ship builds. Big ships are here to stay, and messing up thier ability to effect the game with crits is the future.

Hopefully this helps explain how Han works and how to fight him, or at least gives some food for thought. Obviously thier are different Han builds, but I see this as the most common, maybe with VI instead of Predator coming in second, but if you're not playing a phantom this build is just plain easier to beat so the same theory applies

Sorry for the wall!!

I disagree with point (2), because it is simply impossible to do nowadays. If you try to split and cover arcs against the falcon, it can pick off individual ships at PS9, and also be protected from the shots of 1-2 ships that can fire at it due to C3P0 MF title blahblah, if you try to concentrate fire, a single boost is often enough to send it out of arc of nearly everybody

if you try and block it and fail, that's a range 1 4atk dice return fire in your face, which is not what you want either

And that's where the crux of the game and out flying your opponent comes in sure sometimes he'll slip away, and sometimes you'll catch him. Really depends who the better play is most of the time. 2 becomes much easier if you can pull 3 off successfully!

I see little point in firing one 3 attack ship at Han each turn. It's all or nothing as far as I'm concerned

Essentially fat Han is a ship that takes advantage of the metagame favoring small numbers of elite ships and few swarms/generic b-wings/etc. It has three things that make it effective:

1) High PS. Han is naturally PS 9, which beats or ties phantoms and any non-VI pilot, and can get PS 11 without too much of a sacrifice since his pilot ability + gunner/Luke make up for not taking an offensive EPT. This means that you're shooting at uncloaked phantoms, potentially killing targets before they can shoot back, and maximizing your chances of dodging arcs entirely (this is why engine upgrade is popular).

2) Consistent damage. A 360* turret negates the super-maneuverable phantoms/interceptors/a-wings/etc that are popular right now and forces them to depend on their green dice. Then you add gunner/Luke and potentially PTL/predator/marksmanship for dice modification and a second-chance shot if the first one doesn't deal damage. So you have a ship that is capped at 3-4 damage a turn, but very consistently does at least a point of damage every turn.

3) Good enough durability for the metagame. You start with 13 HP, enough to survive a few rounds of fire. Then you add the title card for an evade every turn. Then C-3P0 adds another 5/8 of an evade every turn, assuming you always guess zero on a one-green-die roll for your one use per turn. Finally, since you have a 360* turret, you can focus on maneuvering to deny shots entirely. The sum of all of this is that in the current metagame of small numbers of elite ships it's just hard to get enough red dice on Han to kill him before the game is effectively over. And if Han survives into endgame with all those extra evade results a single ship will often fail to do any damage at all.

Of course fat Han does have his weaknesses that could be exposed in a different metagame. Low damage output means you can't kill "jousting efficiency"* lists fast enough, and that "good enough" durability starts to look a lot less impressive when you're facing a bunch of PS 1-2 red dice instead of PS 9+ elites. And since fat Han takes up 50-60 points of your list you don't have enough support to win the game if Han goes down early. But in the current metagame those lists are extremely vulnerable to phantoms and other high-PS arc dodgers, which makes them fairly rare and keeps the metagame safe for Han.

*Low-PS lists that just line up a bunch of ships and exchange red and green dice with you until you die. TIE swarms, generic b-wings, etc. Since all their points are spent on efficient raw firepower and defense instead of maneuvering/PS/pilot abilities/etc they just beat you with math.

Never knew what Fat Han build was until now.

Thanks guys.

The imbalance for Fat Han is the boost plus guaranteed 2 evades per shot that makes it a problem.

You boost out of arc and reduce the number of attackers that can shoot at you, then a guaranteed nerf on the one or maybe two attacks that come your way. That happens to be an problem.

I read in another thread that the latest Paul Heaver version at Worlds was able to get 3 evades. If that is possible, how?

I read in another thread that the latest Paul Heaver version at Worlds was able to get 3 evades. If that is possible, how?

add R2D2, that's another +1 every turn

The imbalance for Fat Han is the boost plus guaranteed 2 evades per shot that makes it a problem.

You boost out of arc and reduce the number of attackers that can shoot at you, then a guaranteed nerf on the one or maybe two attacks that come your way. That happens to be an problem.

Han must have PtL to be able to both boost and evade. That would make him somewhat prone to action denial although if he has Luke he will probably get a hit somewhere. I think in the conventional setup Han will have to choose whether to boost or evade. I´m sure PtL is common enough though.

The imbalance for Fat Han is the boost plus guaranteed 2 evades per shot that makes it a problem.

You boost out of arc and reduce the number of attackers that can shoot at you, then a guaranteed nerf on the one or maybe two attacks that come your way. That happens to be an problem.

Han must have PtL to be able to both boost and evade. That would make him somewhat prone to action denial although if he has Luke he will probably get a hit somewhere. I think in the conventional setup Han will have to choose whether to boost or evade. I´m sure PtL is common enough though.

honestly, just the boost + C3P0 is oftentimes good enough

If I remember right, Paul Heaver was running a Fat Han list at worlds, check out some of the videos to see it in action. :-)

You see i needed Fat Han explaining too a while back.

What this forum *really* needs is some sticky topics like

'Forum Terminology and abbreviation'

'Common top end competetive builds thread'

'Painting and Modelling'

and

'Oh no the game is broken'

If someone with more knowledge than me could put up a post that explained what a lot of commonly used terms and abbreviations are i'd help keep it on the front page with the odd bump.

Sure you get to learn them after a while but when you're new...

Fat han with PTL, SU and EU means nothing to you (not a great combination, just an example)

Been playing with builder.

Han Solo

Engine Upgrade (4)

That's potential 4 evades a turn, right?

add R2D2, that's another +1 every turn

R2-D2 crew doesn't add an evade. It lets you regen a shield at the cost of maybe having to flip up a face down card.

Been playing with builder.

Han Solo

YT-1300, Unique

When attacking, you may reroll all of your dice. If you choose to do so, you must reroll as many of your dice as possible.

Upgrades:

Push the Limit (3)

C-3PO (3)

Lando Calrissian (3)

Millennium Falcon (1)

Engine Upgrade (4)

That's potential 4 evades a turn, right?

Yes.

Some people fly a hawk with the Falcon with Jan as crew, and give the falcon another evade by first passing a focus. This requires bringing kyle with Jan as crew, and it gives all its actions to the falcon which I think makes it an easy kill, but there is another evade in most situations, and I think it does draw fire early for the reasons mentioned above.

Been playing with builder.

Han Solo

YT-1300, Unique

When attacking, you may reroll all of your dice. If you choose to do so, you must reroll as many of your dice as possible.

Upgrades:

Push the Limit (3)

C-3PO (3)

Lando Calrissian (3)

Millennium Falcon (1)

Engine Upgrade (4)

That's potential 4 evades a turn, right?

Yes but Lando tends to vary a lot, and with this you don't have much offensive boost. Keeping him up for many turns is great, but he also really needs to deal significant damage each turn as three and with some lists only two attacks per turn can struggle against damage onslaughts like swarms. For example, I play BXXZZZ quite a lot and I can often chew through a falcon in 2-3 turns of fire, even with the automatic evade lists. Keeping him in arc isn't a huge issue either, because you have six arcs to spread. Your best defense against these lists is clear ships before he can damage you heavily. The weakness of these lists is arc dodgers, but that's a different thread. Point being, spending two more points for Gunner over Lando might be worth it for the offensive buff.