Do you know what that Dengaroos to me? Early analysis of Dengaroo's performance in Vassal league

By Kdubb, in X-Wing

I could see Ion Brobots doing mean things to Dengar. Can't use his ability of your being walked to the board edge.

That's actually an interesting thought. something that can ion him effectively to keep his arc in the wrong direction could perform really well. Maybe even a pair of Ion Tie/Ds would work nicely. Difficulty is that you need both shots to hit to get him ioned.

Conners deal double ions :)

Action step removal is a bit pointless unless you land it on Manny, but double ion on large ships is devastating

Less so when there's three of them with plasma torps, but you get the idea

I could see Ion Brobots doing mean things to Dengar. Can't use his ability of your being walked to the board edge.

That's actually an interesting thought. something that can ion him effectively to keep his arc in the wrong direction could perform really well. Maybe even a pair of Ion Tie/Ds would work nicely. Difficulty is that you need both shots to hit to get him ioned.

Crack/Ion Ds would have some potential. Indeed, I suspect a pair of crack/ion/ds plus a bomber buddy could be a very solid list.

E: yup, scimitar bomber buddy plus two crack/ion/mk2 glaives (or Ryad/Glaive) is 100 points and stands a solid chance of just escorting Dengar or Manaroo gently off the board.

Edited by thespaceinvader

If you expect to play against Dengaroo in the vassal league and want a good chance to win without having to play like a god, Triple Scouts is a good bet. From what I've seen at Regionals and my play test games, Triple Scouts have the upper hand vs that list. Though, Dengar always has the capability to play like a boss and win.

As for double Ion Tie/D Defenders, I've managed a win against Dengaroo with them. I think I had 34 pt Vader and 2 x Delta + Ion + Tie/D. I recall Vader died in a blaze of glory to a range 1 Dengar shot after he Countermeasured away the Vader TL, but the 2 Deltas were in good position to pepper Dengar with shots, Ion'd at least once or twice to good effect, then finished him off.

Just DON'T take bad shots in arc of Dengar where your chances of actually doing damage are much less than Dengar's return fire will be. As always with X Wing, taking damage while dealing no damage, that's a sure-fire way to lose.

Triple Jumps, Super Dash, Fat Han... there's plenty of counters to Dengaroo.

I mean, Fat Han scooting about with Upgrade to get out arc, prevening the first two damage with title and 3PO? Good luck with that, Dengar! Pair him up with Jake to whizz about as well, virtually a hard counter surely?

Just DON'T take bad shots in arc of Dengar where your chances of actually doing damage are much less than Dengar's return fire will be. As always with X Wing, taking damage while dealing no damage, that's a sure-fire way to lose.

Always good to get top level player commentary. Thanks Phild0. :)

I think this is a mistake that players who are inexperienced against the list often make. It seems counter productive to bypass a shot, but if you are at range 3 with most anything except something firing 4 dice or a secondary, you should strongly consider skipping the shot.

Just DON'T take bad shots in arc of Dengar where your chances of actually doing damage are much less than Dengar's return fire will be. As always with X Wing, taking damage while dealing no damage, that's a sure-fire way to lose.

Always good to get top level player commentary. Thanks Phild0. :)

I think this is a mistake that players who are inexperienced against the list often make. It seems counter productive to bypass a shot, but if you are at range 3 with most anything except something firing 4 dice or a secondary, you should strongly consider skipping the shot.

Yeah your worst enemy vs Dengar is your own impatience.

I may be remembering it wrongly but in the US Nats final didn't Inquisitor shoot at Dengar in arc on like turn 2/3 and basically never contributed ever again because he got so mauled? It's the only reason the game was as close as it was.

Yeah your worst enemy vs Dengar is your own impatience.

I may be remembering it wrongly but in the US Nats final didn't Inquisitor shoot at Dengar in arc on like turn 2/3 and basically never contributed ever again because he got so mauled? It's the only reason the game was as close as it was.

Inquisitor: "I'm going to poke that bear"

Omega Leader: "seriously, don't poke it."

Inquisitor: "I just want to see what will happen"

I was able to defeat Dengaroo with the following:

Ryad (Push the Limit, x7 title, Twin Ion Engine Mk.II)

The Inquisitor (Push the Limit, v1 title, Proton Rockets, Autothrusters)

Omega Leader (Juke, Comm Relay, Stealth Device)

99 points

I went for Manaroo first, mostly. She blew up when the Inquisitor managed to get into range 1 and use his Proton Rockets. Ryad was also in range 1 to finish the job. Dengar had already used Countermeasures, Glitterstim and Plasma Torps by then, and had 5+ stresses on him, so it looked promising. I then lost Inquisitor and Omega Leader. Ryad was full health still. It took everything, and Dengar's return fire when he blew up destroyed Ryad but I had initiative... so a very tough match.

Edit: Ooops, sorry, not a Vassal match... I was just caught up in the discussion and forgot the post's title!

Edited by admat

There were a couple of Dengaroo builds at a Regionals in Holland last week. I watched it lose to a very carefully played Brobots.

Firstly, he was able to engage Dengar at range 3 on the approach, which meant Dengar wasn't able to put on too much damage through the autothrusters, evade token, glitterstim and 4 green dice.

He then blocked with the damaged IG, and used Stim/Crackshot to win the next engagement with the other. He then was able to block Dengars Sloop, then Sloop himself and start attacking Dengar from behind with the other IG. He ended up downing Dengar with both IG's alive.

It was cool to watch. The pilot of the IG's (Rick) had two top 10 finishes at the Yavin and Naboo opens, so I think there was a bit of a skill gap between him and his opponent. Still, the strategy of using 1 ship to block Dengar's movement so he could attack without fear of Dengar's double tap was pretty clever.

Firstly, he was able to engage Dengar at range 3 on the approach, which meant Dengar wasn't able to put on too much damage through the autothrusters, evade token, glitterstim and 4 green dice.

He then blocked with the damaged IG, and used Stim/Crackshot to win the next engagement with the other. He then was able to block Dengars Sloop, then Sloop himself and start attacking Dengar from behind with the other IG. He ended up downing Dengar with both IG's alive.

Am I to understand that at range 3 he only popped glitter on one brobot and that was the brobot Dengar chose to shoot at? Because if so, yeah, there's more than a bit of a skill gap there.

I posted on the NOVA Radio thread but my post fits here too, just curious on feedback:

Pauls list with Biggs, Corran and Wes intrigues me, as I've been piping up the Biggs/Wes combo as a good one since JM5K came into the scene. With anti-ace tech and/or an ace like Poe/Corran, I'm wondering why this list archetype is not being flown more often? Should have good match ups against both Palp Aces and the JM5K

I posted on the NOVA Radio thread but my post fits here too, just curious on feedback:

Pauls list with Biggs, Corran and Wes intrigues me, as I've been piping up the Biggs/Wes combo as a good one since JM5K came into the scene. With anti-ace tech and/or an ace like Poe/Corran, I'm wondering why this list archetype is not being flown more often? Should have good match ups against both Palp Aces and the JM5K

I honestly think players are scared to fly Biggs. It takes a lot of practice to get the ranges down with him, especially when he is moving before his wing mates. A lot of players can fly him well, but flying him perfectly is very difficult. Paul is one of those few who I have no doubt can play 8 games in a row with Biggs and not make a single ranging error with Biggs. I would be thrilled if he brought Biggs to Worlds this year.

Am I to understand that at range 3 he only popped glitter on one brobot and that was the brobot Dengar chose to shoot at? Because if so, yeah, there's more than a bit of a skill gap there.

That doesn't seem likely, now that you mention it. Perhaps he didn't actually use Glitterstim on the first engagement? I might have a few details wrong, either way it was a fairly short game. I'll ask him next time I see him to clarify the details for me.

Edited by Bonza

If you expect to play against Dengaroo in the vassal league and want a good chance to win without having to play like a god, Triple Scouts is a good bet. From what I've seen at Regionals and my play test games, Triple Scouts have the upper hand vs that list. Though, Dengar always has the capability to play like a boss and win.

As for double Ion Tie/D Defenders, I've managed a win against Dengaroo with them. I think I had 34 pt Vader and 2 x Delta + Ion + Tie/D. I recall Vader died in a blaze of glory to a range 1 Dengar shot after he Countermeasured away the Vader TL, but the 2 Deltas were in good position to pepper Dengar with shots, Ion'd at least once or twice to good effect, then finished him off.

Just DON'T take bad shots in arc of Dengar where your chances of actually doing damage are much less than Dengar's return fire will be. As always with X Wing, taking damage while dealing no damage, that's a sure-fire way to lose.

No RAC Whisper? :D

I think the variant I've created with the 2 Advanced Proton Torpedoes solves the problem of being out alpha-ed. I hit a 5 health Brobot with one and it was gone.

I got a natural 5 hits. Don't get mad, it would have been 5 hits anyways with APT's.

You got 3 blanks? It would have been 3 blanks anyways with Zuckuss.

"It's got an excellent defense mechanism, you don't dare kill it."

I posted on the NOVA Radio thread but my post fits here too, just curious on feedback:

Pauls list with Biggs, Corran and Wes intrigues me, as I've been piping up the Biggs/Wes combo as a good one since JM5K came into the scene. With anti-ace tech and/or an ace like Poe/Corran, I'm wondering why this list archetype is not being flown more often? Should have good match ups against both Palp Aces and the JM5K

I honestly think players are scared to fly Biggs. It takes a lot of practice to get the ranges down with him, especially when he is moving before his wing mates. A lot of players can fly him well, but flying him perfectly is very difficult. Paul is one of those few who I have no doubt can play 8 games in a row with Biggs and not make a single ranging error with Biggs. I would be thrilled if he brought Biggs to Worlds this year.

Two reasons:

1.) Biggs is one of those outmoded, "Move once, maybe perform one action, maybe attack once and the amount of hits you get will probably be less than 3" Joustwing ships. It's a normal ship, not some broken post-phantom Acewing. His ability is useful, but that's all he's useful for. That's not really a problem since his ability is immensely useful, but the perception is there.

2.) His ability is only useful with R4-D6, which only comes in the Rebel Transport.

3.) To make the best use of him, you need Integrated Astromech, which comes in the standalone T-70 which not everyone has. The especially don't have multiples

Edited by ParaGoomba Slayer

Seriously Phil? Get out of this thread.:)

Wow! This list is really catching a lot of attention lately. And that's ok, lol. It is my cue to move on to something else!

Over the last 3 and a half to 4 months, I've logged a few hundred matches with the list in a few different variations in a mix of Vassal and tabletop. I've settled on the version that works for me and have been fairly successful with it. It is a super fun list to play, but for an opponent unfamiliar or unprepared for it... playing against it can be extremely disheartening.

Most of the practice I put into this list was with a member of the group responsible for its inception. Rook Squads own, Bryan England aka Serrate. I take no credit whatsoever for any card in the list! What happened, quite simply, was Serrate kicked my ass with it. Horribly. After that match up we immediately started playing extensively in locked rooms on vassal and developing our own strategies, methods, deployments and bouncing a lot of ideas of each other. It provided a lot of experience with the finer workings of it, and Serrate is an extremely talented individual to get ideas from! We played countless matches against one another from both sides of the table, as Dengaroo and as Anti-Dengaroo.

So what beats it? Well, since gencon hasn't happened yet and my good friend, Serrate would hate me if I went to in depth here...I'll need to be a bit vague lol... Atleast until after it's over! I'll give some lists, but leave out the strategies. Anyways, a lot of things beat it! Stupid answer? Yeah. But it's a truthful one. Really, you can do it with a lot of different lists. Kdubbs info has already shown that. What you really need to do is out think and out maneuver the Dengaroo player. This applies to pretty well any competitive game! Not much different here. Know when to take your shots and know what target to go after dependant on what you're flying.

What have I beat it with? What have I lost with it to?

1. Brobots have been mentioned in here. I have won and lost using Brobots. The autothrusters, sloops, and overall amazing dial of the IG-2000 make it a real contender for winning this match up. The 4 dice HLC shots are exactly what you need to break down Dengar... but you definately need to choose your shots wisely. In this match, countermeasures likely gets blown early because the HLC is just as dangerous from any range, after that it's a matter of not giving Dengar the double tap unless the trade will be worthwhile.

2. Triple JM's or 2 JM's and a friend. I've beaten it several times with JM's, but only because I was asked to test the list against it in prep for a regional. I don't particularly enjoy playing the triple JM variations. Serrate gave me credit as the only person to beat his Dengaroo using trip JM's. He has crushed them a number of times in his regionals and nationals runs. As have I. Can this list win? Of course it can, this list can beat just about anything... but I will just say that a clever Dengaroo player has answers to this match up so don't think its assured.

3. Palp Aces of numerous variations. Not an easy one. Clever maneuvering, smart target priority, careful use of obstacles.... just about every skill in X wing you can think of needs to be capitalized on here. As is the case for any top competitive aces player anyways. Take note of Howards nationals win over Berling... if you havent watched that match up, you should. I had an extremely close game against Remi in top 16 regionals that I came out of winning 43-42 and only because in the final turn I rolled 3 naked greens against 3 hits and they came up evade/evade/evade. One damage gone through would have cost me the half points on Manaroo to lose. This match should have been his.

4. The new x-7 defenders. Fly a couple of x-7's alongside an inquisitor or OL, or any of the very numerous variations of this being seen right now and it's a list that can win. I won't go into specifics on my build but its the list I most recently beat Serrate with! Haha! I know he wants a rematch on that one lol.

5. Tie D Defenders. Using three ion tie-d's is an enormouse amount of fire power that if positioned and used appropriately can do serious work.

6. The mirror match. Obvious. Although this is when you'll definatley see some of that aforementioned skill come into play. This is not, or should not be, the simple luck of the dice slugfest you may think.

7. Dash. He can do very well here, or crumble very fast. We all know how strong Dash can be in the right hands and how quick he can go down in the wrong.

8. Double Lothal builds. Again, can go either way here but 4 dice primaries are always strong and can really punch through 2 agi ships even beefed up defensively like Dengar and his infi-stims

9. Any of the lists posted in Kdubbs original comment! If that wasn't obvious =)

10. Controlling lists. Get some stress on Mana and watch action economy crumble. Get some Ion's on Dengar and his double taps dissapear. He's a large base and conner nets are making a bit of a splash right now and can be put into great effect with a slamming K-wing.

These are just a few examples off the top of my head and there have been others for sure. It's the same repetitive crap we always hear, but it really is about careful planning, forethought, and skillfull flying. Maybe some dice luck! I can't think of too many lists that will be able to just fly right at Dengaroo and think its going to be a successful straight on joust, but I can think of quite a few that if played well can do it. If anyone wants to chat more in depth about it, hit me up on vassal sometimes, I'm always down for talking shop when it comes to x-wing!

Edited by DarthDane

This week we interviewed Jeff Berling on the Stay On Target podcast. If you're interested in hearing more from the original creator of Dengaroo, give it a listen. It's interesting to hear his thoughts on the monster he created!

Triple Jumps, Super Dash, Fat Han... there's plenty of counters to Dengaroo.

I mean, Fat Han scooting about with Upgrade to get out arc, prevening the first two damage with title and 3PO? Good luck with that, Dengar! Pair him up with Jake to whizz about as well, virtually a hard counter surely?

Funny story, you can actually Zuckuss to reroll the"free evade result" from C3P0, since added results are technically supposed to be actual added dice with the specified result. So Zuckuss crew is actually a counter to C3P0, haha!

Triple Jumps, Super Dash, Fat Han... there's plenty of counters to Dengaroo.

I mean, Fat Han scooting about with Upgrade to get out arc, prevening the first two damage with title and 3PO? Good luck with that, Dengar! Pair him up with Jake to whizz about as well, virtually a hard counter surely?

Funny story, you can actually Zuckuss to reroll the"free evade result" from C3P0, since added results are technically supposed to be actual added dice with the specified result. So Zuckuss crew is actually a counter to C3P0, haha!

I don't think Fat Han would be bad against Dengaroo, but it's not a hard counter.

Last game I played with Dengaroo, my opponent killed me with a 2 health Brobot. He got excited, then I killed his Brobot with Dengar's ability. He would have won the final salvo though, lol.

Edited by ParaGoomba Slayer

I have flown against Dengaroo three times with my Juke Vessery / PtL Ryad / Palpmobile squad: once on vassal in the aforementioned game, and twice on the table. I have won all 3 games, but the hardest was at league night vs a very skilled opponent that made it hard to hunt down Manaroo. That particular game went to time at 60 minutes (weeknight tournament), with Palp and Manaroo both having died, so I won on points. The other two games were much easier to hunt down Manaroo, and then Dengar was just cleanup.

x7 Defenders with Palp can automatically mitigate 2 damage per round, so they can weather the Dengar + Zuckuss shenanigans better than most lists. I generally had to be extremely patient in all 3 matchups and not shoot at Dengar until Manaroo was off the board. with two skilled players, it's essentially race to see who dies first: the PalpMobile, or Manaroo. Whoever wins that race can leverage the momentum for a turn or 2 to better position themselves for the final endgame.

At range 2:

Dengar (F+LW) has a 17% chance to get 1 hit through on a F+E+Palp 3 agility ship. Practically Immune. It will take a lot of shots to take down a 6hp Defender. Inquisitor and Fel are also hard to break through with autothrusters active.

At range 1:

Dengar(F+LW) has a 48% chance to get 1-2 hits (14% chance at 2 hits) through on the same turtled opponent. A little bit better but not great.

The Palp player should turtle when facing shots from Dengar and not shoot back without token support and Palp backup. I would ignore Dengar and go after Manaroo.

The Dengar player should b-line for Palp and take him off the board ASAP. Run but also threaten with R5-P8/feedback/blocking with Manaroo.

At range 2:

Dengar (F+LW) has a 17% chance to get 1 hit through on a F+E+Palp 3 agility ship. Practically Immune. It will take a lot of shots to take down a 6hp Defender. Inquisitor and Fel are also hard to break through with autothrusters active.

At range 1:

Dengar(F+LW) has a 48% chance to get 1-2 hits (14% chance at 2 hits) through on the same turtled opponent. A little bit better but not great.

The Palp player should turtle when facing shots from Dengar and not shoot back without token support and Palp backup. I would ignore Dengar and go after Manaroo.

The Dengar player should b-line for Palp and take him off the board ASAP. Run but also threaten with R5-P8/feedback/blocking with Manaroo.

Do your calculations include Zuckuss?

I also love my double APT variant, as I can punch damage through with one APT, and then they simply cannot return fire or else they're taking another APT.

Do your calculations include Zuckuss?

I also love my double APT variant, as I can punch damage through with one APT, and then they simply cannot return fire or else they're taking another APT.

These are not my calculations. Thanks to IronWardog for developing an amazing tool for the community, the xwing probability calulator:

Thread - https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/192093-x-wing-probability-calculator/

Tool - http://xwingcalculator.x10host.com/diceuilm.html

To answer your question, 3 Zuckuss rerolls were included. With a focus token, there is a 5/8 chance of rerolling into an evade anyway. Zuckuss looses a lot of effectiveness if you have a focus token.

Your APT shot (Focus + Zuckuss) has the following probabilities versus a F+E+Palp 3 agility ship:

0.5% - no damage

34% - 1 damage

43% - 2 damage

22.5% - 3 damage

Average of 1.87 damage

Your APT shot versus standard F+E+Palp+Stealth Soontir:

20% - no damage

33% - 1 damage

34% - 2 damage

13% - 3 damage

Average of 1.4 damage

You are most likely not killing Soontir with 1 APT. Almost not worth the effort of shooting at him. Best bet is to Block/R5P8/Feedback him.

Edited by bmf