Recently, I’ve become rather attached to flying a fully loaded Tycho, consisting of Push the Limit, Daredevil, Experimental Interface, and of course Chaardan Refit and A Wing Test Pilot. This comes in at 33 points, which is a ridiculous amount for a 2 attack ship, so I would never think that it could pull its own weight, and while I’m still not certain it does, it at least deserves a closer look.

With PTL, Tycho maintains the ability to turtle up with focus and evade, which can be essential to the survivability of an A wing. Furthermore, he can boost and daredevil, which everyone has talked about on paper, but today I’m going to explore it in a practical application. First, the order that the Boost/DD occur, drastically changes the potential final position. Below is a map of the starting position (well, after the maneuver is complete) indicated as a Prototype A wing, and all of the final positions the two maneuvers can create. The DD -> Boost are marked with a Yellow dot, while the Boost -> DD are unmarked.

As you can see, the combination of the two moves can drastically affect his final position, as well as his bearing. This is good and everything, but Soontir can move around to several different places as well, costs 30 points, gets the same 2 actions plus a focus, is more defense because he can take 2 focuses and an evade. Oh yeah, and he has 3 attack, and PS9. So why would anyone take Tycho over Fel? To properly answer that, let’s take a look at where Fel can end up. Soontir can BR and boost, but does not use DD. His final positions are shown below. The BR -> Boost are marked with a yellow dot, and the Boost -> BR are unmarked.

Technically, Fel has more final positions, as each direction of Barrel Roll can be taken forwards or backwards (or in the middle). However, the orientation of the final position has much less variety. He is always facing forwards or at a 45 degree from his original position, whereas Tycho can turn up to 135 from his original position. For one final comparison between the two, I am going to overlay the most drastic positions of each in one illustration.

As you can see, not only does Tycho go further away from the original position, but he has much more control with his orientation. That’s all well and good, but without a solid game plan to use this flexibility, one can quickly become lost and give up on Tycho. So, I figured I would share with all of you a few combinations of maneuvers and actions that I have found to be useful. Finally, I will conclude with a demonstration on how to approach and stay in Dash 58’s blind spot.

To begin with, we will discuss the obvious and not as obvious K turn. Tycho can perform a 1 turn, followed by a DD to pull a K turn with minimal horizontal movement (and no vertical movement). This can obviously be used with any speed turn to translate his position further up and away. But more interesting are the K turns you can complete if you use a bank as your starting maneuver. This requires boosting as well as DD, but can get you further away horizontally, which is often useful when circling around a rock.

As for other useful combinations, I have found doing a bank one direction and DD in the other to be quite successful. I’ve used the same idea with DD one way and boosting the other. I’ve decided to call the 3 right bank, DD left, boost left the “question,” because not only does it get your opponent questioning how the heck you ended up where you did, but it also looks like a question mark. This combination works great to close around the side of a ship that is looking to joust. Even better is when you side slip an entire enemy formation, and end up with a R1 shot on the target of your choice while they’re left with nothing.

Now that we’ve gotten the basics out of the way, and discussed various “tricks” to getting the most out of your Tycho, it’s time to put it to the test. One of the builds everyone seems to be trying out these days is the 58 Dash, and it clearly has a glaring weakness that a PS8+ ship could exploit. I’m going to walk through a potential scenario, and how a Tycho player could/should react in order to eliminate or at least minimize the number of HLC shots Dash can take. I’m assuming for the moment that Dash is equipped with EU, PTL, and Kyle, and will be taking a green maneuver (and using PTL) every turn. Obviously these are assumptions, but they tend to be what the build is based off of. First, I will discuss a simplified approach. Most large turreted ships have no problem going straight at you in the open field, so that’s how we’re going to start the match.

During setup, if at all possible, you should goad your opponent into setting Dash up against an edge. This will serve to reduce the options that he has available regarding turning left/right, and will make it easier to get in his blind spot initially. You will want to place Tycho against your starting edge (instead of at R1 from the edge). Dash can easily initiate combat on the opening turn with a 4 straight barrel roll and boost. Furthermore, it’s in his best interest to get behind you as quickly as possible, so this will be our opening assumption. To deny him his shot, a simple 1 turn will do the trick. If he only does one, you will want to close the gap with a DD, and if he doesn’t do either, you’ll want to boost as well. On the flip side, if he does not rush you, feel free to just leave it at the maneuver, and you can do a 1 left turn the following turn and react to his movements then.

The next few turns are the trickiest, and obviously depend upon what Dash did on turn 1. For the sake of argument, let’s say he boosted and barrel rolled. From here on out, I will limit his moves to one of the four greens on the dial (plus BR and boost). However, for this turn, Dash will not want to use engine upgrade, as it closes the distance with Tycho quite a bit, and makes its super easy for Tycho to get in R1. He will more than likely do BR backwards in order to increase the distance for the moment, especially with Tycho facing sideways. But regardless of what he does, a 3 Left Turn is a good move. If he slow balls it, a simple boost will put Tycho in R1, and he should have a shot. Of course, the other alternative is that he is going to push past as fast as possible. For several of these fast maneuvers, Tycho will bump, but that till denies Dash a shot. Below represents the plausible locations if he 1) slow balls it (on the left) or 2) tries to get past you (on the right). In every scenario, a DD or Bst (or nothing) will bring Tycho into range 1 with a shot on Dash.

If you are fighting against Dash in the open field, where he can potentially turn either way, a 3 Left Turn is still a good maneuver. However, with the addition of Daredevil to your arsenal, you can still chase down most options, and the few that you cannot (Boost right, BR forward is the only combo you cannot get into R1 of), you can safely escape R3. While this could be considered a waste of time, you’re preoccupying 58 of his points with just 33 of yours.

So now that Tycho is in R1 of Dash, he needs to stay there in order to stay alive, those 4 TL+F dice can hurt! At this point, I am going to assume that Dash slow balled it, and the two are still facing each other as this is (imo) the most difficult to envision. When you are in a trailing position, a 2 (or 3 depending on the trailing distance) bank is a great move to do. As for which direction is better, if the board dictates that Dash will be going a certain direction, that is the way you want to bank. If Dash goes straight or the direction you chose (for the sake of the example, Tycho went left), Tycho can do some combination of Boost and DareDevil to close the distance back to R1 in all except two cases, one of which Tycho can out run. These two cases are identified with a yellow dot. In all other possibilities, Tycho will have a shot on Dash. However, if Dash pulls away in the opposite direction of Tycho, then about half of the locations Tycho cannot sneak into R1. However, in every instance he can break away from R3 to deny Dash the shot. Forgive the absolute shear number of YT-2400 on this graph, but there are so many possibilities that Dash can do, but only 1 that works out well for Dash.

Obviously there are several assumptions that I have made in pulling this material together, including ignoring obstacles, which will clearly have a profound impact on the outcome of the game in ways that I did not address here. Unlike a forward Boost + BR combo, the order of operations makes a difference when it comes to DD + Boost. But due to the sheer volume of maneuvers Tycho can complete, he is worth spending some getting to know, either as your enemy, or as your new best friend. While he may not pack as much of a punch or be Pilot Skill 9 like Soontir is, his ability to literally turn 225 degrees around makes him much more flexible of a pilot.

That is a lot of work you put in there, thanks!

One detail regarding the third action Tycho/Daredevil/PTL/EI performs each round:

If you boost before daredevil, the focus/evade/TL action can happen at the start, the end or between the two movement actions. If you daredevil before boost, the focus/evade/TL action has to be taken first. With focus or evade that does not matter. If you TL the difference is worth keeping in mind.

Great info. Have you given any thought to a comparison between Tycho and Jake w/PTL? It's not the same as Soontir as Jake must barrel roll BEFORE his boost or else his ability won't trigger due to the stress from PTL negating the roll after the focus.

Great info. Have you given any thought to a comparison between Tycho and Jake w/PTL? It's not the same as Soontir as Jake must barrel roll BEFORE his boost or else his ability won't trigger due to the stress from PTL negating the roll after the focus.

Jake has the same options as Soontir. The stress happens after all actions. If required, start a new thread in rules questions to discuss this.

I'm a huge fan of Tycho for the same reasons. Here's my question: Given that he's only throwing 2 attack, even with his ability, what role do you seem him playing?

-As a flanker he can distract from your true force but then he hasn't left your main force a ton of points to spend.

-He'd be an expensive blocker but even so moves late.

-He can only do 3 attack at most so he's not much of an attack.

-Prockets gives him the punch but a) it's only 1 attack and b) ups his cost.

So how does he contribute? Or, put another way, what kind of list does he best contribute to given his unique constitution?

And that is why I call him U-turn Tycho.

Great info. Have you given any thought to a comparison between Tycho and Jake w/PTL? It's not the same as Soontir as Jake must barrel roll BEFORE his boost or else his ability won't trigger due to the stress from PTL negating the roll after the focus.

I like Jake with Outmaneuver and PTL. Makes him equally slippery and a bit more intense attack wise.

I'm a huge fan of Tycho for the same reasons. Here's my question: Given that he's only throwing 2 attack, even with his ability, what role do you seem him playing?

-As a flanker he can distract from your true force but then he hasn't left your main force a ton of points to spend.

-He'd be an expensive blocker but even so moves late.

-He can only do 3 attack at most so he's not much of an attack.

-Prockets gives him the punch but a) it's only 1 attack and b) ups his cost.

So how does he contribute? Or, put another way, what kind of list does he best contribute to given his unique constitution?

I'm not 100% sure that he has a role in the competitive scene. Yet. However, I have found his 2 attack to not be a problem since he is almost always in range 1 of his target with at least a focus token, and rolling three dice is good enough. I have been running him as a main target, but being so slippery, he dodges many arcs. Furthermore, I haven't found him to be the main target of my enemy, which means that if he does end up in an arc or two, he is unlikely the main target.

Sadly, I see him running well along side a Fat Han, as almost everyone sees Han as a must kill first target. Unfortunately, I don't like running Fat Han, so I'm not going to try it out. As far as a distraction, I've actually been running Jake as the distraction, but that's not related to Tycho, but he is a good distraction due to his ability to get behind everyone, forcing no shots on either side. But due to the fact that he can't turn around like Tycho, he won't be able to get as many of his own shots, so you need to make sure that you pull more points than Jake is, which I run him at 27 with PTL and LW.

I have considered adding proton rockets to him, but that's a 5 point increase to 38 points, so it will have to take further consideration. I have seen how nasty they can be, and Tycho has no problem getting into R1 of the enemy to use them, so it's a possibility. Plus, the faster ships die, the better he is.

One more thing that I never mentioned in the article (namely because it wasn't relevant to the bit about Dash), you can use DD to force a crash, and then use Boost to go through the person. This is a great trick if someone K turned to get a shot on you or if he took a TL+F on you and you can't arc dodge him - at least if you're touching each other he can't shoot you.

I personally prefer Tycho over Jake. A great read.

I love Tycho, and fly him a lot in friendly matches, but haven't done it much lately. This article rejuvenated my commitment to him!

I love Tycho in this version. But at 33p i just dont think hes good enough for comp play. Fantastic fun fred ships though. I have a keyan, nera jake build that runs a 28 point jake with PTL, outman. Thats an acceptable Price for almost the same mobility and better offense. And i still feel like the right thing to do Would be to swop him for dutch plus ion or a named x. Hes just so fun to fly and the fun thing is that every time i tried something else like dutch, the list loses!

I've run Tycho so much my gaming group even calls me Tycho. With Rebel Aces there's so many things to do with him, and this is one of the things I'm going to try out. Thanks for showing the bank -> DD -> Boost, I hadn't considered that one yet.

My Rebel Aces are in the mail. The mail needs to hurry up.

Comparing Tycho to Soontir is great, for one round. After that you will be 90% certain that Fel will be performing some kind of Green Maneuver to shed that stress to allow him a repeat performance. On the other hand Tycho still has every non-K-Turn available on his dial after picking up all of that stress.

To put it another way at the end of two rounds you'd find that version of Tycho has FAR more possibilities than Fel does.

Comparing Tycho to Soontir is great, for one round. After that you will be 90% certain that Fel will be performing some kind of Green Maneuver to shed that stress to allow him a repeat performance. On the other hand Tycho still has every non-K-Turn available on his dial after picking up all of that stress.

To put it another way at the end of two rounds you'd find that version of Tycho has FAR more possibilities than Fel does.

exactly, I love him in this game, and I love him in the lore.

His role is simple. It makes you go: WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

You will need EI with Daredevil.

I AM THE SPEED

That is how you fly, and I love it.

Good read - now - pit Whisper vs Tychu?

I prefer Tycho with Expose instead of PTL. The downside is, that you can't evade AND focus anymore, because EI is only for actions from cards. The upside is three attack dice, which makes all the difference.

Good read - now - pit Whisper vs Tychu?

PTL Whisper is horrible. It means that you can't use ACD, so you can't decloak. So now you're as predictable as a stressed TIE fighter, but you only have 2 agility, a giant target on your back, and only 4 health.

Sry I didn´t mean PTL. I meant "pit" - as in throw Whisper in the ring vs Tychu! WHO wins the mobility battle?

This comes in at 33 points, which is a ridiculous amount for a 2 attack ship.

People fly Vader at 39.