I've been thinking about it, and it seems to me that the unique T-65 X Wing abilities are going to be incredibly useful if the triple U Boat list becomes a staple of the meta. Consider:

Wes Janson, 29 points, PS8. "After you perform an attack, you may remove 1 focus, evade, or blue target lock token from the defender."

The benefits here are obvious - Wes is firing well before your PS3 jumpmasters, and can remove their focus or target lock before they get the chance to shoot their torpedoes. Without torps, fancy crew, non-deadeye EPTs or the Punishing One title, Jumpmasters are no more dangerous than Wild Space fringers, hardly a dominant meta choice right now.

Biggs Darklighter, 25 points, PS5. "Other friendly ships at Range 1 cannot be targeted by attacks if the attacker could target you instead."

Everyone knows Biggs, and how good he is, especially with IA and R4-D6. It's that combo that matters here - R4-D6 lets you remove the number of hits you take down to two. If your opponent has armed his Jumpmasters with Plasma torpedoes rather than protons, that factor is critical, because they're only ever going to do two damage at a time (unless they get lucky and roll a crit) - the X Wing's two shields first, then two hull, then the final killing blow.

Tarn Mison, 23 points, PS3. "When an enemy ship declares you as the target of an attack, you may acquire a target lock on that ship."

Again, Tarn is a known quantity - everyone knows how good he is with R7 Astromech - you shoot him, he gets a target lock on you, and immediately spends that target lock to make you reroll your dice. He particularly good against jumpmasters though, because of the rules arund rerolling dice; they can only be rerolled once, and defenders get to reroll before attackers.

Consider a situation where your opponent wants to shoot at Tarn with a 34 point Scout, Proton Torpedo, Deadeye, R4 Agromech, Extra Munitions, Guidance Chips setup. He spends his focus to shoot the Torpedo, and rolls blank, hit, focus, hit. He converts the blank to a hit, the focus to a crit*, then receives his target lock.

Tarn then gets to force the opponent to reroll all of the dice - suddenly, your opponent is rolling 4 unmodified dice and critically, that target lock that the scout now has can't be used. Even if they do the sensible thing and hold off on converting with guidance chips, you're still not going to be taking 4 hits most of the time.

The upshot is that Tarn is one of a very small number of ships in the game that can take that Deadeye/R4 combo that's going to give you 4 hits super consistently and reduce it down to two or three hits pretty consistently before even rolling any green dice. Ultimately, Tarn becomes a lot like Biggs in that your opponent can't really kill him quickly with Torpedoes without a lot of luck.

*Not 100% sure on the timing here

I think these ships are going to be a pretty strong series of counters to the Jumpmasters, and the cool thing is that they're pretty modular - you can run all three together in an anti U-Boat hard counter build, or slot any one of them into another list as a degree of protection from these lists if they become as common as everyone is assuming they will. For example, this is a powerful ant U-Boat list:

Biggs Darklighter (25)
R4-D6 (1)
Integrated Astromech (0)

Wes Janson (29)
Draw Their Fire (1)
R2-D2 (4)
Integrated Astromech (0)

Bandit Squadron Pilot (12)
XX-23 S-Thread Tracers (1)
Guidance Chips (0)

Tarn Mison (23)
R7 Astromech (2)
Integrated Astromech (0)

Total: 98

You have all your anti U-Boat X-Wings, as well as a bandit blocker who can set up a powerful second strike for your 3 attack X wings, with absolute certainty that (thanks to Biggs and Wes) there's effectively no way you lose a ship in the opening round of fire without some insane crits. On the flipside, however, you can also do something like this:

Wes Janson (29)
Veteran Instincts (1)
R2-D2 (4)
Integrated Astromech (0)

Gray Squadron Pilot (20)
Twin Laser Turret (6)
Extra Munitions (2)
Bomb Loadout (0)
R3-A2 (2)
Seismic Charges (2)
BTL-A4 Y-Wing (0)

Tala Squadron Pilot (13)
Concussion Missiles (4)
Guidance Chips (0)

Tala Squadron Pilot (13)
Concussion Missiles (4)
Guidance Chips (0)

Total: 100

Here, Wes is filling double duty as an ace hunter and U-Boat Insurance, and, combined with the upgraded Stresshog, will absolutely wreck the ability of any U-Boat list to perform a proper alpha strike (Flown well, this list should see two torpedoes in the first round of fire, one in the second, and then often no more after that - that assumes the Stresshog rolls at least one evade and survives the first engagement, and that you can kill at least one scout by the end of the second combat round). Another option:

Biggs Darklighter (25)
R4-D6 (1)
Integrated Astromech (0)

Dagger Squadron Pilot (24)
Fire-Control System (2)
Autoblaster (5)
Plasma Torpedoes (3)
Extra Munitions (2)
Guidance Chips (0)

Dagger Squadron Pilot (24)
Fire-Control System (2)
Autoblaster (5)
Proton Torpedoes (4)
Extra Munitions (2)
Guidance Chips (0)

Total: 99

Biggs ensures that your B Wings survive the first round of combat, giving them enough time to deliver a plasma/proton crit heavy double whammy that, with a bit of luck, will cripple or kill at least one and hopefully two jump masters, and then, once the Range 1 knife fight starts, your B Wings have the Autoblaster/FCS advantage and the edge in PS.

I'm aware that these lists are somewhat... focused. Up against JumpMasters, they'll devastate, against other lists... well, who knows. But I really do think that both "The X-Wing is useless!" crowd, and "The JumpMaster is OP!" crowd should consider that the hyperbole on both sides maybe doesn't stand up to real scrutiny.

Your Tarn timing is wrong. He rolls hit hit eye blank, and you force him to reroll. Likely the hit hit eye. At which time he maybe gets hit eye blank. He now has hit eye blank blank. At this time, he spends his target lock (which was acquired via spending the Focus/Deadeye to fire the proton) to reroll the final blank. Lets say it turns up as a focus. Now he has hit focus focus blank. At which point, the proton torp changes it to crit hit focus blank. He spends the focus (and acquires another TL) and the chimps and ends up with crit hit hit hit. Tarn rolls his two dice gets nothing and draws a direct hit and says BYE to R7.

In that scenario, he doesn't have a focus to spend - he used deadeye and spent the focus to fire the torpedo in the first place.

EDIT: Reread. In not sure how he's getting all of these focus and TLs in your scenario - he gains a focus token as an action, then spends it to fire the torps, gaining a target lock. No more focus tokens after that point unless I'm missing something significant.

Unless he has recon specialist.

Unless he has recon specialist.

Correct, but at that point, it becomes a 36 or 37 point build, putting a list with three of them out of reach, and they're a lot less scary without massed torpedo fire in an alpha strike.

Unless he has recon specialist.

Correct, but at that point, it becomes a 36 or 37 point build, putting a list with three of them out of reach, and they're a lot less scary without massed torpedo fire in an alpha strike.

so what happens if you land 2 + an ace?

Like you i don't see a "sky is falling" scenario with 3 u boats, although they are rather tough. My take is more on developing 2+ ps bid mist hunter or talonbane atm to deal with those kind of issues as well as flat out arc dodger lists, which present all sorts of problems to keeping u boat fire focused without very smart flying.

What U-boat menace?
They're good, but not jawbreaking. KKK had a much greater impact.

The impact of UUU on acewing is almost non-existant

I fought Jansen (R2, Adaptability +1, IA) Wedge (PtL, BB-8, IA) and Poe (R5P9, IA, Adaptability) with Dengar and Boba Fett and barely squeaked by. Had I been fielding a Contracted Scout it would have been super annoying to fight Jansen with him dropping tokens (he won initiative and was moving first, shooting first) before I could fire, though with Dengar and Recon Specialist I was able to avoid the worst of it. Wedge died round three after Boba showered him with cluster missiles then flew over him and killed him with the back arc so I'm not sure how he would have impacted the list. Dengar with one hull ended up winning the game but Jansen was by far the most annoying piece on the board!

Wait, so you want be to be thrilled that my X-Wings are only going to take 2-3 damage? Oh boy, they're only going to lose 1/3 to 1/2 of their health per Torpedo shot, and that's if you spend extra points buying unique pilots and droids. Having a quarter of my list be reliably killed in one salvo doesn't seem very appealing. I'll just stick with actually good ships thank you.

Still, I'll give you Jansen. He's in my current 'U-Boat Counter' list, but completely nude (not even IA)

Wait, so you want be to be thrilled that my X-Wings are only going to take 2-3 damage? Oh boy, they're only going to lose 1/3 to 1/2 of their health per Torpedo shot, and that's if you spend extra points buying unique pilots and droids. Having a quarter of my list be reliably killed in one salvo doesn't seem very appealing. I'll just stick with actually good ships thank you.

Still, I'll give you Jansen. He's in my current 'U-Boat Counter' list, but completely nude (not even IA)

However, with ~18 health to chew through, those two dice PWTs might overwhelm the X-wings... Unless one of them is Poe or Luke.

In my experience, the ship with R4D6 is going to have some natural crits rolled against it. Only 1 of the 8 dice those 2 Jumpmasters roll need to be a crit to scupper that plan and kill Biggs, which is statistically likely. I'm not betting a quarter of my list against odds like those.

Where do all these cool astromechs come from! i'm going to have to get the rebel transport aren't I? I really need that regen one.

I've been thinking about it, and it seems to me that the unique T-65 X Wing abilities are going to be incredibly useful if the triple U Boat list becomes a staple of the meta.

Khyros is right: because the defender modifies attack dice before the attacker, Tarn + R7 doesn't have very useful timing.

A lightly-built Wes and Biggs are both nasty counters, though. If I were building a Rebel list and my only concern was handling 3x JumpMasters, I think my list would look something like this:

Chopper can be replaced by anything at 44 points, but the VCX hits hard and resists ordnance fairly well. And with Wes stripping one ship's focus, Jan + Tactical Jammer means Biggs is very likely to survive both of the remaining torpedo shots (about 3:1 odds in his favor, even if he can't trigger his droid). If you can strip another focus with Wes and PS-kill the damaged Scout on the second round of engagement, then I think the match goes your way.

Don't forget that if Biggs is in a jm's range but out of arc it simply can't fire its torps at all, as it must fire its piddly primary at Biggs.

I took this to the finals of my latest Store Champ (I didn't lose, but I didn't win -- look for video from Trinity Squad Gaming, coming soon!):

"Brace Yourself" (99)

Biggs + R4-D6 + IA (26)

Keyan + Opportunist + ProtonT + ExM + GC (39)

Wes + DrawTF + R2-D2 + IA (34)

I never fired a second torp from Keyan -- it descends to knife-fighting too quickly -- so it would be good to replace ExM with FCS. I would also consider replacing R4-D6 with R2-D6 and a 0- or 1-point EPT, with VI being the leading candidate. I'm not as sure of that change, but R4-D6 only triggered once in five rounds.

I think those ships can work, but I think the rebels best answer to U-boats is this:

Ezra w/ PTL, TLT, Chewbacca, engine

I've been running a Ghost+zeb phantom with Ezra and it destroys Wolfpack - they are lucky to get a single torpedo off.

I think A-Wings may also be viable. Autothrusters help survive the range three onslaught (although admittedly one is probably going to die), after that, range one or at least staying out of arc should be relatively easy, and you can use refit to fit more in the list or prockets to beat down one u-boat pretty quickly.

Edit: something like this:

3x Green Squadron

PTL, title, adaptability, refit, autothrusters

2x prototypes

Refit, autothrusters

In my experience, the ship with R4D6 is going to have some natural crits rolled against it. Only 1 of the 8 dice those 2 Jumpmasters roll need to be a crit to scupper that plan and kill Biggs, which is statistically likely. I'm not betting a quarter of my list against odds like those.

I expect 2 U-boats + ace is likely to become a staple.It's a little easier on the wallet too.

I'd have to see the X-wing Wing in action. I'm skeptical TBH that it'll work that well - the U-boats have such a hull/shield advantage I think X-wings might struggle even without Torps.

That said, there's definitely potential on paper. I pointed up a similar list a while ago:

Wes

Integrated Astro

Veteran Instincts

Targeting Astro

Biggs:

Shield Upgrade

R2-D2

Poe

Integrated Astro

Draw Their Fire

R5-P9

This wasn't built with the U-boats in mind but I think it can still handle a punch. Wes denies one Torp shot. The hope is Biggs can take two torps. Assuming the enemy gets two sets of 1c3h, Poe takes 2 hits on his shields and Biggs needs to roll 1 evade on 4 dice to not die. After which if Wes can stay on target, you should be able to block 2 perhaps all of them from firing torps.

Edit: just realised what DTF stood for in the previous post. Yeah that's one where I don't think abbreviating it is a good idea

Barons seem like little beasts for Uboats. Throw PTL + Concussions+Title+AT on them and they can TL,Evade, and Focus. Two of them with Concussion missilesThen after the missile. They are TL,Evade,dodging machines. I think a Baron with PTL + Title + AT can solo a contracted scout. BR outta arc, take a TL+evade. Your attacks get modified with TL, and you have an evade plus three greens. As long as you dont roll 3 eyeballs, you evade the scouts turret. Just keep pecking away with your 2 attack die.

2x Baron+PTL+Concussions+Title+AT (Dont roll two blanks and you get 4 hits with Concussions)

2x Black Sq + Crack Shot

Academy Pilot for blocking