i can't decide whether daces ability is worth building a list around? on one side its one dam per turn for a stress. that should theoretically be better than one extra die for a stress like jan has, and i run her often. But on the other hand, it just seems sketchy somehow. opinions?

Well, for starters, stress sucks on HWKs. They've got green 1-straights and banks, and a green 2 straight (IIRC). Hard to drop stress. Also, you can only use it when you're not stressed, so you only get to do it once a turn, as opposed to once per ship. It'd be cool to be able to run a Z-Feedback swarm with him, and just wreck everything with his ability, but it doesn't work that way.

Now, he can be put to good use with a simple Ion Cannon Turret Then whenever you hit, it's twice the regular damage output of the ion.

Personally though, I think Palob (or Pablo, if your friends can't pronounce Star Wars names ) is a better option. Stealing focus from bad guys? Yes please. Then use that for Blaster turret. Stack with opportunist for more fun.

Of course it's worth building a list around, if only to prove whether or not it is actually worth it. .

The big problem of course being what he takes along in the rest of the list.

Probably Kavil with an EU, R4-B11, Predator and ICT.

Laetin with IC as well?

Closeup

100 Points

I went with a range one synergy list. You would have to keep tight formation and turn before the joust. If i owned another one I'd probably put another wingman on Kaa'to

I think Dace really wants K4 and an Engine Upgrade. The Engine Upgrade gives him some maneuverabiltiy even though he's going to be stuck on green moves a lot of thr time. K4 still lets him modify his attack even if he bumps or uss his action to boost. If he's using his ability he is going to be really easy to block.

yeah. i thought the same thing. could work. But what do you fly with him to make his ability worthwhile? I thought about ion warthogs but that gets expensive really fast.

Then i thought of this:

99 points Pilots ------

Dace Bonearm (42) HWK-290 (23), Predator (3), Blaster Turret (4), Recon Specialist (3), Dead Man's Switch (2), Moldy Crow (3), Engine Upgrade (4) Cartel Spacer (19) x 3 M3-A “Scyk” Interceptor (14), “Heavy Scyk” Interceptor (2), Ion Cannon (3)

idk. The ion has to come from somewhere. here it comes from the scyks, while dace boosts around sniping with blaster turret, pred, focus. Another option could be:

100 points

Cartel Spacer [“Heavy Scyk” Interceptor, “Mangler” Cannon] (20) x 3

Dace Bonearm [Predator, Ion Cannon Turret, Recon Specialist, Dead Man's Switch, Engine Upgrade] (40)

This way the mangler scyks deal damage, and dace just does his own thing. the load outs are just off of the top of my head with thoughts on what i have decked out Jan with in the past. It could also be something like drop engine for stealth device. Thats really good with recon spec on a hawk. Tactician and vi makes him fairly good vs phantoms.

phew idk.. i really wanna make this work but the lists i come up with all feel a bit contrived. I think on of these approaches could turn out decent with some tweaking, though.

As long as he has a an Ion turret, I don't know that you really need much more Ion in your list. He can only use his ability once a round so too much Ion in your list just drops your damage output.

yeah. it would be different lists obviously. One being control oriented and the other more aggro. I can see how both would be interesting but I'm not sure if they'd be successful.

Any thing else for scum besides twin aggressors?

Ion torpedoes and wing man could be interesting additions for a Dace squad.

I'm going to try Greedo on Dace with ICT and Determination.

Ion torpedoes and wing man could be interesting additions for a Dace squad.

yeah, but wingman doesn't really work with dace does it? it clears stress at start of combat phase. You can still only deal one dam, right?

My Dace set up is Ion Turret, K4 Security Droid, Engine Upgrade, Veteran Instincts.

How about Decoying your ability to a Y-wing with an Unhinged Astromech? They have all those greens thanks to Wakko and can also carry an Ion Turret. This saves Bonearm any stress hassles from his ability.

Syndicate Thug (24)

Ion Cannon Turret (5)

Unhinged Astromech (1)

Dace Bonearm (30)

Decoy (2)

Ion Cannon Turret (5)

The bare bones to this leaves about 46 more points

I'm going to try Greedo on Dace with ICT and Determination.

The fact that he can also use it whenever the enemy takes ion damage from other sources is just gravy.

How about Decoying your ability to a Y-wing with an Unhinged Astromech? They have all those greens thanks to Wakko and can also carry an Ion Turret. This saves Bonearm any stress hassles from his ability.

Syndicate Thug (24)

Ion Cannon Turret (5)

Unhinged Astromech (1)

Dace Bonearm (30)

Decoy (2)

Ion Cannon Turret (5)

The bare bones to this leaves about 46 more points

That's not how Decoy works. If it was there would be a ton of lists built around it.

In the example that you gave all decoy would do is have Dace shoot at PS2 while the Thug shoots at PS7.

How about Decoying your ability to a Y-wing with an Unhinged Astromech? They have all those greens thanks to Wakko and can also carry an Ion Turret. This saves Bonearm any stress hassles from his ability.

Syndicate Thug (24)

Ion Cannon Turret (5)

Unhinged Astromech (1)

Dace Bonearm (30)

Decoy (2)

Ion Cannon Turret (5)

The bare bones to this leaves about 46 more points

Decoy trades your Pilot Skill, not it's unique pilot ability.

Typically I consider ion torpedo to be a terrible card, but effectively turning it into a 5 dice attack using Dace's ability is nothing to sneeze at. If you use Drea Renthal you have some interesting abilities, like comboing with Rt-B11 for firing the torp, modifying the torp and forcing a reroll of defence dice. Pretty nasty way to potentially deal 5 damage and add control, but it is a pretty expensive trick.

That must have a reason why FFG is putting such stressy ability on an HWK pilot. I have to confess I dont now much about availability of the scum packs. Is the HWK expansion pack available by now? Or rather do we know all the provided cards yet? Would be interesting to know. Maybe there is a HWK-only card to support better coping with stress. Would be killing two birds with one stone to simultaneously enhance rebel HWKs too.

That must have a reason why FFG is putting such stressy ability on an HWK pilot. I have to confess I dont now much about availability of the scum packs. Is the HWK expansion pack available by now? Or rather do we know all the provided cards yet? Would be interesting to know. Maybe there is a HWK-only card to support better coping with stress. Would be killing two birds with one stone to simultaneously enhance rebel HWKs too.

K4 Security Droid is actually a pretty good HWK crew since you'll be pulling greens anyway.

K4 and Engine upgrade are sort of mandatory to make Dace work.

Hmm

Gave me an idea

Dace

Veteran instincts

Ion cannon turret

K4 security Droid

Mandalorian pilot

Wingman

Kavil

Veteran instincts

Blaster Turret

R4

Or maybe

Dace

Ion cannon

K4 security droid

2 Syndicate thug

Ion cannon Turret

Title

N'dru

Lone wolf

Cluster missles

Dace is great on his own, no need to build a list around him.

Dace + Ion turret + K4 Security Droid + Veteran Instinct = 32 pts

He moves at PS9 and is garanteed a TL by doing a green maneuver (needed to clear his stress from his ability). Since he moves at PS9, he has a clear view on who will be his target so can TL it freely without fearing that it will go away. When he hits, he gives a Ion token and 2 damage.

What is great and that some people seems to forget, is that even if you score only one success, you still do 2 damage. With more and more high agility ship in the game and autothrusters against who you only chip some damage through (I'm thinking about you Phantoms and Soontir), that's no small feat. Against lower agility ship, think of it like Accuracy Corrector.

The real challenge with Dace will be to keep him alive long enough, because he'll be a premium target and HWK are not the hardest ship to destroy. So I'm thinking about pairing him with a bodyguard, Serissu, or another premium target so that my opponent needs to make a choice.

Dace + Ion turret + K4 Security Droid + Veteran Instinct

Mandalorian Mercenary + Bodyguard + Recon Specialist

Cartel Spacer

Cartel Spacer

Ion torpedoes and wing man could be interesting additions for a Dace squad.

yeah, but wingman doesn't really work with dace does it? it clears stress at start of combat phase. You can still only deal one dam, right?

Yes, but wingman clears stress on Dace, making you much less predictable. Predictable will get you killed in this game faster than anything else.

Ion torpedoes and wing man could be interesting additions for a Dace squad.

yeah, but wingman doesn't really work with dace does it? it clears stress at start of combat phase. You can still only deal one dam, right?

Yes, but wingman clears stress on Dace, making you much less predictable. Predictable will get you killed in this game faster than anything else.

As pointed out Wingman only triggers at the start of combat, Dace only get the stress during combat (after the start of combat), so he will keep the stress past the end of the turn and through the next maneuver stage.

Wingman typically is designed to take stress from someone that does a red manoeuvre, not a triggered ability during combat.

Right now Jace is like Jan before Rebel Aces. You could put in K4 and get target locks to help ensure your ion shots hit. That way you are doing doubile damage as you walk them off the table or into a rock or ion them to death. With Jace 3 ion shots will take down an X-wing with the last one not needing your stress ability.