When it works, it's amazing, but it probably has the most trouble when you need it most. It's one of the reasons I like Lone Wolf on him. It's also the reason I like Predator on someone not Vessery. Predator is always active, no conditions to fulfill.

Predator on Vessery's spotter also let them just hang on to the Target Lock instead of needing to reacquire it for him each round. I'm not very mathey but my gut tells me that Predator+Focus on 3-4 dice is stronger than Target Lock on the same number of dice.

This is my experience, but that only really kicks in when you've got one big ship for Vessery to chew on for a while. That's great in the Fat Turret meta, but that's a less common than it used to be.

Or it lets you take a TL on the target you want Vessery chasing while still being able to take a modified shot on a different target.

I'm surprised you said X/7 didn't have a problem with massed firepower. While I understand Tie Swarms and such, what about lists that have more than 3 ships with 3 attack dice? I'd think that would be a problem. Either that or a couple of heavy hitters and a few low 2 red dice can cut through tokens and dice on the X/7. Or is that just something you don't see in the meta lately? I would think that if one X/7 gets caught in the firing arc of 3 U-boats, that it would be in trouble. It would survive more than other ships, but it would still get battered (if not destroyed).

...

That leads me to the next step in the discussion....what type of lists would you make with the new Tie Defenders? One of the things I've been thinking about is a mini-swarm with a Defender ace. U-boats are the rage, but lots of high agility ships are a nightmare to them. I'm thinking of maybe 3-4 other ships. They can be named guys or generics, but the idea is that Ordnance has a hard time burning any of them down and you still have the firepower to take on Aces. Blocking gets easier with more ships, as well. There are also a number of generic Tie Fighters that gain extra shots at certain points.

1.) It's not so much that they don't have problems with massed firepower, it's that the amount of massed firepower needed to kill one often eats up enough limited resources that the rest of the squad will have an easier game.

2.) I thought about a section for squad archetypes, but I had so much text already, so I just skipped it.

Here's a smattering of ones that have gone through my head.

Defender+Miniswarm

2 Expensive Defenders + Blocker

2 Cheap Defenders + Ace

PalpAces (with one or two Defender)

When it works, it's amazing, but it probably has the most trouble when you need it most. It's one of the reasons I like Lone Wolf on him. It's also the reason I like Predator on someone not Vessery. Predator is always active, no conditions to fulfill.

Predator on Vessery's spotter also let them just hang on to the Target Lock instead of needing to reacquire it for him each round. I'm not very mathey but my gut tells me that Predator+Focus on 3-4 dice is stronger than Target Lock on the same number of dice.

This is my experience, but that only really kicks in when you've got one big ship for Vessery to chew on for a while. That's great in the Fat Turret meta, but that's a less common than it used to be.

Is it? I saw a lot of 2 ship lists in the Chicago Regionals results. Ghost + Dash seems pretty popular. Palp Decimator lists also seem to be popping up.

When it works, it's amazing, but it probably has the most trouble when you need it most. It's one of the reasons I like Lone Wolf on him. It's also the reason I like Predator on someone not Vessery. Predator is always active, no conditions to fulfill.

Predator on Vessery's spotter also let them just hang on to the Target Lock instead of needing to reacquire it for him each round. I'm not very mathey but my gut tells me that Predator+Focus on 3-4 dice is stronger than Target Lock on the same number of dice.

This is my experience, but that only really kicks in when you've got one big ship for Vessery to chew on for a while. That's great in the Fat Turret meta, but that's a less common than it used to be.

Is it? I saw a lot of 2 ship lists in the Chicago Regionals results. Ghost + Dash seems pretty popular. Palp Decimator lists also seem to be popping up.

Hey, maybe I'm wrong. If so, Vessery gets better.

Not true. Vessery eats small ships too.

I'd rather run Brax if i knew i was facing large ships. Large ships never have better than 2 agi unless they have a stealth device for some reason. Brax would consistantly cause faceup damage to them, while vessery would do on average more damage but not many crits. Crits can sometimes make a target completely worthless so you can start ignoring them long before you normally would.

Faced a Hawk once with his ion turret crap. Literally first damage card he drew took away that turret. So i ignored him rofl...4hp because hull upgrade with terrible turning power and 1die main gun yeah im not wasting my dice on you rofl.

Not true. Vessery eats small ships too.

That's the rub, right? You need the spotter, and you need the spotter to not waste its action by spotting for Vessery, and you need that to happen most of the time. Take the Inquisitor/Vessery/Omega Leader list that has popped up a few times in this thread. What if you're facing an Omega Leader/Whipser list that won the Initiative bid? Whisper + Omega Leader might smoke the Inquisitor before he and your Omega Leader even gets to take a Target Lock Action, so Vessery is throwing basic dice and has spent his EPT on a largely useless PS8. Even next turn, your Omega Leader can lock Whisper, but maybe Vessery can't get arc, and the enemy Omega Leader Locks Vessery, making his ability moot. Vessery could easily end up being dead weight in this matchup.

That's why I like using a 50% free TL rate for Vessery when calculating his numbers, as the baseline for "realistic" performance that you will likely get out of him. You might be able to line up a spotter 100% of the time in a few games, but overall performance won't be that high.

However, even getting a free target lock 50% of the time, he's still reasonably efficient with the x7 title.

• Juke+x7 ~100%
• VI + x7 ~93%
• VI + TIE/D + TB ~88% (assuming one additional follow-on shot for the tractor beam)
• VI + TIE/D + Ion ~85%

With VI + the TIE/D title you really need to work that cannon and K-turn to earn the points back. With tractor beam you can directly use the affect (boost/barrel roll onto a rock anyone?), or just pile on more shots onto the beamed target.

The Ion Cannon efficiency is getting low enough I'm not sure how reliable that build will be. It's hard to baseline how much added value there is there, as Ion Control has never been good enough empirically to generate a baseline, let alone one on a ship with a white 4K.

A comparison just for kicks:

• Ruthlessness + TIE/D + TB is worth (best case) about 50 points in raw dice. It costs 39 points and has a white K turn. That's 128% efficient before derating for PS6. Nifty.

I've run Vessery with variations on Vader, OL and Inquisitor quite a few times. I'm surprised to find that I rate Inquisitor as my favourite wingman for him! I expected to prefer the other two ships, as neither want to spend their TLs, so their 'paint' stays on for longer...

But with Vader and OL, the TL is a necessary function of running both ships properly - as such, you have little choice but to TL the 'right' ship for the situation. When their targets and maneuvers converge, it's great, but when they don't it means competing aims, and can leave Vess high and dry. Now, Ves is having to chase the painted ships to remain efficient, and his dial doesn't always allow that. With the Inquisitor, you want to be taking TL as much as possible anyway, to push his action economy up to the elite 3-a-round standard.

Often, for an odd round, if he needs to he can afford to TL purely for Ves's sake, banking that evade, and leaving himself free to still focus. Also, he burns his TL most rounds, and wants to be repainting every round for the free evade = more flexible = better for Ves. Neither Vader nor OL can afford to do this, either in terms of action economy or wasted secondary effect of TL'ing. (Of course, you need to run Ves with VI.)

There's 3 points that make Vessery Palpaces incredible. Shuttle title- you wernt using your action that turn anyway, were you?

Another option is Deathrain, Redline, Echo or Whisper with FCS. Vessery even gets his EPT slot back, because he wants to go AFTER them.

Personally I've never really worked out how not to see Vessery as a parasite. Against small ships anyway. But I'm **** sure looking forward to working it out.

Then again my local regular has so few Imperial players that I don't often face large numbers of green dice. Except at tournaments. Then the PalpAces brigade seems to appear in large numbers.

I've been playing around a lot with this list:

Vessery/VI/D/Tractor Beam

Rexlar Brath/Juke/x7

Omega Leader/Juke/Comm Relay

As a team, they all have incredible synergy. Vessery benefits a lot from the boost to PS8, where he can hang with the Imperial A-Holes and lead things off for Rexlar and Omega. The double-tap helps you burn off tokens. Omega Leader serves as a Target Lock spotter, benefits from both the extra threat of Vessery and the -1 agility from the Tractor Beam, and helps burn off any remaining shields. That frees Rexlar to fire a Juked attack at a reduced agility target, hopefully saving his focus to deal maximum crits.

I played that list to get to Top 4 of Reddit RXT Season 1 tourney recently. It is really solid. My ONLY wish is that Brath had enough pts for Predator, as rolling 3 hits consistently is usually better than what Juke does for ya. However, Juke is a good since that's all you can fit, and DOES synergize well with TB and reducing the value of green dice even more.

So i had a hunch. All this yacking about the defender titles, nobody brought up working it with the ship it comes in the package with: the bomber.

Out of curiosity to see the points, i threw this together. Tbh, this looks scary lol

Gamma Squad Veteran (29)
Wired

Shield Upgrade

TIE Shuttle

Fleet Officer

Systems Officer

Countess Ryad (35)

Juke

TIE Mk2

TIE/x7

Vessery (36)

Juke

TIE Mk2

TIE/x7

Total: 100pts

The plot: Vessery will attack before Ryad so the Bomber will Systems Officer to make Ryad get a free targetlock and Fleet Officer to give both of them a Focus for free, allowing both to either double the focus or barrelroll and still have focus/targetlock and vessery will have a target. Wired is because what else is the bomber going to do than fire its petty 2 dice? 1pt to reroll focus since he will always be stressed is pretty good here.

That is going to hit something haaaard. If Ryad doesnt use her targetlock, then the Systems Officer will just give it to Vessery and not worry about getting his pilot skill off just right.

There's 3 points that make Vessery Palpaces incredible. Shuttle title- you wernt using your action that turn anyway, were you?

Another option is Deathrain, Redline, Echo or Whisper with FCS. Vessery even gets his EPT slot back, because he wants to go AFTER them.

The inquisitor really is a great match for vessery, with him along you're free to take whomever you like as your third.

Rexler with fel and inquisitor is another build I like.

Not true. Vessery eats small ships too.

I'd rather run Brax if i knew i was facing large ships. Large ships never have better than 2 agi unless they have a stealth device for some reason. Brax would consistantly cause faceup damage to them, while vessery would do on average more damage but not many crits. Crits can sometimes make a target completely worthless so you can start ignoring them long before you normally would.

Faced a Hawk once with his ion turret crap. Literally first damage card he drew took away that turret. So i ignored him rofl...4hp because hull upgrade with terrible turning power and 1die main gun yeah im not wasting my dice on you rofl.

That's not really the issue. Size isn't the issue, the number of ships is the issue. It is far easier to concentrate firepower on 1 of 2 ships instead of 1 of 3 or 4. Rexlar it does depend on what ships are being run. He likes high hull ships for understandable reasons.

Scum 2 ships are also gaining in popularity, outside of Uboat squads. So, another area where Vessery can concentrate firepower.

Quite often when i ran vessery Vader and stele targets would pop before maarek could use his ability.

That was before the titles came out so I imagine it'd be a more frequent now.

Rexler loves big ships but he's also fond of y-wing's and b-wings so he's not just for epic.

So i had a hunch. All this yacking about the defender titles, nobody brought up working it with the ship it comes in the package with: the bomber.

16 Points for a Scimitar with LRS. He can TL for Vessery without getting into the mix. Spend a few more points on bombs and set him up to do a fly over where you expect that aces are going to end up.

I've been playing around a lot with this list:

Vessery/VI/D/Tractor Beam

Rexlar Brath/Juke/x7

Omega Leader/Juke/Comm Relay

As a team, they all have incredible synergy. Vessery benefits a lot from the boost to PS8, where he can hang with the Imperial A-Holes and lead things off for Rexlar and Omega. The double-tap helps you burn off tokens. Omega Leader serves as a Target Lock spotter, benefits from both the extra threat of Vessery and the -1 agility from the Tractor Beam, and helps burn off any remaining shields. That frees Rexlar to fire a Juked attack at a reduced agility target, hopefully saving his focus to deal maximum crits.

I played that list to get to Top 4 of Reddit RXT Season 1 tourney recently. It is really solid. My ONLY wish is that Brath had enough pts for Predator, as rolling 3 hits consistently is usually better than what Juke does for ya. However, Juke is a good since that's all you can fit, and DOES synergize well with TB and reducing the value of green dice even more.

My only gripe about the list is the match I had where I was down to Rexlar, and my opponent's Boba Fett absconded with my title. He effectively killed two cards with one shot, as I could no longer generate the evade tokens to use Juke.

I've been playing around a lot with this list:

Vessery/VI/D/Tractor Beam

Rexlar Brath/Juke/x7

Omega Leader/Juke/Comm Relay

As a team, they all have incredible synergy. Vessery benefits a lot from the boost to PS8, where he can hang with the Imperial A-Holes and lead things off for Rexlar and Omega. The double-tap helps you burn off tokens. Omega Leader serves as a Target Lock spotter, benefits from both the extra threat of Vessery and the -1 agility from the Tractor Beam, and helps burn off any remaining shields. That frees Rexlar to fire a Juked attack at a reduced agility target, hopefully saving his focus to deal maximum crits.

I played that list to get to Top 4 of Reddit RXT Season 1 tourney recently. It is really solid. My ONLY wish is that Brath had enough pts for Predator, as rolling 3 hits consistently is usually better than what Juke does for ya. However, Juke is a good since that's all you can fit, and DOES synergize well with TB and reducing the value of green dice even more.

My only gripe about the list is the match I had where I was down to Rexlar, and my opponent's Boba Fett absconded with my title. He effectively killed two cards with one shot, as I could no longer generate the evade tokens to use Juke.

Ouch that's nasty brah.

Been looking at 3 aces lists as I prefer it over Palp.

Like most the initial thought is Vader and OL supporting Vess due to their TLs.

Something like

Vader (34)

Adaptability 0

EU 4

ATC 1

Vess (39)

VI 1

Ion Cannon 3

Tie D

OL (26)

Juke 2

Comms 3

Comes to 99 for a 1 bid and a Vader that can run at PS8 to match the other 2 or 10 depending on opponents PS.

However lately Vaders lack of Autothrusters has seen him often the focus of attention (I usually run Soontir instead of Vess) and I keep hearing how efficient Inquisitor is.

Swapping Vader to The Inquistor

Inquisitor (31)

PTL 3

Auto 2

Title 1

Frees up 3 points and still 1 for bid. Proton rockets maybe, extra hull on Vess or OL

thoughts

I am very interested to see how Vessery does in terms of top lists. There's not doubt that he will be strong and smash lists and players that just aren't prepared, but there are a couple different ways to beat him and he has some very key vulnerabilities.

As already pointed out, a Ruthlessness/TIED Vessery is scary but he's at PS 6, so he really wants to run with Vader or Omega Leader as fellow aces since they tend not to want to keep a TL. Ruthlessness can also be exploited by a crafty opponent.

Vessery also isn't a very good endgame ship. His ability is turned off and he doesn't have many benefits to help fight other, much better closers. LW mitigates that but then he's vulnerable to the host of PS 8 that we see and if he is PS 8 himself, his only bonus is the title you've chosen, which is effective but I don't think will challenge games you don't want to see in the endgame (Horn, Fel, Dash, etc..)

That of course is the fun of the games being played out. Does the opponent try to take out Vessery first or take out support ships to turn off his ability anyway?

I think that it's one of the better (or luckier designs) that the best pilot ability for defenders is on one of the mid PS pilots and not the highest.

I am very interested to see how Vessery does in terms of top lists. There's not doubt that he will be strong and smash lists and players that just aren't prepared, but there are a couple different ways to beat him and he has some very key vulnerabilities.

As already pointed out, a Ruthlessness/TIED Vessery is scary but he's at PS 6, so he really wants to run with Vader or Omega Leader as fellow aces since they tend not to want to keep a TL. Ruthlessness can also be exploited by a crafty opponent.

Vessery also isn't a very good endgame ship. His ability is turned off and he doesn't have many benefits to help fight other, much better closers. LW mitigates that but then he's vulnerable to the host of PS 8 that we see and if he is PS 8 himself, his only bonus is the title you've chosen, which is effective but I don't think will challenge games you don't want to see in the endgame (Horn, Fel, Dash, etc..)

That of course is the fun of the games being played out. Does the opponent try to take out Vessery first or take out support ships to turn off his ability anyway.

He's a terrible endgame ship, but I don't see that as a big problem because he's going to be such a threat. If you engage him first, you're playing into your opponent's list design (where, presumably, something else is designed to be the closer). If you refuse to engage him and chase the rest of the list first, you're giving him time to keep tearing you up.

I mean, take this:

Realistically, who do you shoot first? The Inquisitor has a pretty good dial, access to both boost and barrel roll, access to evade tokens via the title, Autothrusters, and help from Palpatine. He can defend himself quite effectively if he can maintain range, and he can also run if he needs to. The shuttle is a big target, but it's one you have to grind down for sure (and you don't really want Vessery and the Inquisitor landing multiple TL+focus shots on you while you do it).

Inquisitor is definitely the best pal for Vessery. When I have played him I was taking TL's for the evade as much as I was for offense. There will be plenty of turns that The inquis can paint a target for Ves's sake to put a beating on someone.

One of my favorite defender squadrons so far is Carnor Jax supported by two x7 Glaives with Juke. Not only does the list benefit from multiple Juke shots, but juke also has the obvious synergy with Carnor. The icing on top is the red imperial fighter theme.

I am very interested to see how Vessery does in terms of top lists. There's not doubt that he will be strong and smash lists and players that just aren't prepared, but there are a couple different ways to beat him and he has some very key vulnerabilities.

As already pointed out, a Ruthlessness/TIED Vessery is scary but he's at PS 6, so he really wants to run with Vader or Omega Leader as fellow aces since they tend not to want to keep a TL. Ruthlessness can also be exploited by a crafty opponent.

Vessery also isn't a very good endgame ship. His ability is turned off and he doesn't have many benefits to help fight other, much better closers. LW mitigates that but then he's vulnerable to the host of PS 8 that we see and if he is PS 8 himself, his only bonus is the title you've chosen, which is effective but I don't think will challenge games you don't want to see in the endgame (Horn, Fel, Dash, etc..)

That of course is the fun of the games being played out. Does the opponent try to take out Vessery first or take out support ships to turn off his ability anyway?

I think that it's one of the better (or luckier designs) that the best pilot ability for defenders is on one of the mid PS pilots and not the highest.

Oh you don't run ruthlessness vessery with other aces you run him with AC advanced or TAP's, the advanced offer highly accurate fire and an evade action every turn and TAP's turn better and offer AT.