After doing OK with my Vader, Redline, Omega Leader list last month I switched to a BroBots list for my first Store Championship of the year and managed to get a top-four finish. So, with swag in hand and another store champs on the way I decided to change to a more interesting list.
Like many other players I’ve always liked TIE Defenders but I realise they are currently among the weaker ships in the game, especially in a stress-heavy meta. However, I really wanted to try to make a list with a Defender work and judging by some of the reports on this very forum I am not alone.
After a lot of testing and a fair amount of frustration I settled on the following list as one that might allow me to actually win a couple of games:
Vader: Veteran Instincts, Title, Advanced Targeting Computer, Engine Upgrade, Proton Rockets
Colonel Vessery: Crack Shot, Heavy Laser Cannon, Proton Rockets, Guidance Chips
Wampa: Targeting Computer
So that’s a hell of an alpha strike if I can get to range 1 with Vader and Vessery. I added Wampa with a Targeting Computer to try to help get the most out of Vessery’s ability and potentially use the reroll to sneak a point of damage through with Wampa’s ability. For some reason people seemed to really fear Wampa and I’m not sure why. I think I got his ability off with any effect once the whole day.
The HLC provided some general punch and Vader is Vader, able to arc-dodge and put out a lot of damage. With Vessery and Wampa being sub-optimal choices and judging by the lists at the last store champs I went into this tournament hoping for 2 wins. I’d be ecstatic with a 3-2 record!
The tournament was held at Common Ground Games in Stirling, which is an excellent, spacious venue for all kinds of nerdy pursuits.
Game 1: Richard
3xTempest Squadrons with Accuracy Correctors (2 also had TIE MkII)
Vader: VI, Title, ATC, Engine
This is a squadron I’ve tried myself so I know the constant damage can be a danger but I also know it can be underpowered, especially against a list with 3 agility. The key to winning would be to remove ships as quickly as possible to reduce the amount of guaranteed damage coming my way. It’s a bit like quad TLT in that sense, just nowhere near as powerful!
I was given initiative so my Vader would have to move first. I used my standard deployment which is to put Wampa fairly central and then put Vader and Vessery on one flank together. In this case that was my right flank, while Richard put everything on my left.
I went slowly with Wampa and moved my flankers up fast, hoping to delay engagement until round 3. Richard moved up quite quickly, especially with Vader who was looking to get round behind me, but his Tempests would have to go through the asteroids to get to me. That slowed them down so combat did take until round 3. I concentrated fire on one of the Tempests, knocking it down to 1 health.
Richard’s Vader was slow in getting round and into the fight and I weathered the initial burst of fire from the Tempests before we descended into a messy furball with K-turns and bumping galore. The 1-health Tempest survived an infuriatingly long time but Proton Rockets and HLC fire took their toll on the rest of Richard’s squad and he struggled to concentrate fire.
Wampa eventually took out the 1-health Tempest (it survived 4 more turns, somehow) before he died to Vader’s guns but that left an endgame of his Vader against mine and Vessery and he couldn’t handle the firepower coming at him.
I think Richard was a little slow getting Vader into combat in this game, allowing me an extra turn of firing at the Tempests, which meant there was one less on the board by the time his Vader got stuck in and his remaining Tempests were scattered and out of formation.
I was pleased to start the day with a win as that was me halfway to my initial goal.
Result: Win 100-16
Game 2: Ross
Ross is a regular opponent and we’d tested lists against each other in the run-up to the tournament. He’d been running a variation on a Wedge/Poe list for the last few tournaments. This time it was:
Poe: VI, Autothrusters, R5-Poe9
Wedge: Predator, R2-D2, Integrated Astromech
Stresshog
I know from testing this is a list I really, really struggle to beat. The stresshog is a problem but it can be removed without causing too much direct damage. However, that leaves the 2 aces free to pick me off and they both pack a hell of a punch.
I started with my aces on the left and Ross had his on the right. He turned the stresshog towards Vader and Vessery but I kept their moves in the second round slow to stay out of range. I followed that up with some 5-straight manoeuvres in the next round to land both ships at range 1 of the stresshog while Wampa moved up to target lock, ensuring Vader could use his and still leave Vessery with one to use.
There was a scary moment when Wedge opened up on Wampa and almost killed him but he hung on and the resulting 10 fully modified dice removed the Y-Wing in a storm of rocket fire. From here I made a couple of positional errors and Vader bumped, leading to his demise at the hands of Wedge. Vessery stayed in the fight a bit longer, knocking Wedge down to 1 hull with Crack Shot but Ross knew all he had to do was disengage and recover shields.
Unfortunately Vessery against 2 of the best Rebel aces isn’t a fair match-up and he died fairly quickly.
I wasn’t too down about the loss as I knew it would be an uphill struggle from the start. I was happy with how I controlled the range to the stresshog and maybe with some better manoeuvring from Vader I could have caused some more problems.
Result: Loss 26-100
Game 3: Joe
After a break for lunch I resumed with a game against the only other player to have taken a Defender. So whichever one of us won, it would be a good day for Defenders.
Joe had taken:
Vader: VI, ATC, Engine, Title
Vessery: VI, TIE MkII, Tractor Beam
Omega Leader: Juke, Comm Relay
So he’d sacrificed the raw firepower of a HLC and Prockets for a better third ship and higher PS. I knew I had to kill Omega Leader early as an endgame of him against anyone else would be problematic.
I was given initiative and we ended up deploying in diagonally opposite corners, with Joe in the top left. AS usual, I went slow with Wampa in the middle and tried to get Vader and Vessery into flanking positions. I turned in one round earlier in this game than I usually do, sensing an opportunity to get some long range shots at OL.
Those shots stripped the evade token and put some damage through and OL died fairly quickly after being focussed down. My Proton Rocket barrage then accounted for Vessery and it was Vader against the world.
I’d taken a bit of damage on Vader at this point but his Vader wasn’t looking too good either and after a bit of cat and mouse around the asteroids I got him down to one hull with a target-locked/focussed Wampa at range 1. The dice came up hit, focus, blank and I was debating rerolling all of them to go for the crit but just went with the blank and managed to get another focus for 3 hits. Joe couldn’t roll the natural 3 evades needed and that was that.
Joe admitted he hadn’t flown particularly well in this game, especially with Omega Leader and the dice weren’t on his side either. Having said that, not having at least a Mangler on Vessery really hurts your damage output.
The Tractor Beam isn’t really that scary yet since you lose over 1/3 of your squad’s total firepower to fire it and you still need to hit. I may have considered Adaptability for Vader in this list since the possibility of having everyone at PS8 with a TB shot going first might have worked better.
Result: Win 100-0
Game 4: Ryan
I’d faced Ryan in the top 8 at the previous store champs when I used my Brobots and here he was flying a similar list to the one he used then:
Poe: VI, Autothrusters, R5-Poe9
Miranda: Jan Ors, TLT
Stresshog
So, the plan? Kill the goddamn stresshog ASAP and then start working on Miranda.
I managed to get through to alpha strike the stresshog without too much attention from the aces and my second satisfying 10-dice volley of the day obliterated the unfortunate Y-Wing with ease.
I lost Wampa soon after that, denying me his blocking potential. The Defender’s white K-turns proved their worth, letting me get into position with Vessery and not get shot back on a few occasions.
My opponent was unfortunately forced to use the old damage deck as he’d left his Force Awakens deck back at home and this ultimately cost him dearly. Poe took a Blinded Pilot crit at a time when he was struggling to get back into the fight and as Ryan wanted to regen he couldn’t turn around quickly, leaving Miranda to face the Vader/Vessery combo alone. More misfortune followed when Vader punched through her shields and landed an Injured Pilot crit, meaning her return fire couldn’t regen a shield and Vessery was able to take her down thanks to that.
Meanwhile Poe had come back around but the Blinded Pilot crit allowed me to be more aggressive than I would otherwise have been, parking Vessery at range 1 and bringing Vader in for the kill. He’d managed to regen a few shields but couldn’t handle the combined firepower of the 2 Vs and he was destroyed in the next round.
Ryan was definitely unlucky with the crits in this game but I thought I flew well. My target priority was good and even when I couldn’t fire at the ship I wanted to my good damage output meant I was able to do lasting damage to the pair of regenerating ships. This is why I like the HLC on Vessery. It doesn’t matter how much you can regen if you take 4 hits a few turns in a row.
Result: Win 100-16
Game 5: Edwin
I honestly had no idea how I’d managed a 3-1 record at this stage but I’d already achieved my aim of 3 wins so I went into this quite relaxed. That is until I realised I was a win away from the top 8 with a Defender list.
I was paired against Edwin, who I’d played a few times before. He seems to like his B-Wings and on this occasion was flying:
Ten Numb: VI, Adv. Sensors, Mangler
Horton Salm: EPT Droid, VI, TLT
Dagger Squadron: Adv. Sensors
So lots of health but not much agility and his VI bids to PS10 didn’t affect me at all. Ten Numb was a problem so I decided to go for him first and try to take Horton out second if possible as his highly accurate TLT would be a nuisance if left too long.
For the fifth time in one day I found myself swinging in towards my opponent’s squad from one flank. Ten Numb put an early crit on Wampa, which was of course a Direct Hit (TIEs seem to attract them somehow) and he was quickly finished off. I’d managed to control range to the Dagger squadron pilot and negate his shots in the opening exchanges but Ten Numb proved tricky to pin down.
I eventually got my tag team going on him and took him off the board but not before he and Salm had relieved Vessery of his shields.
It was only a matter of time before my Defender died to the TLT so I ignored the Dagger squadron and went hunting. Vader got on Horton’s tail and took him down before Vessery died but that left me out of position against the remaining B-Wing, who was untouched.
Vessery was limping badly and I burned his Crack Shot to get one more damage through before a range-1 shot ended him. That left a 2-hull Vader against an unshielded B-Wing but some good flying from Edwin kept me from getting the shot I wanted.
I ended up with Vader in a corner, ready to turn towards the oncoming B-Wing. Edwin knew he had to turn into me, even though it meant going over a rock. He took a crit, which was Direct Hit but he had an unanswered shot at Vader who had turtled up. A hit, hit, crit saw Vader almost fluff his defence roll. The crit went through and I had to pray it wasn’t a Direct Hit. It turned out to be Damaged Engine and I lived to fight another day.
However, I was now in a bad spot. I’d planned to do a 3-hard next turn followed by some arc dodging to get the killshot without needing to worry about shots back. That wasn’t going to happen now. I briefly considered a 3-bank and boost to get away but that felt too defensive and I’d likely be on the back foot with only one lucky shot needed to kill me.
So I went for a 2-hard to get a range 2 shot with no focus thanks to the stress from my damaged engines. The dice came up…I honestly can’t remember, but it was enough to put 2 damage through and comfortably kill the B-Wing.
That was a little too close to call. Normally a B-Wing against Vader endgame is pretty simple but the starting position here didn’t favour me and I think I also need to improve this side of my game a bit. Perhaps more patience is called for.
Result: Win 100-62
That left me 4-1 and there was nobody more shocked and pleased than me at that. The top 8 were announced and I’d managed 3rd overall. I’m really not sure how that happened. So now it was on to the top 8.
Top 8: Ross
Yep, Ross again – the only person I’d lost to so far. As noted before this is a difficult match-up and I was fairly sure Ross would adjust his strategy to prevent me getting an easy range 1 shot at the stresshog again.
I was right but the flipside of that tactic meant the Y-Wing wasn’t able to inflict much damage itself as it dodged away from the oncoming Imperials. We ended up a bit more condensed in the middle and I got very bogged down between the asteroids, resulting in some costly bumps that Ross took advantage of.
I was trying to get a Prockets shot onto one of his aces since the stresshog was being chipped away at rather than alpha-striked but Ross did a good job keeping his own aces away from mine and in any battle of attrition his list will eventually win.
I removed the stresshog and had a couple of opportunities to put some hurt on Wedge but couldn’t quite get through his defences, leaving the result the same as our first game even if the game itself played out very differently.
Result: Loss 26-100
The top 4 was Ross, Mark (the other friend I’d gone with) who was flying a stresshog, TLT, Miranda, Z95 list, Jamie flying Biggs, Wedge and Wes and Grant with an 8 Headhunter swarm. The final was Jamie against Grant and the eventual victor was the swarm.
Credit to Grant for managing to stay on top of things with so many ships for so many games. Also credit to Common Ground Games who ran a great tournament despite some technical hiccups on the day.
