A while ago a buddy and I were in a team tournament, 100 points total, 50 points each. We didn't really plan for it so the list we came up with on the spot was

STRESS KATH

99 points

PILOTS

Kath Scarlet (49)
Firespray-31 (38), “Mangler” Cannon (4), Proximity Mines (3), Calculation (1), Rebel Captive (3)

Night Beast (15)

Soontir Fel (35)
TIE Interceptor (27), Royal Guard TIE (0), Push the Limit (3), Autothrusters (2), Hull Upgrade (3)

View: http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/248035/stress-kath
Tweak: http://xwing-builder.co.uk/build/248035

not sure id put calculation on a mangler Kath. a hit already turns into a crit. id rather spend that 1pt on VI

I don't think that Calculation and Mangler together are overkill on Kath. Her ability never comes into play unless the crit gets canceled. Having two crits to cancel should increase the chances of her ability triggering.

I don't think that Calculation and Mangler together are overkill on Kath. Her ability never comes into play unless the crit gets canceled. Having two crits to cancel should increase the chances of her ability triggering.

Not only that but it makes the range 1 decision that much easier. Pre phantom nerd I really liked Vi though. Calc also works in the rear arc

not sure id put calculation on a mangler Kath. a hit already turns into a crit. id rather spend that 1pt on VI

...Until she's shooting out of her ass. Plus, from the front Calculation and Mangler mean that you can often stress AND crit the enemy at the same time.

I personally like running her with Gunner; you can easily double stress ships or stress two separate ships, and calculation really helps here. I've been running her with a shuttle sporting an ion cannon, Adv Sensors and Fleet Officer and Jonus with some Ion Missiles. Quite a niffty little imperial control list

not sure id put calculation on a mangler Kath. a hit already turns into a crit. id rather spend that 1pt on VI

...Until she's shooting out of her ass. Plus, from the front Calculation and Mangler mean that you can often stress AND crit the enemy at the same time.

I personally like running her with Gunner; you can easily double stress ships or stress two separate ships, and calculation really helps here. I've been running her with a shuttle sporting an ion cannon, Adv Sensors and Fleet Officer and Jonus with some Ion Missiles. Quite a niffty little imperial control list

I hadn't thought of that clever synergy with gunner, my main concern would be that it reduces her durability (compared to rebel captive) and she's a lot of points. I'll definitely keep it in mind when I start play testing the list.

How has your shuttle/jonus build handled arc dodgers. I was thinking of a similar list with flechette torpedoes, proximity mine and extra munitions in place of the shuttle once the upgrade comes out. Lets you handle arc dodgers better but im worried flechette doesn't do enough in several matchups.

Never underestimate

Stealth sigma + mara jade and sensor jammer as a nasty little control piece, that just stays cloaked. If you don't think it needs sensor jammer, swap to enhanced scopes,or adv sensor and block - though I find PS3 blocks what you need enough

I find that Recon Spec is also great with Calculation, and the extra focus can also help in defence.

Also, you might swap the mines for an EU (there's a spare point there anyway).

Never underestimate

Stealth sigma + mara jade and sensor jammer as a nasty little control piece, that just stays cloaked. If you don't think it needs sensor jammer, swap to enhanced scopes,or adv sensor and block - though I find PS3 blocks what you need enough

Interesting idea. And you can decloak once enemy ranks are broken and/or thinned out.

How about this:

Kath w/ calculation & tactician

Omnicron w/ rebel captive & tactician & enhanced scopes

Sigma w/ mara jade & sensor jammer

Kath & Omnicron can double or triple stress one target and once Sigma gets in close, a couple other ships get stress too. Once there's a traffic jam around the shuttle, Sigma can decloak to finish off stressed and damaged ships. While Kath puts out more stress from rear arc

Kath might take some damage early (opponent wants to avoid triggering rebel captive) but that actually works to your favour. Once they are all stressed, they can't k-turn to chase after kath, so now they will likely have to shoot the shuttle (ideally Kath and Sigma are already behind them).

not sure id put calculation on a mangler Kath. a hit already turns into a crit. id rather spend that 1pt on VI

...Until she's shooting out of her ass. Plus, from the front Calculation and Mangler mean that you can often stress AND crit the enemy at the same time.

I personally like running her with Gunner; you can easily double stress ships or stress two separate ships, and calculation really helps here. I've been running her with a shuttle sporting an ion cannon, Adv Sensors and Fleet Officer and Jonus with some Ion Missiles. Quite a niffty little imperial control list

I hadn't thought of that clever synergy with gunner, my main concern would be that it reduces her durability (compared to rebel captive) and she's a lot of points. I'll definitely keep it in mind when I start play testing the list.

How has your shuttle/jonus build handled arc dodgers. I was thinking of a similar list with flechette torpedoes, proximity mine and extra munitions in place of the shuttle once the upgrade comes out. Lets you handle arc dodgers better but im worried flechette doesn't do enough in several matchups.

But you've missed the sneakiest trick in the list. Fleet officer on the shuttle lets her have the extra focus when she needs it, it also lets Jonus have one when firing his missiles if he wants it too. I had the exact same concerns as you, but with Fleet Officer you can literally have the best of both worlds. Advanced sensors is just the icing on the cake for ditching the stress it brings.

I'e only played half a dozen or so games, but arc dodgers haven't been a problem. In fact, its probably the lists strongest match up. Kath can stress them easy, having two nice big wide arcs helps make sure she can fire, and gunner if perfect for stripping token stacks, and like I said, double stressing problem ships. The PS2 Ion cannon means your target (if you're successfully concentrating fire) generally has no tokens, and with Jonus re-rolls it's fairly accurate. A double stressed-Ioned ship is like shooting fish in a barrel, regardless what ship it is.

I've considered Flachette Torps but personally I prefer the Ion Missiles. 1 point more, granted, but being able to stress-ion a big ship in one turn is huge, and as you can spend your TL re-rolling (and have a focus from Fleet Officer) anything other than an Aggressor will have a tough time evading your shot.

Sorry for the delayed response!

Another thing to try is Marksman and Gunner. Marksman applies to every attack that ship makes, synergising nicely with Gunner and raising the possibility of multiple stress and/or crits in a turn.

The downside is that is doesn't leave you anything for defence...

Triple stress cows?

Omicron Group Pilot (21)
Accuracy Corrector (3)
Gunner (5)
Tactician (2)
Engine Upgrade (4)

Omicron Group Pilot (21)
Accuracy Corrector (3)
Gunner (5)
Tactician (2)
Engine Upgrade (4)

Omicron Group Pilot (21)
Accuracy Corrector (3)
Darth Vader (3)
Rebel Captive (3)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

I started with kath and a super stress shuttle.... but the leftover points was around 23.... too few to add anything else except filler. Unless you want to go fighters, but I'm not a big fan of fighters. They always tend to go boom for me.

So I dropped kath all together and it let me fit in 2 super stressers and a doom shuttle. Then I had 6 points left over. I feel the doom shuttle is overloaded with RC and AC, but at the same time, I've never played a game where the doom shuttle wasn't the first target.

In your original list, I recommend Black Squadron Pilot + Draw Their Fire in place of night beast. I found running that ship in formation with Kath is a much better use of 15 pts. Kath is an easy target in the first exchanges and needs to survive that in order to make use of the rear arc and make plays with the stress you dished out. Just my 2 cents! Also, if you snuck Predator on Kath, you'll be happier with her damage output.

I like:

Kath + Predator + Gunner + Mangler on my imperial Kath. Deadly stress dealing to PTL ships and Gunner to make sure you hit. Still chances for double stress too with the Gunner shot maybe rolling a crit that gets cancelled.

STRESS KATH

99 points

PILOTS

Kath Scarlet (49)

Firespray-31 (38), “Mangler” Cannon (4), Proximity Mines (3), Calculation (1), Rebel Captive (3)

Night Beast (15)

Soontir Fel (35)

TIE Interceptor (27), Royal Guard TIE (0), Push the Limit (3), Autothrusters (2), Hull Upgrade (3)

...We'd love feedback on any of the three lists, particularly the kath build and what supports it, mini swarm has definitely come to mind as well. By all means though be brutal! I'm looking for an imperial list and this is my starting point, if this is a dead end i'd like to hear it.

I think the Mangler is indeed redundant with Calculation, especially since the Firespray can struggle to keep targets in the front arc. I'd strip the cannon and the Proximity Mine, which (if you can also part with Soontir's Hull Upgrade) gives you enough points to do some experimentation:

Kath Scarlet (38)

Calculation (1)

Rebel Captive (3)

Soontir Fel (27)

Push the Limit (3)

Autothrusters (2)

Omicron Group Pilot (21)

Fire-Control System (2)

Tactician (2)

Total: 99

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

You could easily run a Flechette Cannon instead of the FCS if you wanted the chance to inflict even more stress, or if you're comfortable running Soontir without an initiative bid, you can swap the FCS out for an Ion Cannon or Darth Vader.

I think this is going to work far better than Dark Curse, though: an ignored Lambda can really do some damage, especially with FCS. It functions as an additional control element, which Dark Curse can't. And if your opponent decides to focus fire on it, the shuttle is going to last noticeably longer than a TIE fighter...

One great thing about a lot of these builds (that have been suggested) ks they keep a sub theme of not giving the the opponent an obvious first target. In the original list Kath doled out stress and soontir and night beast could both focus evade. I don't think I'm a talented enough player to manage multiple shuttles, but some of the shuttles definitely need to see the table.

I tried out the double phantom build tonight and had a math fail by running the list at 104 points (I gave both phantoms particle accelerator) but I think the four points will come from the mangler cannon. The list definitely merits a few more games, its ability to limit a ship with double stress and then hit for seven to nine dice with just two ships proved really effective.

Next up will probably be vorpals, my first imperial list that I had any success with was Kath Soontir and two ties back in wave three, I think the shuttles would be an excellent replacement.

One thing too add, the way I flew Kath, I only got one, maybe two shots each game with the mangler cannon and the rest were rear arc. Now I've been playing a ton of scum Kath in a build with ig88, so maybe that was in my mind, but the early results in my hands were that mangler cannon might not be necessary.

...I only got one, maybe two shots each game with the mangler cannon and the rest were rear arc.

This has been my experience very consistently with cannon-equipped Firesprays for... uh, literally years now. One cannon shot is almost assured, two shots are likely, and three shots are possible. If you get more than that, it's because a fairly unusual set of circumstances has put your Firespray in the endgame in a chase position.

...I only got one, maybe two shots each game with the mangler cannon and the rest were rear arc.

This has been my experience very consistently with cannon-equipped Firesprays for... uh, literally years now. One cannon shot is almost assured, two shots are likely, and three shots are possible. If you get more than that, it's because a fairly unusual set of circumstances has put your Firespray in the endgame in a chase position.

That mirrors my experience. When I first started playing I flew a lot of Krassis. I realized that after the initial engangement it was rare for me to get a shot out of my front arc unless an enemy happened to fly in front of me.

Yeah I've been playing the firespray for a while, but I just always had a natural inclination towards more ships. This has been the first time I've tried to quantify where the shots were coming from.

My favorite Kath stress build at the moment is

Kath

Mangler

Lone wolf

Recon Spec

Engine

Although it's not super stress dealing it does make Kath incredibly resilient. I guess you could easily swap out Lone wolf for Calculation.

Been running her with the old faithful Krassis build of

Krassis

Recon Spec

HLC

Countermeasures

Countermeasures can be a little hit and miss but it does make him Very Tanky for a turn if you have the double focus too.

I have trouble running lone wolf outside of two ship builds, I think you need multiple stress dealers to sufficiently lock stuff down. It's not Kath but at some point id like to try two bombers with prox mine and two two phantoms with tactician and particle accelerator. Decent amount of hull with acceptable firepower too