A fleet archetype that hasn't seen much theorycrafting, the Control fleet is one that concentrates on depriving options of the opponent, as opposed to the more traditional Damage or more recent Survivability paths to victory.

As we've recently left a two-ship metagame, wherein Control lists truly ought to shine due to having fewer ships to corral, and with the introduction of an entirely new faction, I have to ask:

Has anyone had any success building one of these?

What did it look like?

Were there anything you wish you could have done differently to improve match-ups?

_**_* Edit: Awesome control fleets _**_*

Panic Attack by Jonathon Goames and MrFroggies

3x Blue Squadron Pilot

+ B-Wing/E2

+ Tactician

._{-=25 Each=-}.

Gold Squadron Pilot

+ Ion Cannon Turret

+ R3-A2

._-=25=-.

Stress Wing by FickleGreenDice

2x Blue Squadron Pilot

+ B-Wing/E2

+ Tactician

._{-=25 Each=-}.

Luke Skywalker

+ R3-A2

+ Veteran's Instinct

+ Engine Upgrade

._-=35=-.

Green Squadron Pilot

+ Chardaan Refit

._-=15=-.

Untitled by Catachanninja

2x Blue Squadron Pilot

+ B-Wing/E2

+ Tactician

._{-=25 Each=-}.

Gold Squadron Pilot

+ Ion Cannon Turret

+ R3-A2

._-=25=-.

Roark Garnet

+ Ion Cannon Turret

+ Nien Nunb

._-=25=-.

Red Tape by Ravncat

Blue Squadron Pilot

+ Ion Cannon

+ B-Wing/E2

+ Tactician

._-=28=-.

Gold Squadron Pilot

+ Ion Cannon Turret

+ BTL-A4

._-=23=-.

Roark Garnet

+ Ion Cannon Turret

+ Tactician

._-=26=-.

Rookie Pilot

+ R3-A2

._-=23=-.

I didn't build it, but I recently used Jonathan Gomes and MrFroggies' wonderful "Panic Attack" list over store championship weekend. You take three B-Wings, give them E2 mods and Tacticians, and pair them with a Y-Wing with an Ion turret and R3A2.

It mauled every arc-dodger I faced. You end up creating overlapping fields of stress, preventing actions and restricting their ability to get behind you, and heaven help them if you also tag them with an Ion shot. Soontir is somewhat predictable with one stress token, but he becomes nearly useless when he takes a second stress token. Same with Echo and Whisper. They have four choices: decloak and perform a green with limited mobility, decloak without clearing to attack without ACD, stay cloaked and perform a green, or stay cloaked and fly away. None of them are great options, and 4 unfocused green dice against 3 focused red ones is generally not going to work well for them.

My biggest problem was against traditional swarms. They don't care if you control one or two ships in the swarm, as the rest of the pack will descend on you and pick you apart with range 1 shots.

Luke (R3-A2, V.I, Engine)

Blue Squadron (B/e, Tactician)

Blue Squadron (B/e, Tactician)

Prototype Pilot (refit)

I kept telling people about the goddamn stress wings and I'ma keep tooting my horn about them

these guys got me my first tournament and store championship 1st place and they had to get through super dash, fat whisper + mini-swarm, and the new scary-ass aggressors to do it.

This list is absolutely beyond further modification from me, but it didn't begin as such. First it was Wes Jenson for his severely anti-two ship build ability (slapping off a target lock away from 50% of the list's ships is painful) but after too many unmodified 4 hit rolls and not liking Biggs, I scrapped him for Luke. Luke has the survivability ala his ability to serve in the stress function, even if he gets no action ala stress or no tokens ala boost.

The basic idea of the Stress Wing is simple: "**** Whisper getting to do all that dumb **** after all my ships have moved!" With V.I, Luke moves after she does. With EU, he gets to course-correct his firing arc to ensure she's almost never outside of it. The rest is just declare R3-A2 and watch the fire-works. Any damage that gets through her two greens is just bonus. The build also effectively shuts down Push the Limit, but that's such a rare upgrade it probably won't matter...

The two B-wings used to be ion cannon bearers for the obvious stress + ion combo, and it worked solidly but nothing holds a candle to tactician. Why? No dice baby! Cloaked phantoms and stealth device soontir could dodge ions all day no matter how I blocked them, but there is no defense against Tactician if it triggers

The A-wing used to be a lone sh*tty Bandit, but **** lone sh*tty Bandits. They're an unprecendented level of worthlessness that it is always worth the 3 points to get the single prototype, easily the best rebel blocker and a durable little bastard, into your squads.

I ******* love this squad. Beforehand, those idiotic 2 ships seemed invincible. So many actions! So many post maneuver movements (or premanuever)! They had so much crap it made generics seem worthless! But when you stress and double stress and triple stress those buggers...well, you've dragged them far past down the level where generic B-wings can eviscerate them I love this list because everyone is a threat, yes even the little A-wing. A blocked arc-dodger is a dead arc-dodger.

I promise this is the only list I'll brag about so vehemently I set out to make the Stress Wing because I was on a mission: I had to prove to the local group and to myself that this game did not have to stoop into the pig-slop that is turrets to tangle with the Phantom Menace The SC win finally has the local folks seriously considering the archetype, and I couldn't be happier for it.

And that's the story of the Stress Wing!

The good thing about Luke in that list over Wes is that Luke is a point cheaper and naturally highly resistant to swarms, which the B-wings are weak to and are indifferent to Wes.

The good thing about Luke in that list over Wes is that Luke is a point cheaper and naturally highly resistant to swarms, which the B-wings are weak to and are indifferent to Wes.

certainly that too, though I only ran it against one swarm so far (Luke came out undamaged, both B-wings a'sploded, who'd've thought ?)

The biggest thing though is that Luke's ability is luck retardant. I know it seems silly, but literally all of the games I brought Wes Jenson too had some bull RNG in them. Squaddie Biggs and a Bandit get into range one of bumped Corran --> no damage (TL biggs blanked twice).

First round of the first SC I attended, opponent never failed to roll less than two evades.His dash is double stressed, his corran surrounded by the entire squad at range 2 with a B-wing at range 1. Corran survives with no ******* damage and then double taps Wes to death (Wes rolled two sets of two blanks).

Flying against the silly rebel deathstar list. Dash is tokenless and double-stressed. Dash fires unmodified five dice HLC. Five hits. Wes gets one shot.

Maybe Dash is just ******* charmed, but I've never had such issues with Luke

I faced the Dashian menace in my 2nd round. He came in for the turn 1 range 3 shot, Luke came in for the turn 1 range 3 double stress. Dash died next round.

I just won an 18 person store championship with the following

Blue squadron 22

B wing e2 1

Tactician 2

Blue squadron 22

B wing e2 1

Tactician 2

Gold squadron 18

Ion cannon turret 5

R3a2. 2

Roark garnet. 19

Nein Nunb. 1

Ion cannon turret 5

I made it through a few two shop builds, did some brutal things to fat Han that was using jan/kyle and ptl. My final game was against keyan target. Ive played really poorly against dash builds, but r3a2 is the secret there, and I lucked out and didn't have to play one. Roarks Ps 12 is nice against squads that can drop a b quickly. Against lists that like to joust you can slip Roark and the y behind them and use ion turrets to reduce thier effective force. I'm worried about lists with multiple autothrusters, but I did beat a double ig88 with them in the top 4. It's definitely worth a go.

I've enjoyed running this, taking a cue from panic attack,...

"Red Tape" (100 points)

Blue Squadron Pilot + Ion cannon + B-wing E/2 + Tactician (28)

Gold Squadron Pilot + BTL A4 Y-wing + Ion Cannon Turret (23)

Roark Garnet + Ion Cannon Turret + Tactician (26)

Rookie Pilot + R3A2 (23)

Control is very strong and there's lots of variety to it. I really like ficklegreendice's Stress Wing. The stress meta is here. Scum is currently lacking a stress ability, so they can do more of the control route with Y-Wings and Ion. 4 warthogs are tough. They control and still dish out a good amount of damage. There's lots to work with.

Never thought to combine generic stress ships with Roark. Those lists looks evil

Now I wouldn't call this meta "the stress meta," because I think we're going to end up with something more varied.

What I'm seeing is more this: Stress is enabling generics to bridge the gap created by the phantom and fatties. Rather than rely just on stat-spam (ala BBBBZ), we can drag these elite ships down to our level by simply removing their ability to take actions (and boy do they have tons of actions to remove)

We had this capability since the rebel transport and rebel aces, but they've been overlooked for a long time for some silly reason

I didn't build it, but I recently used Jonathan Gomes and MrFroggies' wonderful "Panic Attack" list over store championship weekend. You take three B-Wings, give them E2 mods and Tacticians, and pair them with a Y-Wing with an Ion turret and R3A2.

It mauled every arc-dodger I faced. You end up creating overlapping fields of stress, preventing actions and restricting their ability to get behind you, and heaven help them if you also tag them with an Ion shot. Soontir is somewhat predictable with one stress token, but he becomes nearly useless when he takes a second stress token. Same with Echo and Whisper. They have four choices: decloak and perform a green with limited mobility, decloak without clearing to attack without ACD, stay cloaked and perform a green, or stay cloaked and fly away. None of them are great options, and 4 unfocused green dice against 3 focused red ones is generally not going to work well for them.

My biggest problem was against traditional swarms. They don't care if you control one or two ships in the swarm, as the rest of the pack will descend on you and pick you apart with range 1 shots.

Swarms are tough, for that list, but if you place your asteroids right, you can pick them apart. The control in this part is delaying some ships from getting into the combat so they can't focus you down.

we may not see the traditional swarm for too long. All this high agility grossly punishes 2 dice ships and the Aggressor is just rofl-town. It refuses to be caught and gives no **** about even feedback array because of dat health.

IF you run into a swarm in the developing meta, imo, it'll only be because there's a fanatic at the helm. At that point, you are right to be very afraid...

Traditionally, creating a control list meant giving up a lot in the process. Ion turrets meant taking ships and pilots that give up too much in the way of damage. And rolling 3 dice against Tie Fighters meant giving up the chance to destroy it outright.

Auto stress begins to change that calculation, as does the prevalence of 2 defence dice ships- it's now easier to _hit_ with an ion cannon.

Tactician is a good card, but until the Rebel Aces pack dropped, it was difficult to find a ship which could take a crew member that also wanted to attack from within its firing arc. And Phantoms generally would rather carry Mara Jade or a Gunner.

Not to mention the BTL-A4 title, which can allow you to put ionization on someone and still get a full-damage attack onto them.

So we've seen a move to control as we've seen better options for control.

Kavil w\ ion turret is frightening.

You can call my list birdY and the bees

I'm currently excited to try out:

27: B-wing w/ E2, Tactician, Flechette cannon

25: B-wing w/ E2, Tactician

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

23: Y-wing w/ ICT, BTL

It offers double the stress at range 3 of the traditional panic attack, 5 stress instead of 4 at range 2, and 3 instead of 1 at range 1. It also adds twice as much ion, better damage, and is only slightly less resilient (in so far as Y-wings are more vulnerable to crits).

Control lists are going to be better and better. If you can't beat those fat ships on their terms, make them play on yours.

Ten + Calculating + ion cannon.

With a focus token, you have a 75% chance of dealing ionization no matter what the opponent rolls, from any range.

Right now I like taking three warthogs one of which has R3-A2. Then a blue squadron with ion cannon and tactician. It comes out at 99 points, everybody has the option of ion, and at range 2 can dish out three stress. At range 1-2 I hardly ever have the B wing use the ion cannon, but I like having the option for a range 3 ion shot.

I went 6-1 with Panic Attack to win the Olympia WA Store Championship. I experimented with a mix of stress builds and BBBBZ leading up to the event and in my opinion Panic Attack is hands down the strongest. It combines most of the raw HP and damage output of BBBBZ with traditional Rebel Control capabilities and loses very little in the process. The Ion Cannon Turret helps to offset the low PS and if you can put yourself in your opponents shoes, know how their squadron wants to open and create an asteroid layout with a singe very inviting lane, you can deploy and maneuver in a way that counters any high PS arc dodgers/aces through prediction.

It's a brilliant list and props to its progenitors (speaking of which we need to get a game in Froggies, no more of this RPG Monday business).

I have a list called Spanish Inquisition which is a modified Spanish Nationals.

I commonly run an Alphabet list and take Blue with Tactician , Tarn with R7, Gold with R3-A2 ICT and Green with Proton Rockets. Adding the tactician blue really enhanced this list against yt builds and only lost because of a few bad rounds of dice rolling. I really like tactician on b wings and would love to try out the panic attack list.

Luke (R3-A2, V.I, Engine)

Blue Squadron (B/e, Tactician)

Blue Squadron (B/e, Tactician)

Prototype Pilot (refit)

I kept telling people about the goddamn stress wings and I'ma keep tooting my horn about them

[...]

And that's the story of the Stress Wing!

Could you elaborate on how you fly this list?

I assume the Bs fly in pair/somewhat in formation with Luke effectively being their Wingman (until he peels off to deal with High Value Targets such as Phantoms) and the A-Wing being completley detached of these 3 and just going where he is needed most for flanking/blocking/distracting/harassing?

My control list is 2 aggressors with ion cannons. I have destroyed both traditional and control fleet with them.

Then again, I've been beaten twice by a control list including Scum boba with flechette, tactician + other stuff and 2 lowly y-wings with forward firing ion cannons.

So I'll just say that control lists should not be underestimated

I have a list called Spanish Inquisition which is a modified Spanish Nationals.

Roark Garnet (19)

Ion Cannon Turret (5)

Jan Ors (2)

Moldy Crow (3)

Airen Cracken (19)

Swarm Tactics (2)

Gold Squadron Pilot (18)

Ion Cannon Turret (5)

R3-A2 (2)

BTL-A4 Y-Wing (0)

Blue Squadron Pilot (22)

Tactician (2)

B-Wing/E2 (1)

Total: 100

I played it at store champs on the weekend and felt it was great at controlling, but suffered a bit in the damage department. I could have ended up in the top four (out of 19) if I didn't let a half dead Dash with 5 stress off the hook to chase some A-wings down in my last game. Dumb move. It eats Phantoms, sadly I didn't get to play any.

An unexpected list.

I like what I see here, but there's no representation from the Imperials. Are they just not cut out for control lists?

I like what I see here, but there's no representation from the Imperials. Are they just not cut out for control lists?

They don't have access to Ion Turrets, nor R3-A2, and must therefore rely on Ion Cannons, Tacticians, Rebel Captive, and Mara Jade.

They're good options, true, but the problem is that they're only runnable en-masse in the Shuttle.