It is early and locally those that managed to go to GenCon have been bringing back their shiny new ships and Twin Laser Turret mini swarms are starting to show up. These have been making even the lowly Spice Runner Hawks pretty dangerous when you run 4 of them. In particular the following lists are provoking some thoughts:

4 x Syndicate Thug + TLT + Unhinged Astromech

or

4 x Spice Runner + TLT + Recon Specialist.

These can put out a lot of damage at range 2 - 3, and are brutal against the old Wave 5/6 meta builds. So what would be the counter to these? They can still output damage even at range 1 with their primary weapons, so you would have to get behind them and at range 1.

One thought I had was:

4 x Gamma Squadron + Extra Munitions + Assault missiles.

or

3 x Gamma Squadron + Extra Munitions + Assault missiles

Captain Jonus + Squad Leader

Either of these will loose a ship, but hopefully cause enough damage if they fly in formation or cluster together. One could do a mixture of assault missles and bombs as well. What are some other thoughts?

It's an interesting idea, but I don't think assault missiles are your best bet, it's not in the best interests of TLT carriers to fly too close together (that way they can cover each others R1 blind spot) but I do think Bombers ate a good counter, they are beefy enough to tank some hits from the TLTS but cheap enough to bring a good number of ships. If you're concerned about TLTS my suggestion would be cluster missiles over the assault missiles since cluster really punish the favorite carriers of TLTS (Y Wings and K wings especially)

Maarek and Rexler, also Manglers and Proton Bombs.

Munitions Failure is an annoyingly common card against all probability, and if you can exacerbate it, HWKs in particular are useless.

Looking to try this:

Syndicate Thug

++Twin Laser Turret

++R4 Agromech

++BTL-A4

I LOVE running 4 thugs with R4, A4, and Ion Cannons. Got second place in a tournament with it. Looking to try this out and see if the damage boost can help alleviate the lesser control. Hardest match ups are lists with multiple small base arc dodgers. Fat Falcons and Decimators aren't even really an issue. If I can ionize them onto a debris field, I can win, albeit with some lost ships along the way.

My point here is that it probably has a lot of the same counters that it does already, even if you don't take the title. Arc dodgers will do their best to stay at R1 of you, even heavy turrets.

I would think that pilots such as Soontir, Jake Farrell and Psycho Tycho to name a few could be pretty good components to a list for combating the TLT's. Autothrusters is going to mitigate some damage and the high PS plus reposition and ability to close to range 1 and get into more of a safe zone against HWK's will be effective.

You will need to fly well but eliminating these ships before they fire is going to be key.

I would think that pilots such as Soontir, Jake Farrell and Psycho Tycho to name a few could be pretty good components to a list for combating the TLT's. Autothrusters is going to mitigate some damage and the high PS plus reposition and ability to close to range 1 and get into more of a safe zone against HWK's will be effective.

You will need to fly well but eliminating these ships before they fire is going to be key.

Pyscho Tycho will not fair well against a TLT spam list. First, he doesn't have AT, so he's limited to a single focus and evade. And now you have a 4 health ship taking 25% damage each time he fails to block an attack completely. And up to 8 attacks total on him. Sure, the point of Pyscho Tycho is to get in R1 (and he can easily do that), but especially against the Y wing variant, he can't even 1 round them with a Procket. Not to mention that at least 2 should be covering the R1 blind spot, so he'll be taking 4 shots. And in all honesty, he'll more than likely need his second action as a boost/TL so he won't have an evade token, and will likely spend the Focus on the attack. Not a good situation for Tycho.

Jake and Soontir are a different story though. Due to AT, they can defend against the TLT more easily, but they both make a name for themselves by not taking shots. And they're still going to have 4+ TLT shots coming at them (against a well flown swarm that is). 3F vs 3F is a 46% to hit. Sure, that doesn't bring into play AT, but still, there's a decent chance that they take 1-2 damage a round. And with only 3 or 4 health total, they're not going to live long enough to do any serious damage. Plus, a quality player will have at least one of the TLT's at R2 and in arc, so AT won't trigger.

My personal suggestion is to go with high health low agility ships and eat the damage. 2 damage a turn is probably less than they would take from most 3 dice attacks anyways.

The way to beat TLT is not high agi low hp ships I don't think, those are the ships it's best against since its so many chances to plink through for 1/3 or 1/4 of their hp. I also really really don't think btl is right with TLT as you're giving up a ton of threat area for not nearly as much benefit as ion turret.

Much like the HLC turret, go for the donut hole.

Much like the HLC turret, go for the donut hole.

The problem here is that unlike the HLC turret where there is only one of them out there, there are now a swarm of Y-Wings which may be covering each other's donut holes. Plus they still have a primary they can fire, unlike the HLC outrider. I think you have to tear through as quickly as possible to reduce the number of ships and cause as much damage as possible. I agree with others that it has to be high HP low agility ships with high damage output. If not you have to go the bomb route and try to eliminate ships by cluster mines, proton bombs, or any other means to get crits through.

Why not just go with 4 X-wings? They are faster than B-wings and can get into decent range quickly enough. They pack good firepower that A-wings don't. Just start concentrating your firepower on them and they should go down soon. Once you get close enough, they will have a hard time shaking you. Throw on the 2 droids that recharge shields for at least 2 of them and you should be alright.

Use Rebel death star and down a k-wing in 2 attacks, pray he doesn't roll more than 1 evade during these two shots.

(note: terrible idea)

I apologize as I'm sure it has come up but this seems an appropriate enough place to ask if thinking of counters but has ffg said how TLT interacts with the BTL title?

Much like the HLC turret, go for the donut hole.

The problem here is that unlike the HLC turret where there is only one of them out there, there are now a swarm of Y-Wings which may be covering each other's donut holes. Plus they still have a primary they can fire, unlike the HLC outrider. I think you have to tear through as quickly as possible to reduce the number of ships and cause as much damage as possible. I agree with others that it has to be high HP low agility ships with high damage output. If not you have to go the bomb route and try to eliminate ships by cluster mines, proton bombs, or any other means to get crits through.

You are still elminating 25% of their firepower.

I apologize as I'm sure it has come up but this seems an appropriate enough place to ask if thinking of counters but has ffg said how TLT interacts with the BTL title?

Same as everyother turret? It isn't really that difficult.

I apologize as I'm sure it has come up but this seems an appropriate enough place to ask if thinking of counters but has ffg said how TLT interacts with the BTL title?

Same as everyother turret? It isn't really that difficult.

So you get 4 attacks? I thought I'd seen something to the contrary.

*Edit keystroke error 3 attacks

A list that spams TLT has two choices, neither one optimal: spread your ships out to cover each other's donut holes but sacrifice overlapping fields of fire, or keep your ships close together but risk having someone jump to Range 1 and start taking unanswered shots.

Spamming TLT also pretty seriously limits your maneuverability and PS. So you want a list that punishes both of those strategies. To me, that means either a Hull Upgrade + Autothrusters Interceptor or an ACD Phantom to dance around the edges and then skip to Range 1, and something with enough bulk to tank fire from a couple of TLTs for a couple of rounds without collapsing.

For the maneuverable element, Fel or Whisper would work fine, but you actually don't need to bid very hard for PS to beat the PS1-2 of Rebel Operative/Spice Runner or Gold Squadron Pilot/Syndicate Thug. So I know it's unorthodox in comparison to the Wave 4-6 metagame, but you might try something like Sigma/Sigma/Bounty Hunter, or 2x Royal Guard/Patrol Leader.

Or on a completely different tack, just swarm them down. If you have four TLTs on 1-2 Agility, you don't want to see 7-8 TIEs or Headhunters coming at you. You have a hard cap on your damage of 8 per round, and a swarm can potentially hit you a lot harder--and with Y-wings or HWKs, you have very little chance of avoiding the joust it wants to see.

Maarek and Rexler, also Manglers and Proton Bombs.

Munitions Failure is an annoyingly common card against all probability, and if you can exacerbate it, HWKs in particular are useless.

And just because I was curious:

Maarek: 17%

Rest: 6%

I would think that pilots such as Soontir, Jake Farrell and Psycho Tycho to name a few could be pretty good components to a list for combating the TLT's. Autothrusters is going to mitigate some damage and the high PS plus reposition and ability to close to range 1 and get into more of a safe zone against HWK's will be effective.

You will need to fly well but eliminating these ships before they fire is going to be key.

Pyscho Tycho will not fair well against a TLT spam list. First, he doesn't have AT, so he's limited to a single focus and evade. And now you have a 4 health ship taking 25% damage each time he fails to block an attack completely. And up to 8 attacks total on him. Sure, the point of Pyscho Tycho is to get in R1 (and he can easily do that), but especially against the Y wing variant, he can't even 1 round them with a Procket. Not to mention that at least 2 should be covering the R1 blind spot, so he'll be taking 4 shots. And in all honesty, he'll more than likely need his second action as a boost/TL so he won't have an evade token, and will likely spend the Focus on the attack. Not a good situation for Tycho.

Jake and Soontir are a different story though. Due to AT, they can defend against the TLT more easily, but they both make a name for themselves by not taking shots. And they're still going to have 4+ TLT shots coming at them (against a well flown swarm that is). 3F vs 3F is a 46% to hit. Sure, that doesn't bring into play AT, but still, there's a decent chance that they take 1-2 damage a round. And with only 3 or 4 health total, they're not going to live long enough to do any serious damage. Plus, a quality player will have at least one of the TLT's at R2 and in arc, so AT won't trigger.

My personal suggestion is to go with high health low agility ships and eat the damage. 2 damage a turn is probably less than they would take from most 3 dice attacks anyways.

My bad. I never use him and said "Psycho" Tycho, forgetting that variant doesn't have the Autothrusters.

You are absolutely correct that those types of ships can die quickly though. I wasn't suggesting a list full of that style ship but rather a single one to compliment the rest of your list. The premise being that getting into range 1 on more than one of those ships eliminates the TLT attacks altogether. From there, you do have indeed have to withstand some attacks.

Personally I'm a long time B-Wing player and I would feel pretty comfortable with my chances taking 4 Daggers or even 4BZ against it. That certainly fits into your assertion that high hit point ships would do well.

A list that spams TLT has two choices, neither one optimal: spread your ships out to cover each other's donut holes but sacrifice overlapping fields of fire, or keep your ships close together but risk having someone jump to Range 1 and start taking unanswered shots.

Spamming TLT also pretty seriously limits your maneuverability and PS. So you want a list that punishes both of those strategies. To me, that means either a Hull Upgrade + Autothrusters Interceptor or an ACD Phantom to dance around the edges and then skip to Range 1, and something with enough bulk to tank fire from a couple of TLTs for a couple of rounds without collapsing.

For the maneuverable element, Fel or Whisper would work fine, but you actually don't need to bid very hard for PS to beat the PS1-2 of Rebel Operative/Spice Runner or Gold Squadron Pilot/Syndicate Thug. So I know it's unorthodox in comparison to the Wave 4-6 metagame, but you might try something like Sigma/Sigma/Bounty Hunter, or 2x Royal Guard/Patrol Leader.

Or on a completely different tack, just swarm them down. If you have four TLTs on 1-2 Agility, you don't want to see 7-8 TIEs or Headhunters coming at you. You have a hard cap on your damage of 8 per round, and a swarm can potentially hit you a lot harder--and with Y-wings or HWKs, you have very little chance of avoiding the joust it wants to see.

By the same principle, they won't much like seeing high-PS Advanced with ATC either, particularly given how vulnerable the Y-wing is to crits.

B-wings are good for their endurance, but they aren't that fast. It might take a while to get close enough to really smash them.

I apologize as I'm sure it has come up but this seems an appropriate enough place to ask if thinking of counters but has ffg said how TLT interacts with the BTL title?

Same as everyother turret? It isn't really that difficult.

So you get 4 attacks? I thought I'd seen something to the contrary.

*Edit keystroke error 3 attacks

3 attacks is correct. Both cards can be satisfied sufficiently without creating anything that isn't straightforward.

Remember though that if you are using both together you are going to vastly limit what you can do.

Take the Y-Wing for example. It would take a range 2 or 3 attack with 2 attack dice (not very effective) followed by 2 separate 3 dice attacks. Those all must happen in your front arc.

If the ship(s) it is trying to attack move to range 1 (in arc) of the BTL TLT Y-Wing the Y gets a 3 dice attack from its primaries but completely loses the TLT attacks.

Then if your enemies get outside your arc you are left with no attack at all. For a not terribly maneuverable ship that's not exactly a great thing.

It's situationally powerful but limited significantly enough to be balanced.

I still like AGI 3 a lot against TLTs. 3 dice unmodified have a high chance of getting 1 hit through against AGI 0 or 1. You don't make them pay for not having actions to mod both of their attacks. Additionally, if your greens go cold for a roll, you still only take a single damage.

Considering likely PS of massed TLTs, Sabers/Royal Guards with PTL and Autothrusters look strong. Obsidian swarm would be good, too.

Jonus brothers: Captain Jonus, 2x Onyx Sq. Pilots+HLC.

The way to beat TLT is not high agi low hp ships I don't think, those are the ships it's best against since its so many chances to plink through for 1/3 or 1/4 of their hp. I also really really don't think btl is right with TLT as you're giving up a ton of threat area for not nearly as much benefit as ion turret.

I partially disagree. While I wouldn't invest in expensive high agi, low hp ships such as Soontir, I think a bunch of cheap ones would do very well against TLTs. 5 Alpha Squadron pilots w/ AT would be rolling 15 red dice and would not only have the speed to get in close, but would be difficult for the TLTs to bring down quickly.

My take is that ships with good range control and Autothrusters will do very well against TLTs.

So As, Interceptors, Vipers, Iggy Pop.

A runner up would be any ship with good range control. Also, I have noted 3 dice turret attacks struggle versus 3 agility ships, especially with limited actions on the attacker side (Think Ion Cannons versus TIE Fighters). Although the two attacks may over come that a bit. I should run some numbers sometime.