Hello everybody,

I'm from Germany and no native speaker, so pls excuse for my bad english. I'd appreciate feedback to improve my english. On 1st or 2nd September starts the Galactic Open Cup with Team Covenant on Vassal. As a father and worker I rarely go to tournaments because they always eat up a whole day/weekend. Therefore, such events are particularly great for me, because here I can participate in a (more) family friendly way. In January this year I started with X-Wing and got hooked up on Decimator with Whisper, later with Soontir and played those more or less successfully (also because of the absence of any other similarly effective empire tournament list). Now I want to become "serious" and systematically prepare for a tournament. I count on your help in order to learn as much as possible.

My first step is to search for a list an there's still about a week's time to choose. Chiraneau+Soontir in the standard version (Wave 6 Meta) starts to get old and is no longer competitive in the new Twin Laser Turrent (TLT) Meta, I believe. Therefore a new list is needed. I would prefer an imperial list, but I am also open to Scum and Rebels. I have no illusions as

far as my skill goes: It classifies as mediocre and I wont get in more than an average of 3-5 games a week (a lot on Vassal), so better no complex or "difficult" lists. I need something that also excells at intermediate skill level for an chance of victory. I have made a preliminary selection of some archetypes:

Oicunn / Kenkirk / Chiraneau + Vader / Soontir with Emperor and Engine

Upgrade or possibly Ion Projector (Slayers of the Republic by SableGryphin)

Pro: I have a lot of experience with Decimators and the Emperor's great

fun. Vader does damage and Soontir survives the TLT barrage well enough.

With boost I could try to get to range 1 against TLTs. Trapping aces

with Oicunn and Ion Projector is great fun, if it works Last, but not

least this list is my favourite fluff wise.

Cons: TLTS or Tempest Squadron with Accuracy Corrector tare the

Decimator apart Another point: It's another 2 Ship build and some

day I'll really need to learn how to play with more ships.

Vader or Soontir + 3x Tempest with Accuracy Corrector

Pro: Constant and reliable damage from Tempests. has

good damage output and engine and VI to hunt enemy aces. TLTs will be

shot down by the Tempests fairly quickly. I think the list is also

playable with medium skill level and in fact would probably be perfect

for a 5-7ish games in a row tournament where fatigue is more of an issue.

Still it should forgive some mistakes. Tempests are also good for blocking.

And I like Vader and Soontir :-)

Cons: 4 ships ... I will end up bumping like hell. Vader as the

centerpiece of the list certainly will be target number 1 and I do not know if I

manage, to keep him alive. That's why I tend to Soontir because I

know how to fly him, and he seems better to me against TLT because of autothrusters.

4x TLT HWK with a recon specialist each or 4x TLT Y-Wing with 1xR3A2 and

perhaps 1x ion bomb

Pro: Very constant damage output, possibly with Focus for offense and

defense. So far I found no real hard counter list.

Cons: The HWK or Y-Wing Dial is quite limited and I'll have to learn

flying completely a new with 4 RW 2-3 turrents. In addition, the list is

not so appealing in terms of fluff. Could have to be rather monotonous to me.

2x TLT Y-Wings with R4 Aggromech + 4 Z-95

Pro: TLT damage output augmented with Aggromech is strong. In addition,

the Zs for blocking and shielding the Y-Wings.

Contra: 6 ships ... these are 4 more than I'm used to. The list could

feel a bit dull, because neither the Zs nor the Ys are

particularly manoeuvrable.

Jax Strom Kagi (possibly with Emperor)

Pro: An imperial control list and featuring my beloved shuttle.

Cons: Very demanding to fly ... maybe an excessive demand and thus

a fun killer.

Han with 3PO R2D2 with Miranda (TLT + Engine)

Pro: Very very tough. TLT is always good and Miranda can boost

those TLT opponents and attack with 4 dice. And I like the fluff.

Cons: Again 2 ships, so not such a big learning experience. Since the

matches are likely untimed, I can not hope for time to aid me.

The Games could also drag on forever, which again collides with the

family-friendly aspect.

IG88B + 2 TLT Y-Wings or Boba Fett (Sablegryphins list)

Pro: IG88 with autothrusters will do well against TLT. High damage output.

Boba would be great for fluff alone. Under this aspect I find the list

especially cool.

Cons: hard to play straight with Boba. Otherwise certainly solid ground.

However, I have little experience with the IGs and think they need a lot

of practice.

Soontir + Jax + Turr

pro: a TLTs nightmare

con: hard to fly - very unforgiving. Only 9 hitpoints.

Quite a few choicse and I've not yet listed any bombs list that would appeal to me. There are currently just crazy many options and I can hardly decide. That's why I need your help. What do you think? Which list offers the best compromise between fun, efficiency and learning effect? Have I missed any lists that could fit my profile?

I had fun with Vader + VI, title, adv targeting, Sootir+ the usual upgrades and a shuttle with palpatine. I haven't figured out if it's more fun with an engine on vader or the shuttle, but it was a blast to play and only a little challenging to fly.

Flew against the Tempest Vader list today and I must say 3 ACs is pretty scary when all you have are AGI 1 ships. They can take evade every turn and not worry about whiffing their shots and Vader....he's just a beast. I flew a 3 ship TLT list with Miranda and Horton. Did pretty well initially and destroyed a Tempest but I lost my Gold pretty quickly after that. We didn't manage to finish the game but he had a significant advantage by the time we called it.

Thanks Wraithdt for your short report. Just to clarify: You flew against me in fact and I asked You to post something over here. I set up the small rocks in a line so that they dont get in my way. Wraithdt set up a small cluster next to his one corner, where he placed his guys pretty close to each other. My attack vector was pretty bad and I basically engaged him within the small cluster of rocks and didnt have good arcs. Vader broke the formation early and circled around the enemy to attack from behind. I decided to take out the Stress Y-Wing 1st. That worked out, but I lost 1 Tempest. I often blocked my self, especally Vader blocked those Tempests. After that I started hunting down Miranda, but then had to go to work.

What I learned from this game:

- Don't engage TLTs with a formation within rocks

- Always remember, that Vader can block the Tempests in the next turn, when planing moves

How I want to do it next time:

- Set up more into the corner and slow roll, until enemy TLTs have passed the asteroids.

- Plan ahead for the next turn and ask myself: Will Vader block the Tempests and the other way round?

- Perhaps set up Vader out of formation with the Tempests from the start. Had a bit of a hard time to let him break out of formation and nearly blocked myself again.

I had fun with Vader + VI, title, adv targeting, Sootir+ the usual upgrades and a shuttle with palpatine. I haven't figured out if it's more fun with an engine on vader or the shuttle, but it was a blast to play and only a little challenging to fly.

Thanks for the suggestion. Im also thinking about that list. Perhaps it is a little bit more straight forward than the Jax, Strom + Shuttle list. But then the shuttle wont have sensor jammer.

I had fun with Vader + VI, title, adv targeting, Sootir+ the usual upgrades and a shuttle with palpatine. I haven't figured out if it's more fun with an engine on vader or the shuttle, but it was a blast to play and only a little challenging to fly.

Thanks for the suggestion. Im also thinking about that list. Perhaps it is a little bit more straight forward than the Jax, Strom + Shuttle list. But then the shuttle wont have sensor jammer.

I've played the list a handful of times now and I've noticed that the shuttle is often ignored so I decided to run it with anti pursuit lasers. It's now a strong blocker that can guarantee a hit if necessary. I also dropped VI and engine for predator and an initiative bid. 97 points for 2 PS9S and a palpmobile. Still needs tuning but continues to be interesting.

There are a number of good options here. I believe Emperor is really solid, so if you are really wanting to take an Empire list, A decimator w/ Soontir support is still going to do a lot of work, even against TLTs. Soontir can dive in so quick, and with stealth and thrusters, and (if you decide to run him) emperor support, he is really, really, REALLY hard to hit. It may weigh on your mind a bit to remember to use the Emperor, but if you just look at the emperor as an additional autothruster for soontir that is available once per round, it might make things simpler.

I actually entered a list similar to your 2 TLT Ys + 4 Zs list into the galactic open myself, but I fly rebel Ys with R2 mech, and my Zs are half tala, half bandit. It's a great list. I've even won some games I knew I shouldn't have, and that's a sign you have a really good list when things like that happen. If you drop thematics, I think this is your best choice. But if you want to stick with thematics, having the Emperor around on a Fat decimator is great fun, and pretty competitive.

Today I got in two more games on Vassal.

I played against some crazy custom design 3 X-Wing Build.

In the 1st game, I played 4Z 2Y(TLT+Aggromech). The game ended very quickly with my opponent giving up afer like the 4th round, because his named X-Wing died in the concentrated fire of my Zs + 4 TLT shots. I was very suprised about how much punch the TLTs had even against this custom design X-Wing that seemed to be built as anti TLT fighter. Did not really learn a lot from this game, except again how powerful TLT is.

In the second game, I played Vader + 3 Tempests. Killed one of his generic X-Wings while losing a Tempest and had his named X-Wing down to 2 HP, when I had to go to work. Blocked myself again, but ironically in an attempt not to block myself, where I totally missjudged distances. I somehow have a lot of an harder time to judge the barrel rolls on the screen than on the table. In this game I still used evade action on my Tempests stubornly all the time. I realised in this game, however, that I should sometimes use focus instead, when it's unlikely, that the Tempest is shot at this round, e.g. if another one is wounded and the opponent will probably chose this one instead.

I just played vs your Shuttle/Jax/Strom build, it was a very nice game.

Now I'll wait for your report then add my consideration.

Anyway, thanks for playing!

I just played vs your Shuttle/Jax/Strom build, it was a very nice game.

Now I'll wait for your report then add my consideration.

Anyway, thanks for playing!

Yes, thanks for posting. Here comes my match report:

LouisCypher played 3 A-Wings (Jake + Tycho + Green) and had initiative, so Tycho and Jake flew after all my ships with both having proton rockets. Tycho was especally interesting having experimental interface with daredevil, so he was super maneuverable. Both A-Wings put their Proton Rockets into my shuttle and it died in the 5th or 6th round. Meanwhile it wasnt that easy to get those A-Wings in arc, but was doable and I hit Jake with some luck and killed his stealth device. The game took pretty long and he forced me to do several K-Turns to keep him in arc. It was tedious. After aprox 1,5 hours I had to go and he had killed Jax + Kagi at that point with a full Tycho and a Green with, I think, 1 shield left. His Jake was also dead. I think he had pretty much won the game.

There are also lady luck stats of the game here: http://sozin.pythonanywhere.com/game?id=3477- Thx for telling me about this, Louis. If I understand those stats right, I got quite good attack dice, but in the second half pretty bad defense dice.

I did a lot of mistakes. What I learned:

1) Place asteroids even more out of the way

2) Strom and Jax should fly right into those A-Wings preventing them from shooting their missiles (I realised after the game, that jax could have stopped them from using their focus to shoot, I guess)

3) The list has serious weakness against PS9 / PS8 with initiative ... being at 100 points doesnt really help here aswell.

What I want to do different:

1) Fly super aggressively with Jax und Strom to get into range 1 and bet on that my opponent will focus the shuttle

All in all the list is great training for one's maneuvering skills. With a lot of finesse this list can be pretty good, but it feels to me like an uphill battle and I decided not to pick it up for the Glalactic Open. So let's see, what is the status in list choices:

Still in the race: Vader/Soontir + 3 Tempests, Vader/Soontir + Deci, Han + Miranda

Out of the race: 4 TLT, 2 TLT + 4 Z, Jax+Strom+Kagi, IG88 + Boba

I dopped the idea to play TLT myself ... Im somehow still mad at it, because it ruined the decimator pretty much and my gut feeling tells me, that it will soon bore me. I want at least one named pilot. I also dropped IG88 + Boba, because I consider it as too difficult.

And there is also a new lists in the race:

Chewie with Luke + 3 Talas - It came to my mind, that I posses custom painted modells of those and it would be brilliant, if those see a little more playtime.

Hello again!

I think that your bigger mistake was turning the shuttle towards the center of the battlefield, as that move gave you 2 big problems:

- It allowed my As to focus fire on him

- It put him in a bad position in the asteroid field.

Especially when carrying the Emperor, you want your PopeMobile as far as possible from the heat of the battle.

This could have been risky for your Adv and Int, but still you had your 3 greens and the evade option to keep them as safe as possible while keeping modifying a die per turn because of the Evil Sith Lord.

Note that Carnor does not prevent from firing Prockets, but just to use it to modify the result, as they only need to own a focus to be fired: of course that focus must be taken prior to entering range 1.

With Kagi ability to force TL on him, it would have been hard to shot them on the other two ships of yours.

Sensor Jammer didn't helped you too much, too, as I always had a focus (and ofted a TL) to bring the focus you changed back to a hit and Carnor was usually far enough not to affect the result.

I really wanted to keep Jake or Tycho for the endgame, as vs any one of your ships I'd have had a big advantage because of moving last and repositioning abilities. The ship that scared me less was Strom, because of the 2 dice attack and the less movement options (and the lack of PTL), so I decided a target priority (Kagi-->Carnor-->Strom) and I was lucky enough to be able to follow my plan,

It was a nice game anyway, and you played well except for that tactical mistake in the beginning, which probably costed you the game.

Thanks again for playing and see you soom for a rematch!

L.

And 2 more games:

1st Game with Vader vs 3 Tempests against Chewie + 3 Talas. We met in the asteroid field and he did a brilliant move. Flew a 1 forward with chewie and I would have sworn, that it lands him on an asteroid, but it fit very very closely. This way he killed a Tempest within the 1st firing round before it could even attack. I could not come back from this disadvantage. I should habe attacked the Talas perhaps, because his chewie was far away in the beginning, but my plan was to attack Chewie straight out and I was too stubborn there. Here are the stats: http://sozin.pythonanywhere.com/game?id=3487

In the 2nd game I picked up Chewie + 3 Talas vs. Palpatine Shuttle, Soontir and Echo. I barely didnt kill the shuttle in a joust in the 1st round of shooting (1 Hull left), but it died the second turn. By then my Chewie simply had eaten to much concentrated fire from Soontir + Echo and from there it went downhill. Stats: http://sozin.pythonanywhere.com/game?id=3488

2 more losses against very good playing opponents. Chewie + Talas is definatelly still in the run. Vader + Tempests, too. Those 2 are my favourites as of now. There are 2 more days to decide.

One more game. This time against Han + 4 Talas. Han had lone wolf, 3po, gunner, title and engine.

I played this one:

N’dru + Cluster Missiles + Lone Wolf + glitterstim (25)
Torkil + Ion + Greedo (25)
x2 Y-Wing + TLT + Unhinged Astromech (50)

We played left vs right and I was on the left. The asteroid field became pretty dense, but there was also a large open area on the right. I set up my Turrents facing downwards, while he built everything in the bottom right corner. N'dru went to the very top left corner facing right. We both slow rolled and I turned and went up with all my guys. We met more or less in the open in the upper half. I had quite some dice luck and managed to unleash glitter stim cluster missiles on han, unfortunatelly without lone wolf. Han also gut ioned and landed on an asteroid, but killed my Torkil with a major blast doing 2 hits and a direct hit thanks to Greedo. By then his han was down to low HP, sitting on a rock and my Ys + N'dru were nearly at full health. He conceded at that point. Here are the stats: http://sozin.pythonanywhere.com/game?id=3515

I was happy with my performance. bmf is a formidable player and a very nice guy, who helped me a lot improving my skill. Next time I will try to set it up like that N'dru and the rest of the squad come from two different sides in a pincer movement to ensure, that N'dru has the advantage of lone wolf when firing off his cluster missiles. Otherwise I was ok with my performance.

I wonder if the squad would do better with Spice Runners instead of the Ys and/ort another TLT instead of N'dru. But im confident that I'm looking at a solid squad, that I could even field with my actual collection of minis. The other tempting list for the cup is definatelly Vader + 3 Tempests, which I still consider the easier list. So It comes to a showdown between those 2 for the cup and I want to decide until tomorrow morning.

I'll do a quickly comparison of weaknesses and :

Torkil + TLT + (N'dru)

Strengths:

- a newish threat ... most ppl wont have practiced against this that much yet

- consistent damage from TLTs with good donut protection (N'dru + ion mux). If ppl go after the Aces, those TLTs will hammer them the whole time. If they hunt my TLTs, my aces will punish them.

- Can effectively counter aces thx to Mux's ability

- Mux + N'dru can run down an enemy TLT quite easily

- 25 Hitpoints with 6 defense dice is solid (4 Ys have 32, but less defense dice)

- Very versatile squad that will train my maneuvering skills

Weaknesses:

- N'dru's lone wolf could be hard to take advantage of with a 4 ship build

- Mux is quite squishy, especally with Greedo. But he has no meat shield here, because Y-Wings will want to fly behind him

- N'dru quite squishy, too. Ppl could focus him and kill him, before he can land the alpha strike

- requires a lot of maneuvering finesse and range control

Vader + 3 Tempests with AC

Stengths:

- Easy to fly

- very consistent damage output

- Good against ppl that use sensor jammer to build against TLTs ... AC completely counters this upgrade

- PS 11 Vader can outfly nearly every other ace in the game

- Tempests can live through quite some damage (20 Hitpoints total + 12 defense dice with Tempests able to take defensive actions)

- 98 points initiative bid makes movement for my Tempests before those TLT Ys etc. possible. They will be ok hunting those down. 3 Tempests should be able to kill one TLT in 2 turns on average.

- Only very small attack dice luck required

Weaknesses:

- Sucks to have only 2 attack dice vs. ships with 3 agility (e.g. interceptors or bots)

- not so great maneuverability

- vulnerable to stress, especally Vader

- much less versatile like the alternative

I think in a standard tournament environment I would probably take Vader + his escort, because it requires less finesse and therefor is less tiring. In the environement of the Galactic Open, however, there will be lass fatigue involved, hopefully. I'm really having a hard time to decide. What's your oppinion?

And another game with vader + 3 tempests. Here are the stats: http://sozin.pythonanywhere.com/game?id=3516

Played against Jake + 3 TLT Y-Wings. I gave myself ini and totally forgot, that dead ships can shoot one last time, if they are killed by the same pilot skill. Will take Ini next time. Otherwise he killed Vader quickly in a TLT barrage. It was a very open field and I thought, this would be to my advantage, but it went the other way, especally bec my guys went first and i had to predict him more, than he had to predict me with his turrents. It was a quick slaughter and I conceded after losing my 1st Tempest against Jake. Crushing defeat, but learned a lot and still think the Tempests can hold up to those TLTs, but it requires training. But I'm also very tempted to join the TLT faction.

I will use a mind trick to make my final decision. For the next 12 hours, I will pretend to go with Vader + 3 Tempests. It will be like testing a news pair of shoes. Then I will pretend to take the TLT + Torkil squad for 12 hours aswell and watch my emotions during this time. Until then I'd appreciate your input.

I would rather take the vader squad, but largely because of the extra positioning options. It also looks more challenging and rewarding to fly.

I dont have that much imput with so much of the wave7 meta being up in the air, but i would argue that TLT squads will get countered hard in the near future because everybody will begin to build against them. Therefore i wonder if its really worth practicing this squad. Up to you, but Vader+3Tempest will always be a solid choice and should serve you well for months to come. On the other hand its also harder to fly than 4 turrets, but you already know that.

So yeah, you might surprise some people in the beginning, but for the future id go with the latter squad.

Thanks a lot for your input!

Today I played my last two games before signing up:

N'Dru Suhlak (17)
Lone Wolf (2)
Cluster Missiles (4)
Glitterstim (2)

Syndicate Thug (18)
Twin Laser Turret (6)
Unhinged Astromech (1)

Syndicate Thug (18)
Twin Laser Turret (6)
Unhinged Astromech (1)

Torkil Mux (19)
Ion Cannon Turret (5)
Greedo (1)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

It was great fun. I won the 1st game vs. a Tie Swarm and lost the second to a very similar list. It was fun and I enjoyed how versatile the list is and finally decided to bring it to the Galactic Open. At the same time I think Celes is right, that I should not lose sight of the Vader + 3 Tempests Squad. I decided to do so, when I realised, that I enjoy the list, even when I'm losing. So we are in stange 2: Preperation for the 1st game. Tomorrow evening I will FINALLY be able to play on a real table again with some friends. I will playtest my Glactic Open List there, but also others. I hope to know who will be my 1st opponent by the weekend in order to analyse his (or her) list.