A'ight, so me being the rebellious/obnoxious person that I am, I just want to say: I hate meta squads!

Course I know I am in the minority and even I can really appreciate a squad of B-Wings or a Decimator/Phantom squad tearing it up on the game board. But when I see that one player on Wednesday nights taking great pride in moping up the noobies with his tournament-grade lists it just makes me want to knock him down a peg with some unconventional ship lists/tactics and make him want to go home and re-think his life (Obi-wan persuasive hand gesture goes here).

A friend of mine just recently discovered the wonderful Decimator/Echo combo, much to my dismay. Against this I ran a neat little squad that I made up right on the spot, without too much counter picking, which managed to do quite well.

My squad was:

Chewbacca in the Falcon (title card), Luke (crew), and C3P0

Jake Farrell with a refit

Gemmer Sojan with proton rockets

His squad was something like this:

Echo with VI, advanced cloaking device, fire-control system, and recon specialist

Captain Oicunn with Isard, Mara Jade, Expose and Experimental interface

So for those of you like me (or can at least sympathize) go ahead and post yer favorite meta-killing squad lists or just some general old school awesomeness that gets overlooked these days. Think of the noobs, people. BE A HERO!

copy-pasted my list from control thread:

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

Blue Squadron (B/e, Tactician)

Blue Squadron (B/e, Tactician)

Prototype Pilot (refit)

This is the most reliable "**** you, Wave 5" I have yet to engineer

Also been having great success with Soontir + PTL + Stealth + Thrusters and two Delta Defenders w/Flechettes. They don't have the same kind of reliability when it comes to cutting the balls off of phantoms and decimators, but the Defenders are wildly underestimated ships. This list has been particularly proficient at slaughtering double Aggressors

I have been flying a defender+firespray list and am going to be testing a new dual defender list of:

Rexler Brath (hlc, predator, shield upgrade)

Colonel Vessery (hlc, vi, shield upgrade)

As long as you're good at predicting phantoms (historically I am) you wreck faces with these dual hlc gunboats. Rexler especially loves devouring a decimator. 12 hull lets you stack up a ton of face up cards.

Rebel swarm style lists also hate fighting predator, especially since the defender out jousts bwings all day with the white 4k. I love flying defenders and think they're overlooked as gun platforms far too often.

I love flying defenders and think they're overlooked as gun platforms far too often.

amen

There's a meta?!?!

Looking at the Chewie list all I can think is that "anti-meta" is still just the meta.

Rexler Brath (hlc, predator, shield upgrade)

Colonel Vessery (hlc, vi, shield upgrade)

This is really fun to fly.

Rexler Brath (hlc, predator, shield upgrade)

Colonel Vessery (hlc, vi, shield upgrade)

This is really fun to fly.

It is, after a little bit of testing I'm looking to trade the shield upgrades for missiles to just add a little extra kick.

Chewie with falcon, 3PO, and gunner (or Luke) is the exact opposite of an anti-meta build.

I like to use Rex with hlc, predator, and engine upgrade instead of shield. There's been a few times when boosting after the kturn has been helpful. Also good if you want to run the zoom-n-boom strategy.

I`m having trouble against the YT-1300. Still can't solve this ship. Any tips? I think an anti-meta can help me get things straight against the Falcon.

I`m having trouble against the YT-1300. Still can't solve this ship. Any tips? I think an anti-meta can help me get things straight against the Falcon.

ah, good old fat turrets, the most ass-numbing boringly dull **** to ever blight those unfortunate enough to play against them

How to you beat Turrets, you ask? well, forget about outplaying a 360 degree field of fire unless you're some sort of euclidean jesus who can prove the existence of the 361st angle. What you need to do is throw dice at it (do so literally only if you think you can get away with it)

It's the reason BBBBZ made such headway in this environment. No matter how many fancy tricks han can pull, he's not getting through four 3-dice steam-rollers with a combined 36 health between them (and their little friend).

Similarly, panic attack leverages a mere 3 Bs (which are still more than enough) but fortifies them with Tacticians and an ICT, R3-A2 Y-wing to pile stress on the Yt-1300 until the only thing that works is that pain in the ass droid. No evades and no boosts makes Han a dull(er) boy.

That's it, really. Exchange rolls until it falls over. Generally, you'll want to go after it with a vengeance because it's going to be almost impossible to kill if you're down on ships. Don't try to chase it with Bs, though, unless you've already dealt with his buddies because you ain't ever catching him. Best case scenario is you kill it early, but you should be satisfied with weakening it enough so you don't lock yourself into an unwinnable scenario in the late game.

A good tactic to implement against fast, large ships is to force one away either through fire or stress and, instead of engaging in a fruitless chase, swing right around to gobble the escort. With some 55+ points tucked away in the fleeing pancake, they shouldn't give your entire squad too much trouble. One of the worst things you can do is get tunnel-visioned into wasting turns shooting at where the turret used to be while its escort tears you apart. Don't let it happen to you.

Happy hunting!

I`m having trouble against the YT-1300. Still can't solve this ship. Any tips? I think an anti-meta can help me get things straight against the Falcon.

I've found that two tanky HLC gun platforms (a la Firespray + Defender) gobble up the fat turrets/other two ship lists with ease. Rexler Brath is especially good at shooting fatsos because he turns their hull against them. You haven't lived until you've stacked 10 crits on a Decimator.

My favorite anti-meta list is my 4 Tie Bomber list "My Name is Jonus". It's great against everything, but Phantoms. Still, I faced a 3 generic Phantom list and would've killed the 2nd Phantom before the end if I remembered I had that last bomb.

I've enjoyed Dual Defenders as well.

Rexler Brath, Outmaneuver, HLC, Hull - 50 Points

Colonel Vessery, Outmaneuver, HLC, Hull - 48 Points

Can upgrade the Hull to Shields or drop them both and take Assault Missles, and Cluster Missles for a little more punch.

Looking at the Chewie list all I can think is that "anti-meta" is still just the meta.

Hah, yeah I suppose you're a bit right there. Thing is Chewie's wingmen in my list there are not terribly standard. And while Chewie is used in a couple meta builds I've seen, he isn't often the anchor of the build like say Han is with the rather obnoxious fat Han and 4 Z-95s or some garbage (personally don't see what is so **** awesome about Han's pilot ability, but then again, I'm not looking too hard).

I`m having trouble against the YT-1300. Still can't solve this ship. Any tips? I think an anti-meta can help me get things straight against the Falcon.

ah, good old fat turrets, the most ass-numbing boringly dull **** to ever blight those unfortunate enough to play against them

How to you beat Turrets, you ask? well, forget about outplaying a 360 degree field of fire unless you're some sort of euclidean jesus who can prove the existence of the 361st angle. What you need to do is throw dice at it (do so literally only if you think you can get away with it)

It's the reason BBBBZ made such headway in this environment. No matter how many fancy tricks han can pull, he's not getting through four 3-dice steam-rollers with a combined 36 health between them (and their little friend).

Similarly, panic attack leverages a mere 3 Bs (which are still more than enough) but fortifies them with Tacticians and an ICT, R3-A2 Y-wing to pile stress on the Yt-1300 until the only thing that works is that pain in the ass droid. No evades and no boosts makes Han a dull(er) boy.

That's it, really. Exchange rolls until it falls over. Generally, you'll want to go after it with a vengeance because it's going to be almost impossible to kill if you're down on ships. Don't try to chase it with Bs, though, unless you've already dealt with his buddies because you ain't ever catching him. Best case scenario is you kill it early, but you should be satisfied with weakening it enough so you don't lock yourself into an unwinnable scenario in the late game.

A good tactic to implement against fast, large ships is to force one away either through fire or stress and, instead of engaging in a fruitless chase, swing right around to gobble the escort. With some 55+ points tucked away in the fleeing pancake, they shouldn't give your entire squad too much trouble. One of the worst things you can do is get tunnel-visioned into wasting turns shooting at where the turret used to be while its escort tears you apart. Don't let it happen to you.

Happy hunting!

What ended up working so well with my build (see original post) was that the A-wings had great agility which made it super hard for the mean ol' Deci to hit 'em. So I flew the A's right behind the fatty and shot away with relative safety. The one with the Proton Rockets threw some serious damage at my buddy's Decimator, think the two of 'em pulled like 7 damage on the sucker in 1 turn! While it's true I was using Chewie, a prime example of the issue you both are addressing, I was using him as a distraction while I use the A-wings to whittle (and occasionally wallop) away at the Decimator.

So I propose an extension to ficklegreendice's solotion: bring down fat turret ships by throwing lots of dice and/or ships with high agility!

I feel like a few Tie-Interceptors with Stealth Devices and/or Autothrusters would pose a similar threat to fat turret ships, especially when flown well with cool elite pilot skills like outmaneuver or predator. Fat turrets are scary, but they only shoot once per round.

Cheers

Looking at the Chewie list all I can think is that "anti-meta" is still just the meta.

Exactly. Anti-Meta would be going all small ships and still having a good chance (what I've been doing since Fat Han showed up)

Looking at the Chewie list all I can think is that "anti-meta" is still just the meta.

Exactly. Anti-Meta would be going all small ships and still having a good chance (what I've been doing since Fat Han showed up)

Haha, was not expecting to find someone as stubborn as me