Inspired by this thread, I've been thinking about an ordnance/fat Lando squad, based around Lando with title, PTL, Jan Ors and Nien Nunb. This would work well with Dutch Vander, but all the points add up really quickly, especially because I have no Z-95s. But then again, my group regularly plays 150 and 200 pt games.

The advantage of such a squad would be that Lando would be the most and least attractive target, with a potential 2 evades every turn.

Yeah, I can imagine. The bomber isn't exactly a nimble ship, and the lambda, well, is a space whale. I imagine there are only a couple of maneuvers the trio could execute, so it would be hard to have them fly together without being really predictable. I love the 5k on bombers though, it is a great maneuver to drop bombs and disengage early. Here is to hoping the unknown punisher pilot has a TL passing ability... Just give me an imperial Dutch Vander that can take a FCS!

I think his ability will be about bomb dropping, but you may be right as well.

Still, in a Scimitar Squadron list there is no place for any other model.

Its either the bombers get an EPT somehow for Deadeye or at some point there will an Elite Talent that works like Fleet Officer but with Target Locks instead of focus. For Jonus of course.

Great Read. Opinions on switching concussion missiles to cluster missiles?

If you use Jonus - Clusters.

If not, Concs.

Imho.

To expand on Juggler's analysis:

Odds of rolling at least X damage on Concussion Missiles:

Without Focus:

4 18.75%

3 59.375%

2 90.625%

1 99.609375%

With Focus

4 73.83%
3 94.92%
2 99.6%
1 100%

Hey Gersun,

Awesome write up, lots of points to digest, thanks for sharing.

I'm a casual player and am heading off for my first tournament in AUG, I'm thinking of this list;

BIGGS

HOBBIE + Stressbot

2 x Gold with BTL-A4, ICT and R2.

The idea is that Biggs takes the heat from the others allowing Hobbie to dish out stress and the Y's to do their double attack and lay down some ion, i have had some good results against Phat Han builds and Decimators (destroying one in 3 rounds of shooting with no losses) however the Phantoms ripped this apart as i imagine any other high agility arc dodger might. It may have been a different story if i got stress onto the Phantom....

I find that most opponent fear the native double tap of the Y's and want to take them out first, that combined with their 1 Agility make them a target. However under the protection of Biggs i deny the enemy that choice. Meanwhile Hobbie becomes a nuisance by dishing out stress and shrugging it off with his ability which also makes him a target.

After reading your write up i might have to try and fly casual in a combat zone of my choosing letting the arc dodgers come to me, what's your assessment of this list, do you think it would be competitive enough? (obviously the x factor would be my skill at flying this list but as a stand alone....)

Any thoughts welcome.

So I tried a 200 pt squad with Lando, Dutch, Hobbie, a Gold and two Green Squadron Pilots. As Sufjan Stevens sang: I made a lot of mistakes, I made a lot of mistakes. But it was fun, and although we couldn't finish the game because time ran out, I had a good chance of winning against some scum with brobots, Palob and some smaller ships. In the end, it was Palob and a double stressed Xizor against Lando, Dutch and one Green, with the first two down to one hull.

One thing I picked up from this game is that maybe the problem with ordnance isn't really specifically that it is expensive, or that it requires TLs, that the cards are discarded, or any of those things specifically, but that it really requires quite a bit of skill to use correctly, namely in timing. To be in exactly the right range, with a TL, and preferably a focus, too, is just very hard. You also need some luck in the sense that some serendipity plays a part here: things have to go just right and if you don't see that moment arriving, then you might not get another chance that game. So I can imagine an ordnance list doing well if you have that skill, which for me as I said, comes down to timing.

I attempted to apply your Concussion Missiles idea to a Scum list, and both me and my opponents jaws dropped. I call this "Flash Mob":

Z-95 HEADHUNTER: · Kaa'to Leeachos (15)

Deadeye (1)

Concussion Missiles (4)

M3-A INTERCEPTOR: · Serissu (20)

· Squad Leader (2)

Z-95 HEADHUNTER: Binayre Pirate (12)

Concussion Missiles (4)

Z-95 HEADHUNTER: Binayre Pirate (12)

Concussion Missiles (4)

HWK-290: · Torkil Mux (19)

Blaster Turret (4)

· Moldy Crow (3)

In the first engagement, I was able to get both Pirates and Torkil @R2, Serissu and and Kaa'to at R3 of Boba Fett. Serissu passed a TL to a Pirate, Kaa'to stole a focus from Torkil, and Torkil used his ability on Boba. What resulted was 11 damage in one turn and a dead Boba before he could fire. So sweet.

I'll have to try testing it some more. Its hard slow rolling Serissu with the rest of the squad with the lack of straight 1, but I figured out a way to keep her close and behind, giving everyone else a defensive boost.

Thanks again for your post. It's helping me think outside the box so I can bring unique lists to tournaments that are effective and fun to fly!

I love this squad. Will try it next Saturday.

Thanks for taking the time to articulate all the ideas you've presented here. My game will definitely improve as a result.

We need more articles like this. Not just builds, how to fly and what to keep in mind when you're playing certain other builds.

So after reading some of this, I'm still not sure on the math of it. If you can get a focus and TL, go with concussion missiles. If you can only get a TL, is it better to go with Cluster missiles?

So after reading some of this, I'm still not sure on the math of it. If you can get a focus and TL, go with concussion missiles. If you can only get a TL, is it better to go with Cluster missiles?

Sorta

Cluster Missiles also double the effectiveness of the opponent's ability to mitigate damage, but also operate at Range 1-2 rather than 2-3, making them far easier to use for lower skilled pilots.

Amusingly, that means they're also much more likely to have that spare focus than the Concussions.

Notably, the Jonus Bonus is also doubled when using Concussions; a maximum opportunity of manipulating 4 dice, rather than 2.

They're quite lovely with Jonus or with Accuracy Correctors, particularly against low-mitigation ships (like the Falcon. Up to 3 guaranteed evades on that bird, depending on how you built it, but is expected to negate only 3/8 damage per attack afterwards... slightly less 'cause one of those attacks is already counted for C3p0)

This thread is exactly what I've been looking for!

I've been trying to get a Z-95/ordnance swarm working for ages, see this thread for an early attempt relying on prockets, but I was limiting myself by ignoring spend-a-target-lock munitions like the Concussion missile. Which is weird, because my favorite pilot in the game, and the core of most of my lists is Dutch Vander with R7-T1.

So this is what I'm going to play next chance I get:

"Dutch" Vander (23)

Autoblaster Turret (2)

R7-T1 (3)

Bandit Squadron Pilot (12)

Concussion Missiles (4)

Bandit Squadron Pilot (12)

Concussion Missiles (4)

Bandit Squadron Pilot (12)

Concussion Missiles (4)

Airen Cracken (19)

Squad Leader (2)

Ion Pulse Missiles (3)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

The only variations I'm considering are maybe taking that ion pulse missile away from Cracken, and using the three points to either convert to Talas to get out of the Predator danger zone or upgrading that Autoblaster turret to an Ion Cannon Turret. Not quite sure which of the three variants will be the most valuable just yet.

I like your list! I think the changes you're thinking about are valid, but they honestly come down to play style. The Talas will help you against other swarms and predator, as you said. The Ion Cannon Turret is a beautiful upgrade, and the control is always helpful, but I don't think it is superior. As it stands most lists won't want to stay at range because your missiles ignore their defense bonus. However, the autoblaster encourages ships to stay away, and that will make it harder for arc-dodgers to escape. There really isn't a range band that your opponent will want to stay at with this list, which is great! I think the droid and pilot choice with Dutch is beautiful. The only thing I worry about is your ability to throw enough dice. Sometimes I feel like the 4 missiles I have aren't quite enough, especially if I fire without a focus. With this list you have to be sure that you are shooting with TL+F. Dutch really helps with that though, so that helps!

Be sure to post how you do with this!

Hey Gersun,

Awesome write up, lots of points to digest, thanks for sharing.

I'm a casual player and am heading off for my first tournament in AUG, I'm thinking of this list;

BIGGS

HOBBIE + Stressbot

2 x Gold with BTL-A4, ICT and R2.

The idea is that Biggs takes the heat from the others allowing Hobbie to dish out stress and the Y's to do their double attack and lay down some ion, i have had some good results against Phat Han builds and Decimators (destroying one in 3 rounds of shooting with no losses) however the Phantoms ripped this apart as i imagine any other high agility arc dodger might. It may have been a different story if i got stress onto the Phantom....

I find that most opponent fear the native double tap of the Y's and want to take them out first, that combined with their 1 Agility make them a target. However under the protection of Biggs i deny the enemy that choice. Meanwhile Hobbie becomes a nuisance by dishing out stress and shrugging it off with his ability which also makes him a target.

After reading your write up i might have to try and fly casual in a combat zone of my choosing letting the arc dodgers come to me, what's your assessment of this list, do you think it would be competitive enough? (obviously the x factor would be my skill at flying this list but as a stand alone....)

Any thoughts welcome.

I think that is a really solid list! There is a reason why people love the stressbot, and Biggs is always a strong ship to use, but he needs smart piloting to really shine. If there are any videos of Richard Hsu's victory in the AZ regionals I would watch them. I'm sure you could learn a lot to see how he deploys and approaches engagements, as his list is pretty similar to yours.

The only suggestion I have for your list is to try the stressbot on the Y wing because being able to dish out 2 stress per turn is pretty incredible, but it is also nice to pair the stressbot with Hobbie. I've never seen him used before, but that shouldn't stop you! Also, your Y wings are pretty nimble with those R2 units, so who knows! The BTL title is a great way to chop decimators and falcons down, so I don't see why the list couldn't be competitive. Just being smart with your engagements and knowing what your ships like (BTLs love to joust, and none of your ships like to chase) will prove to be the difference between winning and losing.

My bottom line is: If you like it, then fly it!

I think anything can be competitive, you just have to know what it pairs well with, and how it likes to be flown. That is really the message I was trying to send with my article.

So I tried a 200 pt squad with Lando, Dutch, Hobbie, a Gold and two Green Squadron Pilots. As Sufjan Stevens sang: I made a lot of mistakes, I made a lot of mistakes. But it was fun, and although we couldn't finish the game because time ran out, I had a good chance of winning against some scum with brobots, Palob and some smaller ships. In the end, it was Palob and a double stressed Xizor against Lando, Dutch and one Green, with the first two down to one hull.

One thing I picked up from this game is that maybe the problem with ordnance isn't really specifically that it is expensive, or that it requires TLs, that the cards are discarded, or any of those things specifically, but that it really requires quite a bit of skill to use correctly, namely in timing. To be in exactly the right range, with a TL, and preferably a focus, too, is just very hard. You also need some luck in the sense that some serendipity plays a part here: things have to go just right and if you don't see that moment arriving, then you might not get another chance that game. So I can imagine an ordnance list doing well if you have that skill, which for me as I said, comes down to timing.

I totally agree here. Timing is really important, and it requires knowing the rule of 11, and also how other ships and players will react to what you have and how you're flying it. Most players like to slow roll to start the game, and I like to throw them off by flying as fast as possible for the first turn or two to force my opponent to react to me. Once I have them thinking more about what I am doing, rather than what they need to be doing, I am one step closer to victory. Flying unpredictably is a great advantage, and I love nothing more than doing a big beautiful formation move, followed by all of my Z's doing different moves and covering tons of arcs. My opponents never know what I am going to do, which gives me a better window for timing my missiles.

I am going to do a more in-depth discussion of this later. Perhaps in a new thread. I am thinking about starting a thread in battle reports specifically for this squad and how I make it work.

I have had some fun, and sometimes great success with a list I call "The Three Stooges"

"Larry" the helpfull one that's always getting beat up.

Cracken

VI

"Curly" the chubby one.

Ten Numb

FCS, Mangler and VI

"Moe" the boss

Corran Horn

R2D2, FCS, VI

100 points

Being confronted by 3 x ps10 pilots, many of my opponents spent the first few rounds just freaking out and trying to think of "who do I kill first"? There's good synergy with Cracken handing out extra actions, he shoots first and cops any rebel captives. If there's a stealth device shoot first with Ten Numb and strip it. Yeah, a lot of fun, I should probably play this some more.

So after reading some of this, I'm still not sure on the math of it. If you can get a focus and TL, go with concussion missiles. If you can only get a TL, is it better to go with Cluster missiles?

Cluster missiles are good vs. low agility targets. Concussion Missiles are better vs. high agility targets.

Cluster Missiles will have a hard time breaking through Phantoms, Soontir Fel, or lucky IG-88's.

Clusters love YT's, Decimators, B-wings, X-wings, Y-wings, and Z-95's.

I have had some fun, and sometimes great success with a list I call "The Three Stooges"

"Larry" the helpfull one that's always getting beat up.

Cracken

VI

"Curly" the chubby one.

Ten Numb

FCS, Mangler and VI

"Moe" the boss

Corran Horn

R2D2, FCS, VI

100 points

Being confronted by 3 x ps10 pilots, many of my opponents spent the first few rounds just freaking out and trying to think of "who do I kill first"? There's good synergy with Cracken handing out extra actions, he shoots first and cops any rebel captives. If there's a stealth device shoot first with Ten Numb and strip it. Yeah, a lot of fun, I should probably play this some more.

I think this list is awesome! I love that they fit the personalities of the three stooges, too Having all of them at PS10 is great, did you develop this when Phantoms were running amok? It seems like it would wreck any high-PS arc-dodging lists. Corran does well vs. fatties, and I bet this list does well in the end game.

So after reading some of this, I'm still not sure on the math of it. If you can get a focus and TL, go with concussion missiles. If you can only get a TL, is it better to go with Cluster missiles?

Cluster missiles are good vs. low agility targets. Concussion Missiles are better vs. high agility targets.

Cluster Missiles will have a hard time breaking through Phantoms, Soontir Fel, or lucky IG-88's.

Clusters love YT's, Decimators, B-wings, X-wings, Y-wings, and Z-95's.

Hit the nail on the head here. I don't like cluster missiles because I want my lists to be good against all comers, and I think that they have too many bad matchups, whereas concussions with a focus simply hurt EVERYTHING. My swarm already does well against the targets that Cluster missiles want to see, so it would be a bit redundant to run them. As it is, no matter what list I see across the table I have a chance to win. Having an all-comers list like this really helps because it is down to me to find a way to win. No rock, paper, scissors here please.

Cluster Missiles will be stupid good on TIE Punishers though. They can take 2 with accuracy corrector to really ruin fat ships.

So now that the Kwing cards are official, tell me what you think?

Horton Salm

-Plasma Torpedos

-Extra Munitions

-Munition Failsafe

-R2D6

-Veteran Instincts

-Autoblaster Turret

Jan Ors

-Twin Laser Turret

-Squad Leader

Dutch Vander

-Plasma Torpedos

-Extra Munitions

-Munition Failsafe

-Autoblaster Turret

99 points, Dutch's astro slot still unclaimed

Dropping from proton torpt to plasma torps lets me keep a munition failsafe on Salm while saving a point overall, and Plasma and Failsafe have an interesting interaction. Often, a defender will choose to take a single hit from a failsafed weapon to burn off the card, but if it's a shielded craft, they'd actually lose TWO shields if they let it hit at all. An interesting dillemma for the new Tie Advanceds that will be swarming shortly.

Of course plasma torps demand focus more than proton torps, but lets not kid, munition lists need focus anyway.

Autoblaster turrets discourage (or punish) close in arcdodgers- with Jan Ors's bonus, TL and focus, you've got a good chance of dropping a Stealth/Autothrusters intercepter in a single shot- and knowing this be perfectly willing to maneuver into an intercepter's path. (they're also the cheapest curret in the game right now)

Jan ors hangs back, ordering Dutch to pass locks to Salm, giving an extra die per turn, while tossing off a couple lasershots per turn. She isnt carrying torpedos, so she shouldnt be as much of a priority kill as the Y wings, but her weapon should be effective at finishing off a wounded PWT or arcdodger.

@Gersun: I've used a Tie Bomber with 1 Concussion and 1 Cluster Missile (and someone else with Squad Leader). There is almost always someone in an enemy list that is a good target for the Cluster...except for Tie Interceptor Aces. Even then, if it's the end of the turn and your opponent is stripped of tokens, two 3 red dice can be brutal if they roll so-so. Green dice aren't great.

@Rakaydos: Using Jan Ors with all that will be brutal. Horton being bumped up to 5 red dice, and allowing him to re-roll blanks will be just brutal.

Makes me want to think of a list with Dutch and Garven and a few Plasma Torpedoes.

First off, I LOVE THE K WING CARDS!!

That being said, your list is great! I'm not sure you will use the effect of all of your plasma torpedoes because there won't be enough shields left! I think I would switch things around just a little bit to make Dutch more of a threat and hopefully be targeted earlier, and Salm less of a threat, because Salm worth the most points. I absolutely love the autoblaster turrets though. They make the enemy very confused!! Range 1 to dodge the TLT from Jan and Horton's ability, or Range 2-3 and have a harder time dodging arcs and eat torpedoes all day? Well done, well done my friend.

This is my take at the list:

Horton Salm (25)

- Autoblaster Turret (2)

- Proton Torpedo (4)

- Extra Munitions (2)

33 points

Dropping MFS because he is going to hit with those torpedoes, as he will get to reroll blanks, and he will always focus for an action and have a TL passed to him via Dutch.

Dutch Vander (23)

- Autoblaster Turret (2)

- Plasma Torpedo (3)

- R2D6 (1)

- VI (1)

- EM (2)

- MFS (1)

33 points

Making Dutch PS8 is important because he can fire his torpedoes first and do the extra shield damage to large targets, and then Salm can clean up after. Dutch is now the same point cost as Salm, and has MFS because Dutch doesn't have a method of changing blanks like Salm does.

Jan Ors (25)

- Twin Laser Turret (6)

- Moldy Crow (3)

I am bummed to drop Squad Leader, but it doesn't work with Dutch being PS8 as well. However, I think moving all three ships at the same time is not something to be taken lightly. Jan still makes the other two hit extremely hard, and I can only imagine Moldy Crow will work really well with the TLT.

What do you guys think? Keeping all 3 ships near the same cost helps give opponents a hard choice. Both Salm and Dutch have a good chance of removing 4 shields from a falcon or killing a B wing with Jan's help.

I am torn about giving Jan Squad Leader and switching Horton and Dutch's loadouts though. That would make Salm PS10, which would be great for shooting his torpedoes first, but would make him 35 points. Dutch would only be 29 points, and would be less reliant on shooting with TL+F than Salm, meaning if Jan wasn't able to use Squad Leader he could still deal the pain.

Regardless, both lists look like a lot of fun!

Dutch w/ Proton Torpedo and Extra Munitions

3 x Rookie w/ Plasma Torpedo

First off, I LOVE THE K WING CARDS!!

That being said, your list is great! I'm not sure you will use the effect of all of your plasma torpedoes because there won't be enough shields left! I think I would switch things around just a little bit to make Dutch more of a threat and hopefully be targeted earlier, and Salm less of a threat, because Salm worth the most points. I absolutely love the autoblaster turrets though. They make the enemy very confused!! Range 1 to dodge the TLT from Jan and Horton's ability, or Range 2-3 and have a harder time dodging arcs and eat torpedoes all day? Well done, well done my friend.

This is my take at the list:

Horton Salm (25)

- Autoblaster Turret (2)

- Proton Torpedo (4)

- Extra Munitions (2)

33 points

Dropping MFS because he is going to hit with those torpedoes, as he will get to reroll blanks, and he will always focus for an action and have a TL passed to him via Dutch.

Dutch Vander (23)

- Autoblaster Turret (2)

- Plasma Torpedo (3)

- R2D6 (1)

- VI (1)

- EM (2)

- MFS (1)

33 points

Making Dutch PS8 is important because he can fire his torpedoes first and do the extra shield damage to large targets, and then Salm can clean up after. Dutch is now the same point cost as Salm, and has MFS because Dutch doesn't have a method of changing blanks like Salm does.

Jan Ors (25)

- Twin Laser Turret (6)

- Moldy Crow (3)

I am bummed to drop Squad Leader, but it doesn't work with Dutch being PS8 as well. However, I think moving all three ships at the same time is not something to be taken lightly. Jan still makes the other two hit extremely hard, and I can only imagine Moldy Crow will work really well with the TLT.

What do you guys think? Keeping all 3 ships near the same cost helps give opponents a hard choice. Both Salm and Dutch have a good chance of removing 4 shields from a falcon or killing a B wing with Jan's help.

I am torn about giving Jan Squad Leader and switching Horton and Dutch's loadouts though. That would make Salm PS10, which would be great for shooting his torpedoes first, but would make him 35 points. Dutch would only be 29 points, and would be less reliant on shooting with TL+F than Salm, meaning if Jan wasn't able to use Squad Leader he could still deal the pain.

Regardless, both lists look like a lot of fun!

Unfortunately with your version, the only one capable of rocking TL+Focus is Salm, and you're giving Salm the torpedos that dont need focus as much.

Losing the special of the plasma torps doesnt really matter that much if you can consistantly get TLF on your munition platforms- the difference between a crit on hull or an extra shield is small enough that being a point cheaper is totally worth it.

While Horton may be the "bigger target" in my list, it's worth considering that if dutch dies, Horton loses his TLF combo, where as if horton dies, Dutch is still at 100%

Hey Everybody!

Like many others here, I have been really excited about the last few previews of Wave 7, and have been doing a ton of list building and theorizing. I will share the product of that thought process here, building off of the post on the first page of this article. This post is going to be all about list building, which is something that I do compulsively, and I'm guessing many of you do, too.

Paul Heaver's Article is a great resource to use, and I am going to build on several concepts from his article.

Before we start, I just want to go over some terms that I use to describe a ship's role:

Grunt : A fairly basic ship that relies on basic jousting to destroy the enemy. X, B, and Y wings are good examples for rebels, Imps have Fighters and Defenders, and Scum have Z95s, and will soon have the Kirhaxz. Grunts rely on being cheap and expendable, and don't really use any forms of control.

Ace : An ace ship is one that relies on an awesome ability or upgrade to shine, and is usually a fairly strong counter to grunts because of their special abilities or repositioning. Fat Han, Phantoms, Starvipers, A Wings and Interceptors are great examples of aces, but most named pilots qualify to some degree. This is the ship you want around in the end game for 1v1, or even 1v2 situations.

Support: These ships are your HWKs, Lambdas, and other ships that are designed to help out your aces and grunts. It is better to keep these relatively cheap so that they aren't too obvious of a target. A Grunt can also be support if it takes some form of Ion or Stress, as that makes the rest of your squad more effective.

Some ships can fill more than one role, and that is fine, but understand that it will make them more of a target priority for your opponent. Think of Palob w/ Opportunist, Carnor Jax, and other ships that can ruin your opponent's day.

The reason I am bringing all of this up is because I have a list I designed to kill the meta, but I feel like it is missing something, and in a recent game I was unable to kill Guri with my alpha strike, and she ended up killing 5 of my Z-95s all by herself. I learned a lot of lessons about how to fly my own list, and I also learned a few lessons about why my squad felt inadequate when Guri was slipping through my arcs and blasting me to bits.

Finding Balance in Your Squad

As Paul Heaver notes in his article, when you build a list it is usually a bad idea to bring multiple ships with the same weakness, as it makes your list easier to counter. If you have a list full of grunts, like BBBBZ, your list may really struggle against the dangerous aces, like Soontir, Whisper, or IG-88. This can be problematic if you're only taking 2 ships, because chances are you are giving yourself at least 1 strong counter, but more importantly, you often give your opponent pretty easy targeting decisions. Because of this, I am mostly going to talk about how to build lists with 3 or more ships. The goal with these lists is to build an "all-comers" squad that has a decent chance at beating whatever your opponent brings to the table. You do not have to have all of the three archetypes above in your build, but the more you have, the fewer hard counters you will have.

If One is Good, 4 Must be Awesome!!

I have noticed a strange tendency in this game, which I have never seen in any other miniatures game. A lot of players seem to think that if a ship is good, if you take as many as you can in 100 points, you will have an awesome squad! The TIE swarm is a great example of this, as is BBBBZ. Scum 5K will probably be a thing when it comes out and so will 4 Tempests with accuracy correctors and cluster missiles. While I enjoy the good 'ol TIE swarm, and it is fun to play, it is the definition of a 1-dimensional list. It is only comprised of grunts, and relies on fantastic maneuvering and decent luck with the dice to win against Aces. This is most likely why pure swarms are so rare now. If a ship is good, like the Kirwasdrizz will be, and the B is, then by all means use one, or even two! Or, if you are going to make an entire squad of them, at least customize them with different upgrades to be stronger against different lists. A B wing with a tactician is a wonderful ship, as is a B wing with FCS. Both are the same ship, but have very different roles that will help you win in different situations.

Grunts that can do the Heavy Lifting

Grunts great ships.... in the presence of others. Often times your opponent will not want to target them because they know that the Ace is worth more, or the Support is just too annoying. This gives these ships a great deal of freedom, and it usually means you can be quite aggressive with them. If you have more shots than your opponent, using a grunt to block is a great idea. Almost any generic ship in the game right now can be a grunt. However, not all of them are very good choices. When looking at picking the right grunt for your squad, it is good to look for the following qualities:

• Cheap: MOV is important, and if your 'throwaway' ships cost too much, you will only end up throwing the game away.
• Maneuverable: Having a strong dial will give you much more flexibility, and will give you more options to block if you need to. Boost and BR are important, but not a requirement here.
• +Dangerous: If nothing else, you need your grunts to pose a threat to the enemy and die first so that you can control the end-game.

Cheap

This quality is very simple. If your grunt is worth 1/4 of your squad, it is too expensive. I would put the cut off at 22 points, enough for a naked B wing. If you go any higher than that you run the risk of throwing away too many points to your opponent, especially if your list struggles to table your opponents on a regular basis. Z95s, Tie Fighters, and the low 20 point fighters (X, B, Kirakxs) are all solid grunts for the cost.

Maneuverable

While B wings may be the most point-efficient, there are few things more frustrating than having your K turns blocked. Granted, that range 1 salvo prior to the turn is going to hurt your opponent and you will most likely still be alive, but not being able to be in the fight consistently will put your aces and support in a hard place. Because of that, I think it is good to mix up your grunts if you can. If you have 40 something points to spend on filler, try to bring 2 different types of ships to give yourself more options with your dials. B wings are great knife fighters, and Z95's are quick, and they combine well. X wings with an R2 astromech do a great job of shedding stress, and have a different K turn. The key point here is to give yourself options.

Dangerous

This is by far the most important category. If your grunts don't make your opponent sweat, then you're doing it wrong. In this case, the more modifiers or attack dice, the better. 2 attack with a focus just isn't going to cut it. Most likely your opponent will ignore them, and then take them apart 1 by 1 in the end game. Bad idea. 3 attack dice is better, and much harder to ignore, but often these ships (Ywings, Bwings and X wings) can die pretty easily under concentrated fire. 4 attack dice is great, but only a naked phantom can do that with primaries, and is a little too expensive (25pts) and fragile (2 agi, 4 health).

That leaves the kicker - ordnance. Yes, it is annoying when your 4 point upgrade farts out 2 blanks, an eyeball, and a hit. We have all been there, and it is the reason why people hate ordnance so much. We have all also gotten lucky, and had beautiful rolls destroy expensive ships in a beautiful ball of fire. Missiles and Torpedoes are unpredictable, unreliable, and hard to use, this is true. However, for 20 points, a prototype pilot with prockets will make your opponent sweat. Moving with a great dial at PS1 it is a great blocker, and will make your opponent HAVE to get out of arc, or R1. Use this information to your advantage and place your other ships for a follow up shot! With ordnance you can turn a crummy 12 point Z95 into a 16 point Decimator killer with Cluster Missiles. It doesn't matter if it is a 1-use item because that ships only job is to hurt the enemy, and be a big enough perceived threat to get your ace/support into the end game unharmed to win.

The goal here, if you take ordnance or not, is to think of your ship as filling a role in your squad. Grunts should try to take down enemy aces or support, as that frees your ace(s) to take out what is left.

Aces that will win the end-game

Heavy Laser Cannons, Push the Limit, Autothrusters, Recon Specialist, Barrel Roll, Engine Upgrade. These are the things you see on an ace. They have high PS and at least 1 way to reposition themselves. They make it so that a 1v1 fight is impossible for a generic ship to win, and they put you in the final tables of tournaments. Often times they win tournaments because the final match is untimed, and you just have to win - no matter what. I am not going to go into too much on the topic of aces, other than the basic qualities you want them to have:

• Point denial: Make it cost a lot, and make it hard to kill by cancelling or regenerating damage. Win on MOV slightly by trading escorts, or by forcing your opponent to ignore your grunts and get a 200-0.
• Arc Dodging: If your opponent can't shoot at it, he can't kill it. Simple enough. Autothrusters is mandatory to use against enemy turrets. Dodge arcs and pick off your enemies 1 by 1.
• Deal the Damage: Kill everything as fast as possible with 4 (or 5) dice attacks and gunner, Vader if you enjoy talking about force choking people, and general lack of faith. Don't give your opponent time to run away and recover, and you will have fast games in which you either win big, or lose big. Glass Cannons are risky, and most people will try to avoid those builds, but be prepared for the outliers (or be one and ruin everyone else's day!).

Finding the right support

I think that support is the most commonly overlooked aspect of list building. When picking ships to use in a squad, most people think of killing their enemy in a joust, arc-dodging, or making them chase and killing ships one by one. Having the right support is key for getting even more mileage out of your aces and grunts. When I talked about targeting synergy in the previous article, this is usually where that comes from. If you have support that gets your grunts to do a strong enough alpha strike, you may win before even having use an ace in the end game. Support falls in a few different categories:

• Giving free actions and tokens: Fleet Officer, squad leader, and other cards are rarely taken because they require a dedicated support ship. However, they can make your opponent really unsure of who to kill. Can you imagine Soontir with 3 focus tokens? Insane, and anyone in their right mind would kill the Lambda with Fleet Officer first. Taking the right support can effectively give any ship Biggs' ability.
• Taking away actions and tokens: Mara Jade, Carnor Jax, R3A2, you guys know the deal. Dishing out stress, ion, and just being a jerk (Looking at you two, Carnor and Palob) is a great way to get the most out of the rest of your squad. Winning games often comes down to getting dice modifications. While you can't do anything about predator, you can make it so that ships can almost never get actions, which will put you well on your way to winning.

When building support it is important to keep it simple. When you make Palob cost 34 points he stops being support, and he starts being 1/3rd of your squad. This is just an example, but it really holds true in games. People don't generally load up Biggs to cost over 30 points because his job is to die, and at that point you're just giving points away. Keep your support simple, but make your opponent have to work to kill it.

As a final note, I am just going to list a few of my favorite Grunts, Aces, and Support for each of the 3 factions. Hopefully it helps people think outside of the 2-ship box when building their next list!

Grunts:

Z95 (12)

Academy Pilot (12)

Z95 - Ion Pulse Missile (15)*

Dark Curse or Backstabber (16)

Z95 - Homing Missile (17)

Prototype Pilot - Proton Rocket (20)

Alpha Squadron - Autothrusters (20)

Y Wing - Autoblaster Turret (20)

Kirawesesz - (20)

Cartel Spacer - Title, Ion (19)*

Cartel Spacer - Title, Mangler (20)

Rookie - R2 Astro (22)

Blue Squadron (22)

Scimitar w/ Cluster/Concussion/Proton Torp, Extra Munitions (22)

Scimitar w/ IPM, Seismic, Extra Munitions (23)*

N'Dru - Lone Wolf, Cluster (23)

Y Wing - BTL, ICT (23)*

Blue - FCS (24)

Sigma (25)

*Can also qualify as support because of control

Aces:

Jake Farrell - Title, Prockets, VI, PtL/Outmaneuver, AT (33)

Corran Horn - Adv. Sensors, EU, VI, R2D2 (47)

Eaden Vrill - HLC, Rec Spec (42)

Luke - R5P9, Lone Wolf (33)

Keyan - HLC, Opportunist (40)

Horton Salm - TLT, R2 (32)

Carnor Jax - SD, AT, PtL (34)*

Rhymer - APT, EM, PtL, IPM (40)*

Whisper - ACD, FCS, Rebel Captive (41)*

Vessery - Lone Wolf, HLC (44)

Vader - ATC, EU, Predator (37)

Guri - Virago, Sensors, Predator, AT, ID (40)

Scum Kath - EU, Predator (45)

Kavil - TLT, Predator (33)

*Can also qualify as Support

Support:

Airen Cracken - Squad Leader (21)

Jan Ors - Squad Leader, TLT (33)

Jonus - Determination, Seismic, EM (27)

Sigma - Stygium, Mara Jade (30)

OGP - Fleet Officer (24)

Torkhil - TLT, Tactician (27)

Palob - TLT, Moldy Crow, Determination (30)

As always, please share your own favorite pilots, and awesome combinations!

Naked TIE Bomber is a solid grunt, as are almost any of the named TIE fighters. Black Squadron Pilots with Draw Their Fire or Wingman are grunts with a few points thrown in on support.

Hey Everybody!

Like many others here, I have been really excited about the last few previews of Wave 7, and have been doing a ton of list building and theorizing. I will share the product of that thought process here, building off of the post on the first page of this article. This post is going to be all about list building, which is something that I do compulsively, and I'm guessing many of you do, too.

Paul Heaver's Article is a great resource to use, and I am going to build on several concepts from his article.

Before we start, I just want to go over some terms that I use to describe a ship's role:

Grunt : A fairly basic ship that relies on basic jousting to destroy the enemy. X, B, and Y wings are good examples for rebels, Imps have Fighters and Defenders, and Scum have Z95s, and will soon have the Kirhaxz. Grunts rely on being cheap and expendable, and don't really use any forms of control.

Ace : An ace ship is one that relies on an awesome ability or upgrade to shine, and is usually a fairly strong counter to grunts because of their special abilities or repositioning. Fat Han, Phantoms, Starvipers, A Wings and Interceptors are great examples of aces, but most named pilots qualify to some degree. This is the ship you want around in the end game for 1v1, or even 1v2 situations.

Support: These ships are your HWKs, Lambdas, and other ships that are designed to help out your aces and grunts. It is better to keep these relatively cheap so that they aren't too obvious of a target. A Grunt can also be support if it takes some form of Ion or Stress, as that makes the rest of your squad more effective.

Some ships can fill more than one role, and that is fine, but understand that it will make them more of a target priority for your opponent. Think of Palob w/ Opportunist, Carnor Jax, and other ships that can ruin your opponent's day.

The reason I am bringing all of this up is because I have a list I designed to kill the meta, but I feel like it is missing something, and in a recent game I was unable to kill Guri with my alpha strike, and she ended up killing 5 of my Z-95s all by herself. I learned a lot of lessons about how to fly my own list, and I also learned a few lessons about why my squad felt inadequate when Guri was slipping through my arcs and blasting me to bits.

Finding Balance in Your Squad

As Paul Heaver notes in his article, when you build a list it is usually a bad idea to bring multiple ships with the same weakness, as it makes your list easier to counter. If you have a list full of grunts, like BBBBZ, your list may really struggle against the dangerous aces, like Soontir, Whisper, or IG-88. This can be problematic if you're only taking 2 ships, because chances are you are giving yourself at least 1 strong counter, but more importantly, you often give your opponent pretty easy targeting decisions. Because of this, I am mostly going to talk about how to build lists with 3 or more ships. The goal with these lists is to build an "all-comers" squad that has a decent chance at beating whatever your opponent brings to the table. You do not have to have all of the three archetypes above in your build, but the more you have, the fewer hard counters you will have.

If One is Good, 4 Must be Awesome!!

I have noticed a strange tendency in this game, which I have never seen in any other miniatures game. A lot of players seem to think that if a ship is good, if you take as many as you can in 100 points, you will have an awesome squad! The TIE swarm is a great example of this, as is BBBBZ. Scum 5K will probably be a thing when it comes out and so will 4 Tempests with accuracy correctors and cluster missiles. While I enjoy the good 'ol TIE swarm, and it is fun to play, it is the definition of a 1-dimensional list. It is only comprised of grunts, and relies on fantastic maneuvering and decent luck with the dice to win against Aces. This is most likely why pure swarms are so rare now. If a ship is good, like the Kirwasdrizz will be, and the B is, then by all means use one, or even two! Or, if you are going to make an entire squad of them, at least customize them with different upgrades to be stronger against different lists. A B wing with a tactician is a wonderful ship, as is a B wing with FCS. Both are the same ship, but have very different roles that will help you win in different situations.

Grunts that can do the Heavy Lifting

Grunts great ships.... in the presence of others. Often times your opponent will not want to target them because they know that the Ace is worth more, or the Support is just too annoying. This gives these ships a great deal of freedom, and it usually means you can be quite aggressive with them. If you have more shots than your opponent, using a grunt to block is a great idea. Almost any generic ship in the game right now can be a grunt. However, not all of them are very good choices. When looking at picking the right grunt for your squad, it is good to look for the following qualities:

• Cheap: MOV is important, and if your 'throwaway' ships cost too much, you will only end up throwing the game away.
• Maneuverable: Having a strong dial will give you much more flexibility, and will give you more options to block if you need to. Boost and BR are important, but not a requirement here.
• +Dangerous: If nothing else, you need your grunts to pose a threat to the enemy and die first so that you can control the end-game.

Cheap

This quality is very simple. If your grunt is worth 1/4 of your squad, it is too expensive. I would put the cut off at 22 points, enough for a naked B wing. If you go any higher than that you run the risk of throwing away too many points to your opponent, especially if your list struggles to table your opponents on a regular basis. Z95s, Tie Fighters, and the low 20 point fighters (X, B, Kirakxs) are all solid grunts for the cost.

Maneuverable

While B wings may be the most point-efficient, there are few things more frustrating than having your K turns blocked. Granted, that range 1 salvo prior to the turn is going to hurt your opponent and you will most likely still be alive, but not being able to be in the fight consistently will put your aces and support in a hard place. Because of that, I think it is good to mix up your grunts if you can. If you have 40 something points to spend on filler, try to bring 2 different types of ships to give yourself more options with your dials. B wings are great knife fighters, and Z95's are quick, and they combine well. X wings with an R2 astromech do a great job of shedding stress, and have a different K turn. The key point here is to give yourself options.

Dangerous

This is by far the most important category. If your grunts don't make your opponent sweat, then you're doing it wrong. In this case, the more modifiers or attack dice, the better. 2 attack with a focus just isn't going to cut it. Most likely your opponent will ignore them, and then take them apart 1 by 1 in the end game. Bad idea. 3 attack dice is better, and much harder to ignore, but often these ships (Ywings, Bwings and X wings) can die pretty easily under concentrated fire. 4 attack dice is great, but only a naked phantom can do that with primaries, and is a little too expensive (25pts) and fragile (2 agi, 4 health).

That leaves the kicker - ordnance. Yes, it is annoying when your 4 point upgrade farts out 2 blanks, an eyeball, and a hit. We have all been there, and it is the reason why people hate ordnance so much. We have all also gotten lucky, and had beautiful rolls destroy expensive ships in a beautiful ball of fire. Missiles and Torpedoes are unpredictable, unreliable, and hard to use, this is true. However, for 20 points, a prototype pilot with prockets will make your opponent sweat. Moving with a great dial at PS1 it is a great blocker, and will make your opponent HAVE to get out of arc, or R1. Use this information to your advantage and place your other ships for a follow up shot! With ordnance you can turn a crummy 12 point Z95 into a 16 point Decimator killer with Cluster Missiles. It doesn't matter if it is a 1-use item because that ships only job is to hurt the enemy, and be a big enough perceived threat to get your ace/support into the end game unharmed to win.

The goal here, if you take ordnance or not, is to think of your ship as filling a role in your squad. Grunts should try to take down enemy aces or support, as that frees your ace(s) to take out what is left.

Aces that will win the end-game

Heavy Laser Cannons, Push the Limit, Autothrusters, Recon Specialist, Barrel Roll, Engine Upgrade. These are the things you see on an ace. They have high PS and at least 1 way to reposition themselves. They make it so that a 1v1 fight is impossible for a generic ship to win, and they put you in the final tables of tournaments. Often times they win tournaments because the final match is untimed, and you just have to win - no matter what. I am not going to go into too much on the topic of aces, other than the basic qualities you want them to have:

• Point denial: Make it cost a lot, and make it hard to kill by cancelling or regenerating damage. Win on MOV slightly by trading escorts, or by forcing your opponent to ignore your grunts and get a 200-0.
• Arc Dodging: If your opponent can't shoot at it, he can't kill it. Simple enough. Autothrusters is mandatory to use against enemy turrets. Dodge arcs and pick off your enemies 1 by 1.
• Deal the Damage: Kill everything as fast as possible with 4 (or 5) dice attacks and gunner, Vader if you enjoy talking about force choking people, and general lack of faith. Don't give your opponent time to run away and recover, and you will have fast games in which you either win big, or lose big. Glass Cannons are risky, and most people will try to avoid those builds, but be prepared for the outliers (or be one and ruin everyone else's day!).

Finding the right support

I think that support is the most commonly overlooked aspect of list building. When picking ships to use in a squad, most people think of killing their enemy in a joust, arc-dodging, or making them chase and killing ships one by one. Having the right support is key for getting even more mileage out of your aces and grunts. When I talked about targeting synergy in the previous article, this is usually where that comes from. If you have support that gets your grunts to do a strong enough alpha strike, you may win before even having use an ace in the end game. Support falls in a few different categories:

• Giving free actions and tokens: Fleet Officer, squad leader, and other cards are rarely taken because they require a dedicated support ship. However, they can make your opponent really unsure of who to kill. Can you imagine Soontir with 3 focus tokens? Insane, and anyone in their right mind would kill the Lambda with Fleet Officer first. Taking the right support can effectively give any ship Biggs' ability.
• Taking away actions and tokens: Mara Jade, Carnor Jax, R3A2, you guys know the deal. Dishing out stress, ion, and just being a jerk (Looking at you two, Carnor and Palob) is a great way to get the most out of the rest of your squad. Winning games often comes down to getting dice modifications. While you can't do anything about predator, you can make it so that ships can almost never get actions, which will put you well on your way to winning.

When building support it is important to keep it simple. When you make Palob cost 34 points he stops being support, and he starts being 1/3rd of your squad. This is just an example, but it really holds true in games. People don't generally load up Biggs to cost over 30 points because his job is to die, and at that point you're just giving points away. Keep your support simple, but make your opponent have to work to kill it.

As a final note, I am just going to list a few of my favorite Grunts, Aces, and Support for each of the 3 factions. Hopefully it helps people think outside of the 2-ship box when building their next list!

Grunts:

Z95 (12)

Academy Pilot (12)

Z95 - Ion Pulse Missile (15)*

Dark Curse or Backstabber (16)

Z95 - Homing Missile (17)

Prototype Pilot - Proton Rocket (20)

Alpha Squadron - Autothrusters (20)

Y Wing - Autoblaster Turret (20)

Kirawesesz - (20)

Cartel Spacer - Title, Ion (20)*

Cartel Spacer - Title, Mangler (21)

Rookie - R2 Astro (22)

Blue Squadron (22)

Scimitar w/ Cluster/Concussion/Proton Torp, Extra Munitions (22)

Scimitar w/ IPM, Seismic, Extra Munitions (23)*

N'Dru - Lone Wolf, Cluster (23)

Y Wing - BTL, ICT (23)*

Blue - FCS (24)

Sigma (25)

*Can also qualify as support because of control

Aces:

Jake Farrell - Title, Prockets, VI, PtL/Outmaneuver, AT (33)

Corran Horn - Adv. Sensors, EU, VI, R2D2 (47)

Eaden Vrill - HLC, Rec Spec (42)

Luke - R5P9, Lone Wolf (33)

Keyan - HLC, Opportunist (40)

Horton Salm - TLT, R2 (32)

Carnor Jax - SD, AT, PtL (34)*

Rhymer - APT, EM, PtL, IPM (40)*

Whisper - ACD, FCS, Rebel Captive (41)*

Vessery - Lone Wolf, HLC (44)

Vader - ATC, EU, Predator (37)

Guri - Virago, Sensors, Predator, AT, ID (40)

Scum Kath - EU, Predator (45)

Kavil - TLT, Predator (33)

*Can also qualify as Support

Support:

Airen Cracken - Squad Leader (21)

Jan Ors - Squad Leader, TLT (33)

Jonus - Determination, Seismic, EM (27)

Sigma - Stygium, Mara Jade (30)

OGP - Fleet Officer (24)

Torkhil - TLT, Tactician (27)

Palob - TLT, Moldy Crow, Determination (30)

As always, please share your own favorite pilots, and awesome combinations!

Naked TIE Bomber is a solid grunt, as are almost any of the named TIE fighters. Black Squadron Pilots with Draw Their Fire or Wingman are grunts with a few points thrown in on support.

It is true that Bombers have good health, but they don't really make me scared when they have no upgrades. If you have a naked bomber in your list, it doesn't really make me want to kill it first, especially if you have a strong ace or support. The 2 attack dice will bounce off of most aces, and it probably won't do much against other grunts.

If you put Connor net, ion pulse missile, and EM on that bomber, suddenly you have a 25 point ship that is a huge threat to large based ships, and can operate fairly independently, meaning your support can help other parts of your list.

Empty bombers are tanks. But the more you load them up, the more glass-cannon-ish they will get.

The real starkiller's got it right

The naked bomber makes a great grunt. Like a chuncky awing, it's something your opponent will want to ignore but won't always be able to (dem blocks, range 1 shots)

Though stiffer than Fighters they dont pop to a fickle flight of dice.

The more you load them, the less efficient they become