Gentlemen, I would like your opinion on these 2 similar but different lists. The common element is N'dru armed to the teeth, a TLT, and an Ion turret.

Picture number 1 has the ion on the HWK290. The plan here is to use the first 2 rounds to stock up on focus tokens thanks to moldy crow and recon specialist.

The formation of the ships on the map is somewhat important here. The plan is to skirt around the enemy force. I don't need arcs, I have turrets. Hwk leads the charge because it has range 1-2 dependant turret. More over, palobs ability let's him strip his target of focus or evade tokens. Golden. And since palob has PTL he can, in a pinch gain both focus and target lock so that should he roll poorly, instead of using focus tokens offensively, he can reroll using target lock and keep the focus for defense.

Now kavil, he is a bit behind palob because he has range 2-3 turret. Palob is arguably more survivable because of the mountain of focus he's keeping, which help offensively and defensively. Back to kavil, he has TLT, which is brilliant. I'm undecided if calculation is a good fit. It would be nice to increase the odds of getting a critical, however, maybe I'll want to be target locking, so I can milk TLT if I fire poorly. Thoughts?Droid is there to keep him maneuverable. Lastly, kavils pilot card let's him roll FOUR attack die on each of the TLT attacks.

Lastly, N'dru comes last. He is mop up crew. He lingers so as to keep both his pilot ability and lone wolf viable. With the increased shield, I wouldn't say he's an E wing, but he is slightly more survivable. The clusters missles are there to put the nail in the coffin. On who? Whoever gets infront of him, is ionized, and has been shwacked by a TLT. His pilot ability allows him to roll an extra attack die on each of the 2 cluster missle attacks. That's two, 4 die attacks. Lone wolf let's him reroll 1 of each. If I'm feeling unlucky I can drop glitterstim, and make sure most of the pain hits home.

Still with me? Thank you! Don't blame you if you aren't.

Second picture has swapped a few things, primarily the TLT and Ion cannon. Now kavil has ion turret, and palob has TLT.

So what changes? Well, whatever the hwk is using to shoot will hit more reliably. That's what happens when you have a mountain of focus tokens.

To remediate kavil having less chance of ionizing someone, I gave him PTL so he can both target lock and focus, increasing his chances of hitting with the Ion turret. The Droid is more relevant now because he can clear the stress in leaps and bounds. Lord knows and unhinged on the HWK290 would be nice. So there it is. Ionizing kavil. Oh! His pilot card let's him roll and extra attack die with the ion, further increasing odds to hit.

Now palob, he has the TLT. Essentially, he stores up mountains of focus tokens, and then bleeds them all when using TLT. Couldn't think of s good EPT. Suggestions?

N'dru does the same thing as before.

So what do you think? First of all, if you made it this far, thank you so very much.

Regardless of the list and weapon palob has greater chance to hit, I think. That said, kavil isn't half bad. So what would you do? More chance to ionize, or more chance to deal raw damage?

Ionizing is a very big thing to me btw, because it used to get utterly mauled by my friend with a punisher build with so much ordnance, he could fire missles for 4+ rounds, with rerolls. Red line I think. You can get 2 target locks on the same ship, thus you can fire ordnance and reroll on it. I finally stabbed him through the heart when I ionized him. Him and and Vader actually.

Please tear these builds apart. Give me feedback. Thanks.

Might get more responses with less txt just fyi.

IMO if you want ion you should take dace bonearm. Same damage as tlt better ion carrier.

Palob is more durable than he looks but putting him front will see him dead. In this particular list I'd want engines on both turrets maybe expert handing on the hwk instead. Also push the limit isnt that great on either. I'd opt for predator.

Kavil I'd suggest tlt. The list has very low damage output which largely mitigates being ionized. Also ion wont stop redline unless your out of arc. She'll still burn you down. Vader same.

The other option on the Y is to go with the title to make it a jouster and increase damage.

Hope this helps.

Palob is great with opportunist. He has a relatively low pilot skill meaning he will usually shoot last, therefor the bigger targets will have already spent focus tokens. Combine that with his pilot ability, it's not likely your target will have a focus or evade, making his roll very powerful.

Make room for TLT on both, large base ships are still popular enough that a single Ion source doesn't quite cut it.

I often run Kavil and Palob but I think you are putting too many points into them. Neither have great defensive capabilities and both are enough of a threat that they will be burned down quickly. I'd suggest running both with TLT and nothing else.

I'm not a big fan of the shield upgrade, I feel that it's a bit of a waste if you have less than 3 green dice to play with.

There is a kavil build I've been meaning to test out. (someone will have to tell me if it's complete garbage, because I'm not exactly an old hand at the game and this may not work as well as I intend.)

Kavil

Push the limit

Engine upgrade

Blaster turret

R4 agromech

I like the N'dru setup with predator, but (as said above) not the shield upgrade.

And I like the Palob build from the second list (shield upgrade even feels okay on Palob).

But I'm not sure if you need ion in this list.