Nice! I have a similar list built. But with predator and engine on Chiraneau instead. I LOVE the expose build, but there is a hard counter to it, which ate control builds. The stress list pretty much destroys 11 points on the decimator. Which is why I'm considering going to slightly less damage and more maneuverability
7 points is half a tie fighter of points countered.
Edited by Koshinn
It's a soft counter. It only removes 7 points, Ysanne will work, so it only reduces Chir from 3.5 actions to 2.5 actions (the half being his ability, half a focus or so). And the build doesn't rely on those 7 points. Think of them like a HLC on a 3 attack ship. Whereas if you counter an ACD, you pretty much nullify the entire Phantom.Nice! I have a similar list built. But with predator and engine on Chiraneau instead. I LOVE the expose build, but there is a hard counter to it, which ate control builds. The stress list pretty much destroys 11 points on the decimator. Which is why I'm considering going to slightly less damage and more maneuverability
7 points is half a tie fighter of points countered.
Meh, the problem with Expose + EI is mobility, and how easy is to concentrate fire in that ship. Concentrated fire in a decimator is probably the best, if not only way, to kill it without risk of attrition.
I well may not sleep if I know I'm moving green 2s and have a swarm/4 rebel ships behind. Also, stress, but that's different.
Predator + engine helps a LOT against your worst enemy: several low PS ships. And if you also add the well known rebel captive, you're also protected against phantoms. At least they will eat that return fire with raw 2 agility.
Chiraneau + Ruthlesness (Or predator) + Gunner + Ysanne + Rebel Captive + Engine. 65 points of pain that you could pair with 2 named ties (Dark curse/Backstabber + Mauler + Lone wolf, or the deadliest 35, with Soontir + PTL + Stealth + TC/Autothrusters). You either target lock or boost. If you have predator, you can do whatever you want, since you almost need no actions besides boost, and sometimes is better aviod boosting. And your wingmen are resilient. Hell, ever fought Dark Curse with a Fat Han? Well, just best 16 points in the game.
And if you cower when you see swarms, go for mara jade instead of gunner, but then use "predator" to avoid missing uncomfortable shots during a turn from 2/3 of your list.
It's a soft counter. It only removes 7 points, Ysanne will work, so it only reduces Chir from 3.5 actions to 2.5 actions (the half being his ability, half a focus or so). And the build doesn't rely on those 7 points. Think of them like a HLC on a 3 attack ship. Whereas if you counter an ACD, you pretty much nullify the entire Phantom.Nice! I have a similar list built. But with predator and engine on Chiraneau instead. I LOVE the expose build, but there is a hard counter to it, which ate control builds. The stress list pretty much destroys 11 points on the decimator. Which is why I'm considering going to slightly less damage and more maneuverability
7 points is half a tie fighter of points countered.
Meh, the problem with Expose + EI is mobility, and how easy is to concentrate fire in that ship. Concentrated fire in a decimator is probably the best, if not only way, to kill it without risk of attrition.
I well may not sleep if I know I'm moving green 2s and have a swarm/4 rebel ships behind. Also, stress, but that's different.
Predator + engine helps a LOT against your worst enemy: several low PS ships. And if you also add the well known rebel captive, you're also protected against phantoms. At least they will eat that return fire with raw 2 agility.
Chiraneau + Ruthlesness (Or predator) + Gunner + Ysanne + Rebel Captive + Engine. 65 points of pain that you could pair with 2 named ties (Dark curse/Backstabber + Mauler + Lone wolf, or the deadliest 35, with Soontir + PTL + Stealth + TC/Autothrusters). You either target lock or boost. If you have predator, you can do whatever you want, since you almost need no actions besides boost, and sometimes is better aviod boosting. And your wingmen are resilient. Hell, ever fought Dark Curse with a Fat Han? Well, just best 16 points in the game.
And if you cower when you see swarms, go for mara jade instead of gunner, but then use "predator" to avoid missing uncomfortable shots during a turn from 2/3 of your list.
I don't worry about tie and z swarms, they don't see much play anymore and they don't like fighting against Defenders anyway.
Decis have a 3 green straight btw 
Again, just try it. As a data point besides myself, Morgan Reid won a tournament with that deci build, although he used whisper instead of vess.
The amount of firepower difference between expose chir + hlc vess and engine chir + 2 tie/ln is staggering. If I wanted to run an arc dodger with a decimator, it would be a phantom, not an interceptor, at least until autothrusters come out.
Edited by KoshinnFroggies' 3B with Tactician and You with ion and R3-A2 will shut down expose and Ysanne. That's 11 points negated. You trigger Ysanne and expose once, and you're stressed. Then at least 1 more, if not 2 stress coming your way. Then no more expose or Ysanne for rest of the game. And you're worse than a predator Chiraneau.
That's how I just shut one down playing the Panic Attack list, and that was my first time flying the list. You'll have to be lucky to take out a B before he shoots (meaning I throw zero evade dice against your Chiraneau and Vessery in that turn), and even then, you'll still be double stressed.
Granted, this is probably the list that is the only hard counter So far, but more and more stress builds are probably coming (heck, I may fly one soon) so it just depends on your local meta.
(and for full disclosure, I love the expose build on Chiraneau, but there are definitely counters to it that are competitive builds)
I generally destroy 4 and 5 ship rebel builds without losses. When you kill a ship before they even get a chance to shoot, it goes down hill quickly for them.
It's a soft counter. It only removes 7 points, Ysanne will work, so it only reduces Chir from 3.5 actions to 2.5 actions (the half being his ability, half a focus or so). And the build doesn't rely on those 7 points. Think of them like a HLC on a 3 attack ship. Whereas if you counter an ACD, you pretty much nullify the entire Phantom.Nice! I have a similar list built. But with predator and engine on Chiraneau instead. I LOVE the expose build, but there is a hard counter to it, which ate control builds. The stress list pretty much destroys 11 points on the decimator. Which is why I'm considering going to slightly less damage and more maneuverability
7 points is half a tie fighter of points countered.
Meh, the problem with Expose + EI is mobility, and how easy is to concentrate fire in that ship. Concentrated fire in a decimator is probably the best, if not only way, to kill it without risk of attrition.
I well may not sleep if I know I'm moving green 2s and have a swarm/4 rebel ships behind. Also, stress, but that's different.
Predator + engine helps a LOT against your worst enemy: several low PS ships. And if you also add the well known rebel captive, you're also protected against phantoms. At least they will eat that return fire with raw 2 agility.
Chiraneau + Ruthlesness (Or predator) + Gunner + Ysanne + Rebel Captive + Engine. 65 points of pain that you could pair with 2 named ties (Dark curse/Backstabber + Mauler + Lone wolf, or the deadliest 35, with Soontir + PTL + Stealth + TC/Autothrusters). You either target lock or boost. If you have predator, you can do whatever you want, since you almost need no actions besides boost, and sometimes is better aviod boosting. And your wingmen are resilient. Hell, ever fought Dark Curse with a Fat Han? Well, just best 16 points in the game.
And if you cower when you see swarms, go for mara jade instead of gunner, but then use "predator" to avoid missing uncomfortable shots during a turn from 2/3 of your list.
I don't worry about tie and z swarms, they don't see much play anymore and they don't like fighting against Defenders anyway.
Decis have a 3 green straight btw
Again, just try it. As a data point besides myself, Morgan Reid won a tournament with that deci build, although he used whisper instead of vess.
The amount of firepower difference between expose chir + hlc vess and engine chir + 2 tie/ln is staggering. If I wanted to run an arc dodger with a decimator, it would be a phantom, not an interceptor, at least until autothrusters come out.
I do understand that if there is no swarm local meta, and people runs with 3-2 ships, is actually very efficient with 8 dice with only two ships. Still, mobility is a must unless you're kenkirk + ysanne and REALLY have someone with you that generates hate enough to avoid the decimator being focused down. Also, I've flown decimators 5-6 times, always with rebel captive. I don't know who would be more pissed if stressed; engineless Vess, or EI Chiraneau.
Edited by NynoxI still don't know if it's a hard counter. Maybe not because of 11 pts, but because it kills vess' synergy. That's probably why it hurts the most.
But even then, it's probably a soft counter because control is shooting second and a defender with an hlc and a deci with a half-focus are far from dead. And the fact that they're likely to lose the Y in the second shooting phase at the latest, if not the first.
I generally destroy 4 and 5 ship rebel builds without losses. When you kill a ship before they even get a chance to shoot, it goes down hill quickly for them.It's a soft counter. It only removes 7 points, Ysanne will work, so it only reduces Chir from 3.5 actions to 2.5 actions (the half being his ability, half a focus or so). And the build doesn't rely on those 7 points. Think of them like a HLC on a 3 attack ship. Whereas if you counter an ACD, you pretty much nullify the entire Phantom.Nice! I have a similar list built. But with predator and engine on Chiraneau instead. I LOVE the expose build, but there is a hard counter to it, which ate control builds. The stress list pretty much destroys 11 points on the decimator. Which is why I'm considering going to slightly less damage and more maneuverability
7 points is half a tie fighter of points countered.
Meh, the problem with Expose + EI is mobility, and how easy is to concentrate fire in that ship. Concentrated fire in a decimator is probably the best, if not only way, to kill it without risk of attrition.
I well may not sleep if I know I'm moving green 2s and have a swarm/4 rebel ships behind. Also, stress, but that's different.
Predator + engine helps a LOT against your worst enemy: several low PS ships. And if you also add the well known rebel captive, you're also protected against phantoms. At least they will eat that return fire with raw 2 agility.
Chiraneau + Ruthlesness (Or predator) + Gunner + Ysanne + Rebel Captive + Engine. 65 points of pain that you could pair with 2 named ties (Dark curse/Backstabber + Mauler + Lone wolf, or the deadliest 35, with Soontir + PTL + Stealth + TC/Autothrusters). You either target lock or boost. If you have predator, you can do whatever you want, since you almost need no actions besides boost, and sometimes is better aviod boosting. And your wingmen are resilient. Hell, ever fought Dark Curse with a Fat Han? Well, just best 16 points in the game.
And if you cower when you see swarms, go for mara jade instead of gunner, but then use "predator" to avoid missing uncomfortable shots during a turn from 2/3 of your list.
I don't worry about tie and z swarms, they don't see much play anymore and they don't like fighting against Defenders anyway.
Decis have a 3 green straight btw
Again, just try it. As a data point besides myself, Morgan Reid won a tournament with that deci build, although he used whisper instead of vess.
The amount of firepower difference between expose chir + hlc vess and engine chir + 2 tie/ln is staggering. If I wanted to run an arc dodger with a decimator, it would be a phantom, not an interceptor, at least until autothrusters come out.
I do understand that if there is no swarm local meta, and people runs with 3-2 ships, is actually very efficient with 8 dice with only two ships. Still, mobility is a must unless you're kenkirk + ysanne and REALLY have someone with you that generates hate enough to avoid the decimator being focused down. Also, I've flown decimators 5-6 times, always with rebel captive. I don't know who would be more pissed if stressed; engineless Vess, or EI Chiraneau.
1 stress is no big deal. I wiped the floor with a kenkirk who had a captive onboard, the free crit is too much.
Let me put it this way, I'd rather take a stress on chir than vess. Defenders don't like stress.
I also don't find myself necessarily needing more mobility. If I did, I'd be running ptl+eu instead of expose+ei.
Maybe it's me, but have flown Rexler + Predator with a Decimator with Fleet Officer and Rexler died before a Fat Han did, so I was screwed then. Same happened when flying HLC Vessery against the same squad: 3 talas blown up, then Han finishes Vessery and, the rest is easily obtained with simple deduction.
My defenders, even arcdodging, do not last as much as they should.
Maybe it's me, but have flown Rexler + Predator with a Decimator with Fleet Officer and Rexler died before a Fat Han did, so I was screwed then. Same happened when flying HLC Vessery against the same squad: 3 talas blown up, then Han finishes Vessery and, the rest is easily obtained with simple deduction.
My defenders, even arcdodging, do not last as much as they should.
Defenders suffer the same problem as all 3 agility ships. They either last forever (I had Vessery survive against a Pred+Gunner Han for 3-4 rounds and was able to take out Han almost single-handedly with the help of someone else's TL), or they can die in 1-2 rounds if you roll all blanks a couple of times. The issue with them is that it's hard to arc dodge with them on the first pass of shooting, so they have to weather it and then have more flexibility with the white K-turn.
At this point I'm pretty much playing with the upgrades for a Chiraneau + Vessery (or Echo) list. It comes down to Expose+EI or Predator+EU on Chriraneau. I'm not worried about Super Dash at all (thanks to Chirpy and Echo, and Vess with VI), Against Fat Han I'd prefer Expose+EI. Against a swarm or Rebel Control I prefer Predator+EU. Against another Phantom+Decimator, definitely Expose+EI.
I'll have to play the two lists against some strong meta builds and decide.
This is some great talk about decimator builds that I am really appreciating and I think it kinda sums up why there are no dash threads. His ship is tuff can put out lots of firepower and doesn't really need to think too hard about what he needs to do or how he needs to fly as " asteroids don't consern him admiral " . The builds got figured out pretty quickly as there are a few obvious choices to take and not the loads of possible good options that the decimator has.
With the yt2400 the options are do I take the outrider title or not. I'm not running dash because I decide to take something that is not dash so who do I take.How do I want to go about getting up to 3 actions. Shots against the 2400 are not more or less auto hits so control list are not guaranted to control the ship and even then with a katan list a stress token will still yield a focus token with a green even with multiple stress tokens,So I only need to worry about movement which with arc dodging is dealing with damage control and it deals with damage output at the same time.
Obviously Paul heaver will come up with some list that does look very good against most list but will totally Rock against what the meta will be at the time of worlds
A lot of good honest things
Right! There will always be something at 'the top'. Likewise there will always be some thing at the bottom of the heap. So justly there will always be something to complain about on each end of the spectrum. And I'm fine with that too to a degree. As you know some games even use that as a hidden teacher mechanic if nothing else, to give players mistakes to make, that then steer them toward better play, thus more fun play. Which is why I bring up the power creep. You fix one thing that was weak or release something that's too strong, well that's creep. Then you go to fix the thing that was weak, creep. Something else get's dubbed weak (The X-wing seems to have attracted that moniker, personally don't know why it's not plastered onto the Rebel Y-wing but meh whatevs) So you bring that up to speed, creep, something else is labeled weak. Another release makes something just more efficient in cost, creep. AUGH! And that's why it get's into every game! The **** thing is insidious as hell! From a designers perspective, it's like the old movie phrase "The only way to win, is to not play(expand) the game." 
So I feel like you and your Phantoms with your buddy experience are really similar to my and my buds experience. And thank god you get how odd it is for me. We are to the point that skill is so close between us all, that it is just a test of who makes the mistake and when, or takes the calculated risk right when the dice gods revolt? So the whole game plan is 'hope the phantom mucks it up'. And that is just an awful no fun very bad game of suck. 
Usually with Dash eating it, because real talk, Phantoms don't screw up a lot. So yeah we get each other there. 
I think Mangler is going to be Dash's best friend actually. Sure it can't swamp you with weight of fire but it will still get a lot of Focus-Locks and there will always be a critical in them, while still denying you the R3 bonus die. Swings for three aren't stopped all that often either. But Stealth-Thrusters will probably finish him off one way or the other so maybe it's moot. 
That will give him some serious fangs though against other large ships though which pretty **** well hate being critically damaged, while allowing it to at least not just auto-die to many Phantom pilots. And three points cheaper too! 
*creep* 
Maybe it's me, but have flown Rexler + Predator with a Decimator with Fleet Officer and Rexler died before a Fat Han did, so I was screwed then. Same happened when flying HLC Vessery against the same squad: 3 talas blown up, then Han finishes Vessery and, the rest is easily obtained with simple deduction.
My defenders, even arcdodging, do not last as much as they should.
Defenders suffer the same problem as all 3 agility ships. They either last forever (I had Vessery survive against a Pred+Gunner Han for 3-4 rounds and was able to take out Han almost single-handedly with the help of someone else's TL), or they can die in 1-2 rounds if you roll all blanks a couple of times. The issue with them is that it's hard to arc dodge with them on the first pass of shooting, so they have to weather it and then have more flexibility with the white K-turn.
At this point I'm pretty much playing with the upgrades for a Chiraneau + Vessery (or Echo) list. It comes down to Expose+EI or Predator+EU on Chriraneau. I'm not worried about Super Dash at all (thanks to Chirpy and Echo, and Vess with VI), Against Fat Han I'd prefer Expose+EI. Against a swarm or Rebel Control I prefer Predator+EU. Against another Phantom+Decimator, definitely Expose+EI.
I'll have to play the two lists against some strong meta builds and decide.
Pred+eu just doesn't synergize with vess as well as ptl+eu or exp+ei.
Pred+eu just doesn't synergize with vess as well as ptl+eu or exp+ei.
Definitely not "as well", but usually I grab the TL for Vess, and use my predator instead of the TL until that ship is dead from Vess and Chirpy.
I actually went crazy and threw Ysanne out the airlock and put Gunner and Weapons Engineer in.
Chiraneau
- Predator
- Gunner
- Weapons Engineer
- Vader (yes, I love Vader too much to not take him)
- Engine Upgrade
Vessery
- VI
Obviously, Gunner and WE can be tweaked to give Vessery HLC in this build, and Vader can be swapped for Rebel Captive or Ysanne (since you saved 1 point from giving up Gunner+WE for HLC) for those who don't like the idea of using Vader on a 60+ point ship.
So just took my dash list to a tourney so let y'all know how he went.
Dash
Outrider
HLC
leebo
lone wolf
Corran
Ptl
Advanced sensors
R2d2
Hull upgrade
Faced fat Han + fringed hlc outrider support rd1.
Poor evades saw the fringer go down quickly.
Then dash died late game before corran double tapped to defeat Han.
48 margin pt win
Rebel swarm rd2 with etahn, cracked & headhunters.
Outmanoeuvred him and would only have 2 ships firing at dash most turns until I started removing a ship a turn.
Corran had got behind him & was being a nuisance.
100 margin pt win.
Rd 3. Chewie & outrider hlc support.
He avoided the asteroids and ran down the edge of the table with chewie toward centre.
Kept at range 3 in the roid field stripping shields off chewie.
By the time his outrider got into range I dropped chewie then used corran to bait him whilst dash kept his distance in the roids.
100 margin pt win
Rd4 3 a wings, z95, another fringer with hlc but no outrider.
Suprised to face this guy as his list seemed lacklustre on paper.
He defeated 2 x whisper builds somehow so didn't want to get cocky.
Just kept his swarm out of arc or at range 3 & concentrated on dealing with his fringer.
Then used the roids to split his swarm. Then picked his ships apart.
Another 100pt win to finish top place at my first tourney!
Got lucky dodging the 2 whisper/decimator builds though. As they both dropped a game early so dodged the bad matchups.
Things I learned.
Dash is an a**hole. Just so good. I'm not sold on super dash due to stress removing some manouveres options.
Only died in rd1
Corran is a bigger a**hole. Every game people chased dash. Then shifted attention to corran. Who would then bugger off to reposition & regen all his shields.
Alive every game.
Leebo was nice. Though I think he isn't needed as much. Barrel roll was generally preferred.
He's great to throw opponents though.
Lone wolf was ok. I think veteran instincts will be better for dealing with whisper & dropping leebo for iniative bid in future games.
Don't be too aggressive. There is nothing wrong with missing a few turns of firepower to keep dash safe.
Outrider is going to love the mangler cannon. No more doughnut holes for me and I get 3 dice at all ranges.
Congrats on the WIN! It is crazy that you didn't face any imperial opponents, but looks like you flew very well!
