With Aaron Bonner's "Danger Zone" (3 K-wings with tactician) and Paul Heaver's TLT stressbot making a splash at worlds, I am curious if we can expect an increase in stress dealing mechanics in the next store championship season?

I tried a variant of the old school Panic Attack list from Mr. Froggies like so:

When I watched the Worlds matches all I could think about was, "Man, defenders wouldn't care at all about that stress." Glad to see Biophysical is still waving the banner in defense of defenders.

Defenders do care about stress.

Without focus, naked green dice rear their ugly heads, and they lose their 1-2 turns

The only Defender that I'd trust to take into a stress meta would be Vessery (dat ability)

This exact list won a tournament yesterday at Entoyment store...

Good luck ever turning. There is some stuff a k-turn can't fix.

Stress is still a bad thing obviously. Point is, it bothers defenders a LOT less than most. Drop two stress on anything else and you are halfway to blowing it up.

List of ships that don't mind double-stress:

Fat Turrets?

Unhinged Y-wings?

Defenders?

Stress is still a bad thing obviously. Point is, it bothers defenders a LOT less than most. Drop two stress on anything else and you are halfway to blowing it up.

List of ships that don't mind double-stress:

Fat Turrets?

Unhinged Y-wings?

Defenders?

- Tycho

- YV-666 w/ Gunner + Bossk + Tac

While normally terrified of stress on defenders one time vs. a tactician style list I realized I could just ignore actions and fly on my whites and sure enough they really don't care dial wise. Having no extra defense sort of hurts but they already can't evade and thus are living on the mercy of the greens so they are pretty fine. Take wired for extra hilarity and just live the stress life proudly.

The TIE Mk.II mod helps the Defenders a lot! I'm not sure I'd even bother with the named pilots though. Predator or Lone Wolf helps reduce the negative effects of stress.

Stress is still a bad thing obviously. Point is, it bothers defenders a LOT less than most. Drop two stress on anything else and you are halfway to blowing it up.

List of ships that don't mind double-stress:

Fat Turrets?

Unhinged Y-wings?

Defenders?

Anything with system slots that don't use Sensors, most prominently:

Starvipers (especially because their pilot abilities don't give two *****)

Accuracy Corrector Advance

Anything Scum with K4 and/or Gunner + Bossk

Miranda Doni to an extent (misses SLAM)

and, OFC, freaking Tycho

largely, though, if you can take Systems and/or Crew, you can build a stress-resistant ship

except Phantoms, because they are the squish

EDIT: if Targeting Astro triggers off of greens or whites, we can add it and R2-D2 (and, by extension, the astromech slot) to the list

Imo, if you're losing to defenders, I think something else is wrong.

Imo, if you're losing to defenders, I think something else is wrong.

I don't see why. The defender is a solid ship that can do a lot of work if built and flown well. It's not the most cost efficient ship, but it's by no means garbage. It just usually takes more work to get value than other ships of similar or lessor cost, so it's not often a great choice for tournaments.

Imo, if you're losing to defenders, I think something else is wrong.

With 2 Defenders, I went 6-0 with good MOV in the Kansas City area regional during Swiss, beat my first elimination opponent, and lost in the semifinals to Aaron Bonar. Going 6-0 during Swiss means every person I beat in Swiss beat every one of their opponents before they played me. Clearly the Defender isn't that bad, and I doubt it means gamblertuba did something massively wrong, even though this was not a 2 Defender list, but a 1 Defender + 3 FO list.

When I watched the Worlds matches all I could think about was, "Man, defenders wouldn't care at all about that stress." Glad to see Biophysical is still waving the banner in defense of defenders.

I saw a couple of the twitch streamed games that had a TLT stresshog just completely neuter an Ace, forcing it to run away, and I thought, "that's never going to be me."

Stress is still a bad thing obviously. Point is, it bothers defenders a LOT less than most. Drop two stress on anything else and you are halfway to blowing it up.

List of ships that don't mind double-stress:

Fat Turrets?

Unhinged Y-wings?

Defenders?

All Scum Merc crew-ships, K-4 droid provided.

All TLT-ships, who just royally don't give a...ahem...

The swarms (you can't stress them all)

Well, that's nice, I presume, stressing makes aces cough blood and that's good for me. Sick of PTLers everywhere

Defenders 4 Life! While the 4-K won't solve all your problem, it does help a lot. It allows you to keep pressure on a target without the need to run away to clear stress then re-engage.

I like flying defenders but I find them very susceptible to damage without actions. A bumped defender is a sitting duck,a stressed defended isn't much better off.

In a straight joust, sure, but turning a defender when stressed is next to impossible.

Stress is still a bad thing obviously. Point is, it bothers defenders a LOT less than most. Drop two stress on anything else and you are halfway to blowing it up.

List of ships that don't mind double-stress:

Fat Turrets?

Unhinged Y-wings?

Defenders?

All Scum Merc crew-ships, K-4 droid provided.

All TLT-ships, who just royally don't give a...ahem...

The swarms (you can't stress them all)

Well, that's nice, I presume, stressing makes aces cough blood and that's good for me. Sick of PTLers everywhere

Rebel TLT Y-wings become fairly easy to get into range 1 when stressed.

Swarms actually can be more torn up by stress than others. I love to stress half the opposing list. I K-turn with my whole crew and they are forced to split their list or spend a few turns with no shots.

Imo, if you're losing to defenders, I think something else is wrong.

With 2 Defenders, I went 6-0 with good MOV in the Kansas City area regional during Swiss, beat my first elimination opponent, and lost in the semifinals to Aaron Bonar. Going 6-0 during Swiss means every person I beat in Swiss beat every one of their opponents before they played me. Clearly the Defender isn't that bad, and I doubt it means gamblertuba did something massively wrong, even though this was not a 2 Defender list, but a 1 Defender + 3 FO list.

If you lose to turret-less HWK's, ya done screwed up. Every other ship can be dangerous. Defenders are deadly, just not efficient. Gotta remember what jousting efficiency tells you. If a ship is only say 85% efficient in tossing dice, you need to get that much extra out of the ship with your flying and other shenanigans.

Game against Biophysical was the first time I had put the list on the table. First time I had ever flown a BTL Y-wing or Tactician Blues. I did not go in with a solid plan and realized too late how strong his Defender would remain even while stressed out. Was an interesting game and a good learning experience.

I flew a loaded Rexlar against stress recently and was pleasantly surprised at how well the defender performed. Predator made his damage consistent and even with 4+ stress he had no trouble getting behind the Y and nuking him before he ever turned around.

I flew a loaded Rexlar against stress recently and was pleasantly surprised at how well the defender performed. Predator made his damage consistent and even with 4+ stress he had no trouble getting behind the Y and nuking him before he ever turned around.

This is my experience. The Y-wing can sell out and try piling a bunch of stress on the Defender, but it's straight up out of the fight at that point, while the Defender is certainly not.

Stress is still a bad thing obviously. Point is, it bothers defenders a LOT less than most. Drop two stress on anything else and you are halfway to blowing it up.

List of ships that don't mind double-stress:

Fat Turrets?

Unhinged Y-wings?

Defenders?

All Scum Merc crew-ships, K-4 droid provided.

All TLT-ships, who just royally don't give a...ahem...

The swarms (you can't stress them all)

Well, that's nice, I presume, stressing makes aces cough blood and that's good for me. Sick of PTLers everywhere

Rebel TLT Y-wings become fairly easy to get into range 1 when stressed.

Swarms actually can be more torn up by stress than others. I love to stress half the opposing list. I K-turn with my whole crew and they are forced to split their list or spend a few turns with no shots.

Rebel Y-wing player knows that it's anticipated, that he'll try to clear the stress using a green.

NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH 2-TURN INQUISITION.

TLT works nicely even without actions. You just wait for the cancer to get hold of the enemy's green dice...

A swarm player knows when to break formation up. Less damage, but much more difficult to be focus-fired at.

We have a couple of such players here, pain up the arse xD

I've been flyin

Darts vader, title, atc, crack shot.

Col. Vessery w crack shot and tie mk2 (which may be better on vader!)

Nightbeats w targeting comp

Epsilon squadron.

I ran into some stressy lists, and they dumped stress on Vessery, only to discover he could still pump out damage, w Vessery getting target locks while stressed, and able to drop crack shot. The three agi + health can soak a few tot shots, giving time to bring them down.

I routinely fly three Onyxs with tie engine mk ii against TLTs. They CAN do well, but the TLTs largely negate the Defender's high ability. It's paramount to kill one of them off by the second turn of combat. If you can't it's game over for the Defenders.

Edit. Basic run down of what you want to do. On the first turn of combat try to move into range 3 and get target locks. Take your shots but save the target locks. Next turn you want to land at least two in range one. Now you want to spend the target locks to get your kill.

Stress is still a bad thing obviously. Point is, it bothers defenders a LOT less than most. Drop two stress on anything else and you are halfway to blowing it up.

List of ships that don't mind double-stress:

Fat Turrets?

Unhinged Y-wings?

Defenders?

- Tycho

- YV-666 w/ Gunner + Bossk + Tac

Keyan Farlander.

More cards that don't depend on actions, like Predator.

I flew Rex and Yorr against a stressbot 5 ship rebels yesterday. I didn't realise Yorr works at range 2, but 3 rounds of stress on Rex didn't seem to bother him. Not planning 3+ turns ahead against rebels swarm though... The game was close, but Yorr vadered himself at the last and Rex was still flying.