I think Defenders will be "fixed" with a unique cannon or two. A title would be great, but a cannon that adds control options without sacrificing damage would be thematic and awesome.

The Defender is a great Jouster, and doesn't offer much more than that without sacrificing more points/damage/whatever than it should. I'd love to be terrified on behalf of any ship it gets into arc, but know that I can dodge its arc if I play smartly.

Fel with PTL, auto thrusters, targeting computer and two deltas with ion cannons

Every time I've played against dual IG lists with a similar list, it gets destroyed. The combination of Predator, Mangler Cannon, and Gunner tears apart the Deltas and Soontir.

Just trying to build with a Tie Defender today it's going to take some form of squad-relevant ability to lend their cost-effectiveness to an entire squad. At their current cost it seems as if the only way they would have a use is when running in tandem with "weaker" and cheaper units.

The Defender, in a truly exquisite exercise of irony, doesn't defend too well...

I'm thinking:

Vader Tie advanced with Advanced Targetting System

Vessery with an ion cannon

Soontir Fel with Push the Limit and AutoThrusters

(100)

Spend your first engagement turn with Vader doing a target lock and an evade token, then doing a standard engagement volley with soontir and Vader, and then use vessery to capitalize on the target lock to make sure the selected unit is ionized. Next turn you focus all your units, including either a barrel or an evade for vader - just making sure everyone is range 1 on the ionized victim. Try to blow them out of the sky with 1 very strong fly-by.

If you fail - you flip around and just keep doing sweeps til it dies - theb move on to the next target.

Easier said then done, but if there was every a solid unit to flip around (white k turn) and trap up a unit with a reliable ion cannon for strafing runs - it's vessery.

My understanding is that the Defender would be fairly priced if it was a turret. If you think a white k turn is as valuable as a turret, then it is perfectly priced.

I have won local tournaments with the Defender and placed high (2nd) in quite a few more. Note, I think most people play over 90% of their tournaments in local tourneys so this is really what matters to me. Outside of that there is just regionals, nationals and worlds and well thats only what 4-5 games a year unless travel a lot. As a result, when people say its only useful at local games, I hear them say that it is only useful at the vast majority of games they will be playing in.

Here is the thing, the ship does draw a lot of fire (mostly because no one want to go up against one in the end game) and is fairly predictable but does take a fair amount of fire to take off the board while packing a punch. Despite what people say 6 HPs backed up by 3 agility does not go down like its made of glass, on average it lasts longer than a B-Wing and rarely goes down before a B-Wing would. I find people just remember that time when the green dice come up all blanks and forget that they come up as 3 evades with an equal frequency.

The trick is to use it in a squad where you have other ships that are just as dangerous and don't over invest in it. I also find trying to field multiple copies of it is a trap (although I recently tried Dual Onyx with Ion Cannons and Calculating Black Squad Pilots and it worked well, although I could see it going down hard to a number a popular lists).

Back in the day I flew Rexlar (Predator), Soontir (TC, SU, PTL) and 2 Academies a lot.

It worked real well, Falcons would ignore Soontir as Brath was so potentially dangerous to them and he would be able to survive v turrets (this was pre auto thrusters). I would escort Brath with the Academies and just jam them down my opponents throat, while Brath hung back.

Now with the new TIE Advanced fix, the defender is going to be less than it was as the two ships have very similar roles. As Jehan pointed out with Vader for the same 30 points you get better damage output with a slight to negligible reduction in survivability (vaders ability more than compensates for the loss of a shield) all at PS9. I guess you could use a Delta as a blocker, but really 2 Academies would probably do a better job and give you 6 more points to spare in that department.

So my final analysis is that it is not as bad as a lot of people say it is, it just flies differently and you need to fit it into a squad that has tight synergies with the role the Defender plays. All this will be moot when the X1 title drops as the Advanced will generally give more for its value.

I strongly recommend engine upgrade. It transforms the ship, in my opinion.

I love the ship in lore and design, and I wanted the ion pulse missiles and predator so I pulled the trigger before seeing the price of Rexler Brath (37), holy cow that's expensive, but the stats seem strong.

Are there any reliable lists for this craft? I've seen some defender hate on the forums, is it flyable in competetive lists? Just curious. I own firespray, imperial aces, 1 core, 1 most wanted, HWK, falcon and the star viper - but feel free to post lists that include components beyond these packs.

Thanks in advance!

1.) For the most part it simply isn't, at least in the current hyper ship meta. Against X Wings and B Wings and TIE Fighters and other normal ships they're okay.

2.) I have on occasion seen Vessery used with an HLC paired up with a super Phantom that has FCS, which is decent. Vessery will also be a little better once the Advanced gets fixed and wants to always target lock.

So yeah, unless you're flying Vessery in specific builds or your local playgroup hasn't succumbed to the annoying meta, they suck.

I think they can be good. I've had some success running two naked deltas with a tricked out Vader. I'm optimistic for the twin ion engine upgrade as well. We'll see...