Hi All!

I have flown Omega Leader extensively since he/she/it was released and thoroughly enjoy the pilot. For 26 points (Juke+Comm Relay) he brings a lot to the table both in control and target priority disruption. However, as much as I have enjoyed him there are a couple of things that bite me every time he's on the table.

1.) Unmodified red dice. Omega Leader is constantly having to recharge his Evade token or change his Target Lock to another ship to protect against whoever has the most chance of damaging him that round. As such, he is hardly ever able to get a Focus token for his offense. The few times that he does are quite damaging if firing at the same target he has a Target Lock on.

2.) Can't get away. Often if your opponent knows what they're doing they know they don't want Omega Leader in the late game. Typically they focus on Omega Leader hard and while it usually (hopefully) takes a while to kill him I've found that Omega Leader can't get away from much if they're determined to catch him.

After thinking about this I came up with one tweak to his typical build.

Omega Leader 21

- Push the Limit 3

- Comm Relay 3

Total - 27

You loose Juke on the offense (assuming you still have an evade by the time you shoot) but gain a focus token much more often than usual so now you have a red dice modifier. You are able to swap your Target Lock and refill your Evade on the same turn. In the first round of shooting you will have a TL, Focus, and Evade which makes for a much less appealing target. Omega Leader's dial as far as greens go is almost identical to a TIE Interceptor minus the green 4 straight.

To go even further I came up with this build to move Omega Leader to arc dodger status.

Omega Leader 21

- Push the Limit 3

- Comm Relay 3

- Engine Upgrade

Total - 31

With Engine Upgrade he can now reliably dodge arcs and get more range 1 shots. The biggest issue is now that he is 31 points he has to contend with the Inquisitor as competition who has 3 attack dice, Autothrusters, and 3 actions. While I have no doubt that this build would be effective I'm not sure it is worth the points.

At the end of the day, Omega Leader is still just a TIE Fighter and will not carry a team. However, I feel that his effectiveness could be boosted some with Push the Limit.

Has anybody else used Push the Limit on Omega Leader? Thoughts?

Man o man will you miss juke

Two dice against 3+ greens, modified or not, will make you want to pull your hair out

You have to adjust expectations omega leader. He is NOT soontir; you don't really care that much if he makes it to the Late game.

Enemy focused him first? Well hey, he costs the same as BIGGS.

Keeping him alive for said late game is less a product of being able ptl around but just using your other ships to block for him

Honestly, Juke is the single best thing you can use on OL. Why? Because of his pilot ability, your target loses one of their evade rolls guaranteed. So every roll the make is -1 evade.

And the entire reason the Juke Comm relay combo works is because of his pilot skill of 8. Sure, occasionally you are going to have to sacrifice taking a focus token in order to recharge your evade, but that doesn't happen every turn.

And last, he's still just a Tie Fighter, so don't sink too many points into him and his 4 HP. You know what I can get for 30 points? A Delta Squad x7 Defender with Juke, and I'll take that over a 31 point OL with PTL every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Honestly, OL is usually a support ship for my other ships. He's Vessery's best friend because he's got an incentive NOT to burn his target lock so Vess can use it as well to murderous ends (especially if you're flying him as /D for that ion double tap). He's also a pain in the butt to kill because he blocks the ability to modify dice, which a large percentage of builds are centered around. U-boat with chips? No two free hits for you my friend, it's just those naked dice.

Honestly, Juke is the single best thing you can use on OL. Why? Because of his pilot ability, your target loses one of their evade rolls guaranteed. So every roll the make is -1 evade.

And the entire reason the Juke Comm relay combo works is because of his pilot skill of 8. Sure, occasionally you are going to have to sacrifice taking a focus token in order to recharge your evade, but that doesn't happen every turn.

And last, he's still just a Tie Fighter, so don't sink too many points into him and his 4 HP. You know what I can get for 30 points? A Delta Squad x7 Defender with Juke, and I'll take that over a 31 point OL with PTL every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Honestly, OL is usually a support ship for my other ships. He's Vessery's best friend because he's got an incentive NOT to burn his target lock so Vess can use it as well to murderous ends (especially if you're flying him as /D for that ion double tap). He's also a pain in the butt to kill because he blocks the ability to modify dice, which a large percentage of builds are centered around. U-boat with chips? No two free hits for you my friend, it's just those naked dice.

Then if you combine that juke on OL with Carnor flying around, you don't even have to have the guy you are shooting at TLd to keep the focus from being flipped back over.

Omega Leader 21

- Push the Limit 3

- Comm Relay 3

- Engine Upgrade

Total - 31

I've thought about that Omega Leader many, many times. A ship that can retain evades but needs to take target locks which it can't spend to modify attack dice...well, it just seems like it demands additional action efficiency.

The problem is, Juke does so much work. Against the ships that Omega Leader is designed to hurt (high agility aces), it's almost like having an extra attack die always set to "hit". This Omega Leader oozes action efficiency, but does very minimal damage. The only real way to boost the damage back up is to make sure you have an initiative bid so that you can use that engine and PtL to get into R1 against everything that's PS8 and lower. THEN, your list is gonna want Palp in there somewhere to fix blank rolls on the offense. Then, without Juke, you'll still be out of luck on the occasion when your opponent rolls a few solid green dice.

I don't think it's a terrible build for Omega Leader, it's just hard to fit in a list when you consider that the list will need other ways to pump out damage, while still having Palp somewhere in the team, and preserving at least a 2pt bid. Then recognize that Omega Leader will struggle against U-Boats and Crackswarms, where stopping one ship from modding isn't necessarily going to save your bacon, as well as against PS9 Dengaroo, who's fairly popular these days.

If I can ever figure out the list that makes this OL viable, I'll let you know.

When points allow, I like to slip Stealth device on him so that evade doesn't get burnt as often.

Another interesting thing about Omega Leader is that he can prevent a certain Gand from mucking with his evade dice, or at least I'm pretty sure that's the case anyways...

OL juke is like an extra attack die because they cant mod it. Its practically like a permanent crackshot, only he telegraphs who he is gonna crack, but at PS8, thats not so bad.

His efficiency is nuts for 26pts. The more points you add, the less efficient he is gonna get. An argument can be made for stealth device to save the evade, plus your opponent cant mod attack die, so the extra die is more efficient than just a regular extra green die that could be juked, zuckused, etc.

And last, he's still just a Tie Fighter, so don't sink too many points into him and his 4 HP. You know what I can get for 30 points? A Delta Squad x7 Defender with Juke, and I'll take that over a 31 point OL with PTL every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

I've tried it, and It's pretty decent. These were the two combos I used:

31 OL w/ PtL, Comms, Engine.

30 OL w/ PtL, Guidance, Engine.

The first one's really tanky and annoying to deal with. The second is better at dealing damage, but if she doesn't arc dodge she can get focus-fired down pretty quick (plus she hates turrets). PtL OL's main advantage over Juke OL is the ability to arc dodge, plus the ability to shift targets and still mod shots, which makes up for the lack of Juke. You are paying quite a lot more for the combo though (engine is mandatory IMO on the PtL build).

No just no. OL gets Juke, Comm, maybe Stealth, maaaaaybe Engine, maybe TIE Mk2. Comm Relay is where he gets his action economy from, that and his target lock almost never getting spent. he blanks out, you shrug, hope next time is better.

Anything else is terrible.

Another interesting thing about Omega Leader is that he can prevent a certain Gand from mucking with his evade dice, or at least I'm pretty sure that's the case anyways...

Indeed so. Dengaroo still screws him though because Countermeasures kills his TL.

Anything else is terrible.

From experience I can tell you that's not true.

Classic OL is great, but their are other good ways to build her.

Is there a middle ground if you want to stick with ptl by using Mark II engine, which opens up the greens for 1 pt?

Is there a middle ground if you want to stick with ptl by using Mark II engine, which opens up the greens for 1 pt?

I haven't tried it without the Engine Upgrade. I guess the question is Mk2 or no mod and save the point. Try it out and see how it goes.

I've tried it, and It's pretty decent. These were the two combos I used:

31 OL w/ PtL, Comms, Engine.

30 OL w/ PtL, Guidance, Engine.

The first one's really tanky and annoying to deal with. The second is better at dealing damage, but if she doesn't arc dodge she can get focus-fired down pretty quick (plus she hates turrets). PtL OL's main advantage over Juke OL is the ability to arc dodge, plus the ability to shift targets and still mod shots, which makes up for the lack of Juke. You are paying quite a lot more for the combo though (engine is mandatory IMO on the PtL build).

Why would you put guidance chips on a ship that can't carry missiles or torpedoes?

And honestly, OL is great against triple scouts, you just have to know what you're doing. Mainly, DO. NOT. BUNCH. UP. YOUR. SHIPS. If you make it easy for triple scouts to stay together because all of your ships are together, it's going to be infinitely easier for them to focus fire some torpedoes and alpha-kill one of your ships. At PS3, you are going to have the advantage of seeing where they start on the map before you place (most of the time). So you want to make it so that the U-boats either have to split up or all go after one ship leaving them open to your other ships.

And that's where OL shines. Throw a TL on the Uboat coming after him and you actually want him to fire his torpedoes at you (and waste them and their dice mods), because it'll be a naked attack dice roll against your banked evade and maybe a focus if you play it right. Nothing messes with a Uboat build more than firing off that torpedo and doing maybe 1 damage. With just the evade, a torpedo fired from a Uboat that OL has TLed has a 32% chance of doing damage. If you plan it right and get a focus in there (because you got your TL in the previous round), that drops to 15%.

Why would you put guidance chips on a ship that can't carry missiles or torpedoes?

Weapon guidance, not guidance chips.

For 5 extra points (26 OL vs 31 OL), you can upgrade a Delta x7 defender to a Crackshot/VI Glaive x7. You can upgrade an Omega Sq with crack to Zeta Leader with Crack and Weapons Guidance. A Blackcrack tie can be Omega Sq with crack and weapons guidance. A doomshuttle can become Palpmobile. Point is, that 5 points can substantially increase your squad efficiency way more than what you will get from a more expensive OL. I think we need to keep a different OL under 30, kind of like keeping Biggs under 30. Throw your droid of choice and be done with it. Going over that threshold kills list efficiency.

Maybe VI plus weapon guidance to make him a PS10 and cheap 24pts. Now he can shoot before Whisper, barrel roll out of aces arcs. Or add the new Sensor Clusters + Predator or Lone Wolf for a 25/26pt buildPredator and Lone Wolf help him save his focus for defense where he is guaranteed not to blank out thanks to Sensor Clusters. EDIT: Had Sensor Clusters and Comms on him (DUH!)

Maybe run him with just crackshot in a howlrunner swarm?

Howl + crack

OL + crack

Zeta Leader + crack

(x2)Omg Sq + crack