Would a Scyk ever EVER consider running prockets? Maybe four spacers with procket with Serissu and a shield upgrade?
Heavy M3A - Mangler vs HLC
I would consider it folly.
Would a Scyk ever EVER consider running prockets? Maybe four spacers with procket with Serissu and a shield upgrade?
The problem is that the Proton Rocket on a Scyk is a 5-point upgrade for a single attack at range 1. For one more point, you can get a Mangler that you can use every turn, at every range. Or for the same price, get an Ion Cannon that you can use at all ranges.
Torpedos and Missiles may have been worthwhile on a Scyk if the heavy title also reduced their cost by 2. But paying two extra points for a one-shot weapon is not remotely close to worthwhile.
I feel like Laetin might be the best recipient for an HLC as your opponent will be conflicted on whether or not to target him. That being said, he is a bit expensive.
Thanks for the responses everyone. Lots of great info here I am going to respond to the items that caught my eye.
I think it's obvious that the HLC does more damage per pound. You should think about more than pure damage, though. For one, I've found that Scyks can die quite easily with concentrated fire or just one bad roll. For that reason, I don't want to put all the points of an HLC on it. Also, I find that if I put an HLC on a Scyk, it attracts a lot more fire than if I put a Mangler Cannon on it. So, some non-computative info about not getting shot at as much is hard to add into the mix.
Plus, you will have a hard time with crits and counting that for points. It all depends on who you are shooting. You shooting at big ships? Yes, please. More crits. You firing at high green dice ships? You want the HLC.
Yes its obvious the HLC does more damage since it is throwing more ciice, but I was looking for something to try and quantify if the extra damage from the HLC was worth the extra 3 points of Mangler. Agree that quantifying the crit is difficult.
It's not so much about efficiency as it is a case of attracting more attention than they can handle. Measuring offensive output depends greatly on how many shots you are getting. A HLC Scyk will make a very tempting target, and can conceivably die before firing a single shot. Manglers are going to attract a little less fire and can live longer. I also like the synergy of having PS2 Manglers to land criticals to ships whose shields have been stripped by bigger, harder hitting ships that shoot first.
I was running 3 Scyks in my scum SC list. The last version was 2 HLCs and 1 Mangler. The HLCs always fired first to knock out the shields. Kept them in a group and slow-rolled them as much as possible, using the 1-Bank and 1-Turn maneuvers mostly. Yes the M3As can be one-shot but so can Tie Intecepters which in many cases are going to also fall into the 20-25 point range for generics (after upgrades).
Mangler Scyk is basically the best Scum option at 20 points. Its only competition in that price bracket is either N'Dru (who's only truly strong outside of R2 of your other ships, which can be tough to pull off), an Autoblaster Y-Wing, or a Z-95 with 5-8 points of upgrades for your other ships.
At 23+ points, the HLC Scyk is competing with the BTL-A4 Ion Thug. The Thug will live longer, adds a control element, and will probably deal more damage overall.
That's actually some decent competition in the 20 point range. I do like N'dru but you are correct it can be difficult to get his ability consistently.
My philosophy is kill rather than control so I tend to go for the bigger guns over the Ion. I've been running the Warthog at 24 points. I actually want to try a list of 2 Warthogs, 2 Mangler Scyks, and a base Z95 to see what that can do.
While I won't outright disagree with your numbers, I don't think they tell the whole story here. The HLC M3A just needs time to earn it's points, so it's what you pair the ship with in your squad that will make or break how effective the M3A is. You have to have targets that will draw more attention, so that you get those HLC shots. One thing about the Jousting values is that these are individual stats, and squads are more then just individuals. A balanced squad will bring out the best in the ships you bring. The Spanish National squad is a great squad, yet if you look at Roak and Cracken those ships aren't very good in your Jousting matrix, yet they make the squad. Cracken's action granting ability can be thought of like this. He's lending out actions so that his support ships can help earn back his cost. I hope that make sense. So, while the M3A may seem like a bad buy, if you put them in the right squad I think they shine. As a side note I've flown a few HLC M3A's and there dial is great for running HLC.
What can you put in your list that is a higher priority target than a PS2 HLC Scyk? It has a huge damage potential, it isn't particularly durable, and it probably hasn't shot yet (unless you are flying generics).
Palob + Opportunist + Blaster Turret + Moldy Crow + K4 Security Droid. 4 dice TL+F on some poor soul that already just got mugged for his
lunch moneytoken at the start of combat.
Something like this:
Palob Godalhi (20)Opportunist (4)Blaster Turret (4)K4 Security Droid (3)Moldy Crow (3)Cartel Spacer (14)Heavy Laser Cannon (7)"Heavy Scyk" Interceptor (Cannon) (2)Cartel Spacer (14)Heavy Laser Cannon (7)"Heavy Scyk" Interceptor (Cannon) (2)Serissu (20)Total: 100Serissu should make Palob tougher to kill and also discourage shooting at the HLC Scyks. In most cases she'll probably be the first thing that gets shot at.
34 Points into a HWK? I think I would rather take my chance with the 23 points in a naked HLC M3A. Add a basic Z95 for basically equivalent points comparision. But I think MrFroggies statement does follow here - the list is more than the sum of its parts. This is an interesting list - what is the bigger threat???
As M3-A lists go, I like that a lot. My best that I had come up with was 3x Cartels w/ HLC+Hull, and Serissu.
I ran a 3xCartels+HLC and Serissu+HLC+Elusiveness this weekend. Four HLCs can tear through ships pretty quickly.
I had Serissu with HLC, 2 x Cartels with HLCs, and a loaded N'Dru in my original version and decided to drop Serissu down and some points of N'Dru to fit in the 5th ship. I was leary of putting the extra points into Serrisu, ala Biggs since I knew she would be the 1st target and again my philosophy of hitting the opponent hard with the offense. How did Serrisu fair for you in your games?
I am still experimenting with what Scum has to offer. But i can see running a single M3A with cannon - either Mangler or HLC in a list, especially if I can come up with a bigger threat(s) that will take the heat early so the M3A survives later into the game. I will need to try a couple Ion Scyks in a list to see how that works out as well - that sounds interesting and with 2 only costing 38 points that leaves a lot of room to build the rest of the squad.
Thanks again everyone.
While I won't outright disagree with your numbers, I don't think they tell the whole story here. The HLC M3A just needs time to earn it's points, so it's what you pair the ship with in your squad that will make or break how effective the M3A is. You have to have targets that will draw more attention, so that you get those HLC shots. One thing about the Jousting values is that these are individual stats, and squads are more then just individuals. A balanced squad will bring out the best in the ships you bring. The Spanish National squad is a great squad, yet if you look at Roak and Cracken those ships aren't very good in your Jousting matrix, yet they make the squad. Cracken's action granting ability can be thought of like this. He's lending out actions so that his support ships can help earn back his cost. I hope that make sense. So, while the M3A may seem like a bad buy, if you put them in the right squad I think they shine. As a side note I've flown a few HLC M3A's and there dial is great for running HLC.
What can you put in your list that is a higher priority target than a PS2 HLC Scyk? It has a huge damage potential, it isn't particularly durable, and it probably hasn't shot yet (unless you are flying generics).
Palob + Opportunist + Blaster Turret + Moldy Crow + K4 Security Droid. 4 dice TL+F on some poor soul that already just got mugged for his
lunch moneytoken at the start of combat.
Something like this:
Palob Godalhi (20)Opportunist (4)Blaster Turret (4)K4 Security Droid (3)Moldy Crow (3)Cartel Spacer (14)Heavy Laser Cannon (7)"Heavy Scyk" Interceptor (Cannon) (2)Cartel Spacer (14)Heavy Laser Cannon (7)"Heavy Scyk" Interceptor (Cannon) (2)Serissu (20)Total: 100Serissu should make Palob tougher to kill and also discourage shooting at the HLC Scyks. In most cases she'll probably be the first thing that gets shot at.
34 Points into a HWK? I think I would rather take my chance with the 23 points in a naked HLC M3A. Add a basic Z95 for basically equivalent points comparision. But I think MrFroggies statement does follow here - the list is more than the sum of its parts. This is an interesting list - what is the bigger threat???
Palob is getting a little pricey there but he brings more than just damage to the list. His ability to discourage your opponent from taking defensive actions help the rest of your squad punch a little extra damage through. He also adds some diversity to the list that adding another HLC Scyk doesn't .
Palob also generates a lot of hate but between Serissu and banked tokens he should be fairly durable. If he gets ignored he's able to hammer through some damage.
You could cut a lot of points off of Palob by dropping all of his upgrades and giving him Wingman and an Ion Cannon Turret. Move the points over to Serissu by giving her PTL and a Sheild Upgrade. While it drops the damage output of the list it does make targeting priority a more difficult decision and adds a bit of control. With the extra shield and the ability to turtle up with a focus and evade Serissu becomes more difficult to kill. Since the four ships now all cost about the same there is no obvious target from a points perspective. Palob has gone from being expensive, deadly, and annoying to just annoying.
You could also drop everything from Palob and give him an ICT, leave Serissu naked but give Shield Upgrade to the HLC Scyks. This should make Serissu the obvious first target unless your opponent really needs to get rid of Palob for some reason.
I think I still like the list with a naked Serissu and a 34 point Palob better though,
Seri's really weird to use as an offensive ship, I've found
I run her and Palob at about the same cost with mangler/ptl/shield on seri and recon/blaster/crow on palob, and then filling out the list with 3 Z-95s
I think running naked Seri might turn out to be the more effective option. The Scyk is really not meant for straight up encounters, and while it can work really well as a flanker Seri doesn't really have that option if you plan to make use out of her (expensive) ability. The synergy between her and Palob is very strong (a matter of two incredibly high priority targets supporting one another), but it's almost impossible to give Seri a convincing offense whilst utilizing her ability effectively due to her positioning restraints and the Scyk's crappiness in a straight up brawl.
It could be that I just don't have enough practice with the pair, but it's been difficult to find Seri's place. Fortunately, the head-hunters and Palob tend to carry games 
For now, though, I really like how Palob enables the otherwise sh*tty Z-95s to be more credible threats (hard to ignore them when you can't focus/evade) and how they keep ships off of Palob. I think I'll replace Seri for a super Tansari (PTL, title, HLC, Hull) to run as a flanker and see if the added long range offense contributes more than Seri's ability.
Edited by ficklegreendice
As M3-A lists go, I like that a lot. My best that I had come up with was 3x Cartels w/ HLC+Hull, and Serissu.
I ran a 3xCartels+HLC and Serissu+HLC+Elusiveness this weekend. Four HLCs can tear through ships pretty quickly.
I had Serissu with HLC, 2 x Cartels with HLCs, and a loaded N'Dru in my original version and decided to drop Serissu down and some points of N'Dru to fit in the 5th ship. I was leary of putting the extra points into Serrisu, ala Biggs since I knew she would be the 1st target and again my philosophy of hitting the opponent hard with the offense. How did Serrisu fair for you in your games?
My friend and I played two games. He was running IG-88B, N'dru, and one of the scum Y-Wings (I don't remember the exact loadout). The first game went really quickly as he conceded after the first round of combat -- Serissu one-shotted N'Dru, and the Cartels crippled his IG-88B while I took one shield damage. The second game (with the same loadouts) wasn't so one-sided. I lost Serissu and one of the Cartels, and the other Cartels had lost their shields, but I wiped his ships. I went defensive, and usually chose evades which helped on defense, along with Serissu's power. I got to use Serissu's Elusiveness twice, and ridding her of the stress wasn't hard.