I flew Vessery with Tractor Bean and TIE/D this weekendm with another defender and an ST-321. It was very effective even without Ruthlessness. Won two games against the same opponent, one of which was Palpatine Shuttle plus Scourge, Wampa, and Youngster. Wampa survived one turn. Then the other TIEs went down. I lost Vessery in turn 4, but his Tractor Beam plus another Defender with Flechette Cannon and TIE/d crippled the TIE fighters, and in the end it was my Defender chasing Palpatines Shuttle.

It makes the control option for Imperials which is something they are not exactly missing with rebel captive but it is a lot better than what it was. Control is only good if you are either doing effecient total control (1 ship to control 1 ship) or doing damage as well.

Now the only question is where are Scum's viable control options? I thought those were supposed to be the controlling faction.

Scyks are the cheapest Tractor Beam carrier.

Doing no damage makes them even worse point sink then they actually are not to mention that you would want your tractor beam on the highest Pilot skilled ships. Honestly the best Scyk builds are Mangler Scykes. Everything else becomes too much of an investment or too little of a return.

If the cheapest ship is to much of a point investment if you do no damage? So spend more points? On a more expensive ship to do the same 0 damage? I don't follow your broken logic.

Manglers do do some damage. Now if you are against soontir then of course not. Not many ships do, you will need TLTs for that. The logic you are unable to weigh is possible damage against no damage. Which is a more logical choice?

But still no matter how you build scyks they are just not that good. If you are going to fly scyks then mangler is your best option. If you are going to fly them naked then just take Z-95s.

It makes the control option for Imperials which is something they are not exactly missing with rebel captive but it is a lot better than what it was. Control is only good if you are either doing effecient total control (1 ship to control 1 ship) or doing damage as well.

Now the only question is where are Scum's viable control options? I thought those were supposed to be the controlling faction.

Scyks are the cheapest Tractor Beam carrier.

Doing no damage makes them even worse point sink then they actually are not to mention that you would want your tractor beam on the highest Pilot skilled ships. Honestly the best Scyk builds are Mangler Scykes. Everything else becomes too much of an investment or too little of a return.

If the cheapest ship is to much of a point investment if you do no damage? So spend more points? On a more expensive ship to do the same 0 damage? I don't follow your broken logic.

Throw Corran out of arc before he triggers his double tap.

Throw a stressed ship into a position where it has to do a white maneouvre to avoid an asteroid.

Mess up any formation. Howlrunner buffing Academy TIEs? Throw her out of Range 1 before the lackwits get their chance to fire.

Throw any small ship off the board if you get the chance.

"Someone set us up the bomb" - drop a ship where you want your bombs to go (or mines).

etc.

If all else fails, shoot with your primary (unless you are crazy and mounted it on the Outrider).

Well worth it IMHO.

I've run a ruthlessness vessery with two x7 defenders it was brutal in the first turn of shooting I dropped farlander to one hit point and stripped two shields of Poe.

I do find myself wondering if Tractor Beam will make an all-Ruthless list viable. Right now, you'd run the risk of opponents just keeping their ships over range 1 way from each other, plus you'd have to worry about the only targets being close to only your own ships. With Tractor Beam you can at least be a little more confident that you can use Vessery to maneuver the target into a better position, lessening the risk.

My gut feeling from this last weekend's store championship is that there's still too many 2 ship lists in the meta for it to be worthwhile, although it's a lot more plausible now.

If they are keeping their ships that far apart from each other, then they may find that many of their ships are not in range to return fire in he even you don't fly straight at their gunline.