For my next store championship, I'm leaning towards running this:

27: Blue B w/ Flechette cannon, E2, Tactician

25: Blue B w/ E2, Tactician

25: Gold Y w/ ICT, BTL, R3-A2

23: Gold Y w/ ICT, BTL

Total: 100

This is the traditional "Panic Attack!" on crack! In case you haven't seen it, the traditional is 3 Bs with Tacs, Y with ITC and stressbot.

Instead of up to 4 stress per round, it can dish out up to 5. Instead of one ion per round, it can put out 2. And it dishes out more damage too.

I think it'll pose serious problems to a lot of what I might face in a championship event. It can stress a falcon or decimators and walk it off the table with ions. Soontir Fel or Whisper are toast if they aren't 100% successful at arc-dodging. No fancy S-loop or Adv sensors for you, dual IGs. TIE swarms might be worrisome, but if I can spread the stress and ions around, they'll get mightily inefficient.

Lop off the BTL on the Y with R3-A2 and you're solid

Imo, the Y w/ R3-A2 is the dedicated control guy and you're taking way too much out of him if you're limiting him to his arc (such as the ability to ionize out of arc and then angle himself next turn for R3-A2), not to mention BTL really hampers Y-wing mobility when they're stressed because you have to move with their arc limiting their already eeeeeeeeehhhh dial. With R3-A2 taking up the slot R2 astro would fill, imo the title is not something you can afford to take.

I'd also try getting R2 astro on the other BTL. It doesn't open your dial like unhinged, but it really helps make k-turns and hard 3s far less devastating to your future turns. It all depends on how effective you find the flechette + tactician double stress to be. Personally wouldn't run it, but more because asymmetrical generics just make me uncomfortable than any actual gameplay reason

With two Tacticians and a Flechette Cannon, I'd actually drop Stressbot entirely and use those points to add R2 Astromech to both of the Y-wings. Alternately, drop the 25-point Blue, add a Rookie Pilot with Stressbot, and use those two points to add R2s to the Y-wings.

The Y-wings don't strictly need the assistance with their dial, but it makes a big difference on the table for me.

No stressbot?! Madness. The ability for that one Y-wing to stress one ship twice or even two different ships in one turn cannot be overstated.

In some cases, I'd gladly fly him all game without actions if he's got a golden doubles stress opportunity. If I can double stress a phantom or stack 2 more on soontir who's already pushed the limit, I'm more than willing to have a restricted dial for the rest of the game.

you're assuming that you'd get arc with your Y-wing. On a phantom, that's not a safe bet

a safe bet is two arcs with tactician, one arc with ion, one arc with R3-A2, and an ion cannon turret to fill in all the gaps.

Sure, but I don't like safe bets, and you don't like turrets

I've honestly never had much trouble getting phantoms in arcs. It's pushing damage through that's a problem. But if a phantom can dodge both my tacticians, and the stressbot entirely, then I deserve to lose.

I prefer the damage and double stress ability that the title gives me over a turret. But who knows, after testing, I might change my tune. But if I do want to go for a turret, it'll probably be on the Y without R3-A2.

Using R3-A2 twice in a round with a titled Y-Wing will just mean that Y-Wing is going to spend the rest of its existence stressed. It's a neat trick, but it will be difficult to pull off and it has a high opportunity cost.

Sure, but I don't like safe bets, and you don't like turrets

I don't like primary weapon turrets. As long as you can counter-play it (Range 1-2, max 1 damage) it's all good in my book

Using R3-A2 twice in a round with a titled Y-Wing will just mean that Y-Wing is going to spend the rest of its existence stressed. It's a neat trick, but it will be difficult to pull off and it has a high opportunity cost.

Sure, but it's not mandatory. I won't be using that at every opportunity, but I have no problem spending the rest of the game stressed if it means catching a phantom with its pants down. And a stressed BTL Y is still a plenty efficient platform. It's more or less like having built in gunner. Sure it's unmodified dice, but unmodified dice twice is nothing to sneeze at.

And considering that it can be used to stress 2 separate ships if needed, a single double-stressed Y can be far less of a deal to me than 2 single stressed ships are to my opponent. Especially when I can lay ion tokens on both ships in the same turn.

As far as difficulty to pull off? It's no more difficult to pull off than using the BTL title at all. If I can double tap, then I can use this. It's actually extremely easy to pull off. Pulling it off multiple times a game might be trickier, but it's not as if I'm paying more for this than your standard Y with R3-A2.

It costs the same, does considerably more damage (up to four times as much), and opens the door to some otherwise impossible control elements. That's a trade I'd gladly make.

I'm actually thinking taking BTL off the Y without R3A2 sounds better. One turret to catch as a safety net. A lower damage output by 1.25 ish per turn (pre-green dice, so not bad) but same amount of control output.

How easy is it to get the Tact for only 2 B wings? I've tried them, they seem fairly effective, but not perfect.

If you had a theoretical amazing list play against you, what would they shoot first? I would target the BTL Ys if they haven't died or gone stressed and outward facing. actually im not sure. more like... any focus fired target seems good. i think you can definitely blow out a 1green 8HP ship in ONE TURN at the start. Though, gladly, you'll have an advantage vs the common 4 dicers: Phantom and Decimator, after turn 1. Even just some higher than PS2 ships will be tough, or Predator ships.

The 2 IG variant with Sensor Jammer (mostly to mitigate swarm for them) might prove to be very difficult to hit. 3 or 4 green dice depending on if he flies well. your ships are not very mobile, so even standard flying might be enough to score some early hits on your ships. The enemy here clearly should take out the expensive 25 pt Bs first, as stress is harder than ion for 2 large ships. You need 2 stresses. Thus, I would give your list a disadvantage vs 2 IG unless you fly much better than him.

I also foresee well flown Interceptors being a problem for you with two BTL and no turret. They can arc dodge the Bs or simply get to R3 or R1 and paste the Bs.

A bit about my thinking: I have a similar control/tank list to you. I was thinking about all its counters too.

7 Howl swarm also should be a major problem for your list. The ties really don't care about control. They all have 3 green dice, which will lower total damage dealt to them. If Howl doesn't go down fast, you're in trouble.

the Howl rerolls should completely wipe out one ship on turn 1 of shooting. From there, youre probably looking at a 75 vs 82 pt game at the VERY BEST. This assumes you knocked out Howl. Im going to assume some AP took some damage, some Black DTF'ed some shots, and you have some damage on another ship. so next turn it will be 50 vs 70 or 58. Again, not good.

The Ties will absorb a lot of fire 3 vs 3 dice. Your 1green vs many 2 red (also they have more focus than you will) should make your damage mitigation rather low.

Yeah, if I dropped BTL, it would definitely be on the cheap Y. It confuses target priority more if someone is concerned about turrets and I do like that.

However, the list IS vulnerable to swarms, and dropping BTL only further exacerbates that. Against swarms I'd do the same I always do, build a tight cluster of asteroids and try to draw them through it. A straight up joust with a swarm is always a bad idea and a worse one with this list. After the initial engagement, I'd probably just intentionally bump with as many of my ships as possible to minimize shots coming back. If they're flying in a tight swarm, an ion shot can cause a traffic jam as the ships behind can't fly slow enough to not crash into their bros.

Dual IGs I need practice against, and while I fear the sensor jammers, they don't seem terribly popular (yet). Usually I see adv sensors, which become pretty useless pretty quickly against a control list. I'd try to overload one with stress, then try to freeze in place to see where it tries to escape to, then give chase. With no boost or evade, its options and speed are limited. Definitely a scary fight though, and I should get practice against it tomorrow.

Thanks for the replies!

So I got to try this out twice yesterday.

First game was the original list vs:

Kagi w/sensor jammer, rebel captive, tactician

Jax w/ hull upgrade, autothrusters, royal TIE, veteran instincts

Mauler w/ predator

Academy

The list worked GREAT. I faked a joust with kagi, allowing the TIEs to try to flank through the asteroids, then cut in hard buried jax and mauler in stress and then burried them wit dice. The academy blocked but took a few range 1 shots and died.

This did allow Kagi in behind me and he, along with Mauler's last volley had brought down first the B without the flechette, then the Y without R3-A2. The others managed to stall and land some stress on Kagi so he couldn't turn, and then I got behind. My opponent called it then. It's only a matter of time before those 2 ships killed him or ioned him off the table since he could only bank.

The R3-A2 Y was definitely MVP this game as he first put 2 stress on jax while firing through an asteroid, and then became they guy eating rebel captive stress for the rest of the game. I stopped counting stress eventually because he was receiving 2-3 a turn and not clearing any. His damage output dropped off, but it kept my other ships free to use actions or k-turn.

Second battle was against:

IG-B w/ mangler, autothrusters, FCS, PtL

Drea w/ R4-B11, ion turret, BTL

Hired Gun w/ autoblaster turret, unhinged astromech

I also changed my list slightly. I dropped the flechette cannon from the B, and the title from the droidless Y, to give him a bomb load out and seismics.

I started by moving up the side of the board to joust with the opposing Ys but they turned away to draw me through the asteroids while IG flanked. No matter, I split my Ys to go around the back of the rocks and meet IG, knowing if I could double stress, double ion him. He'd be a toasted toaster. One B wove through the asteroids to joust the Ys, and the other swung and rolled around the outside.

IG freaked out and bumped my turret Y so he wouldn't get double ioned but he did get ioned once and double stressed from R3-A2. The turreted Y ioned the hired gun and drea got double stressed one turn and then ioned the following turn and effectively removed from the game.

The hired gun managed to finish off R3-A2, and IG blasted one B (through my own mistake, I could've blocked but I barrel rolled for a shot on Drea). The turreted Y finished her off and the remaining B got behind and brought down the hired gun.

My two wounded ships were limping after a severely wounded IG still carrying with him an ion token from the first engagement. He misjudged a sloop and didn't have a shot on the Y to kill it, and got ioned onto an asteroid for his mistake. The B put him out of his misery.

Musings:

I'm not good enough with bombs yet to use a single one correctly so I'll either switch back to the original list or maybe get an R2 astro on the turreted Y and leave a point for initiative. I don't normally go that route but there are a lot of rebel control lists cropping up and it might be a good investment.

Otherwise, the list seems really powerful but can struggle to finish lists off and that may be trouble in a timed setting. I need more practice with it. Ultimately, I'm not sure I'll play this list for long--control isn't the most fun way to play for me. I kinda like just blasting things off the board!