So I've been considering a list for the Massing at Sullust tournament that could take out the inevitable Rhymer ball.

Assault Frigate Mark IIA - 114pts

Advanced Projectors

Point Defense Reroute

Intel Officer

Paragon

Enhanced Armament

Assault Frigate Mark IIB - 134pts

Garm Bel Iblis

Electronic Countermeasures

Adar Tallon

Gallant Haven

X-17 Turbolasers

Flight Controllers

Squadrons -51pts

Dutch

Wedge

Tycho

Total = 299pts

Objectives

Advanced Gunnery

Contested Outpost

Minefields

I chose Advanced Gunnery so that Paragon can dish out some extra hurt. Contested outpost would be nice to park both of my whales next to it and claim those sweet victory tokens. Minefields was thrown in to limit my opponent's maneuver options, which I figure will benefit me as I only have 2 ships. Dutch + Wedge + Flight Controllers = dead squadrons. What do you guys think? Is it doable?

The only thing is, most Rhymer builds will also utilize a few TIE advance as well (me personally, I use 1 reg and vader). If they utilize them properly, they can tie up at least Dutch and Wedge for a few turns, which will allow the bombers to do their job.

But with you running Tycho, you may be able to keep them tied up, due to tycho not being able to be tied up. But if they are also running Admiral Chirpy, then you are going to have a really tough time keeping the bombers at bay.

I would be interested in doing some tests with my current Rhymer List against this.

Thanks for the reply! I need to test it out first to see how it handles not just Rhymer, but other lists as well. I know Demolisher is a guaranteed in the tournament scene. But the Gallant Haven plus the aces should be able to weather the storm up close, with Paragon hanging back. I will try it out next chance I get.

Gallant Haven only works within short range of your mothership. Rhymer is such a pain cuz he works out to medium range. As such I very much doubt if any dogfights will take place within short range of Gallant Haven so I would save those juicy points if I were you. Same with Point Defense Reroute. It only works at short range. There is no reason for Rhymer to close to short range with your ships. Cash our PDR and Haven and grab yourself another A-Wing and have more of an initiative bid.

Humble opinion of a big dumb mammal. Best of luck!

I'm trying like hell to crack this nut myself. I've had a 2 VSD with 8 fighter setup (one group of 4 was a Rhymer ball of 2 T/Bs and 2 T/A).

With a fighter screen with the ball, you'll need to commit AA fire from your ships to help, or you need to be running a lot of fighters. Or risk ignoring them. Not a great plan...

It depends what you want to do to it really.

If you really want to kill it, use dutch and wedge, some Xs and make sure you have either AF MKA, or escort frigates for supporting anti squadron fire. I personally find dutch and wedge OP and inefficient against any imperials but the Advanced which you will see in a decent Rhymer Ball. As such this approach will suffer against no fighter/light fighter builds.

If you want to neutralise it, just feed it A wings. Forgot Tycho. People rave about him but a rhymer ball will eat him up, and there likely won't be many other threats for him to jump out of engagement and intercept, so it's just wasted points.

I really rate 4 A wings. If the enemy takes a lot of fighters, throw them in all together and they will take a few out before they die, and your opponent won't have much net gain. If they take a rhymer ball you can pin it down each turn for the 4 most critical turns (usually turns 2-5). If the enemy takes a small screen of fighters you can chase them down and pick them off. If the enemy takes no fighters, then that is a mere 44 points. Any pot shots you can take at their shields earns you those points back.

What if you dropped GH and PDR as BigBearCDN suggested, and just plan on feeding some A-wings to the Rhymer ball 1 or 2 at a time, keeping them locked up and countered? That should buy you enough time to kill some ships.

If you're focused on killing fighters, upgrade the IIB to a IIA as well, and start throwing AA shots at the Rhymer ball while they're engaged by A-wings. Once engaged the A-wings won't need squadron command support. Between all the counter attacks and the AA fire you should be able to take out the Rhymer ball.....assuming your opponent commits it forward.

Only problem with your idea Maturin is with Chiraneau the bombers can move out of engagement so you can't lock them down. They basically get free rein. You just have to keep using those squadron commands to move and shoot the bombers. Or eliminate the carrier ASAP. Easier said than done

Right, I keep forgetting about Chiraneau. We haven't seen him much in our local area...

Thanks for all the great input! I will rework the list and post it up soon. I figure if the Imperial player is so focused on spending squadron commands on the Rhymer ball that his capital ships won't be as scary. And if I just kill Rhymer then it will make it a little easier

Remember even with Chiraneau the bombers can't be engaged when they shoot so with a few cleverly placed a-wings you can block shots, especially if he holds the bombers back to avoid AA fire before going for the Hail Mary.