Here are the rules for that specific furball:

• 40 points max, single ship
• 30 minute rounds
• NO respawns
• Points are scored based on: hits landed (divide other ship's point cost by total health, each health taken away is worth that much) and survivability (at the end of the round, any health left on your ship is worth that fraction of your ship's cost).

My first thought, which is often my first thought in building a list, was Defenders or Aggressors? IGs at 40 points feel under equipped, while the Defenders can be monsters.

To make the least appetizing target while having the hardest hitting ship possible, I was thinking of: Maarek or Ryad, running Ruthlessness, X7, and Stealth device.

For any given attack, it's as tokeny as Soontir is (thrusters notwithstanding), but you can point out to your opponent that, given the similar difficulty, hurting Soontir is worth twice as many points per hit. Ruthlessness is there to score points on the Soontirs of this world by shooting the ship next to them.

We tried the following just for fun at home, and not much resonated as much: standard Whisper, standard Soontir, regen Poe, TIE/D defenders, sensor jammer Guri.

Any other suggestions that might be fun in this format? I like the "you don't want to shoot my ship" combined with actually hitting hard.

YT-2400: Wild Space Fringer (30)

Heavy Laser Cannon (7)

Recon Specialist (3)

Simple, often underestimated, and effective.

In the end, I went with Rexler+x7+stealth device+lone wolf.

I came in second by 6 MoV over 4 rounds. That is, rolling one less hit on those mines in the last round would have sealed it!

The winner was a Palob build and 3rd place was a marksmanship Horton Salm. Since we'd played that match in round 2, we suggested there not be a top table for the last round to avoid a repeat.

For those who are curious, here are the other builds I remember being there:

Palob + Opportunist + Blaster turret + Hot shot blaster + Moldy crow + Hull (came 1st, probably had a crew, but I don't remember which one)

Maarek Steele + TIE/D + Tractor + VI + Stealth device (came 3rd)

Horton Salm + TLT + R2-D6 + Marksmanship + Extra munitions + Bomb loadout + Thermal detonator (came 4th, but only because he was focus fired in the last round, that ship is efficient at getting hits in!)

Ryad + Stealth device + x7 + Lone wolf

Luke + Marksmanship + Proton torp + R2-D2 + IA

Contracted scout + overclocked + Proton torp + extra munition + guidance chip + deadeye (and other things I'm not remembering)

Warden squadron + Cluster + Seismic + Prox + Extra munitions + Advanced slam + Sabine (those bombs!)

There was also a Tycho, but I'm not certain on the loadout.

It was a good night for Defenders! I faced Ryad and Maarek once each, Ryad lost in large part because I've been running Defenders for a while, I'm just more used to how they move, it was down to a straight up joust among asteroids between both of the defenders with stealth devices intact, the first that popped was likely to lose the dice-off. I got lucky against Maarek, but he hurt me enough that Horton could finish me.

I'd say Horton was the most dangerous ship out there last night, just because he never seemed like the most urgent threat, but delivered an almost guaranteed 2 hits per turn. x7 saved my bacon for a few turns there, allowing me to kill him in our first face-off.