I'd put this list in another Latts Razzi thread but that was a bit cheeky, so I've moved it here. I played it against my 10 year old son this afternoon and netted a victory but I don't think that properly proves it mettle. I know the received wisdom on Talonbane is that he's too fragile, and amusingly enough he was taken out before he'd loosed his 5 dice alpha, but that's just me bouncing off asteroids as I fly perhaps *too* casual. The idea is that Latts hangs back and takes pot shots (which will earn Focus and Target Locks if she misses due to Bossk) while Talonbane maximises his alpha up close and Kavil rushes around trying to land his out-of-arc 2x 4 dicers. The fact it is Kavil kinda negates the BTL-A4 title since he benefits from shooting out of arc. But this is made up for the fact that as long as I protect the donut hole he's dishing out 8 attack dice a turn against agility crippled targets. The list has a pleasing symmetry and every piece is dangerous, with high PS cards hopefully shooting before their reduce agility opponents. And Kavil eats arc dodgers. But then I've only been playing for a month and I may have missed something obvious.

Latts Razzi (38)

Bossk crew

Weapons Engineer

Kavil (31)

Unhinged Astromech

Twin Laser Turret

Talonbane Cobra (31)

Crack Shot

Glitterstim

I played these exact same pilots (with slightly different upgrades) recently. Thought it would be fun to see how it faired. I won, despite being up against a decimator and lambda >_<

What upgrades did you take?

I find that the more lethal I make the YV-666 (Outlaw Tech, K4 Sec Droid and maybe Mangler/Calculation on a Bossk pilot) the more it becomes a target, and I'd rather it just sit back nerfing Agility and taking pot shots. The hope is that by the time Talonbane and Kavil have been neutralised (because they are the more obvious targets) that an unscathed Latts mops up.

Id rather have blasterturret and r4 kavil. 4 dice with free target lock can do 4 damage where tlt only does 2.

Yes I see the point. However in practice those four damage from four dice are theoretical at best. With the TLT, even against an Ag2 opponent (modified down from Ag3 by Latts) by throwing 8 dice the two damage is practically nailed on.

I'm a big Blood Bowl player and there are apps to work out probabilities for complex series of dice rolls. Does anything similar exist for X-Wing? It would be nice to settle which turret is optimal against a focussed Ag2 target.

...I think I found one.

My understanding is that Blaster Turret with Target Lock throwing four attack dice against two defence dice with focus gives an expected damage of 1.7.

Same set up with Twin Laser Turrets with the opponent burning their focus on the first attack gives an expected damage of 2.

So my ricketty understanding of the maths says TLT is better *if* the opponent is not at range 1 (which the Unhinged Astromech should help with).

As with most things in this game it will probably come down to how well you fly!

I've tweaked the list a little bit after playtesting. Talonbane really *is* a glass cannon, but I've only just bought the model so I'm not willing to shelve him just yet (when I do I'll most likely swap him out for two Z95s with Feedback Array). I've just removed Crackshot and upgraded Bossk on Latts to K4. I was finding that I didn't miss enough to get the free target locks but was green manoeuvring all the time.

Latts Razzi (39)

K4 Security Droid

Weapons Engineer

Kavil (31)

Unhinged Astromech

Twin Laser Turret

Talonbane Cobra (30)

Glitterstim

...I'm still interested in someone double checking my maths on Kavil. Blaster Turret plus R4 Agro *might* be better.

...I think I found one.

My understanding is that Blaster Turret with Target Lock throwing four attack dice against two defence dice with focus gives an expected damage of 1.7.

Same set up with Twin Laser Turrets with the opponent burning their focus on the first attack gives an expected damage of 2.

So my ricketty understanding of the maths says TLT is better *if* the opponent is not at range 1 (which the Unhinged Astromech should help with).

As with most things in this game it will probably come down to how well you fly!

That doesn't sound right.

expected damage of 2 means the twin laser turret is guaranteed to hit every time it shoots, which is certainly not the case.

Twin laser advantages: R2 - 3. Shoots twice, so more likely to strip defensive tokens even if shot misses (setting up a better shot from the next of your ships to fire).

Blaster Turret advantage: not limited to 1 damage per shot, so can potentially deal 3 (or 4 on Kavil in the right circumstances). However, the biggest disadvantage of Blaster Turret is reliance on that focus token. You CANNOT spend your focus defensively because you need it to shoot in the first place. You are also very vulnerable to action denial tactics, such as stress-based lists or even just straight up blocking. Blaster turret is very weak against those matchups...

Blaster on Kavil with TL vs 2 AGI is 15% 1 damage, 31% 2 damage, 31% 3 damage, 13% 4 damage, according to the Battle Computer.

Kavil wants a dorsal turret/unhinged/EU when it drops.

1 extra point, gives a 3-4 die turret attack he can action modify or boost to make sure hes at the range he wants to be (1) if matched vs tlt's

...I think I found one.

My understanding is that Blaster Turret with Target Lock throwing four attack dice against two defence dice with focus gives an expected damage of 1.7.

Same set up with Twin Laser Turrets with the opponent burning their focus on the first attack gives an expected damage of 2.

So my ricketty understanding of the maths says TLT is better *if* the opponent is not at range 1 (which the Unhinged Astromech should help with).

As with most things in this game it will probably come down to how well you fly!

That doesn't sound right.

You must be correct. I suspect I summed the potential damages and then rounded down to 2. I need to check out this Battle Computer namechecked above.

On that basis I've revisited my old calculations and under the particular circumstances I described above (target is Ag 2 due to Latts Ag denial, target loses focus for second defence) for the TLT and there's a 56% chance of the first attack scoring a hit and a 74% chance of the second scoring a hit for a combined probability of:

0 damage (11%)

1 damage (48%)

2 damage (41%)

This compares with the R4 Agromech (TL) Blaster Turret probabilities of:

0 damage (11%)

1 damage (26%)

2 damage (36%)

3 damage (21%)

4 damage (4%)

...so it would appear that both have the same probability to do zero damage, but there's a 25% chance that the Blaster Turret can do 3 or 4 damage. You pay for this as blade_mercurial states by being reliant on a Focus token and not being able to shoot at range 3. Since there are additional advantages to shooting from range (an extra defence dice if your target shoots back) I think that on balance the TLT is still more appealing. Less likely to *take* hits, and Kavil strips tokens with his TLT for Latts to take the final shot.

Thank you everyone who has helped me work through this. Getting a handle on cumulative probabilities and learning about new X-Wing apps can only improve my game!

Oh bollocks, the updated FAQ just b0rked my numbers since Latt's Ag nerf only applies to the first attack of a TLT's two attacks. Back to the slide rule!

[edit] That puts the TLT on these numbers now:

0 damage (18%)

1 damage (48%)

2 damage (34%)

...even with the slightly increased chance of no damage I'm not convinced the TLT is the worse option. I suspect it will come down to how likely I am to maintain a consistent range 3. I'm gonna have to fly some more to work this out! I see the wisdom of Dorsal Turret now since it's all the juice of the Blaster Turret without the need to spend a focus.