Off topic-ish, but I'd be delighted to have another HWK title, exclusive to Scum.

As for filler, I feel Y's and Z's fill the roles nicely, given the plethora of options; feedback, turret, hot shot, etc. Kihraxz and loaded M3s may be more spendy in general, but not outside the area of a Y-Thug. TLT Thugs are awesome, but it really depends on the rest of your list and how they complement one another.

Solid points about illicit slot adding diversity on the Z's. I guess I just wish they had a 3-primary low-20's efficient filler like a B.

You mean like the Kihraxz?

23 point 5 PS Black Sun Ace can take an elite pilot talent, and an illicit upgrade. There's a lot you can do with that.

There are worst picks than 1 or 2 Cartel Marauders as filler.

Not arguing that Xizor isn't good, he is good he just isn't great. Yes his ability can be useful but late game when he's the only ship left it doesn't do anything. Great anchors have to be able to make it to the late game and then excel at closing the game out. No one denies Xizor's abilities to make it to the late game but afterwards he doesn't cut it like you're traditional anchors.

Great anchors have to be able to do most of the following extremely well to close out games.

1. Arc dodge

2. Hit hard

3. Avoid damage

4. Regen shields

Xizor at ps9 can only boost or barrel roll not both which takes his arc dodging ability down. He won't be able to get out of some arcs as consistently. Xizor at ps 7 obviously has a very uphill battle against you ps8-10 anchors.

As far as hitting hard he's only a little bit better than fel because he can have a focus + TL shot every turn but unfortunately there goes your defense token. Whisper throws more dice with a TL, Corran shoots twice, Vader get's auto crits. Xizor does have a respectable agility value and with thrusters he can be ahad to hit but not being able to token up or regen shields hurts him and keeps him from being top tier. An evade is guaranteed damage reduction. Xizor can't reduce any without relying on dice. Fel, whisper, and vader have evade and can always cancel 1 damage which is huge late game which makes them great anchors/closers. Corran and Han cancel 2 damage a turn with evade + shield regen and han can even cancel 3 if he wants. That stuff makes those guys late game beasts and keeps Xizor into the mid tier region. Again he's not bad he just isn't in the same league. I think he is capable of winning store and regional tournaments but I don't think we will ever see him win Gencon or world's.

TLDR Xizor is good not great. Just not in the same league as traditional closers.

Wave 7 was the wave of the turret.

Bombers? What are those? You can't drop bombs in space where there is no gravity.

Missiles, Torpedoes? Yeah, we don't really use them for any useful purpose.

I don't think you guys are building scum lists right. Hear me out.

Scum doesn't need an anchor like the other factions. Stop trying to make what works for the other factions work for scum. I have seen two naked generic starvipers carry a whole match. I have watched N'dru one shot soontir fel. Every houndstooth pilot is deadly in their own way. I've seen Kavil, palob and mux wipe 4BZ in 20 minutes, at a clip on one b-wing per turn.

Scum is good. Just not in the way you want them to be. So it's time to adapt.

....because it's the only time that's happened. I haven't seen a 3-amigo scum list do well outside of a few very gifted players. I know that's what the faction is built around, but that has not played out competitively.

I just can't get on the "two TLT Ys" bandwagon. TLTs succeed due to overwhelming amounts of dice, and while two TLTs is still a hefty chunk of dice, it isn't overwhelming.

Not to mention, it's reliant on a pair of ships with 1 agility each. One of those Ys is possible to get murdered after getting 0-1 TLT attacks in, leaving you with a single TLT Y that can either be then focused down or ignored depending on the situation. There's just too much out there than can kill a Y in a single turn. Heck, part of my current build with Fett is that he can zip in and dump silly amounts of Cluster Missiles on a TLT carrier's head. It's not even luck at that point, it's Fett getting great economy and dice modifiers to rip through a low Agility ship, leaving it easy pickings for anyone else in the squads to finish off (typically that turn before the Y ever shoots).

With a pair of Ys, I think you still can't beat Warthogs. A little cheaper to put on the field (so some points to go elsewhere), and ions are, well... ions. They're awesome when used proper.

Do remember that Xizor's ability doesn't work against TLTs.

He has Autothrusters and 3 greens, which will still help, but against a lawnmower list, he has no special at all. Well, other than against range1 primary weapon shots, I guess.

The problem with StarVipers is that they lack anything 'special' beyond their pilot abilities. Virago is one of the most disappointing titles to date - for a unique, costs-points-to-use title, I'd have preferred it 'break the rules', like Moldy Crow, Dauntless, or the like did. "Add extra stuff to your upgrade options" is B-wing/E2 level, and that's mostly reasonable because it's adding to generics.

I think scum has a filler problem. Pirates are alright, but they just don't bring anything extra over the TLT's and against certain targets they are flat out inferior. The generic starvipers and Kihraxz just don't cut it at all for competitive play.

Has anyone had better luck by switching away from TLT in scum?

Don't mind the fad of the week... you know **** well good ole THUGS with BTL & Agro + Engin is de-way... backed up with a turret or two of any flavor in the mix. Kavil & friends are large and in charge here too.

The rest is just down to great user skill.

*Old Fat-man Ramblings Warning!*

You know back in my day...

Playing these cute special squads like Y-Wing Thugs say, it puts me in mind of whuppin space marine's asses with Dark Eldar... way back in the day. You HAVE TO PLAY DAT GAME RIGHT!

(of course I got my Dark Eldar's asses whupped plenty too, but it was all great and I won more than I lost!) I TRIED TO BE CUTE ...once in a while, and got murdered!

The point is know what your ships do, and make a plan based on DAT... then stick to it. Yeah, Yeah... Blah NEW this or that. These NEW thises and that's need to be used slowly to test them out.

Just because a thing is new does not mean that it is all of a sudden better than what you already got! TLT is fine but it is not all of a sudden going to make anyone a grand master champion.

I see nothing wrong with it. TLT are now one of best things in the game. Honestly, I have a tough time not putting two in a list, they are undercosted and slightly overpowered.

Use an abuse them as you will

That's not the point he is making. Yes they are good, but this isn't about tlt. It's about scum having a complete lack of options when it comes to quality filler and support roles. No real flankers or support is a problem for any faction.

You can only do so much with HWK and Ywings as support. Both of which can be shut down.

Do remember that Xizor's ability doesn't work against TLTs.

He has Autothrusters and 3 greens, which will still help, but against a lawnmower list, he has no special at all. Well, other than against range1 primary weapon shots, I guess.

Being good at hunting doughnut holes and being good at hiding 2-4 donut holes are very different things.

I think I like one TLT more than I like two. I've had success with using 3 Zs and 1 Y. It leaves you with 40 points to spend on a mini-anchor.

I usually split the 3 Zs and the 40 point ship on far flanks. The Y starts with either group but usually splits to the center. Opponents have to commit to one or the other flank and the Y can circle around behind depending on where they commit.

I don't really like spending much more than 40 points on scum ships because I feel they get diminishing returns. But there are a lot of great candidates:

39: Guri w/ Lone Wolf, Virago, Sensor Jammer, Autothrusters.

-if you're looking for an immunity to TL spam, she's great for it. If she can get into range 1, she'll tear them to pieces.

38: Trandoshan Slaver w/ Bossk, Gunner

-this buzzsaw barn can lay some lumber and I've really liked them on the flank. It can shoot up the flank really quickly, or slow down a joust to buy time.

39: Mandolorian Mercenary w/ Calculation, Rec Spec

-This is a nice budget firespray build. Firesprays aren't threatening enough on their own to convince a formation to turn to deal with it. But if they commit to the mini-swarm, he makes a nice consistent platform.

Being good at hunting doughnut holes and being good at hiding 2-4 donut holes are very different things.

Yeeeeeeeees, but he's also got three green dice, can get away with not spending his focus on offence and has Autothrusters. I like his odds of weathering a couple of TLT shots. I don't like his odds of weathering 4. And of course, every shot that comes his way is one that's not whittling down the pack of Zs he runs with who're chewing through a Y every other turn. If you get to the endgame with 5 Zs facing 2 TLT Ys, you're in decent shape. If you don't mind giving up some offence he can even run Sensor Jammer for maximum laughs.

I don't think you guys are building scum lists right. Hear me out.

Scum doesn't need an anchor like the other factions. Stop trying to make what works for the other factions work for scum. I have seen two naked generic starvipers carry a whole match. I have watched N'dru one shot soontir fel. Every houndstooth pilot is deadly in their own way. I've seen Kavil, palob and mux wipe 4BZ in 20 minutes, at a clip on one b-wing per turn.

Scum is good. Just not in the way you want them to be. So it's time to adapt.

We all know which two starvipers you're talkin about.

....because it's the only time that's happened. I haven't seen a 3-amigo scum list do well outside of a few very gifted players. I know that's what the faction is built around, but that has not played out competitively.

do you? because i'm not sure you do. my black sun enforcers are 10-5 in varied lists. i will absolutely accept winning 2 out of every 3 games played. its not gonna win any tournaments, but it will have people going home and saying to their friends "some guy came at me with starvipers and i didnt deal with them quickly so he thrashed me."

I ran

Palob with K4 droid & TLT

syndicate thug with unhinged and TLT

Black sun ace with lone wolf

N'dru with a cluster missle

this list performed very well for me. The TLTs almost seemed a little unfair. I like that I don't need to fly in formation with scum, that they work well independently. the rock star was palob. at a minimum, he was getting TL and focus every round, even without using his ability.

Ndru delivered well in 1 game and died quick in the other. both TLTs definitely pulled their weight, so did the K fighter, although I might do something different with lone wolf next time, as it seldom triggered.

I played 2 games this weekend and won both handily, despite mediocre flying on my part.

Even in one game against whisper with rec spec and VI I was able to land at least one damage per round off of each TLT. poor girl ran and hid to keep from dying. Because I like my scum spread out a bit, the donut hole was not a big problem, and 2 range 3 circles cover a lot of board.

I don't think you guys are building scum lists right. Hear me out.

Scum doesn't need an anchor like the other factions. Stop trying to make what works for the other factions work for scum. I have seen two naked generic starvipers carry a whole match. I have watched N'dru one shot soontir fel. Every houndstooth pilot is deadly in their own way. I've seen Kavil, palob and mux wipe 4BZ in 20 minutes, at a clip on one b-wing per turn.

Scum is good. Just not in the way you want them to be. So it's time to adapt.

We all know which two starvipers you're talkin about.

....because it's the only time that's happened. I haven't seen a 3-amigo scum list do well outside of a few very gifted players. I know that's what the faction is built around, but that has not played out competitively.

do you? because i'm not sure you do. my black sun enforcers are 10-5 in varied lists. i will absolutely accept winning 2 out of every 3 games played. its not gonna win any tournaments, but it will have people going home and saying to their friends "some guy came at me with starvipers and i didnt deal with them quickly so he thrashed me."

The generic starvipers and Kihraxz just don't cut it at all for competitive play.

The generic starvipers and Kihraxz just don't cut it at all for competitive play.

I've been trying to make scum work for ages and had my first minor degree of tournament success the other week (came 3rd). I usually come last, or close to it. Part of that I think is my general skill at the game (which is moderate, at best), but also the fact that I like to try out quirky lists that no one sensible would give the time of day to. I thought I'd done the same this time, but then I saw from nova open Twitch feed that Ira Myers (IIRC) was running a similar list to mine, so I guess there must be something else in it than just my usual sub-par quirkiness.

I was expecting there to be some TL spam lists that I might face, but also a lot of the PWT lists that TLT's good against. I'd also realised from a week of testing that brobots with autothrusters are an issue for TLTs, especially on a list with as many HP as brobots (okay, 3HP soontir might go down fairly quickly, but those IG-88s have a lot to whittle down). I came up with the plan that I'd need to make my TLTs more effective against Autothrusters and I'd need something in there with autothrusters itself to help out in the mirror match. I decided the answers were Kavil with TLT and predator (a decent change of getting 4 hits with his TLT to speed up the whittling on high Agility AT ships) and Guri, who with AT and sensor jammer, and the ability to get 2 focus tokens a turn, was looking like a pretty good counter to TLTs. After that I realised I didn't have enough points to get two extra TL ships, so I went for Palob with recon spec. He can really help Guri out with stealing a focus token. I went 4-1, beating Vader/Juno/Palpmobile, Corran/Jake/Biggs, Brobots, RAC/Fel on the way. I lost to a Chewie/Kyle/Cracken list that could just maximise the damage against me with loads of target lock + focus attacking. That list came 2nd.

That said, the winning list, the only one to go 5-0, was a 3xKihraxz/2xScyk list, so it goes to show you can have a successful scum list without TLTs.

Ben

BBBBZ is a proven successful list. 5xKihraxz has more firepower, if less durability, so surely it should be a solid list.

The beauty of the starviper (and really, the syck too)is the x-wing math-hive-mind has already so thoroughly written them off as "bad ships" that whenever someone brings one, it gets completely ignore until it one shots whisper, and then all out panic happens while you try to recover what's left of your game. No it doesn't work every time. But no ship does.

Mathwing is pretty accurate unless you get into a reliable situation where you won't be exchanging dice

Low PS pilots, even with some maneuverability, are sadly unlikely to find this scenario

Higher PS pilots, though, especially those with dice defying abilities (COUGHxizorCOUGH) are pretty **** good regardless

And as I just said, math wing has already ruled those ships so bad that most people forget about them and DONT exchange dice until the "bad ships" surprised them. I can't tell you how many times I've started to clean up a table and people come up to me and say "man, though starvipers are legit"

I have the opposite problem, all of mine start with 2 TLT thugs...

I've been dropping 2x Thug TLT's for Drea Renthal + TLT + R4-B11.

Yes, it's half the damage, but it's nearly guaranteed damage. I don't think anything in the game is as effective for killing Interceptors and Phantoms.

Mathwing is pretty accurate unless you get into a reliable situation where you won't be exchanging dice...

One on one, in isolation, yes.

Point for point, five on two, in an actual game situation where positioning, blocking and set up actually matters... well, that's a different matter. Fifteen dice (minimum) behind five attacks will cause problems for many a two-three ship build, regardless of pilot skill or movement shenanigans.

Pretty sure the results are demonstrative on the Starviper already. I don't think a 20-point generic that can often die before it shoots even against 2-ship lists is going to do much better.

Sure, you go ahead and write them off.

That suits me just fine.