Hi

I'm a casual imperial player, and my usual enemy is my brother who plays rebels. Last time we played I received a solid beating, and I wanted to come up with a list to defeat his squadron. He played with:

Leebo + HLC + Outrider + Predator + Lando Calrissian

Blue Squadron Pilot + HLC

Airen Cracken

I think it was Paul Heaver who said that he always thinks of defence first, so I came up with this:

Rexler Brath + HLC + Lone Wolf + Stealth Device

Krassis Trellix + HLC + Flight Instructor + Counter Measures

After a long fight I managed to win. I have to add that we are casual players and we play only about twice a month.

This list allows you to take mostly defensive actions while maintaining some attack dice modification. The plan was to take mostly evade actions on Firespray and focus on Rexler.

So tell me, what do you think?

Not bad. I am a huge fan of recon specialists on firesprays. Gives you two focus tokens so you can use them for defense twice or one for offense and one for defense.

I think I'd be reluctant to describe a list with two Heavy Laser Cannons as principally defensive in nature.

I'd rather run recon spec over FI. In fact I'd rather run anything over FI. The ability FI gives you isn't awful, but for 4 points it is. Why they costed it at 4 points, I'll never know. I think FFG had a habit of overcosting defensive upgrades, especially when they involve green dice. Still kind of do now, look at CM. 3 points for a one use upgrade that really only gives you good bang for the buck when your opponent has a TL heavy list. Even then it only removes 1 TL. For the points I'd rather just run a Hull upgrade.

Honestly just use 2 BH firesprays and a couple ties or a doom shuttle and you'll take out his list pretty fast.

I have played Rexler Brath + HLC + Lone Wolf + Shield Upgrade/Engine Upgrade, but I have never done Stealth Device. Now I am intrigued to try it out!

I decided for Flight Instructor for two reasons:

1. I never used it and I wanted to try

2. It activates every time you defend, and focus token works only once. My plan was to keep the ships apart and I was pretty sure that Firespray will be the main target. FI lets you modify every defensive roll (as long as you roll at least one eye, or attacker has low PS). I have actually made some mathwinging over it, and the reults I came up with are as follows (I hope I didn't mess anything during calculations):

two green dice:

no tokens - average 0,75 evades

focus token - average 0,97 evades

FI (attacker PS3+) - average 0,84 evades

FI (attacker PS 1 or 2) - average 1,07 evades

Adding one evade token on top of that it is pretty solid defence. It is actually better than RS when there are multiple attackers, and that was the plan. With FI you don't have modification on attack that RS gives you but you are more resilient to focused fire.

Countermeasures also come in very handy in situations like this, especially on ships with 2 green dice. You activate it at the beginning of combat phase, when you already know that multiple enemies have you in their arcs and the target locks are already there. In this particular game CM came in very handy. I had a B-wing at range 1 with TL and Cracken at R3. Without the TL B-wing hopefully rolled badly, and Firespray had 3 green dice with reroll from FI.

CM and FI are quite good on 2 ship builds against more numerous enemy.

Edits: of course it's Cracken not Cracker.

I have played Rexler Brath + HLC + Lone Wolf + Shield Upgrade/Engine Upgrade, but I have never done Stealth Device. Now I am intrigued to try it out!

Actually I planned to have a focus token left for defence every turn. Together with SD and Lone Wolf it looked like a solid defence. Unfortunately before first round of shooting I made a mistake and moved Rexler not far enough. Not wantng to miss a shot on Leebo I barrel rolled into range. Leebo hit me with HLC and without focus token the green dice failed me.

I think I'd be reluctant to describe a list with two Heavy Laser Cannons as principally defensive in nature.

Well, I needed some serious kick to get that Outrider

I like that list and will have to try it. I have run a list like that to try and be different in my area which has a lot of turret list and 4b lists. I have been running BH with HLB, OGP with HLC, and Onyx. Its a pretty run list.