Here's some of my terrible maths:

Average Damage against 3 Defence Dice:
 
3 Attack Dice:
 
Focus Token: 1.125
Predator: 0.625
Predator and Focus Token: 1.3125
Predator (against PS 2 or lower): 0.875
Predator and Focus Token (against PS 2 or lower): 1.5
Target Lock: 1.125
Target Lock and Focus Token: 1.6875
Crack Shot: 1.375
Crack Shot and Target Lock: 2.125
Crack Shot, Target Lock and Focus Token: 2.6875
 
2 Attack Dice:
 
Focus Token: 0.375
Predator: 0.125
Predator and Focus Token: 0.5625
Predator (against PS 2 or lower): 0.375
Predator and Focus Token (against PS 2 or lower): 0.75
Target Lock: 0.375
Target Lock and Focus Token: 0.75
Crack Shot: 0.875
Crack Shot and Target Lock: 1.375
Crack Shot, Target Lock and Focus Token: 1.75
Crack Shot and Howlrunner: 1.125
Crack Shot, Howlrunner and Focus Token: 1.5625

So if you play Escalation you can just fly nothing but Crack Squadrons. Maybe for the 150 you'd want to add in Howl.

I played 3 round Escalation today and ended up with 8 Crack Squadrons. I won. It's brutal.

Maybe for the 150 round you'd add in an always cloaked Mara Jade Stygium Sigma or whatever. Run it as a blocker and a stress machine to assist your 8 Crrack Squadron Pilots, haha.

So if you play Escalation you can just fly nothing but Crack Squadrons. Maybe for the 150 you'd want to add in Howl.

I played 3 round Escalation today and ended up with 8 Crack Squadrons. I won. It's brutal.

Maybe for the 150 round you'd add in an always cloaked Mara Jade Stygium Sigma or whatever. Run it as a blocker and a stress machine to assist your 8 Crrack Squadron Pilots, haha.

thats evil

So if you play Escalation you can just fly nothing but Crack Squadrons. Maybe for the 150 you'd want to add in Howl.

I played 3 round Escalation today and ended up with 8 Crack Squadrons. I won. It's brutal.

Maybe for the 150 round you'd add in an always cloaked Mara Jade Stygium Sigma or whatever. Run it as a blocker and a stress machine to assist your 8 Crrack Squadron Pilots, haha.

I've had a Decimator on my 'want list' for a while now just so I can run an always-cloaked-Phantom w/ Mara Jade. It's a lot of points for a ship you'll probably never shoot with but 'dat stress bubble.

I've had a Decimator on my 'want list' for a while now just so I can run an always-cloaked-Phantom w/ Mara Jade. It's a lot of points for a ship you'll probably never shoot with but 'dat stress bubble.

If you're gonna do it - For once, just try...

Echo + Mara Jade + Sensor Jammer + Stealth Device + intimidation.

I've had a Decimator on my 'want list' for a while now just so I can run an always-cloaked-Phantom w/ Mara Jade. It's a lot of points for a ship you'll probably never shoot with but 'dat stress bubble.

If you're gonna do it - For once, just try...

Echo + Mara Jade + Sensor Jammer + Stealth Device + intimidation.

I've been working on this but now I'm going to have to make room for Echo:

PILOTS

Sigma Squadron Pilot (31)

TIE Phantom (25), Mara Jade (3), Enhanced Scopes (1), Stygium Particle Accelerator (2)

Omicron Group Pilot (34) x 2

Lambda-Class Shuttle (21), Enhanced Scopes (1), Ion Cannon (3), Tactician (2), Gunner (5), Ion Projector (2)

I've had a Decimator on my 'want list' for a while now just so I can run an always-cloaked-Phantom w/ Mara Jade. It's a lot of points for a ship you'll probably never shoot with but 'dat stress bubble.

If you're gonna do it - For once, just try...

Echo + Mara Jade + Sensor Jammer + Stealth Device + intimidation.

I've been working on this but now I'm going to have to make room for Echo:

PILOTS

Sigma Squadron Pilot (31)

TIE Phantom (25), Mara Jade (3), Enhanced Scopes (1), Stygium Particle Accelerator (2)

Omicron Group Pilot (34) x 2

Lambda-Class Shuttle (21), Enhanced Scopes (1), Ion Cannon (3), Tactician (2), Gunner (5), Ion Projector (2)

Omicron Group Pilot (29) x 2

Lambda-Class Shuttle (21), Enhanced Scopes (1), Ion Cannon (3), Tactician (2), Ion Projector (2)

“Echo” (42)

TIE Phantom (30), Mara Jade (3), Sensor Jammer (4), Intimidation (2), Stealth Device (3)

A part of me is annoyed at 42 points of something that is never going to shoot... but another part of me is trying to figure out if I can sneak out at lunch and buy a Decimator and a second shuttle.

I've had a Decimator on my 'want list' for a while now just so I can run an always-cloaked-Phantom w/ Mara Jade. It's a lot of points for a ship you'll probably never shoot with but 'dat stress bubble.

If you're gonna do it - For once, just try...

Echo + Mara Jade + Sensor Jammer + Stealth Device + intimidation.

I've been working on this but now I'm going to have to make room for Echo:

PILOTS

Sigma Squadron Pilot (31)

TIE Phantom (25), Mara Jade (3), Enhanced Scopes (1), Stygium Particle Accelerator (2)

Omicron Group Pilot (34) x 2

Lambda-Class Shuttle (21), Enhanced Scopes (1), Ion Cannon (3), Tactician (2), Gunner (5), Ion Projector (2)

I'm not sure if anyone has received an answer from FFG about this yet, but you may want to make sure you leave room for an initiative bid as well.

I believe that if you have initiative ion projector will trigger before your opponent clears their ion tokens if they were ionized. If your opponent has initiative, ion projector happens after the tokens are cleared.

Took the hit squad to worlds for a 27th place finish (6-2):

5 blacks, crackshot

Obsidian

Academy

It was brutal, I only missed the cut due to bad choices on my part (especially in my game against Ira).

Crackshot is like ordnance: it increases your early game damage output, which helps to reduce incoming fire.

It's also best against high agility/ace targets, which are normally a problem for the 2 attack swarm.

Took the hit squad to worlds for a 27th place finish (6-2):

5 blacks, crackshot

Obsidian

Academy

It was brutal, I only missed the cut due to bad choices on my part (especially in my game against Ira).

Crackshot is like ordnance: it increases your early game damage output, which helps to reduce incoming fire.

It's also best against high agility/ace targets, which are normally a problem for the 2 attack swarm.

I really like that. Was 5 BlackCracks the ideal # or would another named tie or FO swap in well enough there?

If you want 7 ties, then there is not a lot of wiggle room.

My reasoning was:

-me : oh man, it's the week before worlds and my howl swarm is just not good enough against advS predator brobots.

-me : Crackshot is awesome. How many can I put in a list?

-me : Cheapest carrier is 15pts

-me : 6 of them is 90pts

-me : I really want 7 ships though, to have more blocking power against aces.

-me : if I remove 1 black I can get 2 academies in there.

-me : 1pt left, let's bump an academy to an obsidian, it should do great against golds with TLTs.

You could drop the obsidian to get a 16pt elite instead of a black, maybe backstabber? But I feel having a more uniform list decreases your list weaknesses to focus firing.

There is also the 6 ties way with Howl, but it also gives your opponent a target and reduces your blocking power.

So I flew 3x Crack Squadron, 2x Crack Omega Squadron, and Zeta Ace with Crackshot.

It's pretty good. Went 3 - 0 at my FLGS' weekly tournament today.

What's nice is that it translates well to Escalation, which another game store does every other week instead of standard 100 point. Just run nothing but Crack Squadrons for esclation, for 100 point convert 3 of them to FO's.

I'm thinking you could ditch Zeta Ace with Crackshot and throw in Howlrunner with Crackshot (or perhaps another 1 cost EPT).

Generally I flew this in a loose blob. So If I started 4 of them in formation, one of them would do a 5 straight, another one a 4 straight, and then the remaining 2 a 3 or whatever with maybe a barrel roll or two. This makes it so that you can still concentrate fire, but have this ability to fling this blob in front of something (especially a large base) and get guaranteed blocks off. Your blob is also more flexible than your standard formation, things that block a K turn on one of your TIEs probably won't block a bunch of others, things that arc dodge can't dodge your blob as easy as one can large ship boost past your whole neat formation. Asteroids also will be less of a problem.

Crackshot killed so many of my ships today...

And these weren't crackshot swarms. Mainly splashed on A-wings.

I'm finding crackshot to be like TLT. Flying against 1 or 2 in a list is tolerable, flying against multiples is just f***ing annoying.

I'm finding crackshot to be like TLT. Flying against 1 or 2 in a list is tolerable, flying against multiples is just f***ing annoying.

Don't even complain, haha. It makes 2 attack dice ships no longer obsolete.

When someone is stupid enough to boost Soontir into range 1 of rec spec deadeye APT Nera and only take one damage from the shot, only for it to happen again next turn and have Soontir end up dying because of a lucky direct hit, that's quite irritating. If someone is allowed to shrug off 5/5 hit shots with moderately lucky rolls on their invincible ship, I think it's okay that my 2 attack dice ship be allowed to sneak a damage through for once.