This is all about the design. Yes, yes, we all know that the Scout is a couple of points under-costed but that's not what I want to talk about.

Scum has wormed it's way into lists across the world (frankly they needed some help) and one of the primary reason is design. Not just cost, but design. FFG has thrown the shackles off from Scum.

Here are a couple of examples. When N'Dru was created his ability has a range limitation (1-2). Manaroo has no such limitation. He can pass as many tokens as he wants to any other ally anywhere on the map. Scum don't fight fair anymore. It's not just one ship though. Zuckuss crew can take a never ending stream of stress to force you to re-roll those nasty green dice. Yorr can only take 2. Overclocked is another infinite repeater. 4-LOM doesn't "share" stress he deals it. For me the rock bottom costs of Scum Wave 8 are nice but it's truly lack of inhibitors which has vaulted them soundly into the meta.

She, Manaroo is a she. She is also Dengar's wife.

There IS a *small* limitation on Manaroo. She must give away ALL of her tokens, and cannot choose which to pass if she has multiples.

Small, yes, but its significant enough to consider when you build a list with her. A tokenless JM5K is weak and fragile. Can't attack well, can't defend well, and can't fire ordnance.

Manaroo cannot pass as many tokens as she wants, she HAS to pass everything or nothing

zuckuss can't force re-rolls on re-rolls, and stress isn't exactly ignorable (no tycho in a crew bearing ship)

overclocked only repeats where you have focus, which is once if you use it too much because, again, stress is a thing

as for 4-lom (G1-a) we're back to range limitations

ffg didn't throw shackles off of anything, they just made really solid competitive pieces whereas before they made the scyk

whereas before they made the scyk

The Scyk shall Rise!

scum aces

coming to a store front near you

ETA: past your lifetime

Um, palpatine didn't have a range limit either : / And scum ARE shackled. They're average ps is lower then the other two factions, and their ships are also slower.

Manaroo cannot pass as many tokens as she wants, she HAS to pass everything or nothing

zuckuss can't force re-rolls on re-rolls, and stress isn't exactly ignorable (no tycho in a crew bearing ship)

overclocked only repeats where you have focus, which is once if you use it too much because, again, stress is a thing

as for 4-lom (G1-a) we're back to range limitations

ffg didn't throw shackles off of anything, they just made really solid competitive pieces whereas before they made the scyk

"zuckuss can't force re-rolls on re-rolls" - Zuckuss gets the chance to force re-rolls first, so not sure what your point is there. Unless you meant that sometimes those re-rolls end up even better for the defender, which is certainly a thing.

"stress isn't exactly ignorable" - Sure it is. You just create a build where you can ignore it.

"overclocked only repeats where you have focus, which is once..." - Look into Manaroo.

FGD, I have a feeling you haven't actually played against the list that the OP is referencing.

I'm glad to see Scum get excellent tools and interesting upgrades.

The more I play these newer, diverse scum builds the more I like them. And the more impressed I am. There were like 8 sleeper hits in wave 8.

Um, palpatine didn't have a range limit either : / And scum ARE shackled. They're average ps is lower then the other two factions, and their ships are also slower.

On the other hand, they have more generics with EPTs than any other faction.

I thought this was going to be about the sneaky strengths of the G1-A, which has been showing up in more top 16s.

Manaroo cannot pass as many tokens as she wants, she HAS to pass everything or nothing

zuckuss can't force re-rolls on re-rolls, and stress isn't exactly ignorable (no tycho in a crew bearing ship)

overclocked only repeats where you have focus, which is once if you use it too much because, again, stress is a thing

as for 4-lom (G1-a) we're back to range limitations

ffg didn't throw shackles off of anything, they just made really solid competitive pieces whereas before they made the scyk

"zuckuss can't force re-rolls on re-rolls" - Zuckuss gets the chance to force re-rolls first, so not sure what your point is there. Unless you meant that sometimes those re-rolls end up even better for the defender, which is certainly a thing.

"stress isn't exactly ignorable" - Sure it is. You just create a build where you can ignore it.

"overclocked only repeats where you have focus, which is once..." - Look into Manaroo.

FGD, I have a feeling you haven't actually played against the list that the OP is referencing.

I'm glad to see Scum get excellent tools and interesting upgrades.

I have; I've used it

Manaroo is hilarious fun and is about the only way you're keeping zuckuss and a torp scout from screwing each other over

here's the difference, though, the OP's claim is that FFG's thrown the "shackles" off of scum, which is bunk

investing in a very specific and inefficient pilot in order to work around the detriment of another upgrade does not a shackle-less list make. You're actively building around the drawbacks of the upgrades

OP also said "Zuckuss crew can take a never ending stream of stress to force you to re-roll those nasty green dice" which is also false, because you're taking up to X stress to re-roll X dice since the re-rolls only occur once per attack. You cannot re-re-roll your opponent's dice due to the base rules of the game.

now the upgrades are amazing, but they're not unfettered. They have drawbacks; they're just worth building around.

ffg didn't throw shackles off of anything, they just made really solid competitive pieces whereas before they made the scyk

I will say, watching the Attanni Mindlink Scyks work is fascinating.

OP also said "Zuckuss crew can take a never ending stream of stress to force you to re-roll those nasty green dice" which is also false, because you're taking up to X stress to re-roll X dice since the re-rolls only occur once per attack. You cannot re-re-roll your opponent's dice due to the base rules of the game.

The "never-ending stream of stress" is doing it on every single attack, wiht no regards to how much stress you build up. Not doing it repeatedly on a single attack until they get all blanks.

Yeah... I need more acrylic stress tokens before I field Zuckrewuss... I thought the Stresshog was bad... WRONG!

The more I play these newer, diverse scum builds the more I like them. And the more impressed I am. There were like 8 sleeper hits in wave 8.

Scum! Scum! Scum!....

She, Manaroo is a she. She is also Dengar's wife.

Thanks fixed.

@Fickle

The whole intent was not to say that the new Scum ships and upgrades have zero limitations but to say they don't have many of the limitations we have seen on previous ships in previous waves. That's why I gave specific comparison examples. Perhaps you don't read too good Fickle. I'll try again.

Manaroo, compare to Kyle Katarn. Both mid PS ships, Kyle can pass one focus at range 1-3. Manaroo can pass one , or two or three with unlimited range. No range restriction or number cap.

Zuckuss compared to Yorr. Yorr has a limit of 2 or fewer stress and range limit of 1-2. Zuckuss has a "never ending stream", meaning it can be used every turn without regard to the huge pile of stress on your ship, just like Tycho (thanks for pointing him out).

Overclocked compared to R4-B11 or R7 for example you are limited to a single use. Oberclocked could be used 9 times in a single combat round.

Read through the older wave pilot cards you'll find a lot of limits on range, frequency, friend or foe, etc. Wave 8 has far fewer of these restrictions as well as having obscenely low costs for many. That doesn't even mention the synergy between those cards.

This isn't a sky is falling Scum are OP they've botched this wave thread. What I'm saying is that Scum is a part of the meta for more reasons then lower costed ships. The designers have somewhat altered their approach in how upgrades and unique pilot skills work with this wave. You can put Dengar, Zuckuss and 4-LOM on a PS2 Slaver and still pin an Evade, force a re-roll of any/all defense dice and have Dengar as an Inverted vs Aces Crew version of Predator. Those crew are 5 pts. I like it.

Overclocked compared to R4-B11 or R7 for example you are limited to a single use. Oberclocked could be used 9 times in a single combat round.

R4-B11 combo with Drea:

Acquire TL during activation

1st attack with TLT

Spend TL

Get back TL for 1 stress

Defender rolls

Get him to reroll good results R4-B11

Get back TL for 1 stress

2nd attack with TLT

Spend TL

Get back TL for 1 stress

Defender rolls

Get him to reroll good results R4-B11

Get back TL for 1 stress

(jump to another ship if you feel like it might be a killing blow)

Or the Proton Torpedo variant:

Acquire TL during activation

Spend TL to launch a proton torpedo

Get back TL for 1 stress

Spend TL

Get back TL for 1 stress

Defender rolls

Get him to reroll good results R4-B11

Get back TL for 1 stress

Overclocked compared to R4-B11 or R7 for example you are limited to a single use. Oberclocked could be used 9 times in a single combat round.

R4-B11 combo with Drea:

Acquire TL during activation

1st attack with TLT

Spend TL

Get back TL for 1 stress

Defender rolls

Get him to reroll good results R4-B11

Get back TL for 1 stress

2nd attack with TLT

Spend TL

Get back TL for 1 stress

Defender rolls

Get him to reroll good results R4-B11

Get back TL for 1 stress

(jump to another ship if you feel like it might be a killing blow)

Or the Proton Torpedo variant:

Acquire TL during activation

Spend TL to launch a proton torpedo

Get back TL for 1 stress

Spend TL

Get back TL for 1 stress

Defender rolls

Get him to reroll good results R4-B11

Get back TL for 1 stress

As-is, I'm still trying to decide how best to fly her with manaroo. The two are potent, bit what for the third?

Main problem with Drea's TL shenanigans is that's its gone after 1st use unless you are lucky to reposition your TL before you kill your first target (and not having TL in last shots is suboptimal as well). If you kill your target to quickly, you struggle to get new TL doing lots od greens without any action.

R4-B11 is good along with Predator and Dengar crew: you get offensive re-rolls from crew/ept and you can use TL to force opponent to reroll greens. And here we are: all those slots (EPT, crew, salvaged astromech) has only brand new JM5K

I absolutely love facing Scum lists. They're so fun and varied and have so many cool little tricks. I think if I had tried them first (before imperials) they'd be my faction of choice.

Overclocked compared to R4-B11 or R7 for example you are limited to a single use. Oberclocked could be used 9 times in a single combat round.

R4-B11 combo with Drea:

Acquire TL during activation

1st attack with TLT

Spend TL

Get back TL for 1 stress

Defender rolls

Get him to reroll good results R4-B11

Get back TL for 1 stress

2nd attack with TLT

Spend TL

Get back TL for 1 stress

Defender rolls

Get him to reroll good results R4-B11

Get back TL for 1 stress

(jump to another ship if you feel like it might be a killing blow)

Or the Proton Torpedo variant:

Acquire TL during activation

Spend TL to launch a proton torpedo

Get back TL for 1 stress

Spend TL

Get back TL for 1 stress

Defender rolls

Get him to reroll good results R4-B11

Get back TL for 1 stress

Still annoyed she can't take an EPT. Mindlink would have been hilarious.

As-is, I'm still trying to decide how best to fly her with manaroo. The two are potent, bit what for the third?

I fly them with Guri (manaroo has mindlink and rec spec, r4b11 tlt drea, guri with autothrusters, mindlink, title, fcs, cloaking device). Guri is free to reposition with her action since she gets a focus from mindlink (and manaroo can pass more if needed). manaroo gives focuses to drea when desired, guri if needed (or if drea is dead). Drea gets to fire with TL for every attack (and focus as well a lot of the time) and make the opponent reroll. As a bonus, if you get guri into range 1 of someone, you can give focuses to drea, then still get one back on manaroo from guri's ability. If you give em to guri, you get one back from mindlink regardless. If drea's target dies without moving her TL, you just use manaroo to get a new one for her.

Main problem with Drea's TL shenanigans is that's its gone after 1st use unless you are lucky to reposition your TL before you kill your first target (and not having TL in last shots is suboptimal as well). If you kill your target to quickly, you struggle to get new TL doing lots od greens without any action.

R4-B11 is good along with Predator and Dengar crew: you get offensive re-rolls from crew/ept and you can use TL to force opponent to reroll greens. And here we are: all those slots (EPT, crew, salvaged astromech) has only brand new JM5K

That's why you fly her with manaroo (as mentioned in my list just above). If the target dies without switching, manaroo can just pass her a new TL .

Overclocked compared to R4-B11 or R7 for example you are limited to a single use. Oberclocked could be used 9 times in a single combat round.

R4-B11 combo with Drea:

Acquire TL during activation

1st attack with TLT

Spend TL

Get back TL for 1 stress

Defender rolls

Get him to reroll good results R4-B11

Get back TL for 1 stress

2nd attack with TLT

Spend TL

Get back TL for 1 stress

Defender rolls

Get him to reroll good results R4-B11

Get back TL for 1 stress

(jump to another ship if you feel like it might be a killing blow)

Or the Proton Torpedo variant:

Acquire TL during activation

Spend TL to launch a proton torpedo

Get back TL for 1 stress

Spend TL

Get back TL for 1 stress

Defender rolls

Get him to reroll good results R4-B11

Get back TL for 1 stress

Still annoyed she can't take an EPT. Mindlink would have been hilarious.

As-is, I'm still trying to decide how best to fly her with manaroo. The two are potent, bit what for the third?

I fly them with Guri (manaroo has mindlink and rec spec, r4b11 tlt drea, guri with autothrusters, mindlink, title, fcs, cloaking device). Guri is free to reposition with her action since she gets a focus from mindlink (and manaroo can pass more if needed). manaroo gives focuses to drea when desired, guri if needed (or if drea is dead). Drea gets to fire with TL for every attack (and focus as well a lot of the time) and make the opponent reroll. As a bonus, if you get guri into range 1 of someone, you can give focuses to drea, then still get one back on manaroo from guri's ability. If you give em to guri, you get one back from mindlink regardless. If drea's target dies without moving her TL, you just use manaroo to get a new one for her.

Main problem with Drea's TL shenanigans is that's its gone after 1st use unless you are lucky to reposition your TL before you kill your first target (and not having TL in last shots is suboptimal as well). If you kill your target to quickly, you struggle to get new TL doing lots od greens without any action.

R4-B11 is good along with Predator and Dengar crew: you get offensive re-rolls from crew/ept and you can use TL to force opponent to reroll greens. And here we are: all those slots (EPT, crew, salvaged astromech) has only brand new JM5K

That's why you fly her with manaroo (as mentioned in my list just above). If the target dies without switching, manaroo can just pass her a new TL .

This is next nice use of Manaroo She appeared little unattractive at glance but it turned out that every single JM5K pilot is great. Awesome job FFG!

I actually used the first HWK tonight that pulled its weight. Mux with Moldy Crow and Zuckuss with your personal preference of turret.

Spend the first 5 turns as usual stacking Focus, and by the time you heave into range, you can take a TL and start forcing green dice rerolls with Zuckuss with very little regard for stress, given that you're very often doing straight 1s or 1 banks anyway to maximise turret use. You're greening almost every turn and you have a stack of Focus to see you through the fight. Reducing someone to PS0 is gravy too in the current Ace-heavy meta. Sure, you'll die eventually, but it means they're not shooting Dengar, or Bossk, or whoever you run him with.

Not saying it's going to win tournaments, but that 1pt crew card really makes the HWK so much better.