I'm surprised by Alex Davy's apparent change of heart towards the idea of setting up a fortress. So much so that he'd even include a suggestion for it in the article.

But, he's got a point.

Moralo is a strong candidate for the best choice in the game as the centerpiece for a fortress build. Of course, whenever you think of fortressing, PWTs come to mind, and for good reason: it's hard to question full-arc coverage. However, PWTs suffer from the out-of-arc designation that comes with that advantage, and the admittedly few but nonetheless powerful cards that can exploit it. The YV-666 does not have such drawbacks.

I will preface by saying that the PWTs still hold the title for simplest to set up. You can make a blind-spot-free fortress in the middle of the board. Being limited to a mere 180 degrees makes your choice of spot for the YV-666 somewhat unforgiving. Fortunately, there is a place where the ships can set up that makes it impossible to approach from any blind spot. And that'd be the board corners.

This is not a particularly new idea; Wingman can be used with the Lambda's "0" red to form a fortress. This strategy is rarely seen, and that's for a number of reasons. Most of the reasons are wrapped up in "you need a ship with an EPT for Wingman", which the Lambda does not have-- so the fortress relies on another ship, most likely with less health than the Lambda, and also, "the Lambda has large blind spots", which means that your fortress must balance overlapping multiple arcs against effective board coverage-- and they tend to be mutually exclusive. On the other hand, the YV-666 outclasses the Lambda in every way. The Wingman fortress strategy, while originating with the Lambda, can find its perfection in the YV-666.

So let's start with the list.

The basis of the YV-666 fortresses is this:

"Fortress Core"

76 points

Pilots

------

Bossk (40)

YV-666 (35)

Wingman (2)

K4 Security Droid (3)

Moralo Eval (36)

YV-666 (34)

Outlaw Tech (2)

Since the general plan is to do a "0" red maneuver with Moralo, and then Bossk's Wingman to make it an over-and-over again park maneuver, the crew member who fits in with Moralo the best is the Outlaw Tech. Bossk, on the other hand, will have access to the 1-speed green maneuvers on his dial, since he'll be ramming Moralo ad nauseum . So the K4 Security Droid is a great choice for him. With this, we've easily solved the action-loss problem often felt by fortressers.

The question that remains is what to do with the rest of the points.

Option #1:

"Hammer Fortress"

93 points

Pilots

------

Bossk (45)

YV-666 (35)

Wingman (2)

K4 Security Droid (3)

Gunner (5)

Moralo Eval (48)

YV-666 (34)

Heavy Laser Cannon (7)

Gunner (5)

Outlaw Tech (2)

Maybe the best answer to that question is to pop a gunner onto Bossk and Moralo, to up their accuracy against token-heavy foes, and then stick a HLC onto Moralo for 4 dice at all ranges from him. This fortress list is simple, but I'd wager it's also effective.

7 point initiative bid means the enemy will almost always have to fly to you.

Option #2:

"Finger Fortress"

96 points

Pilots

------

Bossk (50)

YV-666 (35)

Wingman (2)

K4 Security Droid (3)

Gunner (5)

Ion Cannon (3)

Tactician (2)

Moralo Eval (46)

YV-666 (34)

Ion Cannon (3)

Gunner (5)

Outlaw Tech (2)

Tactician (2)

Action-heavy lists will wither against this list. Two ion cannons and two Tacticians means you have flexibility to deal with everything. You could easily envision a scenario where you wind up stressing four separate ships, possibly ionizing up to two of them. Alternatively, you can ionize a single large ship in one turn. Setting up in the board corner means your opponent is already going to be precariously close to the edge. Putting hazardous conditions on them is icing on the cake-- and, you don't necessarily need to sacrifice damage output to do it, since you can always choose to use your primary instead (e.g. against a Howlrunner swarm, which really doesn't care about actions or ions). Four point initiative bid is less effective than the seven point initiative bid in the previous list, but still probably pretty safe.

So, what's this look like? Easy as pie, that's what it looks like.

The setup:

I've got the fortress setting up in the right corner of the board. The white lines are VASSAL's range 1 and range 2 borders, for orientation's sake. You just want to set Moralo up as close to the edge as possible, and then put Bossk as close to Moralo as you can, at any angle less than 45 degrees. You do want him at an angle pointing towards the inside of the board, since you want to minimize your blind spots and you want to make the most of his arc, too.

The first move:

Moralo moves first and does a 1 left bank. Bossk does a 1 forward and overlaps; after clearing the collision, the fortress is set. How's it look?

It looks good. It looks like you can't approach without having two arcs on you in just about any direction.

What you can see in this image is that it's not completely flawless; there is one little arcless corner (to Bossk's left side) where a single small ship can just barely fit, and have arc on both without return fire. Can confirm, have succeeded. However, it is close enough to the board edge that it would require excellent technique on the opponent's behalf to exploit. Furthermore, to get there without being shot at for a turn requires a 5 forward plus a forward boost. A 3 forward plus 3 forward SLAM could do it too, if it wanted weapons disabled. Due to the difficultly in getting to this position, the opponent will telegraph if that's his strategy, and the fortresser can simply break the fortress position. It will not have much payoff, if any, for the enemy to get himself to this spot. You could equip bug zappers, if you felt like it, to further discourage the approach to this point-- it will kill Soontir in 2 turns if you do (the first turn he is out of range 1 of Moralo, if he's in the exact blind spot I mentioned. Which works well, because you don't want Moralo to get two ion tokens. Bossk doesn't care, in that regard).

This fortress strategy is not without its drawbacks. The most obvious one is likewise the most potent: a stress inducer will force the fortress to break apart on the following turn. Wingman's stress-clearing tactic is triggered at the start of the combat phase. Therefore, just about everything that can apply stress (Flechette Cannon, stressbot, Tactician, or even Mara Jade) will be able to take its toll.

Silver lining: Rebel Captive will most likely not work, since Bossk can shoot before Moralo and thereby squelch that issue. Flechette Torpedoes will also never work. Other silver lining is that, even though the build is designed to fortress, you may elect not to and still enjoy the benefits of a solid 24 hitpoint list with two 180-degree arcs. A stresshog will not last long against these ships, and its usual compatriots are not going to be able to significantly outmaneuver the YV when it is not in fortress mode.

If you insisted on fortressing in spite of a stress-heavy opponent, you could equip Inertial Dampeners on Moralo to allow you one extra turn of fortressing despite being stressed. This seems like a bad choice to me, but it's a possibility.

Ionizing Moralo will also force the fortress to break up. Thankfully, they're large ships, so they don't get ionized without some dedication. You should be able to put the hurt on the ionizer in the time it takes to get those tokens on Moralo, unless your opponent is running a control-heavy list with many ion elements to it-- in which case you should probably avoid setting up the fortress in the first place, and plan to dogfight instead.

The YV is a good ship. It can be used for more than just a fortress. But it also possesses many desirable qualities for setting one up very effectively, with the ability to put out a lot more pain than many other fortress styles. The Wingman fortress can be used to great effect with only two ships. Do you think this strategy will start to see more use?

At the end of the day, it is still just two ships that can only fire upon a max of two ships. While this may be effective against some lists/players.... it will not be for most.

I can get exploited, but not very easily. You can get a small base ship to k-turn in behind Bossk (or get behind in on the left flank) then just sit there bumping Bossk while you shoot at Eval. I think you should setup both in a corner and throw in Leachos with Wingman. That way both can sit there doing full stops without having to move. Leachos of course is in the very corner bumping the whole time.

Kind of like:

EDGE| [ ] [ Bossk ][ Eval ]

Leachos is the small base followed by Bossk in the middle and then Eval. You can angle them slightly to cover the right flank. But it would take some really careful piloting to get into the blind spot. A large base would still be getting hit. Leachos can shoot at them too. Leachos does a 1 forward to bump and you just sit there doing full stops.

Eval + HLC + Outlaw Tech

Bossk + Wingman + Outlaw + Tactical Jammer

Leachos + Wingman

If fortressing becomes a thing, a simple 3 point card will end the nonsense quickly. Ion Pulse Missiles.

I was thinking about a mando merc with wingman, k4 security, hlc sitting behind Moralo with hlc, outlaw tech, bossk (dependent on how he works, I recall there was some debate), gunner.

EDIT: Add Inertial Dampenders to the mando to give some help in setting up the fortress.

Tactical Jammer on the YV, two Y-wings, both with ion turrets, and one with wingman. Ys keep ramming the back of the YV. The Ys cover the rear, the YV obstructs attacks. Keep the grouping as close to the corner as you can. Opponent will have to do range 2-3 attacks to be able to safely manouver away from the edge. The Ys try to ionize the ships off the play mat if they get to close.

I didn't do the math(am at work right now) but seems like a good plan.

I don't think there is any real threat of actual fortressing as a full-game strategy. The list he put in the article was pretty neat, but I don't think it is terribly competitive if you just sit in the corner with it.

not terribly concerned about ships that I know I'll get to shoot at

moraloly speaking,though, fortressing can be quite eval

What do you think of this?

Moralo Eval — YV-666 (34)
-Ion Cannon (3)
-Bossk (2)
-Gunner (5)

Serissu — M3-A Interceptor (20)
-Wingman (2)

Kavil — Y-Wing (24)
-Wingman (2)
-Twin Laser Turret (6)

Total: 98 pts

Moralo flies forward a bit, then stops; Serissu and Kavil orbit him, fending off attacks against his rear while keeping him stress-free and letting Bossk and the Gunner (an ironic combo if there ever was one) help him paste everything that comes into his arc. As a bonus, Serissu helps her friends stay alive, and Kavil excels at doing an almost-guaranteed 2 points of damage to anything that gets behind him.

The last two points can be used for an initiative bid, or you may flavor to taste:

-Outlaw Tech (2) OR Tactician (2) on the YV-666

- Unhinged Astromech (1) OR R4 Agromech (2) OR Salvaged Astromech (2) on the Y-Wing.

It's been possible with Black Squadron Pilot and the Lambda for ages. All that's changed is that Scum can do it now.

And another thing hasn't changed: it still really, really sucks. That Hound's Tooth will get no actions and its wingman has incredibly predictable maneuvers.

• No actions, or a single focus if you take Outlaw Tech.
• Can be broken with double ion or a single stress token (seriously, you can wreck this thing with a freakin' 2pt Flechette Cannon.)
• A sitting duck for bombs.
• The HWK is trapped at Range 1, making it easy prey for splash effects.
• It's a YV-666. The base ship is 29 points. 12 health behind 1 agility. Think about how fast a Lambda goes down under focused fire. Think how fast a Falcon without any mitigation (when was the last time anyone played one of those?) goes down. This platform is durable when it's not facing overwhelming firepower.

You can't build a serious list around this tactic because it's too easy to counter and not particularly powerful. The two ship lists that dominate at the moment might potentially be given pause but any normal squad where the player isn't caught off balance by the move will chew it up.

Fortresses fail. In a game of maneuvers you're effectively putting your dial faceup every turn. It's not a power strategy. At its very best it'll be as good as a normal list and at its worst it's an actionless brick with a bullseye on it.

That all being said, there is another way. How many times have you wanted to take consecutive 0s on a Lambda? How many times have you repeatedly forward 1ed with Advanced Sensors and crashed into a furball? After flying it normally into battle, you find yourself wanting to stop rather than go past and try to turn around. The YV has no Advanced Sensors: if it hits something, no action. However, keep Kaa'to (Scum's cheapest EPT carrier) close by with Wingman and you can park next that furball as much as you want. When the fighting moves, so do you. Kaato has another nice synergy with the YV if you give him Bodyguard, as the YV is a ship that can make good use of it.

The Stop Maneuver, Outlaw Tech and Wingman effectively give you a white 0 maneuver, but getting into a fortress mentality vastly limits its potential. Fortresses are tempting to many because it feels like a exploit and the expectation there is that the exploit will be powerful. It's not. It's scratching most of the maneuvers off of your dial without need.

Every fortress is a tragic waste, and most setups that makes a fortress can be used to much greater effect by maneuvering normally and stopping as and when you need it.

I'm throwing my hat in the ring as a pro-fortress advocate.

The YV-666 offers an interesting opportunity, being the first ship that can huddle in a corner with only 1 wingman indefinitely that cannot be out-flown from that position. A Shuttle doing the same can be flanked, but the Hound's Tooth has that 180* arc.

Moralo's the best use of it, as he's got the boost from the cannon.

The best crew for him are likely to be Gunner, Outlaw Tech, and a wild-card that is up to you. ¹

^{Now then, how do we break this further?}

You want a maximum of 1 large ship in a Fortress, as 2+ are easily focused down at Range 3 of one and Range 4-5 of another.

You want most of your ships to be surprisingly mobile, as a Fortress from which you cannot escape is a prison. This also enables your ability to set up the fortress position over the course of the first turn more easily, if you can't fit it in the starting line-up.

You want as much of your fleet as possible have Buffed Damage and Buffed Defense.

These point at one ship in Scum: the SCYK.

They have a decent dial and the Barrel-Roll action, can equip a Cannon, can equip Wingman on two of its pilots, one of whom is Serissu, who buffs defense.

Sadly, you can't afford a Moralo Gunner + Outlaw Tech + HLC, a generic SCYK + Title + HLC, and Serissu + Title + HLC + Wingman in a 100 point fleet.

I swapped out Serissu's HLC for an Ion Cannon, and gave Moralo a 2 point Crewman as well. Bossk has great synergy with Gunner, and you want to move out of the fortress formation once combat starts anyway, but I think I'll go with a Tactician instead, as it gives a much greater chance of an opponent flying off the board.

See, the Ion Cannon and Tactician serve the same lord: The edge of the Board is a frightful thing to be approaching, and a Fortressed List forces you to do so, or simply not to engage.

...Maybe I should give them all Ion Cannons instead, and turn this into a Gravity Well.

Fortressing is the epitome of cowardness. But that is something that has already been discussed at length before. You only get to use it once against me.

Fortressing is the epitome of cowardness. But that is something that has already been discussed at length before. You only get to use it once against me.

Fortressing isn't cowardace. It is passive. There is a large difference.

Having the ability to dictate where an engagement occurs is incredibly powerful. This is simply the extreme of that: The engagement happens here, or it doesn't happen.

The frustration of your opponent isn't the ideal. Don't fortress casually.

• A Tie is worth 1 point to each player, whereas a Loss is worth 0 to the player who lost, meaning that the opponent who opts not to engage on your terms advances almost as poorly as though they had, in a tournament. Moreover, in an elimination round, the player with Initiative advances in the case of a tie, so a good Fortress list guarantees that you have this as well.
• Therefore, the opponents are incentivized to attack into you, if you declare that you will not attack into them.
• The ability to skirt Zugzwang (the compulsion to move even if it would put you in a worse position) allows a fortress to exist, but functionally it is simply a refinement of ships who start the game with 1 speed maneuvers to tempt you into their quadrant.

I'll allow that it makes you feel bad, but there is still counterplay here.

If your fleet likes to engage at Range 3, you'll do more damage to me than I will to you.

If your fleet has splash damage, you'll do more damage to me than I will to you.

If your fleet has movement restriction, you can make the field more advantageous to you than it is to me.

If your fleet has Ion (or Stress in some cases of Fortress), you can make me shatter my fortress against my will.

That's... a lot of stuff to kill me. Therefore, a Fortress List must be able to not fortress as well.

Fortress Lists are combos. Everything has to go right for them to work.

They use their list and the rules to ensure that as much as it can goes in their favor, but there is no such thing as a truly unbeatable combo, or everyone would do it, and the game would die.

I know there is counterplay, and not so difficult. The point is that it is abusing the rules to win, and I think pretty much everyone will agree on that... And I really really despise it.

But anyway, I apologize for having brought this up in this thread. My comment was really out of place, but I did not manage to resist posting at the time.

Move on, everyone with their opinions. The OP in itself is pretty interesting.

I know there is counterplay, and not so difficult. The point is that it is abusing the rules to win, and I think pretty much everyone will agree on that... And I really really despise it.

But anyway, I apologize for having brought this up in this thread. My comment was really out of place, but I did not manage to resist posting at the time.

Move on, everyone with their opinions. The OP in itself is pretty interesting.

Eh. I feel its more like abusing the mechanics than the rules , per say.

Turning a weird corner-case of consequences into a legitimate strategy is how Combos are created organically, after all.

I've done similar with the "Don't reveal a red maneuver while stressed" mechanic.

As the game has evolved, they've started to add more prohibitive text to the rules to prevent this sort of thing. SLAM, for instance, is probably safe from my style of shenanigans at the moment.

There is one form of Mechanics Abuse that I've found that I find abhorrent: manipulating your Margin of Victory to get into easier match-ups, thus maintaining your primary stat-line while playing slightly worse opponents than you need to. Full Win's a Full Win, but MoV determines who of the Full Wins you play next...

Rules abuse would be forcing an opponent to surrender because one of their ship-bases broke during play, as there are rules against playing with modified bases. Using it as a strategy would definitely be bad-sportsmanship, and covered thusly.

Rules abuse would be taking too much advantage with the "Nudge" graces on purpose. (Nudge graces: when you accidentally move a ship or obstacle when, say, measuring for range, of if your hand slips the template during a maneuver, et c.). Using it as a strategy would definitely be bad-sportsmanship, but would be almost indistinguishable from clumsy play.

meh

seems legit alright

meh

seems legit alright

There is one form of Mechanics Abuse that I've found that I find abhorrent: manipulating your Margin of Victory to get into easier match-ups, thus maintaining your primary stat-line while playing slightly worse opponents than you need to. Full Win's a Full Win, but MoV determines who of the Full Wins you play next...

I recall reading something recently pretty sure in the latest version of the rules the pairings in events is chosen at random within your points bracket, you are no longer pair with the nearest MOV in your point bracket, though I cant recall where I read it

Fortressing is the epitome of cowardness.

I don't think cowardice and plastic spaceships have much to do with each other.

Fortressing is the epitome of cowardness.

I don't think cowardice and plastic spaceships have much to do with each other.

I don't really care what you think, but thanks for correcting me (cowardice).

Cowardice? Someone keeping the plastic space ships stationary to better shoot your plastic space ships qualifies as cowardly? Seriously?

I get that people like to throw out the accusation of being a coward in an attempt to mold the opinions of others without arguing the merits of the situation, but I feel like you are really stretching it here.

Just troll them by deliberately taking the tie in a tournament.

Isn't "Fortressing", as staying in a corner and never move, not allowed by tournament rules?

In our LGS we interpreted it as "abusing an infinite combo" and thus falling into unsportsmanlike behaviour

It's allowed. The assessment of the designers is that it's legal but it's "not a very good strategy." They didn't see the need to create rules to prevent it when fortresses are simply not worth doing in the first place.

Don't see it as being cowardly, or as abuse (bumping enemy but also own ships has been a legitimate tactic since the start). I just.. can't see why one would ever do it, outside of a single time 'just to try it out'.

In casual games, the aim is to have fun. Reading through comments on threads such as these, it's quite clear opponents do not consider it to be fun to play against such a list.

In tournaments games, the aim is to have fun (for me at least!) but also places more emphasis on winning. Whether it is very effective or not is debatable (or more interestingly: testable), although I feel it could certainly work: despite a lack of Advanced Sensors on the ship, Scum has some great crew options in the form of Outlaw Tech and K4 Security Droid to get actions purely based on maneuvers - and it's not like an YV has any other action available to it. Fun for the opponent is as above. But even if it works and you don't care about the enjoyment your opponent gets out of it: what about yourself?

If this is your sole strategy, your first turn will consist of this fixed maneuver to get the fortress set up. After that, every single turn will be identical for the remainder of the game (or until 1 ship goes down). No dials to turn. No decision on the action to be taken. Just dice to roll. Turn after turn, game after game. For (e.g.) 5 games in a row. An entire day spent just rolling the dice... by the Great Gungan, that's one boring day.

Sean Dorcy on the NOVA podcast was talking about an IG88-B and YV-666 build. Here's a slight modification to make it work with the new PS6 pilot instead of Bossk:

(50) Moralo Eval + HLC + Outlaw Tech + Gunner + Bossk

(49) IG88-B + Wingman + HLC + FCS + Autothrusters

You could drop FCS for Advanced Sensors to make it an even 100 points, which means you always get your action, at the expense of having a worse follow-on shot if your first HLC shot misses.