I guess I have a dissenting opinion: the decimator really doesn't seem very good. It goes down fast and is a crit sponge.

I just finished a game where I played rebels. I went head on with E'tahn against the decimator - so his attack had one guaranteed crit. Behind him I had two Y-wings (dutch+gold) with the BTL title and ion turrets which were also issuing crits (on primary attack) via E'tahns ability, and way off to the side I had Dash + Mercenary Copilot + HLC issuing two crits via mercenary copilot and E'tahns ability. (and 5 attack dice thanks to Jan's HWK) After the first round the decimator had several crits including one that reduced its attack to 2 dice.

. I play 200 point games: maybe it's less viable in higher point games.

200 point games.. then your opponent could have 4 decis!!

Today I ran Deci/Firespray

Oicunn

Jade

Tactical Jammer

Rebel captive

Kressix

HLC

Recon spec

I had one more card on Oicunn but cant remember atm. I rolled. Beat another two Dec builds and poorly played Han. This is a good solid two ship build. The Deci went down two games but the Firespray cleaned up the board.

If you can make it better let me know how.

Oicunn

Predator

Engine upgrade

Ysanne

Intelligence Agent

Krassis

Hlc

Finally tried a stressimator build which worked for me. I'm 2-0 with that:

Kath Scarlett + Lone wolf + gunner

Cpt. Oicunn + Predator + Ysanne + Rebel Captive + Mara Jade

I felt naked without engine at first, but you can overcome it, and it's not that useful against turreted ships. First game I faced a Dash and a Corran, and I managed to double stress Dash and keep Kath in the hole until he exploded, while the decimator kept corran at bay and far from the combat. The stress hurts him a lot. 100-0, with 1 hull Kath who would have exploded if Corran didn't die before his double tap.

The second game was agains a loaded Keyan, Nera and ion cannon Roark. This time my enemy went for Kath like a mad man, but I kept turning around and managed to hard turn the decimator back on his formation. His commitment to the firespray placed him in a very bad position against the decimator that started taking chunks from the b-wings. Nera only shot one ordnance before going down. While limiting, the ion was not enough to stopo the decimator.A difficult target to put down, while a Lone wolf Kath managed to stress twice each game.

I'd say I'm happy with stress control lists, until I face Tycho I guess. Meh, no, he's not that dangerous xD

Cap Oink- 42

Expose - 4

Mara Jade -3

Rebel Captive -3

Ysanne - 4

Experimental Interface - 3

Krassis- 36

Ion Cannon -3

Tactician - 2

Im surprised noone has posted a Decimator build using the shuttle in it......hmmm that sounds like a challenge lol

Im surprised noone has posted a Decimator build using the shuttle in it......hmmm that sounds like a challenge lol

Yeah, stressimators are the whole reason why i play echo + chira. Such a pain to play a phantom against them otherwise.

I went 2 and 2 with this:

Kenkirk

-PTL

-Isaard

-Mara

-EU

Vessery

-HLC

Its easy to fly having only the two ships and the synergy of Vessery is easy to pull off. Main drawback is facing any list that can aim a lot of guns at you. Vessery is the achilles heal though. He just doesn't have the maneuverability to keep himself out of arcs. He can lay a serious hurting, but can be focused down pretty easily. Its good against low ship builds, but struggles against Phantoms and swarms. Kenkirk loaded out this way is awesome. Once Isard starts kicking in you can get 3 actions a turn. PTLing and boosting off the Isaard evade can really throw people off and move you out of arcs. It also makes the Deci sneaky fast and maneuverable. You can get across the entire board in 2 turns with ease. Major drawback though is any stress inducing builds. They can really kill Kenkirk. Mara is nice, but I kept forgetting her. Usually at the end of combat you take tokens off the board, its hard to remember to put tokens on. I think rebel captive might be a better choice. Really I don't want Kenkirk in the thick of it. I want he dancing around the edges of a battle.

I think I'll drop Vessery for 3 Ties or a Phantom. Haven't decided which way to go yet. Kenkirk is pretty good though. Nice and tanky.

I used:

kenkirk 44

Isard 4

Rebel captive 3

Gunner 5

Expose 4

Interface 3

With him I took 3 academy ties, I only lost the shields never took a hull hit so neither kenkirk nor isard came into play, I never failed to hit so gunner never activated, but expose I did use plenty and the extra firepower was worth it I killed a b-wing quickly and the ties took out leedo and the z-95s he had with him.

I went 2 and 2 with this:

Kenkirk

-PTL

-Isaard

-Mara

-EU

Vessery

-HLC

Its easy to fly having only the two ships and the synergy of Vessery is easy to pull off. Main drawback is facing any list that can aim a lot of guns at you. Vessery is the achilles heal though. He just doesn't have the maneuverability to keep himself out of arcs. He can lay a serious hurting, but can be focused down pretty easily. Its good against low ship builds, but struggles against Phantoms and swarms. Kenkirk loaded out this way is awesome. Once Isard starts kicking in you can get 3 actions a turn. PTLing and boosting off the Isaard evade can really throw people off and move you out of arcs. It also makes the Deci sneaky fast and maneuverable. You can get across the entire board in 2 turns with ease. Major drawback though is any stress inducing builds. They can really kill Kenkirk. Mara is nice, but I kept forgetting her. Usually at the end of combat you take tokens off the board, its hard to remember to put tokens on. I think rebel captive might be a better choice. Really I don't want Kenkirk in the thick of it. I want he dancing around the edges of a battle.

I think I'll drop Vessery for 3 Ties or a Phantom. Haven't decided which way to go yet. Kenkirk is pretty good though. Nice and tanky.

2 ship builds can be nasty, but as you mentioned, if you have a lot of guns pointing at you can dwindle away pretty fast.

I like having as many escorts I can with a ship with 0 agility

The idea get them in your opponents way, block and keep his ships from firing on the big bullseye.

I originally had ties in some of my builds but i started using bombers more before wave 5 release and made room for them in my build.

Beat a dash with 3 z95 with it without losing a ship.

Rebel captive was a good deterrent to keep dash from shooting oicunn, since he had Kyle and ptl, he didn't want that double stress

Once I was able to get in front of him oicunn got in rng one and eventually finished him off

I know two ship builds have become popular, and I am happy to see decimator lists in here that have done well.

My opinion to make the thing live longer is have more tanky ships out in front of it

I used:

kenkirk 44

Isard 4

Rebel captive 3

Gunner 5

Expose 4

Interface 3

With him I took 3 academy ties, I only lost the shields never took a hull hit so neither kenkirk nor isard came into play, I never failed to hit so gunner never activated, but expose I did use plenty and the extra firepower was worth it I killed a b-wing quickly and the ties took out leedo and the z-95s he had with him.

So what would you switch gunner out for since it was of no use?

I used:

kenkirk 44

Isard 4

Rebel captive 3

Gunner 5

Expose 4

Interface 3

With him I took 3 academy ties, I only lost the shields never took a hull hit so neither kenkirk nor isard came into play, I never failed to hit so gunner never activated, but expose I did use plenty and the extra firepower was worth it I killed a b-wing quickly and the ties took out leedo and the z-95s he had with him.

I find with numerous escorts it does make it harder for your opponent to flat out ignore them.

I've had people try to ignore them, but in the end they end up shooting at them.

When they are their only shot, or he cannot focus all his ships on the decimator They usually go for escorts, plus the escorts get within rge one before the decimator so their mentality is get that extra bonus die and kill something before it shoots, again leaving the decimator alone.

If the decimator is near full hp come late game, it's still a lot of hp to hit, and hard to stay on it when it's handing out the stress

I used:

kenkirk 44

Isard 4

Rebel captive 3

Gunner 5

Expose 4

Interface 3

With him I took 3 academy ties, I only lost the shields never took a hull hit so neither kenkirk nor isard came into play, I never failed to hit so gunner never activated, but expose I did use plenty and the extra firepower was worth it I killed a b-wing quickly and the ties took out leedo and the z-95s he had with him.

So what would you switch gunner out for since it was of no use?

Or maybe throw Moff and Intel agent on there

It's only been one game and my dice were hot, there may be games in the future where i do need gunner.

Especially against high agility targets.

If your flying against bwing, falcon decimator to name a few gunner is pretty useless, but against a Phantom, tie, Coran, interceptor and etc can be te difference between victory and defeat

When getting shot at by something with gunner your best case scenario is take 1 dmg...If you can afford to to so

I've had some fun with

Oicunn

Predator

isard

captive

mara

dauntless

Scarlet

Lone Wolf

Recon Spec

It's a quite casual list and fairly fun. Lone wolf though was fairly useless as long as the decimator was still alive

So far out of all the builds i have seen posted i like the Decimator / TIE Bomber list.....its just alot of hull to chew through to beat

This is my version of it

Commander Kenkirk 44

Determination 1

Proximity Mines 3

Hull Upgrade 3

Moff Jerjerrod 2

Ysanne Isard 4

Rebel Captive 3

Scimitar Squadron pilot 16

Cluster Missiles 4

Scimitar Squadron pilot 16

Cluster Missiles 4

Your right.

31 hp

If I take off prox mines I can switch out the tie for another bomber

But man, I've gotten a lot of finishing blow on a lot of ships with proximity mines

Dont know if another bomber would be worth it

34 hp then

Oicunn 42

Title 2

Intimitation 2

3 x Alpha 18

I went 2 and 2 with this:

Kenkirk

-PTL

-Isaard

-Mara

-EU

Vessery

-HLC

Its easy to fly having only the two ships and the synergy of Vessery is easy to pull off. Main drawback is facing any list that can aim a lot of guns at you. Vessery is the achilles heal though. He just doesn't have the maneuverability to keep himself out of arcs. He can lay a serious hurting, but can be focused down pretty easily. Its good against low ship builds, but struggles against Phantoms and swarms. Kenkirk loaded out this way is awesome. Once Isard starts kicking in you can get 3 actions a turn. PTLing and boosting off the Isaard evade can really throw people off and move you out of arcs. It also makes the Deci sneaky fast and maneuverable. You can get across the entire board in 2 turns with ease. Major drawback though is any stress inducing builds. They can really kill Kenkirk. Mara is nice, but I kept forgetting her. Usually at the end of combat you take tokens off the board, its hard to remember to put tokens on. I think rebel captive might be a better choice. Really I don't want Kenkirk in the thick of it. I want he dancing around the edges of a battle.

I think I'll drop Vessery for 3 Ties or a Phantom. Haven't decided which way to go yet. Kenkirk is pretty good though. Nice and tanky.

you cant perform free evade given by isard if you have stress token, can you?

Your right.

31 hp

If I take off prox mines I can switch out the tie for another bomber

But man, I've gotten a lot of finishing blow on a lot of ships with proximity mines

Dont know if another bomber would be worth it

34 hp then

Check out my version of the Decimator / Bomber build

you cant perform free evade given by isard if you have stress token, can you?

No, but he means like this:

Ship is stressed at the start of activation

Green maneuver clears the stress

Perform boost/TL/focus (#1)

Combat phase, Isard does evade action (#2)

PTL off of isard to boost/TL/focus (#3), then receive stress

Repeat

Your right.

31 hp

If I take off prox mines I can switch out the tie for another bomber

But man, I've gotten a lot of finishing blow on a lot of ships with proximity mines

Dont know if another bomber would be worth it

34 hp then

Check out my version of the Decimator / Bomber build

If I may make a suggestion

Cluster missles are best if you had something to back them up like a focus, or jonus for the reroll.

Too many times I've seen people use them and roll lots of blanks and focuses.

Proximity mines work best on low ps ships. Since they will move first, you get the chance to fly by and drop them

If on a higher ps ship you run into a higher chance of being blocked

Bombs on the other hand work best with high ps, since you move after others, you can see where your opponent has moved and before reveal your dial place a seismic or proton bomb

Maybe put proton rockets or homing missles on the bombers? They don't require to spend your focus or target lock to launch them

But i do like what ya got going there