I think the full potential of youngster is squad leader + 1-2 elite tie fighters passing off high-PS actions to action-starved ships.

Like this: SL Youngster, VI mauler, VI howlrunner and two bombers with concussion missiles and EM. That list has a really mean aplha strike, a bomber can focus using own action AND then barrel roll AND TL at PS 9/10. Hard to dodge.

Or: Oicunn with Expose, gunner, fleet officer, tac jammer, SL youngster, dark curse, and academy pilot: you get a 4-dice attack with TL and gunner out of Oicunn, and he can generate 2 focus tokens on top of that, which you can give back to the TIEs if they're threatened. Or just share with one tie and fully mod the 4-dice attacks.

And then there's all this stuff you can do at PS 9/10

- bombers/punishers roll or boost + drop bombs, or pre-position at PS9/10 to drop action-bombs at PS2 next turn.

- A 26 point AT Kir Kanos (in a mini-swarm with Young, VI Howlrunner and Mauler could focus AND evade AND get re-roll from howlrunner AND possibly also boost or barrel roll at PS 10.

- Tempests with proton rockets and ATC getting to reposition or TL at PS9/10

- mixing in fleet officers and PTLs can give your squad incredible action economy, but shift those actions up from PS3-4 into PS 6-10 range.

Now, I'm quite sure many of these combinations might not be so great, and you can't go too far into synergy land if its all based on a 3-hitpoint dude. But there are so many possibilities and it really seems like they're worth it, even if it's just for setting up the alpha strike.

What I like about Youngster is that he also plays well with some of the older pilots. Backstabber, Dark Curse and Night Beast will only be more annoying with EPT access.

Night Beast really makes sense here. He's already often collecting a Focus, so something after that is gravy.

Then include Chaser so he can bounce that focus token off to him.

Well, you could run Howl, and/or or you could run FOs that have a native target lock, too, along with Youngster with Expose. They could then have a modified attack the following round. Not easy to pull off, but the possibility is there.

HELP I HAD AN EPIPHANY

Youngster with Expose + Chaser.

Youngster + rest of list focus, and Chaser Exposes.

As there's no limit to how many tokens Chaser can take, he could grab the tokens off of the whole swarm. This way, by Exposing himself Chaser's turned himself into Biggs, but he also has upwards of 5 focus tokens on him, meaning he's gonna have enough tokens to consistently modify his dice (vs TLTs for example).

Oh and then he gets to attack with 3 dice and a focus too. Pretty good.

I do like that you can now have ALL the members of black squadron all in one epic list

I'm thinking a bit about Epic. A Fleet Officer to hand out Focus, so you can get some nice Expose shots.

How do you guys think this would do?

Youngster+Expose, 19 points

Omega Squadron Pilot+Comm Relay+Juke, 22 points

Omega Squadron Pilot+Comm Relay+Juke, 22 points

Omega Squadron Pilot+Comm Relay+Juke, 22 points

Black Squadron Pilot+Crackshot, 15 points

Total=100

First round, Omega's gain their focus tokens, second round, four exposed shots modifying the enemy's defense dice to push through that extra damage. The Comm Relay also helps to reduce the drawback of using Expose. Even after Youngster goes down, those three Omega Squadron Pilots are still quite a threat with their awesome dials and the Comm Relay/Juke combo.

With just five ties you're really pushing your luck, even with comm relay.

Also howlrunner is easily the better choice over youngster there

She can even take crackshot!

So:

30pt inquisitor

Palp mobile

Wampa

What do you do with the last 27pts?!?!

Chaser + Academy?

Royal Guard with PTL + Thrusters?

Naked Turr?

Tie/FO Ace?

Colzet?

Mathwing question: Isn't 2 dice with focus better than 3 unmodified? Isn't 3 dice with focus better than 4 unmodified?

If I remember right, they're about the same

except the focus doesn't cost 4 points or reduce your agility

Check out this table: https://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic1537549.jpg

Granted it doesn't take into account Howlrunner's re-roll, but if we're comparing Expose vs Focus, you can see that Focus is better until you get to 4+ agility targets.

Marksmanship is the way to go in my opinion. You can elect not to use it while shields are up, but it will really help tear down Y-wings, PWTs, etc.

So:

30pt inquisitor

Palp mobile

Wampa

What do you do with the last 27pts?!?!

Chaser + Academy?

Royal Guard with PTL + Thrusters?

Naked Turr?

Tie/FO Ace?

Colzet?

Omega Leader

Juke + relay or PTL + weapon guidance

OG Shuttle + Emperor

Wampa

Colzet + Accuracy Corrector

Connor Jax + Push the Limit, Royal Guard tie, Auto Thrusters, Stealth device

Gives yo uan ace with the emperor plus wampa can give face down cards through shields and colzet can turn them face up.

So:

30pt inquisitor

Palp mobile

Wampa

What do you do with the last 27pts?!?!

Chaser + Academy?

Royal Guard with PTL + Thrusters?

Naked Turr?

Tie/FO Ace?

Colzet?

Omega Leader

Juke + relay or PTL + weapon guidance

He was certainly in consideration too.

Dallas Parker is probably so happy.

They might prove me wrong next week, but I think the whole Youngster thing will reduce their capability of ever releasing a good EPT with an Action header. The ones we have right now are rubbish or at best highly situational. If they ever release one that would be good on its own, it will become a no-brainer.

edit: a letter.

Sweating the small stuff.

Ohjeez Youngster is incredible...

But the options so far are really not that great.

Squad leader is meh since you need to pass it from high ps to low ps, and would really only be helpful on Omega Aceto get the all crits roll. So you need howlrunner to use this as an action as far as i see since she is the only one to have more PS than Ace. Or you need to take Mithel or Scourge with VI. But i would rather use their actions as well as Howlrunners to keep them alive or score more damage themselves instead of getting 2 crits on Ace.

Verdict: pretty useless since you put too much points into a very vulnerable combo that might not even work.

Marksmanship is probably useful for Wampa and might see him score 2-3 facedown cards on enemies if he survives that long, which is unlikely since you have no defensive action on him. For anyone else but Wampa it is preferable to just focus and keep the flexibility of having a defensive option. Superfocus on single 2 attack ships is pretty bad even at a discount.

Verdict: very useless except on Wampa and he will probably die before you getvalue out of it.

(On another note, Wampa is pretty nice at 14 points with Howlrunner alone. You might not reliably trigger his ability, but having it at 2 points over an academy is nice and he is not as vulnerable to predator. Nice ship but don't overspend on the combo because even if it works its just one damage.)

Expose might be the best option here really. If you see that any one of your fighters is very unlikely to take shots, go for it. Turrets shut this combo down pretty hard though since they will pick out your exposers and with 3 hp, 2 agi and no defensive action they are just dead. Expose also costs 4 points for potentially 0 use. Outside of Howlrunner you won't get any modification either and the damage output from 3 dice raw vs 2 dice focus is not extremely high. It has POTENTIALLY more damage but practically? Idk

Verdict: i don't see it working. You can dish out more damage but you will probably lose a lot more than its worth. And if you only expose safely you might not get to use it a lot. Its like gambling and putting it all on red. But totally inconsistent.

Other options would be Expert handling, which is terrible on ships that have Barrel roll already and Daredevil which is out of question since you don't really want to wreck your own ships for a very questionable benefit.

So Youngster is to me probably the worst of all the new Ties. He looks absolutely amazing on paper but unless we get a really good, universally useful Ept with action header he is not going to cut it. Take my word for it.

The other 3 new ties are pretty nice, especially the 3 and 4 PS ones have great abilities. Scourge is on one level with Mithel and it depends on whom you would take. (Edit: When in doubt, take Backstabber)

I disagree that EH is a terrible choice. Target Locks are frequent and breaking one forces your opponent to either waste the action to reacquire it or shoot without it. Even better when facing ATC Advanceds.

EH on one ship, especially that already has BR access is not great

But team up a (mini)swarm all of whom have EH access with Carnot Jax hitting R1 from a flank and all that's coming your way are u modified dice. If that mini swarm has HR leading them then they are less impacted by losing their action to EH than the enemy not being able to modify their dice without some the like Predator.

"Youngster" — TIE Fighter 15

Expert Handling 2

Ship Total: 17

"Howlrunner" — TIE Fighter 18

Ship Total: 18

Carnor Jax — TIE Interceptor 26

Push the Limit 3

Autothrusters 2

Stealth Device 3

Royal Guard TIE 0

Ship Total: 34

Black Squadron Pilot — TIE Fighter 14

Crack Shot 1

Ship Total: 15

Black Squadron Pilot — TIE Fighter 14

Crack Shot 1

Ship Total: 15

99pts

Top tier? Maybe not but looks like great fun to me.

Edit.. Put enemy in position where they know focus is not possible and TL won't stick and they may decide to take a different non aggressive action. That or they waste their action to make you EH the TL away

You know what? **** it.

Put me in the "crazy enough to run Daredevil without boost" camp. Sometimes you just need to turn around /that/ badly. Chances are you'll only take a regular damage, and on a full health TIE it's not a huge risk.

Sometimes you need that crucial block. Not something you'd do with all of your TIEs every game, but last night I was about a base length from a block on Dash, but I simply couldn't get far enough. He then proceeded to dodge all of my arcs with his brokenness.

(Probably) taking a damage or two on a TIE Fighter for a crucial block is well worth it if it prevents you from losing.

You know what? **** it.

Put me in the "crazy enough to run Daredevil without boost" camp. Sometimes you just need to turn around /that/ badly. Chances are you'll only take a regular damage, and on a full health TIE it's not a huge risk.

Sometimes you need that crucial block. Not something you'd do with all of your TIEs every game, but last night I was about a base length from a block on Dash, but I simply couldn't get far enough. He then proceeded to dodge all of my arcs with his brokenness.

(Probably) taking a damage or two on a TIE Fighter for a crucial block is well worth it if it prevents you from losing.

I buy this line of reasoning. Youngster is pretty cheap for the PS already. There's something to be said for giving all the TIE fighters in your list a repositioning option when you really need it. You could also use it with higher PS TIEs to purposely bump to avoid shots from something nasty.

Question, sorry if it's been addressed already:

Say you have Youngster alongside another TIE with Experimental Interface. Can that TIE use the upgrade on Youngster with EI? I'm inclined to say no because EI says your upgrade.

Thoughts? Did I answer my own question.

Marksmanship is probably useful for Wampa and might see him score 2-3 facedown cards on enemies if he survives that long, which is unlikely since you have no defensive action on him. For anyone else but Wampa it is preferable to just focus and keep the flexibility of having a defensive option. Superfocus on single 2 attack ships is pretty bad even at a discount.

Verdict: very useless except on Wampa and he will probably die before you getvalue out of it.

(On another note, Wampa is pretty nice at 14 points with Howlrunner alone. You might not reliably trigger his ability, but having it at 2 points over an academy is nice and he is not as vulnerable to predator. Nice ship but don't overspend on the combo because even if it works its just one damage.)

I disagree with this. If you have a bunch of Academy Pilots, you know they aren't going to get shot at when the other elites are still on the board. So, you don't need the Focus for defense. Also, once targets start using up their defensive tokens and start getting hit, the Critical hits will matter more. It's also important to get rid of shields and then have the last few Academy Pilots getting crits thrown in.

My Verdict: Very useful.

Marksmanship is probably useful for Wampa and might see him score 2-3 facedown cards on enemies if he survives that long, which is unlikely since you have no defensive action on him. For anyone else but Wampa it is preferable to just focus and keep the flexibility of having a defensive option. Superfocus on single 2 attack ships is pretty bad even at a discount.

Verdict: very useless except on Wampa and he will probably die before you getvalue out of it.

(On another note, Wampa is pretty nice at 14 points with Howlrunner alone. You might not reliably trigger his ability, but having it at 2 points over an academy is nice and he is not as vulnerable to predator. Nice ship but don't overspend on the combo because even if it works its just one damage.)

I disagree with this. If you have a bunch of Academy Pilots, you know they aren't going to get shot at when the other elites are still on the board. So, you don't need the Focus for defense. Also, once targets start using up their defensive tokens and start getting hit, the Critical hits will matter more. It's also important to get rid of shields and then have the last few Academy Pilots getting crits thrown in.

My Verdict: Very useful.

Exposing means not only no defensive actions, it means worse defense on top of that. If you are flanking with the Academies, maybe you will have a safe shot but you will not have Howlrunner bonus then. Since if she was with them the enemy will not let them flank.

So there are 2 situations likely.

You do a joust in which case your academies will probably get handled very hard before getting a shot off. You should lose two ships with 3hp, 2agi and no tokens pretty easily. So afterwards your damage output is pretty much the same as if you just took a focus and had one more surviving ship. But if you fly formation like that, at least you have the advantage of getting Howlrunner rerolls.

On a flank, they get 3 dice with no modification. If you compare that to focused two dice they normally get the difference in damage output is pretty low. You should average a little less than 2 hits in both cases, so why take the pain of exposing. And against turrets its even more futile since they can pretty much take a huge dump on flankers if they wish so.

The thing is, you dont have to always focus howlrunner or Youngster. If you kill the exposing defenseless Ties whenever you get an opportunity, you will most probably outgrind the swarm.