Once Wave 8 hit it was apparent that Jumpmasters were going to make a splash in the competitive scene. Obviously everyone directed their attention to the triple scouts, but I wanted to see what else we could play with in the box. I was especially intrigued by this card:
With the right list, I figured I could take advantage of the action economy provided by this card, and limit the effect of the stress caused by the effect. What I wanted to share is how I went through this process of finally making it work for ME, and hopefully assisting those that might have trouble with list building techniques and coming up with ways to have it succeed in the current meta.
STEP 1 : Identify it’s strengths and weaknesses
Strengths:
• Cost 1pt per ship with Mindlink
• No range restrictions
• Increase action economy by only requiring one focus action for entire list
• Ability to receive focus even when stressed
• Limiting negative effect (other ships only receive 1 stress, not multiple)
• Ability to stack focus tokens since the receiving ship can still perform a focus action
• Flexibility of focus token (uses for both offense and defense)
Weaknesses:
• Takes up competitive EPT slot
• Stress builds cause the list to stay perpetually stressed (hard counter)
• Timing of maneuvers is important (assigning red maneuvers and receiving stress before performing maneuver is a big no no)
• Forced focus action from at least one of your ships to keep action economy up
I ignored the stress build weakness as we were moving away from the stress meta and every list has a hard counter, so I figured it would have to be approached differently if I were to ever face one. Overall I thought the advantages outweighed the negatives, so I decided to get started with theorycrafting a list. But what ships to choose?
STEP 2 : Choose the right ships
The first thing I considered was the dials available for Scum ships. Green maneuvers was the first priority. And it became obvious early which ships I should consider:
Ship Number of green maneuvers
Aggressor 9
JM5K 6
M3-A 6
YV-666 5
G1-A 5
Kihraxz 5
StarViper 5
Firespray 4
HWK 4
Z-95 4
Y-Wing 2
Though the M3-A does sport plenty of green maneuvers, it is basically non-existent in the competitive scene. The Aggressor was an obvious choice, but flying two Aggressors in which you forbid to both k turn/ s loop when you really need them to would be a significant disadvantage. So I decided to mix it up and pair an Aggressor with a JM5K with the title.
Though there’s a case for IG88-C, I think B’s ability is too good to pass up, so I went with him. I wanted to try Tel Trevura at first for the survivability, and also because the ship could clear the stress immediately after receiving it from a IGB k turn/ s loop at PS7.
STEP 3 : Choose your load outs
The first list I came up with was the following:
IG-88B — Aggressor 36
Attanni Mindlink 1
Fire-Control System 2
Heavy Laser Cannon 7
Autothrusters 2
Ship Total: 48
Tel Trevura — JumpMaster 5000 30
Attanni Mindlink 1
Dengar 3
R5-P8 3
Hull Upgrade 3
Punishing One 12
Ship Total: 52
The typical IGB build with HLC,AT,and FCS was obvious choices, and I went with the title, Dengar crew, Painbot, and Hull upgrade on Tel.
I tested this a few games to medium success, going 3-3 over the course of 6 games. So what do I do to improve my win/loss ratio?
STEP 4 : Identify the strengths/weaknesses of the list
Strengths
• Decent offense through HLC doubletap with FCS and 3 dice primary turret
• IGB ability to “turtle up” with focus and evade
Weaknesses
• Triple scouts would wreck me every time, the alpha strike being too strong
• Tel would die quicker than expected even with ability due to rolling unmodified green dice most of the time
• One focus token not enough for both ships to do well on both offense and defense
• Telegraphing moves with Tel (green maneuver when IG is expected to k turn/s loop)
So my first experiment failed. Knowing the prevalence of triple scouts, I knew my list wouldn’t get very far if it couldn’t at least withstand the alpha strike. But with the knowledge gained, I decided to look elsewhere to make my list work….
STEP 5 : Adjust to the meta
Triple scouts only weakness was ships with autothrusters and highly modified green dice. Though IGB did not get help with Palp, It can still put up a decent roll with 3 greens and evade/focus. The trick was to mitigate this at least 3 times if you saw triple scouts. But how could I ever achieve this without glitterstim?!
Then I saw her face:
Now I’m a believer!
I don’t know why I didn’t see it immediately, but Manaroo’s ability is built to synergize with Mindlink. Pass your token, get one back. But one token wasn’t enough… so Recon Spec spec was a must have. My second iteration became the following:
IG-88B — Aggressor 36
Attanni Mindlink 1
Fire-Control System 2
Heavy Laser Cannon 7
Autoblaster 5
Seismic Charges 2
Autothrusters 2
Ship Total: 55
Manaroo — JumpMaster 5000 27
Attanni Mindlink 1
Recon Specialist 3
R4 Agromech 2
Punishing One 12
Ship Total: 45
I was hesitant at first by putting so much on IGB, but this is where math started to come in to my theorycrafting.
The usual approach was to throw IGB to the wolves and let Manaroo take the flank. Manaroo double focuses, Giving IGB a focus through Mindlink, IGB then evades, then Manaroo passes two more focuses. With 3 focuses, autothrusters, and an evade, IGB could produce an average of 9 evades over the course of 3 separate defending shots. That’s actually quite good against most things, and against triple scouts it at least gave me a chance to mitigate as much of the damage as possible, having a 68% chance of completely blocking one 4 hit torpedo.
With the Autoblaster and Manaroo focus factory, I also was not concerned to try the s-loop/k turn if I feared it would be blocked. Let them go for the block, slow roll IGB up, still have 3 focus tokens, and an autoblaster to boot if I caught them at R1. If I’m allowed an action, an evade again to further mitigate shots coming at me. So IGB could essentially tank a list while Manaroo provides support fire. Also seismic charges was a great 2 points spent, even if it didn’t hit it added a control factor forcing ships to either account for it or use actions to get away from it.
I went 4-4 with this iteration, and I saw some improvements, but not quite enough. I went back to detailing strengths and weaknesses of the list
STEP 6 : Fine tune the list
Strengths
• Offense powerhouse from IG-88B with HLC/AB combo
• Decent damage mitigation from IG-88B from token stack
• Good control/additional damage from Seismic charges
• Highly modified shots from both ships
• Both ships able to finish the fight most times if other dies
Weaknesses
• Good pilots with high PS aces still a hard match up
• Manaroo would die quickly under focused fire
So two things happened around the time I was playing this iteration: New FAQ hit that made R4 Agromech less effective (couldn’t use focus twice on one roll for R4 Agromech). And Dengaroo sprung into the meta. When this happened, my list became exposed the same way Dengaroo does: If you can kill Manaroo quickly, the list stops working. And my did she die quickly, because I tried using her offensively with the R4 Agromech.
I decided to address my last two weaknesses by making one final change. I swapped R4 Agromech for Overclocked R4. It might seem counterintuitive to add a card that causes stress through Attanni Mindlink, but my logic was the following:
Keep Manaroo out of the fight if at all possible. If Manaroo is targeted first, IGB could use greens to clear stress, focus to mindlink Manaroo a focus, earning her infinite focus to buy IGB time to burn down the attackers as much as possible.
Having one extra point left, I threw in Thermal Detonators, which are AMAZING. A constant autodamage+1 stress threat? Hello Soontir, Inquisitor, and Whisper. Don’t try to flank me.
So I came to my final iteration:
IG-88B — Aggressor 36
Attanni Mindlink 1
Fire-Control System 2
Heavy Laser Cannon 7
Autoblaster 5
Thermal Detonators 3
Autothrusters 2
Ship Total: 56
Manaroo — JumpMaster 5000 27
Attanni Mindlink 1
Recon Specialist 3
Overclocked R4 1
Punishing One 12
Ship Total: 44
Now 12 games in I am 8-4, and though not an amazing record, I have beaten a variety of strong lists (including Palp Aces/Dengaroo/x7 Defenders) and my losses came on me making a critical mistake, so all matches were winnable.
I don’t think it’s a meta breaker, and I don’t think it’s better than most of the list that are out there, but it’s unique and can be hard to approach if you’ve never seen something like it before. It is also versatile enough to adapt your strategy depending on the match up.
So there we have it! This post was mainly to show and break down the list building process I went through to achieve a unique list that can still win games if piloted well and making good judgments during your matches. I think a lot of people tend to try out combos that don’t work the first time then give up, but all that was really needed was to make a few adjustments to have it fit your play style and combat against the better lists out there.
Thanks for reading!