I have been seeing a great deal of double and single ig-88 builds lately. A local tournament had 2 double droid lists face off at the final table.

What are some of the ways to fly against these new threats to the galaxy? How should one place asteroids when facing a list with one or two of these heavy hitting mechanical monstrosities? What has been ypur experiences flying against them?

multiple ships to get multiple shots. They also don't like stress much.

You should make tight clusters of asteroids and try to get them to fight there, none of the Aggressors like flying through tight asteroids because they rely so much on their banks and boosts.

Focus fire is really important against these ships, killing a ship not only means reducing their firepower, it also cuts off the other ship from that ability. I always go after B first unless I am all 1-agility ships then I will go after C or D.

My experience fighting against them is that they cannot match the firepower of a conventional list and they rely heavily on their defensive abilities and green dice. I play aggressively against them and try to force shoot outs at range 1 where their cannons are less useful. I've found that Aggressors want to play hit-and-run and cannot match conventional lists in head-on confrontations, and cannot stop you from getting a head-on confrontation unless they have Expert Handling, so I do my best to force those head-to-head confrontations and pursue a single ship aggressively until it's dead and then deal with the other ship, which has now lost its best pilot ability.

they can handle stress pretty well with that green, the trick is to keep 2 stress on them at all times, cuts down on the shananagans.

as another post said, bring more guns. 2 ships can't deal out damage fast enough at times.

I have played the 2 88s, and what I found is yes I won, but had a total of 3 to 5 total hull left. Thats a little close, one bad roll, one bad move and I am down 50 points and a ship firing.

Gold squadron with r3-a2 ion cannon and title. When they get more stress than their build plans for they just kind of fall apart. Last SC I went to I got up to 6 stress on one.

The IG-88s' single greatest weakness is its large base size. Its greatest foes are blockers and, even moreso, obstructions. Combine the two to shatter their firing arcs and they'll end up taking a little bit to reposition, giving you some time to concentrate fire on one. Prevalence of fcs or sensors leads me to recommend debris instead of asteroids whenever you can (and you can with the new errata) since they're larger and will stress the igs even if they still benefit from actions.

of course, none of this matters when you get 3 rounds of range 1 one fire and it all bounces off of some bull unmodified green dice, but that's how they were designed

stress works well, too, because without K-turns or segnors they have no real way to spin around to engage you. What they'll do is run away super fast to come around for another pass, so unless you're fat han don't matter chasing and instead flip on over to the other IG-88. As long as they can't double team you, you have the advantage (same is true of almost all 2 ship builds, but here it's extra prevalent because arcs actually mean there's skill involved rather than just dice ala turrets)

I've found flechette Defenders to have a particular advantage against them because their dial is fast enough draw on one aggressor (i.e, you'll never catch one that's running even with a 5 straight, unless you cut across a faster route, but you have enough speed to stress one and then turn to engage the other without issue) at a time and the flechette cannon effectively forces the other one to disengage, giving you time to 2v1 them (and even two naked defenders will win a 2v1 against an Aggressor--**** dice pending--because their base stats are identical minus 1 hull and 1 shield)

A lot depends on the specific IG builds. Symmetrical builds are a bit easier to handle in my opinion. They tend to excel in the current meta, as they are by far the strongest ship in a one-on-one or two-on-one against low agility turrets, and Autothrusters makes them very strong against two-dice attackers.

As others have noted, mechanics that hit them with stress are pretty effective against any that rely on Advanced Sensors or Push the Limit. At the very least, you limit them into moving forward. Their forward speed is capped at the 3-forward and 3-banks, so its not too hard to keep up with them.

Everyone is saying R3A2 on a BTL. Do not get overconfident about that, as a smart IG player will recognize that the droid is the biggest threat on the board, and will focus the hell out of it. Have backup stress vectors (Tactician Blues), or other ways to minimize the threat of the droid relative to the rest of your squad.

Their biggest threat is probably high-PS arc dodgers, who can react to their mid-level PS, get out of their arcs, and keep them at range 1/2 within their own firing arc to minimize the benefit of Autothrusters. Phantoms (even with the nerf), Soontir, Jax, Turr and even Royal Guards should be able to abuse them. Xizor and Corran should be able to manage them as well.

Also, play Debris fields. IGs hate stress, so having large fields of stress are a pretty effective counter.

Blocking - Multiple ships spread out to cover escape paths will prevent a lot of their boosting and flipping.

Concentrated, close range fire - They like to stay at long range, but if you can get them in close, you should be able to do significant damage

High-PS arc dodgers - They cant shoot what they can't see

To those saying to bring Debris Fields against Aggressors, I would counter and say that Asteroids are much better against them because not being able to shoot for the turn is way more punishing to an Aggressor build then getting a stress token.

Newish and middling IG-88 players tend to underestimate how far the forward corners of their large ship travel and will clip the asteroids with the corners of their ship, especially when they bank or S-Turn. With a debris field they will still get to shoot that turn and easily clear the stress next turn, with asteroids they don't get actions and they don't get to shoot which means they lose half of their firepower for the turn.

To those saying to bring Debris Fields against Aggressors, I would counter and say that Asteroids are much better against them because not being able to shoot for the turn is way more punishing to an Aggressor build then getting a stress token.

Newish and middling IG-88 players tend to underestimate how far the forward corners of their large ship travel and will clip the asteroids with the corners of their ship, especially when they bank or S-Turn. With a debris field they will still get to shoot that turn and easily clear the stress next turn, with asteroids they don't get actions and they don't get to shoot which means they lose half of their firepower for the turn.

Against a swarm, parking an Aggressor in a Debris cloud might actually be one of the best moves available sometimes. The extra die from the obstacle that will cut down on incoming damage from multiple attacks is a good trade off for granting an extra die against cannon attacks that are backed up by Gunner if the first attack misses.

I wouldn't rely on asteroids outside the big space peanut, since the players I've been up against generally red maneuver through them without issue

Asteroids are still integral to beating them if you have no debris (so every competitive event up till the 15th) but they need to be fortified with bodies to threaten the block, otherwise the most they're getting is a die of damage. Red maneuvering through debris, however, is just devastating.

What about opening moves vs dual Aggressors? Wouldn't most lists want to go slow at the start to force them to think about 2 board edges in addition to obstacles?

What about opening moves vs dual Aggressors? Wouldn't most lists want to go slow at the start to force them to think about 2 board edges in addition to obstacles?

I need more games to truly say for certain, but that seems to be the case. I'll put pictures up later tonight, if anyone is interested.

I flew on Sunday versus Juggler's exact list (which is outmanuever, hlc, FCS, thrusters on IG-88 B & D)

I flew Seri, Palob, and 3 head-hunters which I believe is already an auto-loss match-up, but I wanted to see if I could weasel my way out of it. I set the squadron up in one direction and promptly twisted them 90 degrees to completely halt all movement up the board to force the IGs towards me.

Long story short, though, the gambit paid off in that it gave me several turns of raw firepower but failed utterly because of the dice. On the first ideal turn, this happened

1.) Z-95 on one health (victim of the first volley) managed to bump IG-88B

2.) one other Z-95 had a focus + target-lock range 2 shot, the last one had a range 1 focused shot

3.) Palob had a heap of focus and a target-lock and had the Ig in arc

4.) Seri had a focused mangler trained on it from range 3

Final tally of damage: 1 shield

...

The greatest insult was that the blocked Z had a shot on the other aggressor and also managed one damage.

I did make of the mistake of not running Seri on the flank in order to try to split up the aggressors, but I wanted to keep her close for the re-rolls. Oh well, live and learn (I mean me, not Seri, ***** got waxed)

What about opening moves vs dual Aggressors? Wouldn't most lists want to go slow at the start to force them to think about 2 board edges in addition to obstacles?

Again, depends on what you're flying. With BBBBZ or BBBY, you probably want to try and set up an opening exchange that gets you multiple salvos and sets you up for a block on the next turn, while limiting their return fire. With Swarms, you want to force them to split shots. With arc-dodgers, you want to make sure that your endpoint leaves you enough room to maneuver and avoid any of their own attempts to block you next turn.

Being able to block them onto asteroids is nice, but IGs don't actually care too much about flying through asteroids. They only care about ensuring they don't land on them.

What about opening moves vs dual Aggressors? Wouldn't most lists want to go slow at the start to force them to think about 2 board edges in addition to obstacles?

The tricky part with slow rolling is that advanced sensor IGs are better forcing confrontation, courtesy of native boost and 3 straight. On deployment alone, you can conceivably get both pointing at your opponent regardless of your starting position. They'll then be setup for S-loop shenanigans or even straight up k-turns depending on the opposing squad's size.

We're still working on good openings but I would think that a strong flanking squad (phantom on one side, equally scaring threat on the other?) might be the best way to run the opening. They're strong when they can get both guns on a single target but become very fickle if they have to split their fire.

I ran them during a tournament this weekend and 2-3 ship builds really don't like them - it's too easy to train HLCs/Manglers on a single target and Predator plus B really cuts down on bad rolls.

I would think a hardy swarm would do much better, since it gives too many targets that just won't die

I have been seeing a great deal of double and single ig-88 builds lately. A local tournament had 2 double droid lists face off at the final table.

What are some of the ways to fly against these new threats to the galaxy? How should one place asteroids when facing a list with one or two of these heavy hitting mechanical monstrosities? What has been ypur experiences flying against them?

Draw them into the asteroids.

Don't space them out. Makes it easier for them to fly through them.

Blocking them with low ps ships works.

They will crumble against swarm builds like bbbbz pretty easily.

Bbbbz is great blockers and can maneuver through the tight asteroid placement for example.

And even though they have three evades, once you block them even a tie swarm, it won't take long to reduce them from 8 to 0 health.

Plus once you kill one the other gets weaker.

Tight asteroid makes it hard for the spacer loop.

I've seen a few fly onto the asteroids.

They move pretty fast so again for a large base ship I can't stress tight asteroid formation enough.

Don't go charging at them full speed. They'll come to you.

They don't have a turret so just lure them into the asteroids

With a few of your ships and asteroids you really limit their options.

I think the rebel swarm is a good choice.

The shields protect from the duel mangler.

Empire is more susceptible to crits

Also rebel ships are harder to one shot from hlc builds. It's not impossible, but I've seen a fair amount of ties get one-shot from hlc.

Couple scum ywing with the title and ion cannon is another idea.

Locks them down with a ion, and allows you to position your blockers, deny action, and fire again.

Only lost to duel aggressors once and it was far from one sided the remaining aggressor was on one hit point, don't really fear em or think they are that likely to dominate the meta.

I saw one dominate the field 3 games in a row (small tournament).

It was built around survival - it will turtle it out as much as possible, those evade tokens almost every turn

B+C

IG-2000

Predator (careful with your BBBBZ ;p )

Ion Cannon

Hot-Shot Blaster

Adv Sensors

Auto Thrusters

It has control and it has something for out-of-arcs

I hope I can face it soon to try my luck against it. But its weakness is obviously stress builds.

So I'm gonna make a stress build~

To those saying to bring Debris Fields against Aggressors, I would counter and say that Asteroids are much better against them because not being able to shoot for the turn is way more punishing to an Aggressor build then getting a stress token.

Newish and middling IG-88 players tend to underestimate how far the forward corners of their large ship travel and will clip the asteroids with the corners of their ship, especially when they bank or S-Turn. With a debris field they will still get to shoot that turn and easily clear the stress next turn, with asteroids they don't get actions and they don't get to shoot which means they lose half of their firepower for the turn.

If I have Predator, Advanced Sensors, a cannon, and IG-88B, I'm just going to disregard Debris Fields because they don't take away my action, and even if I can't Advanced Sensors before moving into the debris cloud I still have Predator and what is effectively Gunner.

All the dual Aggressor lists I face are sub-optimal. If you have enough space for hotshot blasters on these things you're flying a sub-par list, drop it and spend those extra points on an HLC. With a two ship build you can't afford to lose firepower by running ions. Go HLC.

You're going to care the next turn when you can't swivle your arc

I believe every time someone is looking for a way to fight against a particular ship or squad, there is always the response of "give them stress". Yes, we all know stress takes actions away and action less ships are easier to kill. My favorite " give them stress" responses are the ones telling people to give Farlander, Soontir, Tyco and Dash W/ Kyle crew stress.

Because stress is a VERY powerful mechanic, youbjust have to understand why.

For soontir, its because he turns into a sh*tty tie fighter if youvstress stack.

For aggressors, its because they can't turn their fat asses around to get arcs on you

You're going to care the next turn when you can't swivle your arc

My whole dial is green, I'll just ditch the stress and do an action then. If I face tacticians or a stress bot I'll be more careful about debris then.

S loops and k turns on these things are nice but they don't need to be done every other turn.

You're going to care the next turn when you can't swivle your arc

My whole dial is green, I'll just ditch the stress and do an action then. If I face tacticians or a stress bot I'll be more careful about debris then.

S loops and k turns on these things are nice but they don't need to be done every other turn.

Nope, all your fowards and banks are green. Your turns are white and k/s loops are red.

You could try to approximate a hard turn with a boost but that **** sends you sailing.

I advise no one to underestimate the importance of an aggressors red maneuvers. They were designed around the weakness of one arc and a large base, it's the only thing anyone else really has going against those amazing stats cannons manueverability and action efficiency

Because stress is a VERY powerful mechanic, youbjust have to understand why.

For soontir, its because he turns into a sh*tty tie fighter if youvstress stack.

For aggressors, its because they can't turn their fat asses around to get arcs on you

Maybe my point was a little to sutle.......

How do I beat Wedge?

Give him Stress!

How do I beat Whisper?

Give her Stress!

How do I beat academy ties?

Give them Stress!

How do I beat a Fat Han

Give him Stress!

How do I beat B-Wings?

Give them Stress!

How do I beat........

Give him Stress!

How do I beat........

Give him Stress!

That about sums it up, now that we know stress is good what eles do you have as a solution?