I was thinking about the BBBBZ analysis you guys did, and Bob mentioning how much double HLC lists hate that list because of the 8 hit points. I started thinking: Is it actually a good idea to split fire the first turn? Here's what I'm thinking

Turn 1.) Fire first HLC at a target

-if the first HLC does 4 damage, you go ahead and concentrate fire, because you retain a chance of killing that ship with the second HLC

-if the first HLC does 3 damage, you go after a second target with the second HLC

-if the first HLC does 1-2 damage, you concentrate on the first target to make sure you can kill it on the next turn

Turn 2.) If you split fire, now you have the option to concentrate on either damaged target, so the other player doesn't have an obvious bait ship, and you don't have an obvious target to for the opposing squad to plan around.

This is obviously board and squad dependent. If you've got FCS HLCs, you can switch targets as well. If you've got Predator HLCs, you can change targets on the fly to get a pretty high likelihood of 4 hits per HLC (before greens). Also, if you don't think you'll be able to concentrate fire next turn, you want to concentrate fire on the first turn so you can finish the target off with a single shot in turn 2.

This is probably too much of a corner case to merit too much consideration, but there's times it might be meaningful.

That UK regional top 8 only had a few lists in the listed tiers. Won by dual Decimators, most surprisingly.

9 games and he didn't lose Oicunn once. Crazy.

There was also a conspicuous absence of BBBBZ in that tournament. That would burn down a Decimator in 2 turns, hands down. He didn't even have Engine on either VT-49, so it should be an easy enough job to rack 'em up and kill them. I would love to see video of the matches to see how the games typically played out.

I can understand most of his wins based on opponents. Turret + squishy wins makes sense.

But he won one game against a fairly high-ranked dual Autothruster IG's. I can't even imagine how that's possible.

I can understand most of his wins based on opponents. Turret + squishy wins makes sense.

But he won one game against a fairly high-ranked dual Autothruster IG's. I can't even imagine how that's possible.

Those IG88s had PtL, which Captive shuts down. I am also preferential to HLC+FCS even in that matchup, although it would still take into the 3rd turn before one of the VT49's would drop. His opponent might have made the mistake of going after Oicunn instead of the Patrol Leader. The Patrol leader costs 43 points and has 16 hit points. That's enough for 8 VADER activations, which equals a fully dead IG88 -- which costs 50 points. So Doom Boat would be happy to just keep triggering Vader in that matchup even into shields. It's an interesting matchup, I'll have to test that out later.

I was thinking about the BBBBZ analysis you guys did, and Bob mentioning how much double HLC lists hate that list because of the 8 hit points. I started thinking: Is it actually a good idea to split fire the first turn? Here's what I'm thinking

Turn 1.) Fire first HLC at a target

-if the first HLC does 4 damage, you go ahead and concentrate fire, because you retain a chance of killing that ship with the second HLC

-if the first HLC does 3 damage, you go after a second target with the second HLC

-if the first HLC does 1-2 damage, you concentrate on the first target to make sure you can kill it on the next turn

Turn 2.) If you split fire, now you have the option to concentrate on either damaged target, so the other player doesn't have an obvious bait ship, and you don't have an obvious target to for the opposing squad to plan around.

This is obviously board and squad dependent. If you've got FCS HLCs, you can switch targets as well. If you've got Predator HLCs, you can change targets on the fly to get a pretty high likelihood of 4 hits per HLC (before greens). Also, if you don't think you'll be able to concentrate fire next turn, you want to concentrate fire on the first turn so you can finish the target off with a single shot in turn 2.

This is probably too much of a corner case to merit too much consideration, but there's times it might be meaningful.

Another option is to target the Z-95 first and take it off the board first round before it shoots. It makes for better board control since the Z is essentially just an annoying blocker.

With FCS you almost always want to keep attacking the same target the following round so that you can utilize the TL from the previous round. Against 1AGI, 88B's gunner ability simply isn't going to be kicking in unless you roll all blanks. Speaking of, in those 1/16 times that I happen to roll all blanks and focus, and don't have a Target Lock, I'll keep the roll and attack again with TL+F. (unless it's 4 eyeballs, then you obviously convert them to 4 hits).

And more fundamentally, you do need to take ships off the board quickly, especially if all 5 of his ships are focus firing on one of yours. So generally I'll keep working down whatever ship I started on last round, with the goal of completely killing it before it can shoot.

A lot of it depends on positioning. Against BBBBZ the IG88s should be using their PS6 to their advantage to keep themselves spread out initially, with one acting as bait and the other as flanker. At least in my opinion, anyway. Which one is bait and which one is flanker will depend on how you set up and which one your opponent goes after, but since you are higher PS you should be able to get the initial engagement that you want by slow rolling and then boosting the 88 that your opponent is allowing to be a flanker.

I'm curious, though, as to what you used when building your Tier lists? Are you looking at local players? Did you look at tournament reports before the Phantom fix? Before Wave 6? I've heard of a lot of bro-bots winning events. Or one and Boba. Still getting there, though.

A combination of the Virginia NOVA area tournament results that Neil has been compiling, and the tournament results on List Juggler. Taken as a whole, IG-88 are actually underperforming for how often they make the final cut vs how often they get brought. At least the Mangler / Advanced Sensors version - there are at least 3 major archetypes even for dual IG88 that I can see right now.

• BC Mangler + Advanced Sensors
• HLC + FCS buzzsaw (Terminators and various offshoots)
• Asymmetric (Doug Kinney's)

So... bro bots are new. People are either learning them our trying then out. They don't all do well. This means that it's not strong?

Maybe. But by contrast Phantoms were very new (once) and they initially did really well immediately upon release. I think you really need to break down the statistics further into what kind of IG88 build is being looked at. Generally it is the Mangler + Advanced Sensors variety that is brought to tournaments. Buzzsaw HLC+FCS is not as prevalent but seems to do OK when it gets brought -- not that I have specific numbers on that yet.

It's like saying BBBBZ is bad because half the people who use it do bad.

That is not the case though. B-wings are very well-represented in how often they make Final Cut even considering how often they are brought overall.

The Phantom is a terrible example to use, though, as it was meta breaking when it came out. It utterly changed the game and people had to spend months to develop anti-Phantom strategies.

Hmm....I'm wondering if there is another good example to use for something when it just came out to?

Most of the ships fall into line pretty quickly. I'm trying to come up with some counter-examples but none really come to mind. Dual IG88 might be a bit of an exception because of the various ways that it can be loaded out.

Being very difficult to build and fly effectively could be a detractor to a ship's strength for players that are trying to decide what they want to fly. Yes the learning curve for the Phantom was steep, but people were doing well with the ship early on regardless so its raw power outweighed the learning curve.

It would be ideal to evaluate each ship as if they were being built and flown by an expert perfectly or optimally, but that doesn't match reality, where most players are not experts with a ship the first few games they play with it and struggle to play optimally let alone perfectly, myself included.

The Phantom is a terrible example to use, though, as it was meta breaking when it came out. It utterly changed the game and people had to spend months to develop anti-Phantom strategies.

Hmm....I'm wondering if there is another good example to use for something when it just came out to?

Shuttle?

The Phantom is a terrible example to use, though, as it was meta breaking when it came out. It utterly changed the game and people had to spend months to develop anti-Phantom strategies.

Hmm....I'm wondering if there is another good example to use for something when it just came out to?

Shuttle?

The shuttle saw little success early on for the opposite reason as the Aggressor, people just didn't understand how good it was and didn't play it. The early adopters were rewarded though. The Aggressors are in the opposite camp, they are being overhyped and overplayed and people aren't doing as well with them as they thought they would be.

I can't believe dual Mangler IGs will ever be a thing that matters. 2 3-dice attacks, even with autocrits, is just so little firepower, no matter what other tricks the IGs are packing.

In regards to BBBBZ, I hate shooting that Z first unless it screwed up and got ahead of the Bs. It's satisfying when you first kill it, but then you're still left with 4 Bs shooting at you, and it's like there's an extra round in the "killing the Bs" progression.

If I start shooting at the Z (with 2 HLCs), if everything goes well, its goes:

Round 1: Z is dead

Round 2: B1 gets heavily damaged from 2 HLCs

Round 3: B1 gets finished off, B2 takes an HLC attack

Round 4: B2 gets finished off, and so on...

If you ignore the Z

Round 1: B1 gets heavily damaged from 2 HLCs

Round 2: B1 gets finished off, B2 takes an HLC attack

Round 3 B2 gets finished off, and so on...

That ends up being a lot 3-dice shots that aren't taken if you can ignore the Z. I still get suckered into it at the beginning sometimes because I want to get rid of the blocker, but if you can get past or around it, it's not a TIE fighter, you'll get a couple of turns before it's in position to block you again. An AGI3 ship just doesn't care that much about a 2-dice attack when there's 3-dicers on the board. I also can't stand getting 4 HLC hits on a Z and then it gets a fluky dodge roll and only takes 2 damage. Although they're reliably tough, you can be fairly confident in your damage progression on Bs.

Sorry, that got longer than I meant it to. I just hate that little Z in that squad.

So I'm way behind the curve here, (haven't been driving as much) but I would like to add to the panic attack discussion. Multiple persons (myself included) were able to win store championships with panic attack. Granted I only had to go through one fat Han , but most other tier one matchup's were represented by skilled players. I dont think it can consistently beat fat Han though and if tie swarm comes back it'll be rough.

You best be putting corran/dash in tier 1 where they belong if'n you know what's good fer ya.