A MORE WRETCHED HIVE

100 points

PILOTS

Palob Godalhi (34)
HWK-290 (20), Opportunist (4), Blaster Turret (4), Recon Specialist (3), Moldy Crow (3)

Torkhil Mux (25)
HWK-290 (19), Ion Cannon Turret (5), Greedo (1)

Kaa’to Leeachos (18)
Z-95 Headhunter (15), Feedback Array (2), Draw Their Fire (1)

Serissu (23)
M3-A “Scyk” Interceptor (20), Push the Limit (3)

I love Palob. I love him a ton. What's the problem? He costs so many points, and he's a huge target. Also, since he's a low PS ship who is likely to explode, you'd need an ace to compliment him for the end game after he did his dirty work. That was my working theory, anyway. I love the guy, but I could never figure out where he belonged.

Then I had a weird thought. What if everyone you ran was an absurdly juicy target? Might confuse 'em. Might pull some focus off Palob. Their reasons for being such juicy targets might even help them be GOOD. Wouldn't that be insane?

Palob: Should be self explanatory. Steal their action, gain one yourself. What a massive swing. No defensive tokens for your alpha target. Store 2 focus with title and recon on a slow roll turn one. Turn two, come out swinging with a manual target lock and Opportunist. That's 4 double modified dice against an enemy who has no defensive tokens in a 360 degree arc. Pow Pow.

Torkhil: Ion Cannon. Greedo. Lowers enemy PS to 0? This guy is BEGGING to be shot at. If your enemy won't accommodate you? In general I'm against it, but in this case, Greedo definitely shoots first. That's an Ion token, a crit, and you can shoot AFTER all my buddies. Enjoy.

Okay, we have two super prime target HWKs. How do we stop them from exploding? Here's where it gets tricky, friendo. You're going to have to learn to fly 4 weird scum ships in some kind of loose formation.

Kaato: This guy is a bodyguard, pure and simple. If he's at R1 of an enemy with a solid shot, Palob can pass him a spare focus while he target locks to shoot double modified, so it's not horrible. More importantly, he's got Draw Their Fire. Now you're cooking with gas. Time to protect that Serissu, Torkhil and Palob. You lose shields so the big boys don't have to. Feedback array for when the damage must go through and you lost arc because you're just a lame Z.

Serissu: Functions as a type of Biggs. Keep him close to Palob, who is your MVP. If they shoot at Serissu, he could go up in flames first, but not before they get through 3HP with 3 Green dice. Btw, your actions were focus and evade, if you did this right. Bonus points if you can be at R1 of Palob and Kaato simultaneously. Then your opponent is in a real bind. If you draw fire from Palob for one explosive turn, you did your job.

There you have it. A squishy list, but it's full of more mean tricks and juicy targets than you can shake a stick at. Might just be crazy enough to work.

Your entire game will revolve around Palob. If he in fact goes down early, you simply lack the damage to finish enemies off. If your ploy works and he sticks around long enough to seriously mess up the enemy though, you should be fine. All depends on luck because sometimes those Serissu re-rolls won't turn into evades, and there's always those games where your opponent can't roll a crit worth a **** (so DTF won't trigger).

My only suggestion is drop Recon Spec for K4 Droid. You might need the extra focus Recon provides for Kaato, but I doubt it since Kaato won't be the one dying first. K4 turns Palob into an absolute nightmare though.

I feel like your two HWKs are solid, but then your list goes off the rails with the Z and Scyk.

If you want a juicy Z target, look no further than N'Dru. Keep him cheap at 19pts, just add Lone Wolf, then fly him off on his own and either draw lots of fire or wreak havoc with rerolls aplenty.

Serissu is 23pts of wasted potential, as well. Sure, she gives a reroll to an HWK, but it's still only 2 green dice. She's the exact same points as a Cartel Spacer w/ HLC. Now you're throwing out 4 red dice a turn. That's a much juicier target to your enemy, and it helps your firepower.

You only need to scrounge 1 point to make this work. I know you love Opportunist on Palob, but I would drop that down to Predator. Sure, you lose the fourth red die, but its situational and stresses you. Predator always works and has no downside.

I feel like your two HWKs are solid, but then your list goes off the rails with the Z and Scyk.

If you want a juicy Z target, look no further than N'Dru. Keep him cheap at 19pts, just add Lone Wolf, then fly him off on his own and either draw lots of fire or wreak havoc with rerolls aplenty.

Serissu is 23pts of wasted potential, as well. Sure, she gives a reroll to an HWK, but it's still only 2 green dice. She's the exact same points as a Cartel Spacer w/ HLC. Now you're throwing out 4 red dice a turn. That's a much juicier target to your enemy, and it helps your firepower.

You only need to scrounge 1 point to make this work. I know you love Opportunist on Palob, but I would drop that down to Predator. Sure, you lose the fourth red die, but its situational and stresses you. Predator always works and has no downside.

Yeah, but I've had a horrible time trying to fly N'Dru. I've used him as essentially a 19pt Z in a few games. Without boost or barrel roll, it takes way too long to get him into that segregated position. At least for me. Also, the Cartel Spacer is almost TOO juicy for my tastes. Although A pair of Cartels with just Manglers only comes in at 40 points of that 41 points, meaning Palob can even keep Opportunist.

Typically I wouldn't see these Cartels as being very effective, but with Torkil on the board, they are likely to get shots off against two ship builds. Then, if they draw fire, great.

The 41 points is definitely up in the air, but since everything on the board is a juicy target and ripe to explode, I think the emphasis should definitely be on lots of red dice and as big an alpha strike as possible. What else fits the bill?

If you have plenty of Focus, you can always just manually take TL. I know the synergy between K4 and Opportunist seems inherent, since you're stressed and therefor will obviously take a green action, but the synergy between Recon and Crow is just better.

I wouldn't say the synergy is better but different. Basically, with recon spec you are getting 2 focus and with k4 you're getting 1 focus + 1 TL. I also take engine upgrade, so perhaps that's why I feel K4 has more value. I have never run out of focus with Palob yet (he has died every game with at least 2 focus piled up).

I feel like your two HWKs are solid, but then your list goes off the rails with the Z and Scyk.

If you want a juicy Z target, look no further than N'Dru. Keep him cheap at 19pts, just add Lone Wolf, then fly him off on his own and either draw lots of fire or wreak havoc with rerolls aplenty.

Serissu is 23pts of wasted potential, as well. Sure, she gives a reroll to an HWK, but it's still only 2 green dice. She's the exact same points as a Cartel Spacer w/ HLC. Now you're throwing out 4 red dice a turn. That's a much juicier target to your enemy, and it helps your firepower.

You only need to scrounge 1 point to make this work. I know you love Opportunist on Palob, but I would drop that down to Predator. Sure, you lose the fourth red die, but its situational and stresses you. Predator always works and has no downside.

Maybe the original list needs more firepower, but maybe it doesn't. Depends on how long Palob sticks around. Serissu + Kaato w/ DTF might be enough. If they are being ignored, they still have 3 attack at range 1 which is not bad...

Dropping Opportunist for Predator I think though would be a bad idea. Predator offers very little value for Palob because of his excellent action economy (predator is better for ships that cannot easily get TL + focus every turn, which Palob can). And Opportunist is effectively 'always on' (thanks to Palob's steal) and the downside of the stress token is minor at best because he has a turret and being confined to green moves is not as detrimental as it would otherwise be.

If you have plenty of Focus, you can always just manually take TL. I know the synergy between K4 and Opportunist seems inherent, since you're stressed and therefor will obviously take a green action, but the synergy between Recon and Crow is just better.

I wouldn't say the synergy is better but different. Basically, with recon spec you are getting 2 focus and with k4 you're getting 1 focus + 1 TL. I also take engine upgrade, so perhaps that's why I feel K4 has more value. I have never run out of focus with Palob yet (he has died every game with at least 2 focus piled up).

I feel like your two HWKs are solid, but then your list goes off the rails with the Z and Scyk.

If you want a juicy Z target, look no further than N'Dru. Keep him cheap at 19pts, just add Lone Wolf, then fly him off on his own and either draw lots of fire or wreak havoc with rerolls aplenty.

Serissu is 23pts of wasted potential, as well. Sure, she gives a reroll to an HWK, but it's still only 2 green dice. She's the exact same points as a Cartel Spacer w/ HLC. Now you're throwing out 4 red dice a turn. That's a much juicier target to your enemy, and it helps your firepower.

You only need to scrounge 1 point to make this work. I know you love Opportunist on Palob, but I would drop that down to Predator. Sure, you lose the fourth red die, but its situational and stresses you. Predator always works and has no downside.

Maybe the original list needs more firepower, but maybe it doesn't. Depends on how long Palob sticks around. Serissu + Kaato w/ DTF might be enough. If they are being ignored, they still have 3 attack at range 1 which is not bad...

Dropping Opportunist for Predator I think though would be a bad idea. Predator offers very little value for Palob because of his excellent action economy (predator is better for ships that cannot easily get TL + focus every turn, which Palob can). And Opportunist is effectively 'always on' (thanks to Palob's steal) and the downside of the stress token is minor at best because he has a turret and being confined to green moves is not as detrimental as it would otherwise be.

I actually like Predator on Palob a lot. I would run him at 37 points with Predator and EU. This was effectively a soft target lock each turn with the option to then take 2 focus tokens or a boost. It's great, but Predator Palob and Opportunist Palob are two totally different ships.

Predator Palob has way more opportunities to focus, and thus is much more defensive. He sticks around awhile. Also his dial is not confined to green, and the white maneuvers open you up to be a little more unpredictable with your turret, especially since you can then EU boost if you need to.

Opportunist Palob is dirty. He's an offensive man. His plan is to shiv you, then explode. He doesn't have the huge stack of bonus defensive focus that Predator Palob has, since he'll need to manually target lock if he wants to double modify. Or, if you prefer K4, he'll get a free target lock then have to focus just to fire, meaning you're still at one modifier and 0 defensive focus.

Because an enemy with green dice and potentially autothrusters can mitigate a certain amount of damage from each attack, the damage increase between 3 red die and 4 red die is very large.

I like both of these Palob. There's no such thing as a bad Palob. You just need to know what each one is for, and then how their team should be built to support them.

Side note: I have no idea how it can be possible to run Palob without Recon Specialist and never run out of Focus tokens. I very often play against opponents who simply don't focus in range of Palob. They target lock. It's good for my offense, but bad for my focus pool. Then, since Palob is the primary target, I have to use them to fire my weapon, sometimes modify my weapon, and constantly on defense. That Recon Specialist gets a workout. I imagine that Palobs without it have about 1/2 the life span.

So I gave Palob w/ Predator, recon, crow & Engine a go this afternoon. I take back what I said. Its pretty good. I like it in fact. I was using Opportunist instead, and by dropping that down to predator, I found he could keep inside range 2 easier by not being limited to green moves. That made his ability much more of a threat. Also, I was able to put predator on N'dru, and overall I think it makes his kamikaze cluster missile attack a little better too.

I don't think Recon is essential though. You just have to make sure you slow roll and bank at least 3 before Palob gets into the thick of it. After that, if your opponent is willing to forego his focus/evades, just to deny Palob that one focus, well, that's still advantageous because with no defensive token, the 3 die blaster attack w/ predator still deals some damage (not as much as with opportunist, but its acceptable). And with engine, its possible to make the opponent work hard to get Palob in arc on occasion, so he doesn't always need a lot of focus on defense....its situational of course, so YMMV and all.

Don't forget that anything you are able to put Predator on is going to get a buff from Torkhil Mux's ability which will definitely get you some more mileage from an already great EPT.