I originally posted this at BoardGameGeek, but I though perhaps I would get more useful feedback here from the more vibrant community. Please comment!

Our local FLGS hosted a Winter 2014 tournament this weekend, and 2 players were running Decimator lists; I was one of them and I managed to win the tournament with a 3-0 record. I really enjoyed piloting the Decimator and thought I'd post my list here to get feedback and see if anyone has good ideas for improving the list while keeping the basic theme intact.

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Decimator - 61 pts
Captain Oicunn (42)
Title: Dauntless (2)
Expose (4)
Ysanne Isard (4)
Darth Vader (3)
Rebel Captive (3)
Experimental Interface (3)

TIE Fighter - 23 pts
Howlrunner (18)
Wingman (2)
Stealth Device (3)

TIE Fighter - 16 pts
Black Squadron (14)
Wingman (2)
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The basic idea was to keep the TIEs right on the tail of the big ship, and Wingman will remove the stress gained from Interface, or from the Dauntless rams (or both). This will allow me to pilot the Decimator normally and act again every turn. As an added bonus, since the Wingman effects happen at the start of Combat (just like Ysanne), once she begins working, I can choose to trigger Wingman and THEN trigger Ysanne, gaining the evade token.

The perfect sequence is to ram for a damage, then trigger the Dauntless action (Focus or Lock, gaining a stress). Then at the start of Combat, trigger one Wingman (remove the stress), trigger Ysanne (gain Evade), trigger Interface (gain Expose and a stress), and trigger the second Wingman (remove Interface stress). I've taken three actions, rammed you for a damage,I'm about to shove a hot load of Expose (5 dice maybe?) down your throat, and I don't even have any stress so I can do it all again next round.

This also makes Darth Vader even more attractive, as I don't mind grinding down a little of that ample Hull reserve in order to get free evade tokens/extra actions from Ysanne (especially when that extra point of Vader damage is enough to land the kill on an enemy). In my first game, I Darth'd both Wedge and Corran after they each survived a Decimator's salvo. WELL worth 4 hull points. I generally managed to get a little bit of ramming damage, but Expose was really the beast, making all my attacks 4 or 5 dice, and at no downside.

I came up against the other Decimator player in round 2; he was using Engine Upgrade and Push The Limit to get extra actions, but the Rebel Captive (added because I expected to see Phantoms) caused this combo to fail pretty hard. A persistant Weapons Malfunction that he couldn't repair was the nail in the coffin.

My biggest fear coming into the tournament was that I would not match up well against a tough alpha strike list, specifically B-Wings. I met this exact problem in the third (final) round, with two opponsing B-Wings sporting heavy cannon and Jan Ors giving them free attack dice and focus.

The Decimator went down quickly (round 2 or 3), taking one of the Bwings with it and slightly damaging the other, but it looked really bad. However, the TIEs actually performed surprisingly well on their own. We all know how valuable a white K-turn is from the Defender; well, dual Wingman allowed me to constantly flip and evade, staying out of the B-Wing's attack range. An error on my opponent's part (and a lucky pair of Howlrunner rolls) allowed me to take out Jan, and then the B-Wing was easy to manuever around until I whittled it down.

Overall I was VERY happy with the performance, so I recommend you give it a try yourself and see if it works. I will definitely be trying it again probably with some tweaks, so I'd love to hear what others think.

The dual wing man is a good idea. Never thought of it, but pretty much everyone will try to shoot at the decimator first, so you'll always have your wingman to give extra actions. Nice!

Great idea with the wing men. I ran a similar concept today, but instead I ran 'draw their fire' to pull stress from the deci....it did not go my way 1 win 3 losses. I like your list better, I think I'll give it a shot next time out.

How did you "flip and evade" with the Tie Fighters?

Wingman does not clear stress until the start of the combat phase.

Using Ysanne to trigger experimental interface is a really interesting idea!!

How did you "flip and evade" with the Tie Fighters?

Wingman does not clear stress until the start of the combat phase.

Using Ysanne to trigger experimental interface is a really interesting idea!!

Sorry, I did not mean taking evade as an action, just using "flip and evade" to describe staying out of the B-wing's arc with constant K-turns and superior maneuverability.

An interesting story and build! I'm actually not sure that I would tweek anything, except maybe the stealth device on Howlrunner. I would maybe favor either the hull upgrade or slapping proximity mines on the decimator.

The reason for the suggestion is that you want people to target your flankers in the initial run instead of focusing fire on the decimator. That and if you ever enter a mirror match where your opponent uses ruthlessness, that stealth device will be of no use.

If you run that build again then I'd be curious to read more about it

my wing men ALWAYS seem to get picked off first!! however the deci has always held on to win.. next time my escort will be another deci...

My problem is that whenever i try to build a really "Synergistic" list is that once the synergy is broken than that's a bunch of points that are now wasted. So i try to build lists that can be synergistic on individual ships first and THEN with other ships.

Don't forger to have the Tie-Fighters use Wingman on each other for some double K turns or double red moves of their own.