Starvipers are amazing

they're just not just that simplistic brand of sexy you can slap onto the front cover of a magazine, airbrushed up the ass with upgrades and taking up all the space ala a fat turret

The Starvipers are a slightly more subtle brand of awesome. Both Xizor and Guri with Predator & Thrusters (virago sadly feels ancillary and imo makes both pilots too expensive) occupy the 35-36 slot of very powerful, elite small ship. Unlike Soontir, though, they boast greater firepower (can take predator without gimping themselves), greater durability (healthwise), and similarly useful abilities (guri's free focus, Xizor's awesome "evade") at the cost of reduced maneuverability & PS (V.I, FCS Xizor pending). They're great little sledgehammers with great (but not ridiculous) late game potential.

Xizor seems criminally (heh) underestimated. I've yet to have a game where he hasn't been the last ship standing. Hell, I haven't played many games where he's even taken damage. That's how awesome his ability is: no one wants to shoot him. While I don't like his chances against PS 9 aces and the like, if you throw all your weight into removing the enemy's late game then Xizor can dance around any generic till the cows come home, even if he's completely by himself. Against swarms and mini-swarms, you just throw him in the midst of your Z-95 mini-swarm and let him mow down generics before the bloody dice massacre begins, giving your crappy, expendable ships a massive edge over their crappy, expendable ships.

Xizor is an arrogant, cocksure bastard and you have to play him as such. Because as long as he's got a sh*tty Z-95 that your opponent could shoot instead, Xizor is basically immortal. Just watch out for control and Vader (crew)

The generics, sadly, seem overpriced. Without the awesome pilot abilities, the Viper is simply at the mercy of our fantastically fickle friends.

I feel I should note.

I had a 1 Hull Xixor Advanced sensors kill one 1 hull and 1 full health agressor.

That dial with those abilities.

He's a beast.

Argh!! Ok fine now I really do have to try Xizor! I knew he looked fun and great but he was always just edged out in ships I want to play... All this talk thougj is making me want to play him so badly now xD

The only real weakness of Xizor is a weakness of scum as a faction: the cheaper generics aren't very fun

The Empire gets the incredibly fast and flexible (if bad luck prone ) Tie Fighter

The rebels get the incredibly versatile and reliable B-wing

Scum gets head-hunters. Granted, feedback Z-95s are worlds apart from their boring bandit counterparts, but they're still Z-95s.

Starvipers are amazing

they're just not just that simplistic brand of sexy you can slap onto the front cover of a magazine, airbrushed up the ass with upgrades and taking up all the space ala a fat turret

The Starvipers are a slightly more subtle brand of awesome. Both Xizor and Guri with Predator & Thrusters (virago sadly feels ancillary and imo makes both pilots too expensive) occupy the 35-36 slot of very powerful, elite small ship. Unlike Soontir, though, they boast greater firepower (can take predator without gimping themselves), greater durability (healthwise), and similarly useful abilities (guri's free focus, Xizor's awesome "evade") at the cost of reduced maneuverability & PS (V.I, FCS Xizor pending). They're great little sledgehammers with great (but not ridiculous) late game potential.

Xizor seems criminally (heh) underestimated. I've yet to have a game where he hasn't been the last ship standing. Hell, I haven't played many games where he's even taken damage. That's how awesome his ability is: no one wants to shoot him. While I don't like his chances against PS 9 aces and the like, if you throw all your weight into removing the enemy's late game then Xizor can dance around any generic till the cows come home, even if he's completely by himself. Against swarms and mini-swarms, you just throw him in the midst of your Z-95 mini-swarm and let him mow down generics before the bloody dice massacre begins, giving your crappy, expendable ships a massive edge over their crappy, expendable ships.

Xizor is an arrogant, cocksure bastard and you have to play him as such. Because as long as he's got a sh*tty Z-95 that your opponent could shoot instead, Xizor is basically immortal. Just watch out for control and Vader (crew)

The generics, sadly, seem overpriced. Without the awesome pilot abilities, the Viper is simply at the mercy of our fantastically fickle friends.

Thank God at least somebody in this thread understands Xizor's potential, and StarVipers in general.

I'm with you pretty much 100% here. The generics are a hard sell, much like other low PS arc dodgers (PS1 interceptors are a good example). The named pilots hold a lot of promise. Guri gets free focus, and Xizor has a nuanced but very powerful ability.

I've been an advocate of Prince Xizor for a long time. I recently flew a Xizor + YZZZ list to first place in a tournament. That's just one tournament, but I'm not alone in flying Xizor to victory, either. Xizor's ability allows you to build a very expensive, very powerful end-game ship and keep it alive, don't underestimate that.

gotta love the prince

only thing I'm not certain of is exactly how expensive to make him

on one hand, his ability makes for as hilarious an m.o.v skew as possible on a small ship. On the other, he's only 3 dice without the ability to action-stack or pack on HLCs

The "budget" predator + auto-thrusters is a nice, simple, and effective little package though

I'm currently practicing with a list that I wanted to play for Regionals, but once it is done (tournament is next saturday), I'll start experimenting with Starvipers.

From the few experience I had when I started playing with Scums, they were really nice. I have a couple of list Idea that I can't wait to try out.

You all must certainly realize that the generics being lackluster is a design choice? It's offered for completionist's sake only, as not all ships need to be fully competitive on their own.

That out of the way, I just find the StarViper overpriced and underwhelming. Dial is ok, not great. No evade. Limited upgrades. Limited PS, which may be less of a factor with Phantoms being nerfed. Overall, if I want a primary ship, I find the Firesprays, Aggressors, Kavil, or Palob to be more appealing choices. I don't think they will get appreciably better once I have access to Bossk/YV666 and the Kirhaxz ace.

You all must certainly realize that the generics being lackluster is a design choice? It's offered for completionist's sake only, as not all ships need to be fully competitive on their own.

Hell no

Generics being lackluster is not a design choice, it is a design flaw.

What you're trying to express is the idea that not every flaw needs to be addressed because no game is nor ever will be perfect. That doesn't make the fact that the generic is overpriced anything less than a suboptimal design choice, but it also doesn't make it something that needs to be addressed for the overall health of the game either.

In the unobtainable ideal scenario, everything is competitive. In the case of high quality games with a healthy competitive scene, you have a good variety of competitive options. There will, however, always be room for improvement. The sticking point is whether or not a specific improvement is worth the effort.

I don't know if it's really that bad, but it's appearance is. And you are correct, when wave seven comes out I plan to start a case just for the Starviper and the K-wing, possibly the Punisher as well, of ships I don't bother carrying to the FLGS. To answer the question why, they just don't seem to fit aesthetically with Star Wars. I know there are some here who disagree but this is my opinion, and yes I have played this ship to try it out, still can't get past it's appearance.

If you don't think its star warsy enough, then you either don't understand or agree with star wars aesthetics. The star viper is a luxury hi tek star fighter. Its looks are extravagant and out of the box. sort of like a lambourghini miura. It has the perfect flavor for xizors court and I'm tired of hearing people complain about it. The rebels aesthetics are inspired by the "used future" concept, the empire is sorta third reich perfection industrial might-ish, and between those lines you have something completely different that is alien, old, strange cultural and first and foremost; different. That aesthetics is broken up into two halves; the outer rim with the bounty hunters being the most prominent representatives. These ships are functional and tough. The 666 and the firespray come into mind. The star viper represents a sophisticated, decadent, deeply aristocratic and core oriented style of which Xisor is the perfect icon. A replica droid worth nine million creds, a orientally inspired palace, deep manipulation plots, chinese mandarine inspired style and ****** love pheromones coming out of his ears! This guy is 100 years old, ten times stronger than a human, has the guts to play ball with palpy and vader, runs a mafia with millions, not thousands, of henchmen and has sex with his own personal lolitadoll guri just for kicks. He's something else and Thats why he flies a star fighter that looks extraordinary. And that multilayered cultural vision is as star warsy as it gets. Also, the viper looks absolutely boss, imho.

only bad thing is, that its not stronger. Its described as being way better than most other space superiority star fighters and in the good old swccg card game (that should be the benchmark of all power levels in SW universes) it is as powerful as the falcon. Id say, if the viper had 2 shields id fly nothing else. Sad thing is that only one ship can have a system upgrade. That slot gives the viper a chance even though prices seem to sky rocket pretty fast.

It's funny that you think I just don't get star was aesthetics, after all I only loved Star Wars for twenty years, and absorbed everything Star Wars before that ship was created. And if you want to put it in automotive terms then I guess you could compare it to nascar or the batmobile, both have four wheels and an internal combustion engine but you sure as hell aren't going to see one on the way to work in the morning. If you want to know where it looks like it belongs then you should really play halo again, looks like a shield icon from that game but thank you very much for telling me that I " just don't understand"!sonething that I have absorbed and loved for almost forty years now, how unfortunate that I made a decision on this ship that was based on not thing more than twenty years of lore at the time this ship and story came out. Just because it has existed for most likely as long as you have been into Star Wars does not mean it looks right to people who have been here from the beginning.

I have run a Boba, Guri, Ion Scyk list a few times and not lost Guri once! She is amazing with advanced sensors.

Can we not argue about aesthetics?

Opinions are all well and good, but here's the thing: you're not going to win an argument over aesthetics. That **** is ******* subjective

For my money, the Starviper looks bizarre and that's all it needs to be to capture my interest

And while I definitely understand people not liking it and believing it doesn't belong in star wars, I do think they're missing that point. The Starviper was designed by an egomanical madman, if it didn't look completely unlike anything else it would have been an absolute failure

I have nothing against the Starviper or the IG 2000. Simply, my gaming group is more devoted to tie / wings style. If somebody wants to deploy them.in a match against me, it is OK. But I will buy more Tie Bombers or As instead of Starvipers.

Good to see the binary opinions on competitiveness is alive and well.

If a ship isn't running all over the top tables, it's crap.

My opinion, the StarViper is fine. It's just, other Scum options seem to have other people's attention. Guri from what I've heard is amazing.

I ran scum kath and 2 black sun enforcers with authothrusters at a store championship and made top 8 with it. I am of the opposite oppinion of most people and feel that the named pilots are too expensive for what they offer.

Xizor, 3 Zs and a Y won the local store tourney here in New York City last weekend. I didn't get to play it myself, but its seems to have done very well.

Almost every tourney I go to has one Starviper. Seems to be at least fairly represented, especially with all the options on the table these days.

People are a bit gun shy against high cost ships, especially when they rely on agility dice for defense. Especially when high HP, large base ships are less than the cost of a Z-95 more.

I ran scum kath and 2 black sun enforcers with authothrusters at a store championship and made top 8 with it. I am of the opposite oppinion of most people and feel that the named pilots are too expensive for what they offer.

That seems to be a very cool list.

And that multilayered cultural vision is as star warsy as it gets.

Not really, no. It doesn't jibe with the aesthetic paradigms of the OT, which is what I believe most people mean when they attempt to classify something as "star warsy." The StarViper isn't a bad looking ship, but it's generically sci-fi at best.

If a ship isn't running all over the top tables, it's crap.

There may be a disproportionate ratio of Spikes to Vorthos here, but there is something to be said about winning in an activity (see: games) where winning is the primary objective. Kitchen table games tend to mean less in the overall conversation about defeating one's opponent, where every advantage counts.

Yeah, I like how the Starviper looks but it does kind of look like a cross between a Starfury and a Minbari flyer from Babylon 5.

eh,

you squint hard enough and anything can look like anything

booze also helps

eh,

you squint hard enough and anything can look like anything

booze also helps

I've never regretted waking up the morning after an X-Wing game, though.

An E-wing looks like it flew straight out of Battlestar Galactica (though I read somewhere it is the same design-team?)

Anyway, I know several people who like the look of a K-wing, so if looks are an issue I feel entitled to bring the Star Viper to the table. Together with the Kirhaxz and the Scyk the Star Viper is a defining small based ship as the Z and Y-wings are rebel shared after all....

It needs an aux arc, each side pair of guns could rotate out to 90 degree. This was my fav ship and wanted to play it in WEG RPG. So give it aux like yv666 would be very improved concept.

I've really enjoyed flying Guri, though I tend to agree with the generics being over-costed, so I haven't touched them. A friend of mine did fly three Enforcers with Autothrusters and N'dru with LW as a neat 100 point list. The S-Loop is a pretty awesome maneuver to have on a ship, though I just wish the Sensor Slot was on all the pilots instead of the Title.

At the Spring Tournament I was at at my LGS, there were two Starvipers being ran, one of which was Guri in my list. She ended up being instrumental in my putting on a much better performance than my previous tournament. Plus, seeing me put the Starviper to use did convince several of my opponents that in fact they might use one in future.

I think all the Starvipers should have come with System and Illicit slots. The 2nd generic should have had an EPT. And the title should have done something else.

Even then the generics might have been able to be 1 point cheaper.