I think a lot of people, myself included, have tried to make the TIE Defender work. And given up when they realized just how horrible it is.

Not every ship is for everybody. I'm pretty sure I'm straight up bad at Soontir Fel. I'm much too aggressively minded to bail out on an attack when I ought to, so I tend to get him killed too easily. He's the best 35 points Imperials can take.

I'm officially in the top half! (barely, and with a bye, but I'll take it) I posted my battle report in the appropriate forums.

Though I love watching Fel played well, I'm with Biophysical, I don't think I'd tend to be good at getting out of arc in exchange for missing a shot. I couldn't even stomach running Rexler away today to try and save MoV, it felt like it wasn't the point of the game (to me, and all that).

Heck, remember when people used to laugh at the idea of taking Lambda shuttles? List building has fads, and the defender's turn will come when Vets comes out. I plan on playing mine lots before they become fashionable.

Heck, remember when people used to laugh at the idea of taking Lambda shuttles? List building has fads, and the defender's turn will come when Vets comes out. I plan on playing mine lots before they become fashionable.

One guy brought 4 shuttles, ended with a 3-1 record too. If I saw right, it was 3 OGP with fire control and 1 named shuttle with Vader. It was impressive to see in action.

What about this, as a variation?

TIE Defender: · Rexler Brath (37)

Predator (3)

Heavy Laser Cannon (7)

TIE/fo Fighter: · "Omega Leader" (21)

Juke (2)

Comm Relay (3)

TIE Fighter: Academy Pilot (12)

TIE/fo Fighter: Epsilon Squadron Pilot (15)

I don't hate putting in two Academy Pilots instead of Zeta Leader, but I think it's a bad idea to drop the Hull Upgrade from Rex to make one AP an Epsilon. The extra defense is very useful on an AGI 3 ship, particularly when it's as powerful as that Rex build is.

I don't hate putting in two Academy Pilots instead of Zeta Leader, but I think it's a bad idea to drop the Hull Upgrade from Rex to make one AP an Epsilon. The extra defense is very useful on an AGI 3 ship, particularly when it's as powerful as that Rex build is.

I agree. In fact, I'm going to give that version (2 academies instead of Zeta leader) a try on vassal, either tonight or maybe tomorrow...

TIE Defender: · Rexler Brath (37)

Predator (3)

Heavy Laser Cannon (7)

That's a whopping 47 points. You could take a fully kitted Whisper - VI, FCS, ACD and your choice of Tactician, Agent Kallus or Rebel captive - and still have a few points to spare. More firepower, more mobility and more survivability (just watch out for the aces).

Whisper actually has less firepower in a lot of situations (when FCS hasn't activated on a target), fewer hit points and is vastly more susceptible to higher PS pilots. 50 point Rexler Brath with an HLC is a monster. Seriously, he was half of my Regionals list.

Technically, by points, he is half

I'll echo that he did a LOT of work for me yesterday. Turning up 3 crits on that 4 health stresshog before he ever shot back was priceless. My dice did not like me at all and he still was worth his weight. As discussed elsewhere, Zeta is a beast in this list, if I were to take away Rexler's hull upgrade, it would be to give Zeta a comm relay, personally.

What sort of priority do you assign to the actions on your bar with Rexler? Do you save early target locks for accurate shots in later rounds, or just take focus all the time hoping to turn up those damage cards?

What sort of priority do you assign to the actions on your bar with Rexler? Do you save early target locks for accurate shots in later rounds, or just take focus all the time hoping to turn up those damage cards?

With Predator, I would Focus most of the time, unless a Barrel can put me out of arc. I would TL only if no ship can shoot at me. But I've always been a defensive player, probably from all the time the unmodified green dice failed me.

Technically, by points, he is half

I was speaking literally. If he was all that crummy for the points, I would probably have gotten rocked hard at Regional and Store Championships considering the other half of my list was an almost 50 point Colonel Vessery.

What sort of priority do you assign to the actions on your bar with Rexler? Do you save early target locks for accurate shots in later rounds, or just take focus all the time hoping to turn up those damage cards?

If he's packing Predator, I'll pretty much only Focus with a few exceptions. If he's not no shot, and no one can snlhoot at him, I'll grab a TL on someone just in case I get a really lousy roll some time. If I can dodge or bring someone important into an arc, I'll do a barrel roll.

His offense is high enough that you don't need the Focus to be dangerous, but it puts your expected attack results at 4 hits, which is pretty sweet.

With the bonus that if you roll very well or got no focus results, and have no shots on you, you may trigger a wall of crits. I cannot express how fun it is when it does happen, even though it is an outlier scenario. Omega giving that stresshog a reduced agility crit ensured fun when Rexler fired.

I barrel rolled once, to get a rock between Rexler and someone that had a shot on him with no shots back, I target locked a few times, in much the type of scenarios raised by Biophysical, but focus is generally more flexible. Much like I almost always evaded with Zeta, making me question my decision not to get a second FO pack, I wanted the little murderer to survive his range 1 excursions.

The simplicity of choices with Rexler in this build is awesome. I think I'm going to try it out tonight. Thanks for the tips!

Tried this one out at the weekend with my brother, he's running a varied rebel list with a Stresshog (though with an ion cannon as I've not got any TLT cards), Poe with VI, Autothrusters and R2D2, B-wing with FCS and a Z-95. I won one and lost two, think I was playing too aggressively and letting him have too many shots on the FOs, plus not keeping OL alive long enough to make a difference in the end game.

I'm wondering about tweaking the build and trying to merge this into the Palp-Aces build I had been playing, what do you guys think of this?

Emperor's Brath

OGP with Palpatine 29

OL, Juke and Comm-relay 26

Rexler Brath, VI, HLC 45

Shuttle would hit as hard, or harder than ZL, at least until he goes past everyone, plus it lends a little more bulk.

Brath isn't exactly a supreme arc dodger like Fel, but at PS10 he might be one of the very last to move and I can maybe put him in a more favourable position with a barrel roll, or at the very least stop some aces from pulling the same stunt on him.

Finally the Emperor would make up for the loss of the hull upgrade on Brath a little and could be used as a purely offensive bonus if there wasn't an immediate threat.

In my brief experience, predator on Rexler is an important part of this build. Getting two action-less rerolls on stress hogs make them more likely to fall fast. I personally didn't feel I needed above PS8, even against VI Poes.

Id still be curious to see what you think after using your tweak though!

I read biophysical's post about a tourney he attended with a list close to this. I really liked the sound of it, so I made my own variant. First thing I did was drop rexler for vessery with VI. Rexler has never done the same work for me that Vessery has. The tourney I took my list to was great fun and I placed 5th with 3 wins (one modified) and one loss. Anyway, my list was:

Colonel Vessery 35

-Hlc 7

-Veteran Instincts 1

-Twin Ion Engine mk II 1

Omega Leader 21

-Juke 2

-Comm Relay 3

-Stealth Device 3

Zeta Leader 20

-Wired 1

-Comm Relay 3

-Hull Upgrade 3

100 points even.

I found that any game where Omega was alive to the end game I won. Vessery was worth his weight in gold, pretty much always had fully modified 4 dice attacks. Zeta Leader is a little monster, and with this setup felt like a budget defender with an arguably better dial and pilot skill 7. Wired came into effect alot more often than I expected as well. Omega Leader really shined in a match against a Soontir Fel and mini swarm where he almost single handedly (zeta leader mangled him a bit too) took down Fel with no return damage. It's a good list, and if I had flown it better in the final round I played I would have brought a Defender to top 4 at a store championship.

Zeta Leader is a little monster, and with this setup felt like a budget defender with an arguably better dial and pilot skill 7. Wired came into effect alot more often than I expected as well.

Yeah, of the three ships. Zeta Leader was the one that was really surprising. I was pretty familiar with Rex, and Omega Leader performed pretty much as expected, but Zeta Leader with Wired was so much better than I was expecting. The ability to slam into a group of lower PS ships, take the stress to get 4 dice at close range (with some modification) and have 3 dice with some defensive modification against every return attack was just awesome. He also did some solid work against TLTs for me. Despite being of about the same cost as most TLT carriers, he completely destroyed them 1v1, and was tough enough to tank one while shooting a second one at close range.

Going to have to try some of these lists they look incredibly fun and rewarding to fly.

In a four ship list, you pretty much have to use Tie Fighers or Tie/FO Fighters as an escort for your Defender. But if you're going for a three ship list, why don't you guys consider using Vessery with Veteran Instincts and 1-2 Tie Advanced? Is Rexler with Predator really worth the extra 4 points? Sure, in the end game, he'll be superior, but I'd expect the Defender to be focused first anyway and Vessery's ability isn't terribly difficult to trigger. Saving 4 points would allow you to upgrade one of your escorts to a Tie/x1 ace. Am I missing something here?

Juno can be played for 29-30 points, which enables you to fit her next to Vessery and an Omega Leader.

VI-Vader costs 35 points, which can be played next to Vessery and a Wired Zeta Leader or a Tempest Squadron Tie/x1.

@viability of the Defender:

Probably people are correct and it's 1-2 points to expensive, but I'm not so sure about that. Imho, the only issue of the Defender is that it's a Jouster, that is completely reliant on green dice. Two set of bad dice and he's gone or at least severely crippled. Vader, Echo, Soontir simply offer more reliabilty with marginally less offense. Rexler having an actual pilot ability would help as well.

In my limited experience people didn't go for Rexler first. It generally was attacks of opportunity on the closest FO, generally Zeta, unless they figured out how annoying Omega can be. The belief that defenders are over costed (and the legend Omega is becoming) keeps the focus off it.

I'm going to a friendly x-wing night next week and I want to see if people really figure out the Vessery synergy. Though seeing as some of the players there run 1 agi ships, Rexler's ability becomes mighty tempting.