So we have all this sweet new information from the Imperial Veterans article. Check it out if you haven’t already. I think we pretty much know everything about the new TIE Defender stuff, barring the points cost of all the new pilots and the pilot ability of the Countess (Maarek Steeles’s looks to be identical to his TIE/x1 ability)
Here’s the meat of the Defender fix:
TIE/x7 Title
This is pretty exciting, in a “I can’t wait to try it out, this opens up cool new ways to play this ship!” sort of way. Obviously, this is a budget option, but it improves your defense as well as making you cheaper. Importantly, it improves your defense action free, assigning an Evade token, not taking a free Evade action. TIE/x7 builds will be close assault fighters. The Evade will help keep them safe on the way in, and it will keep them safe® as they slam through obstacles, into enemy formations, or with a stack of stress. For pilots with EPT slots, this opens up Juke, but Predator or the other usual suspects are going to be good as well. Part of me wants to actually run Wired. Although it doesn’t synergize with the title, it does give you a little bit of a kicker when you want to take those short hard turns and you won’t get your free Evade.
TIE/D Title
This is pretty exciting too, but in a “I’m going to make people cry salty tears” sort of way. I’ve largely run my Defenders with HLCs, but the /D title makes Ion Cannons really too hard for me to ignore. Against low AGI stuff, the extra damage an Ion Cannon can do pretty much makes up for the drop from HLC to primary weapon shots. Against high AGI stuff, the crippling effect an Ion shot has makes most of those targets want to spend tokens to stop that shot, possibly leaving them open for the primary shot. The downside is that you’re not throwing 4 dice every turn against real tough targets, but I’m fine with that overall. The control aspect and the 4 points saved really make up for any conditional losses in my opinion. On top of all this, the primary attack doesn’t have to be at the same target as the Cannon attack, so you can control one ship and damage another. Much of the time you’ll want to combine targets, but I can imagine plenty of situations where you’d want to ion one ship to prevent it from returning to the fight while you’re damaging something else. The real sweet thing about this title is that in Range 1, it’s a total nightmare. You get your control shot, maybe doing a damage and further hosing the target, then you get your 4-dice primary. Obviously Ion Cannons make setting up that Range 1 shot a lot easier than it would be otherwise. Any EPT that modifies all your attacks (Predator, Lone Wolf, Marksmanship) is going to be even better with an /D build than a normal ship, but I don’t think any particular EPT is going to be necessary.
One Maarek Steele in a Defender:
Maarek’s ability is nice, and works great with a Mangler Cannon. With the /D title, he also dovetails nicely with Marksmanship, as both his attacks will be modified. The more I think about it, though, the more I think you shouldn’t try that hard to make his ability work all the time. The main strength of a Defender is that it’s a Defender. It’s tough, fast, and does brutal damage. Maarek will be primarily important for his PS and his EPT slot. You’re throwing 3-4 primary weapon dice each turn. Just let the crits come to you. If it happens, great, if it doesn’t, fine.
Lists I’m excited about my first time thinking about this stuff:
3 Defender List:
Onyx, TIE/x7, Hull Upgrade = 33 points, x3 = 99 points, 21 hit points behind AGI 3 with free Evades out the wazoo. Tough to kill, fast, hits modestly hard. I don’t know how to fly this ship, but I’m willing to learn.
TIE/D Defender + Miniswarm:
Ion Cannons are excellent with miniswarms, because they make the target predictable, and that makes it fairly easy to set up a bunch of Range 1 shots. The problem is that you were looking at a minimum of 33 points for your Ion Cannon, and it wouldn’t be doing any much damage most turns. 35 points gives you Onyx+Ion Cannon with TIE/D title, which leaves room for 5 Obsidians Squadron Pilots. You could further soup up the Defender and drop to 3 or 4 TIE Fighters in interesting and creative ways. Lately I’ve been running Rexler Brath, HLC, Predator, Hull Upgrade alongside 3x Zeta Squadron Pilots with a 2 point Initiative bid. Those 2 points along with the 4 points saved from the HLC to IC “downgrade” lets me upgrade the Zetas to Omegas with Crack Shot. That’s legit.
2 Defender List:
Rex, Ion Cannon, Hull Upgrade, Predator TIE/D Title = 46
Maarek Steele, Ion Cannon, Hull Upgrade, VI = 43 (probably, Maarek’s cost isn’t known 100%)
With the remaining points I probably add Homing Missiles to Maarek and Concussion Missiles to Rex, with a 2 point Initiative Bid. Those give an option to do a long-range damage spike, which is useful in a few situations. It has the added benefit of being a straight-from-the-PC-game loadout, which gives it huge style points. Maybe I have a lack of imagination, but I can’t think of any squad that wants to see this list across
the table from it. Big ships will just be wrecked by the ion control and crit turning abilities of the pilots. Aces will have to dodge a couple very dangerous arcs (one of which is PS9 itself). TLTs can be controlled with Ion Cannons while the primary shots pick off other members of the squad for a turn or two. These guys just laugh at Poe. The Ion Cannons keep him predicable and not regenerating, and his 2 AGI will not hold off 4-dice primary shots for long. If this stuff hits before Regionals, this squad, or something close, is what I’m taking.
Well, that’s what I’ve got for now. I’m very interested to hear everyone else’s point of view on this stuff. Thanks for reading.
