It's just that last weekend has shaken me. My confidence in the squad is shot. And it's not just higher ps lists, its Bwings, too. I saw a lot of Bwings there, and I know that I can't joust with them, so I was scrambling in my last game.

B-wings, Y-wings, and high PS are all a pain to deal with. And there are a lot of them. My first Regionals is June 6 and I still don't know what I plan on bringing.

The other downer for me right now is that my truck needs new tires. Which means that Tulsa and Minneapolis are likely out for me until I can get some new ones.

It's just that last weekend has shaken me. My confidence in the squad is shot. And it's not just higher ps lists, its Bwings, too. I saw a lot of Bwings there, and I know that I can't joust with them, so I was scrambling in my last game.

I felt the same way after my 2nd game in my store championship. Granted I didn't meet a lot of Bwings.

My first game I had 1 hull left chasing a full life firepsray and managed to dodge enough shots to win.

My second game I took a range 1 hit hit crti crit that dealt 2 direct hits dropping my 6 life IG and I didn't kill anything. The only reason I got any points is he landed his 2400 on the same asteroid twice and killed it for me.

After that though it was pretty much a cake walk to win the whole thing.

I say all this because anything with 3 agility can wildly change the game. I think in part that's a huge reason B's are so popular is if you get an evade its a bonus and they aren't 'needed' but if your agile ships don't get you 2 evades its pretty devastating. Don't always give up on your builds because of a bad tournament. Heck I had one tournament where I killed Whisper before she could shoot but then the entire rest of the time I did like 4-5 damage the whole day.

I think the best thing to do though is look at Nova's tournament list tiers and make sure you can beat or have a chance to beat anything in tier 2 and above. I'm sure you already know that but for anyone else following the thread its a good place to look when your preparing for regionals.

Double IG is still strong and viable Hothie, you just have to refine and practice the list. IRL

Hothie, don't get discouraged. I went through a lot of bumps in the road while refining my own IG build; I had decided I was going to play double Aggressor in Tulsa, but didn't know what cards to put with it. After losing game after game after game no matter what I tried, I was pretty frustrated. I almost gave up. Reading along with your trials and errors was very encouraging. I don't think one tournament is an accurate accounting of how good (or bad) a list is.

One of the reasons I decided that I liked having Predator on both of my ships - along with 88B's ability - is that it gives me consistent offensive power while allowing me to spend my actions defensively (frequently evade, sometimes a boost, occasionally a focus, almost never a TL). B's and Y's are not what you want to see when you sit down to a game; B's more so, obviously, but Rebel Stresshogs are no peach to play against either. I used to fear TIE Swarm with double Aggressor, but I actually fear Rebel swarm far more now.

I will say this about double IG: it is not a forgiving list to fly. Whether it is pilot error or statistically aberrant green dice, the Aggressor forgives neither. They are a tremendous amount of fun to fly, though. I won't claim to be the best pilot - of the Aggressor or anything else, for that matter - but I'm taking mine to Tulsa come hell or high water and intend to have a blast. I hope you are able to make it after all.

The other downer for me right now is that my truck needs new tires. Which means that Tulsa and Minneapolis are likely out for me until I can get some new ones.

Really hope to see you up here, Doug!

Don't get to demoralized! There are some ups and downs to Brobots and I think you hit a critical point on their weaknesses. I would like to share my experiences with you, I think some of it might be useful food for thought when thinking about Iggy and the various matchups, as well as using brobots vs taking Kath or Fett with IG-88. I hope you glean some use from it!

I have been competitively running Kath or Fett with IG-88 exclusively since Scum released. I've tweaked the builds dozens of times to settle on a build that I am the most comfortable with. I have now gotten it down to the point where I thrive against high PS lists and generally have an answer to just about every match up I can think of. Knowing that dial and knowing what Iggy is capable of is absolutely vital to the match up. Moving first or second relatively unimportant, in my opinion. Losing init to other Iggies isn't even a significant problem, though I used to think it was... which leads me to my first major point:

Iggy's Initiative/PS Bid Issues (Or Lack Thereof)

The reason that I feel init is unimportant in Iggy mirror matches is fairly straight forward. After really, really being concerned about how important VI was, I decided against it after many matches against other Iggies. If I intend to move second, it's so that I can boost either before or after my movement in order to arc dodge. That's great and all, definitely. However! In general, I found that Iggy tends to have trouble arc dodging AND getting a shot in this match up when using boost.

If you boost into a sloop, for example, you can end up in some really crazy positions. However, you already know what the other iggies CAN do. If you do your move before they do, taking in to account where your arc is going to be, then even if you move before they do, there will not be much they can do about it and still have a shot. Like wise, if you are going to surprise them with a sloop, you are going to SURPRISE them with a sloop. If they move second, they risk bumping and in most cases, if you gave yourself some breathing room, their boost won't get them out of your arc, at least not without completely denying them any shot.

Choosing Between Iggy B, C and D, Long Term!

Early on, I ran mangler a lot. I wound up switching that out due to the Iggy mirror; being able to deal reliable damage against Iggy is extremely important. The way they move, it's likely that two opposing iggy's will have the exact same number of shots on each other over the course of the game. The Iggy that makes those shots count more is the Iggy that is more favored to win the encounter.

After nearly a dozen tournaments with Firespray/88 lists, I have finally settled on an Iggy that gives me very consistent results. No matter what changes I make to the list, I haven't found any reason to change this version of Iggy:

IG-88B - Adv Sensors, HLC, AT, Predator: 51 points

I hated using B for the longest time. I first tried C the most, but like you, i found that the boost didn't come into play in the mid game. D is easily my favorite IG and I flew the heck out of him with Adv Sensors. However, I eventually ran into a problem with damage output, like you have. Reluctantly, I tried B with Predator and HLC and basically focus nearly every turn. I found myself dropping crazy amounts of damage, very consistently rolling 3-4 hits. Whenever I could, I saved the focus for defense.

I found that this version of Iggy was much more survivable than C, ironically. On paper, C looks great for that, but in practice, if you are boosting and still getting shot at, you're not in a great position. With all those dice, a defensive focus would be so much better. Part of the reason that B is more survivable is that i play him much more conservatively than i would the others. With D, i found myself trying to get clever too often, which was great against average players, but against players like Morgan Reid and Ron Brannon, it got me into a lot more trouble than I expected.

Iggy B really hit the sweet spot for me, playing conservatively but dealing the right amount of damage. I was reluctant, but he gets the job done competitively.

Overall, I don't like Brobots as a 2 ship list. They are competitive, definitely! However, when you have Brobots, they both share the same weaknesses and have very few ways to get around those weaknesses. I really love Iggy, but I prefer running him with something that can really lay down the pain on things Iggy has trouble against. Which leads me to my next point...

Firesprays With Iggy / Fighting Iggy's Weakest Match-ups

My choice of support for Iggy has been exclusively firesprays for a wealth of reasons. I've run them all, Mercs, Kath, Boba, Emon. I thought the PS bid on Boba would help against the Soontir Fel's and Whispers out there. The result of that was "kinda". But I wasn't help with Boba's reliance on being range 1 combo'd with how much firesprays hate being at range 1. I did win a store championship, phillygamescon and several other tourney's with Fett-88, but I still wasn't quite feeling it. Boba was just so squishy and the Boost wasn't getting him out of trouble often enough to be worth losing out on all that high PS damage output.

So, I decided to abandon the PS bid and went for cheap, taking the Merc instead. I really didn't care much for this variant but I stuck with it a while to give it a go. Even with the EPT, moving before all Iggies was pretty rough. I tried and immediately did not enjoy running Emon. Iggy doesn't like crowd control, even if it's your own.

Finally, I moved onto Kath. Kath has been the firespray I have tweaked the most. I am currently running lone wolf, ion cannon, tactician and EU on her at 49 points. I use her as a "swiss army" Kath. Lone wolf combo's well with Rec spec, but i really wanted to be able to reliably deal with Fel and other high PS pilots. Tactician was the answer, but I also realized that good players will play the range game and try to avoid it. I developed my gameplan against those lists to pin the super-interceptors and whispers between one of my big ships and whatever support they brought, then bringing Iggy around to aim at the general area from range 2 or 3. In this way, I put these ships in a bad spot and they are generally left with 3 options once they move.

1. They can try to get out of range 2 and into range 1, but face the 5 dice wrath of Kath, making whiffing their greens absolutely devastating.

2. They can try to get out of Kath's arc, but that puts them closer to Iggy, usually in his range 2.

3. They can (sometimes) disengage entirely, but lose shots on everything. Honestly, this rarely happens. If they go to range 3, 3 attack dice vs lone wolf firespray with focus is O.K. with me, and I still get 4 dice with a reroll and possibly a focus back at them, which, at worst, strips tokens off for Iggy.

Doing this really requires dictating where the fight happens. Most of these ships have trouble turning around reliably, so you can use that to your advantage by making them bring the fight to your side of the board while keeping iggy on the far side of the board from them, but still close to your deployment zone. When they do finally close in to get shots, the firespray will suddenly be in their way, with the asteroids and iggy to one side and the edge of the board to the other. If they don't die that turn, they're fairly limited movement options and Iggy's distance means that they'll have to land in a particular area and Iggy can make sure he ends up with shots on them to finish them off.

But what if Fel doesn't go in? Well he's not in the fight and you can take shots at his support, such as the at that big glorious decimator that this list just loves to eat through. Iggy doesn't have to bank in to cover the firesprays rear and instead can 1-forward laterally across the range 3 band away from your edge of the map. This leaves you a lot of disengagement options if their ships decide to go after you and lets you move the firespray to cover Iggy instead, creating a reverse but pretty similar scenario to the above.

This is much harder to do with a second aggressor for many reasons. The rear firing arc is effectively letting you 'move backwards' in terms of your threat area. Iggy can NEVER do this without a red move. Iggy has so much momentum to him that a single Iggy cannot bait and also take advantage of his own baiting. Kath can bait and THEN capitalize on it while also providing shots for Iggy. This creates problems for Iggy in match ups against slower ships. Iggy actually has a really hard time against Lambda's for the same reason Tie Fighters have a hard time staying behind X-Wings. Iggy is just too fast and you just can't risk bumping into the back of that shuttle. Sure, it'll never have shots on you, but getting reliable damage on it can be a positional disaster waiting to catch up to you 3-4 turns later.

Kath is surprisingly squishy, but she also pulls a lot of aggression off of Iggy. Even with that HLC, people seem to love shooting at Kath first, which works for me. It's a problem I have with the list however. Too many of my wins are 151 MoV with Kath dying frequently. However, some match ups are bad for Iggy instead, and having a late game Kath is preferable.

BBBBZ is definitely a weak match up and is the primary reason I take Kath and Ion Cannons. After losing (badly) to Ron's BBBBZ at Stele with Boba, I knew I had to do something. I didn't have much issue positionally with Boba or Kath against the B's. The 3 Turn is an extremely useful tool in the match up, something Iggy B lacks and Iggy D gets a stress for and winds up pointed at the B's for his next (predictable) move. That lead me to a huge revelation about IG-88...

Iggy Hates Slow Stuff (and Rear Arcs!)

Iggy has trouble against slow ships. He's great against fast ships! He can keep up and dance around them for days, punishing every move. But against Y-wings, B-wings, and Shuttles, some strange things start to happen. You can dodge them once or twice for sure, but Iggy starts to run into two problems:

1. He is always facing the Y's, B's or Shuttles during his movement, meaning he is either getting closer to them or shooting past them. A sloop leaves you with a stress and in the same situation the following turn.

2. At range 3, Iggy is a movement nightmare. Against high PS, he is unblockable and against low Ps, he is generally hard to predict. But against the slow movers, things get a little weird. He can get a bit too close and suddenly Adv. S boost is not an option. That makes his dial fairly predictable and these slow movers want to move slow. They are generally able to move into just about all the positions Iggy could want to be in.

This goes back to my game against Ron, which taught me a lot about this very challenging match up. It was nearly impossible to keep Iggy engaged with the B's without getting closer the next turn or keeping shots on them the next turn while moving away. He played them very slowly, netting out the B-wings very carefully. When it came time for a critical move so that Iggy could disengage and live to fight later on, a B-wing took a 2 forward and barrel rolled into a spot that would block any bank 1 or 2 or hard 1 or 2, and a bank 3 would have put me dangerously close to some other B's. Iggy bumped and suffered the wrath of the B's.

Iggy's trouble against slow-ships is the primary reason why I do not like PTL on Iggy. I understand why people like it and in many match ups it's just fine. However, there are match ups like these where PTL just brings you closer and closer to doom before you are able to take doom off the board.

Boba, on the other hand, was having a bit of a field day positionally. Though the net was already cast and it was too late to save him in the end. I didn't have answers. Playing Kath as a Swiss Army Knife, being able to hand out ions, stress, and then the next turn get behind the enemy ship and unload major damage is very critical. She is part of my answer to BBBBZ, Fel, Whisper and other Iggy's all at once. Against BBBBZ in particular, I've learned to play it slow and safe. The B's can't move 0, so they eventually have to move away from their safety corner. Isolating one at a time is the key to victory. so having ions and stress on hand is very useful. Ionizing 1 B isn't enough, the others will just move to support it, but do it a few times and slowly the formation starts to fall apart.

Tie Swarms pose a similar problem, but because they are much quicker, Iggy can get around them and move with them more easily. Kath, on the other hand, won't be super useful most of that match up, and one bad bump with Iggy and 4 range 1 tie's looking at him and it's over.

BTL Y-wings with a heavy ship for support like Dash or an opposing firespray is very troublesome for this list. On one hand, the Y-wings are durable and deal out lots of damage over several attacks, stripping tokens quickly. They are also very slow, thus eliminating much of the positional advantage Iggy has. He will have a lot of trouble killing one outright from behind before he winds up too close, and that's before considering the dangers of the enemy Firespray.

I said that Kath is in the list to help against Brobots. Well, the reverse is true as well. Any named firespray is very capable of making life miserable for Iggy, controlling Iggy's movement more effectively than any other ship in the game. Sure, you can avoid shots and arc dodge, but that firespray will make sure that that is the ONLY things Iggy is doing. A firespray can wear Iggy down and keep relatively out of the fight.

Finally, lists that contain B-wings other than 4BZ are generally not as hard to deal with as 4BZ. That extra Z element really pushes 4BZ into awesome territory against Iggy and Kath. Ion B-wings, Acc. Corrector B-wings and named B-wings all have a tough time keeping their focus on Iggy or the Firespray and find themselves switching targets a lot. Acc. Correct B-wings is a favorite of mine to fight, as the correcter is almost never going to hurt Iggy and with lone wolf and focus, almost never do anything to Kath.

This duo is very, very potent in the right hands, but only if you have a mental mastery of every dial in the game. You have to know what every ship is able to do and you have to be able to capitalize on it. My philosophy when flying this is "A good move is a good move, even if the opponent sees it before they move."

Results

I took Kath-88 to WV Regionals and went 4/2 with it. At the time, I really didn't appreciate how much of a problem the slow ships would be. I lost a key match to Krassis with 2 Shuttles, a match up I felt like I had in the bag at first, but then found myself relatively trapped behind 2 lambda's that didnt care that I was there. The other loss was to a double HLC FCS PTL Brobots build in the first round. I made some pretty serious misplays in that match up and I should have just plain flown better. As my only two losses of the day, I had a pretty successful time. Winning either of those matches would have put me in the top 8, which would have been nice. During that day, I tabled a BBBBZ list 100/0 and tabled a Soontir RAC list 100/0. I ran into a bit of trouble against a firespray with 2 warthogs but I managed to pull out a close win on that one.

I know this is a lot, but I hope it helps restore your faith in this style of list. I feel like people are going to "figure out" how to play against the brobots sooner or later here, considering with how limited their movements 'can' be. I feel like your Yin and Yang build is pretty much one of the best brobot builds, with FCS HLC PTL brobots forming a different part of the "Brobot Rock Paper Scissors". So, all that said, a skilled player will out-fly brobots by slow rolling right towards them until the brobots run out of room to move. One bump and done. The Fett-88 and Kath-88 builds though? They have some real potential!

Great analysis P9. I've been thinking about Firespray/Aggressor builds lately as well, Kath with K4 security droid and PTL is insanely dangerous.

No one gives love to A? Recently:

IG-88A + IG-2000 + Mangler Cannon + Lone Wolf + Fire-Control System + Hot Shot Blaster + Autothrusters
IG-88B + IG-2000 + Heavy Laser Cannon + Adrenaline Rush + Fire-Control System + Hot Shot Blaster + Autothrusters

Winning Spanish store champ list. Interestingly, never seen A and B flown before. beat Fat Chew and Corran, beat Whisper Soontir RGP among others. The hot-shot blasters are absolutely crucial to this build I gander.

P9, thanks for the thoughts. I have found many of the same results with mine.

I may switch out to a ig and firespray list. Although I'm thinking more about trying to combine the aspects that I like about each.

IGB with AdvS, AT, mangler, ion, expert handling for 50

Kath with tact, eu, vi, ion, ID for 49.

I'm not thrilled with it yet. This is just a rough draft, but I'll do some testing and see what I think.

It's just that last weekend has shaken me. My confidence in the squad is shot. And it's not just higher ps lists, its Bwings, too. I saw a lot of Bwings there, and I know that I can't joust with them, so I was scrambling in my last game.

So, I played this squad last night:

Backstabber

X4 Obsidian

AP

Avenger

Against simonsays running

Palob, guri, and Kavil

His squad is honestly a good counter to mine. I pointed at guri early, but she ran away. I was able to keep away from Kavil for a while, focusing on palob. It took a long time to take palob down, due in no small part that throughout the game I had 3 complete rounds of attacking that rolled 0 hits or crits. and the greens weren't much better. I did manage to block palob and burn his tokens down to take him out. I got guru down to 1 hull, but couldn't finish her off. Kavil AB turret the avenger ended the game. I think I actually flew pretty well, getting the shots and blocks I wanted, but this is still a dice game.

That was just a rough game. I had a ton of saves that frankly should not have happened. Couple that with an annoying defensive upgrades/abilities and it ended up doing far better than it had any right to.

You flew everything right, got into the right positions and guess correctly on 90% of the "which way are they going". I think your IG list would have torn my list apart. It still terrifies me and I hope you can still share that terror with other players.

I dont mean any disrespect, Daniel. I mean you did exactly what you should have done. I have played against corran players that like to hit and run with him. My 1 turn from B was designed to catch your 3 bank, but you did a 1 fwd instead. I was unable to keep the pressure on corran, so I had to try and focus on chewie, but by then B was dead in 3 attacks, I think, which made the outcome inevitable. You had a good squad and you flew it well, so you deserved the win. And you did play the ranges well, so you effectively negated AT.

I appreciate the kind words! The reason I didn't bail out with Corran was because, as you said, I was able to mitigate the pressure. Had I used offensive tokens Focus/Targetlock instead of Evade/Focus for defense, I had likely taken significant damage and would have had to book it out of there. I also wasn't sure which target you wanted to commit to, so I was trying to see where you were going before getting out of there.

P9, thanks for the thoughts. I have found many of the same results with mine.

I may switch out to a ig and firespray list. Although I'm thinking more about trying to combine the aspects that I like about each.

IGB with AdvS, AT, mangler, ion, expert handling for 50

Kath with tact, eu, vi, ion, ID for 49.

I'm not thrilled with it yet. This is just a rough draft, but I'll do some testing and see what I think.

what about expert handling on Kath over VI? i know the stress on ur firespray will make it a little sluggish in terms of options when stressed but you dodge a target lock, are more elusive to predict before you barrel roll and can potentially block high PS guys like soontir.

P9, thanks for the thoughts. I have found many of the same results with mine.

I may switch out to a ig and firespray list. Although I'm thinking more about trying to combine the aspects that I like about each.

IGB with AdvS, AT, mangler, ion, expert handling for 50

Kath with tact, eu, vi, ion, ID for 49.

I'm not thrilled with it yet. This is just a rough draft, but I'll do some testing and see what I think.

what about expert handling on Kath over VI? i know the stress on ur firespray will make it a little sluggish in terms of options when stressed but you dodge a target lock, are more elusive to predict before you barrel roll and can potentially block high PS guys like soontir.

EH over EU is definitely an option and a consideration.

I might try that myself. I've been looking for a reason to dump EU and bringing EH and using the freed up points elsewhere seems solid.

Edit: I changed my current "Swiss Army Kath" list to experiment with this idea. I dropped EU and Lone Wolf for EH, ending up with 4 freed up points. I was actually a bit stumped on what to bring! I wound up taking Inertial dampeners on Kath and an Ion Cannon on Iggy B. It looks something like this now:

(46) Kath: EH, Ion Cannon, Tactician, ID

(54) Iggy B: Predator, Adv.S. HLC, Ion Cannon, AT

So I'm not 100% sure that this is the best way to use those extra points, but I thought about my options and I really liked the idea of being able to put out 2 Ions in one turn, as well as giving Iggy B some form of range 1 gunner (though that's never really been an issue for me, with predator, the gunner ability only normally proc's on turtled up targets as it is).

So I like this at the moment, and I will try it as soon as I can. However I'm a bit jittery about taking EU off of Kath and replacing it and lone wolf with BR + Stress. Taking a 4 straight at key moments is really important for my playstyle, and I am nervous about finding myself stressed after a BR and stuck without a focus if I need to jump ship out of an engagement on the next round. Still, I am going to at least try it a few times, I feel like it has potential. The double ion will help a lot against most match ups, being able to lock down and stress a decimator, lock down multiple B-Wings, and change up the entire horde, zap a firespray into a bad spot or keep some Y's or Hawks from being useful. Y's are especially vulnerable to flying off the board. They're already trying to fly you off the board so they tend to be pointed that way anyway. Turn the tables!

The point spread also makes a big difference. Kath almost always seems to die first, and like this she is worth only 46 points. She's still doing roughly the same amount of damage as her more expensive version (minus 1 reroll). I've lost matches 49 to 50 by losing the wrong ship first, this will help prevent that a lot, particularly against the Brobots who run 50-50 or 49-49. It gets close to changing my 4BZ match up, but comes just short. At 46 points I need to kill 2 B's and the Z to win modified (56pts), 3 B's for an unmodified win (66pts). At 54 points on Iggy, if Iggy dies I am still winning if I kill 2 B's and 1z and survive with the other ship and 3 dead B-wings is 66 points which is still an unmodified win for me! It helps to know that anything less than that is a loss if either ship dies. Killing any 3 ships is a win if it goes to time.

Its still a rough match up, but with all that ion control, I can ionize any B's that turn and break formation to try and cover a direction that I didn't end up going, taking them out of the fight. I feel comfortable jousting 2 B-wings at once with my load out. I know that many of the better 4Bz players will keep the B's together and split them slowly with banks to cover wider angles. Ions still help there as the movement plan for those B's is so slow that messing it up like that opens up a huge chunk of the map for me to move in. They have to make more dramatic moves to come back from that, and just like the Aggressor, B-wings have a limit to how far they can push themselves positionally before running out of gas and getting into a bad spot.

Green bank, K turn, Green straight, K-turn or Hard 1. They can keep up as a little turret for a while, but those green moves start to add up... what starts as a slow spin to keep the opponent in arc turns from turning to accomplish that into, a few turns later, barrel rolling to accomplish that. Once that stage starts, they start becoming much weaker offensively. A turn or two of that and it won't be enough anymore, that's when they run out of gas and just can't keep up with you without making major sacrifices.

Newer players really tend to underestimate that "gas" concept, if they even understand it. Stress is negative because you can't do actions, but much worse because you must travel in a limited manner the next round, and if you stress yourself again after that, your limited again. This adds up over several turns. Some ships can't really take advantage of this, but Iggy and Kath are very capable of capitalizing on this and turning it into a game-winning advantage.

This probably isn't all that applicable, but my favorite 2-ship list right now is a pair of TIE Defenders with HLCs. I've played them both with and both without attack modifier EPTs. I've noticed that a few re-rolls every turn can dramatically increase the firepower of the squad in a very real way. If you're shooting at a B-wing, it's easier for a B-wing to get unlucky and go down in a turn because 4-hit rolls isn't that uncommon. Much more importantly, though, you're much less likely to do negligible damage. The think that just kept grating me was rolling an unmodified HLC vs a B-wing, getting 2 hits (expected), and the B dodging a hit with its sole green die (expected if they're holding a focus). That's one damage, and it's just unacceptable when the BBBBZ squad already has such a muscle advantage anyway. The rerolls made it more likely to get 3 hits with unmodified dice, and 4 hits with a Focus is pretty common. That is actually a pretty significant firepower upgrade, even against AGI1 targets like B-wings, because you're moving from probably 3 turns for a kill (sometimes 2) to 2 turns for a kill, sometimes 1 if they took damage from an asteroid or something.

Positional abilities are awesome (I use the heck out of Barrel Roll on my Defenders), but even a ton of positional abilities might not be enough if you can't muster the firepower to start dropping ships in a timely manner. It's a straightforward, unsubtle approach, but I've found that if I can soak some hits and even the numbers a little, I'm then much for free to start dodging arcs and avoiding shots, because I've still got 100% of my combat power, even if I'm missing some shields.

Like I said above, I don't know how much the experience of a moderately good player playing TIE Defenders helps you guys talking about Firesprays and IG2000s, but the firepower challenges are similar, and so I'd caution against dropping firepower too much.

I guess the way I like to play , or have learned to play is arc dodging with my big ships, because when I'm taking fire, I'm taking damage.

And I'm not as enthusiastic about tactician as I am gunner against hard to hit targets,so I like:

Kath with EH, gunner, ion, seismic

IGB with AT, mangler, ion, AdvS, EH.

Obviously you know better than me, but I'm just trying to point out that any 2 ship build that isn't maxing out on firepower has to deal with the fact that those B-wings are sitting there, and they'll take a huge chunk of time to kill in a timed round.

Thank you all for your thoughts and responses. Thinking about speed, Daniel did that well against me, making me come to him. Same with Justin in game 5 in Omaha.

So, with speed in mind, I'm thinking about this:

http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/246373/thieving-the-thief

Slow roll and let my opponent come to me. Range 3 hurts, but range 1 is lethal.

Finally got vassal loaded on my new computer, so I played my new squad against khyros last night. He was running a tycho corran proto build.

I started out going slow and building up focus tokens as planned. When the fighting started, he correctly pointed out that kaato can't bodyguard palob since they are the same pilot skill. D'oh!!! He managed to put a munitions failure on palob, which ended his effectiveness. The pirate zapped the proto to death. He played the ranges well, staying away from Kavil for most of the game, even though I was going slow with him, making his ships come to me.

I switched bodyguard out for draw their fire on kaato, which I think works better since palob and kaato are the same ps. That also allows me to up the pirate to a soldier, which is better vs PS2 and predator. I liked the squad. I think without the munitions failure I have a better shot at winning that one.

Finally got vassal loaded on my new computer, so I played my new squad against khyros last night. He was running a tycho corran proto build.

I started out going slow and building up focus tokens as planned. When the fighting started, he correctly pointed out that kaato can't bodyguard palob since they are the same pilot skill. D'oh!!! He managed to put a munitions failure on palob, which ended his effectiveness. The pirate zapped the proto to death. He played the ranges well, staying away from Kavil for most of the game, even though I was going slow with him, making his ships come to me.

I switched bodyguard out for draw their fire on kaato, which I think works better since palob and kaato are the same ps. That also allows me to up the pirate to a soldier, which is better vs PS2 and predator. I liked the squad. I think without the munitions failure I have a better shot at winning that one.

Yeah, bodyguard is a bit frustrating because there are so few 'expendable' pilots with EPTs for scum atm, that its hard to find a good home for it. Perhaps that will be less of an issue after wave 7? Who knows.

I wonder if giving Kavil Veteran Instincts instead would help get him into range 1 of high PS. If he's moving last, it might be harder for the Vaders and Fels to avoid his death bubble...

This is such a great diary, thank you for doing this Hothie.

I think it also illustrates the meta lifecycle, especially with the recent Phantom changes. People are gearing their squads more and more towards dealing with dual IGs, which, frankly, always had the weaknesses we're seeing now. They're just being exposed a lot more. I'm not surprised you're having a harder time now than at the beginning, even though your skill with this list will undoubtedly have improved.

The meta in my area is still saturated with dual IGs, but i would expect this to change during or after the regionals.

Finally got vassal loaded on my new computer, so I played my new squad against khyros last night. He was running a tycho corran proto build.

I started out going slow and building up focus tokens as planned. When the fighting started, he correctly pointed out that kaato can't bodyguard palob since they are the same pilot skill. D'oh!!! He managed to put a munitions failure on palob, which ended his effectiveness. The pirate zapped the proto to death. He played the ranges well, staying away from Kavil for most of the game, even though I was going slow with him, making his ships come to me.

I switched bodyguard out for draw their fire on kaato, which I think works better since palob and kaato are the same ps. That also allows me to up the pirate to a soldier, which is better vs PS2 and predator. I liked the squad. I think without the munitions failure I have a better shot at winning that one.

Yeah, bodyguard is a bit frustrating because there are so few 'expendable' pilots with EPTs for scum atm, that its hard to find a good home for it. Perhaps that will be less of an issue after wave 7? Who knows.

I wonder if giving Kavil Veteran Instincts instead would help get him into range 1 of high PS. If he's moving last, it might be harder for the Vaders and Fels to avoid his death bubble...

Vi is generally good on him, I just wanted to try and pull off a 4 dice autoblaster turret shot. This was my first run through of this list, so I still have to figure out how to set it up and run it effectively. Khyros and I both agreed that due to bodyguards ps restriction, that dtf would be better.

@celes: I think this diary serves not only as my own notebook, but also a good indication of the scum learning curve. Scum isn't top tier yet, and I think it's because people haven't figured out their efficiencies yet.

Two more vassal games yesterday with my Opportunist squad. I changed out bodyguard for dtf and upgraded the pirate to a soldier.

First game was against Gary fro the Outer Rim Smugglers podcast. He was flying a 3b with fcs and decked out Jake build, which was either the same or very similar to the one Justin flew in Omaha against me in round 5.

I slow played a first, storing up focus tokens. Round 3 is when the fighting started, and he didn't want his B's to get their tokens taken, so he barrel rolled with the ones that were in range 2. well, that made Opportunist trigger, and since I upgraded the Pirate to a soldier, he got to fire before the Blues did, and I managed to burn one down before it ever fired. Next round I almost did the same thing again, taking a b down to 1 hull left. He put a crit on kavil, which Kaato used draw their fire on. That turned out to be big because he got Kavil down to 1 hull, but couldn't finish him off. I later finished off the hurt B and take down jake. His remaining B had 4 hp left vs my entire (hurt) squad, so he conceded.

Game 2 was against greedyfly running a Chirpy and Oicunn list. Instead of using Oicunn's ability, he kept at range 3 and picked me off from there. He managed to put 2 hits on a focused Kaato at range 3, then vadered for an injured pilot. He flew into the bottom corner, and I got him down to 8 hull. Then 2 opportunist shots later from Kavil and Palob and Oicunn was off the table before getting a chance to shoot. Chirpy was right behind Oicunn, so I was able to set up an out of arc autoblaster shot with Kavil on Oicunn, 3v0 (can't use opp due to rebel captive), the chirpy put a Munitions failure on kavil. next round I also set up a 4v0 opp shot with palob, and he gave him a Blinded Pilot. I was never able to recover from those 2 crits, and he managed to pick me off from there. Luck was definitely on his side that game, as I flew well, avoiding the debris and setting up the shots i wanted, just pulling those 2 crits swung the game for him.

So the 2 games i have lost I have pulled a Munitions failure on one of my turrets. Sigh. Otherwise I think it's a solid squad. It sucks at range 3, so I need to try and figure out how to catch large ships easier. but otherwise I feel good running it.

played 3 more games yesterday, 2 on the table and one on vassal with my Opportunist squad. (I suppose I should call it something. Will think about it while I'm writing. I think I'll call it "Thieving the Thief")

First game was against a Whisper/Echo/Scimitar build.

The first engagement saw only Range 3 shots from Echo and my Soldier and palob. Echo's shot was evaded (barrel rolled for his action, so no modifiers.) Then Palon used Opportunist and actually put a hit on Echo with a 2v5 shot!! Soldier's shot was evaded. Next round Echo got into Range 1 and Palob died quickly, but Kavil avenged him with the AB turret, killing Echo with 3 hits. Whisper killed Kaato at the cost of a shield, i think, the bomber dropped a seismic on my Soldier. Whisper killed my Soldier and then came for Kavil. Whsiper got into range 1 behind kavil. 4 dice Autoturret shot later and Whisper died. Then kavil and the bomber played the guessing game, and I ended up getting another out of arc Ab turret shot to finish him off. The Phantoms were wrecking me, but they were doing so at range 1, so kavil wrecked all 3 of his ships with the AB turret.

Next game was against Kyle running his Fel/Jax/Turr build that he has been flying for a while. I was able to slow play and let him come to me while I built up focus tokens.He took out kaato first, but i was able to damage Fel and turr. a few rounds later, a palob Blaster turret shot on turr finished him off, while Fel and Jax went after Kavil.hey managed to take kavil out before he could shoot, but the Soldier finished off fel. So it was my soldier and palob vs jax. Jax got into range 1 of palob and fired before I could steal his token, so we backed up and I grabbed the token from Jax. He took Palob down to 1 hull. Then he managed to take out palob, but was within range 2 of my soldier, who had F/TL on him, and the soldier took out Jax for the win.

Then on vassal I played against Andrew from Indy. He was running a Fel/Oicunn variant that he has been practicing for regionals. He set up in the opposite corner, so I slow played like i always do with this squad to build up tokens. First round of combat I put a bunch of damage on oicunn at range 3, and he put 4 more onto himself with vader and gunner, but put a direct hit onto palob for it. Next round I blocked Soontir, and between Kavil, Palob, and kaato, I got him down to 1 hull left. Oicunn then tried to take out the soldier before he could zap fel, but the crit I pulled was a damaged cockpit, not a direct hit. So the soldier suicide zapped fel, and oicunn was at 3 hull left, so we called it after 2 combat rounds.

The speed game is working, going slowly and letting my opponent come to me. And it's such an odd squad that people won't have practiced against it. I think the only thing I might change is putting engine on palob instead of kavil, but that will be for another time. I can make a case for both, since kavil needs to be range 1 for his turret, and palob can be range 2, but needs to spend focus for his.

Morgan suggested dropping the Soldier to a Pirate, dropping Opportunist off of kavil, putting VI on kavil; and Engine on palob. It's not a bad thought, but I just use Opportunist so much that giving it up is difficult to justify. It might be a tweak I make later if I find I need the engine on palob more.

Engines I think would be really good as you want to try and avoid the straight joust with HWKs. Would allow you to try and swing around the outside. I was rocking Broak Tactics (Panic attack with Roark instead of 1 B) really hard before auto thrusters and if my HWK ended up in firing arcs it was dead pretty quick.