If I were Lyraeus I'd be pointing out it was my anti clon build on H9/MC30s that started that whole ball rolling.

If I were Lyraeus I'd be pointing out it was my anti clon build on H9/MC30s that started that whole ball rolling.

H9/MC30s was Ard's thing (original poster). Lyraeus went with Intel Officer on everything and just focused on stripping tokens.

Unfortunately NK'7s are exhaust to use, trust me I had already looked at Raider II's kitted out with them double arc'ing things to strip them of def tokens, but it won't work.

If I'm not mistaken, what I am seeing is that the Interdictor title lets you use that NK-7 twice. So it does work with a double arc. That is why this combo is exclusive to the interdictor, otherwise you are right NK-7s are generally considered overpriced. But by doubling their effectiveness.... thus Stripperdictor.

Edit: Here let me post a picture to prove myself wrong! Hahah good times were had by all.

It's a pretty interesting way to run the Interdictor, though of course with a nickname like that, it will become necessary to use the phrase "woo! Take it off!" Every time you fire - which could lead to some rather interesting misunderstandings, depending upon your opponent.

So true... only makes me like it more though.

Unfortunately NK'7s are exhaust to use, trust me I had already looked at Raider II's kitted out with them double arc'ing things to strip them of def tokens, but it won't work.

If I'm not mistaken, what I am seeing is that the Interdictor title lets you use that NK-7 twice. So it does work with a double arc. That is why this combo is exclusive to the interdictor, otherwise you are right NK-7s are generally considered overpriced. But by doubling their effectiveness.... thus Stripperdictor.

Want to go through the steps?

1) You activate the Interdictor

2) You attack getting a blue crit

3) You exhaust NK-7's

4) You make second attack

5) You move the Interdictor

No where in there give you the trigger for the title.

Unfortunately NK'7s are exhaust to use, trust me I had already looked at Raider II's kitted out with them double arc'ing things to strip them of def tokens, but it won't work.

If I'm not mistaken, what I am seeing is that the Interdictor title lets you use that NK-7 twice. So it does work with a double arc. That is why this combo is exclusive to the interdictor, otherwise you are right NK-7s are generally considered overpriced. But by doubling their effectiveness.... thus Stripperdictor.

Want to go through the steps?

1) You activate the Interdictor

2) You attack getting a blue crit

3) You exhaust NK-7's

4) You make second attack

5) You move the Interdictor

No where in there give you the trigger for the title.

Yup! I missed that.

This is why I asked in fleet building first... but when no one caught it I figured I would throw it here.... then it was immediately caught. So close to making NK-7 worth taking! Back to the drawing board!

If I were Lyraeus I'd be pointing out it was my anti clon build on H9/MC30s that started that whole ball rolling.

H9/MC30s was Ard's thing (original poster). Lyraeus went with Intel Officer on everything and just focused on stripping tokens.

I posted it originally, and then Ard updated his MC30 fleet with it.

If I were Lyraeus I'd be pointing out it was my anti clon build on H9/MC30s that started that whole ball rolling.

H9/MC30s was Ard's thing (original poster). Lyraeus went with Intel Officer on everything and just focused on stripping tokens.

I posted it originally, and then Ard updated his MC30 fleet with it.

I just reread your post and I thought you were saying something different. What a long road we weave in life.

Also, is this something new that Intel Officer and accuracy is good? I'm trying to place my finger on why this discovery is only coming to light now.

Because of people like you, who dont understand what we are saying.

Builds a fleet with a single x17 turbolaser and multiple corvettes whose damage is redirectable.

Its almost like you dont understand defense token mitigation and are building a list of ships rather than a fleet.

Now do you have something constructive to offer?

I think you're being a little over dramatic with that response mate. I'll follow up with the other poster with something more substantial since I'm on my phone.

If I were Lyraeus I'd be pointing out it was my anti clon build on H9/MC30s that started that whole ball rolling.

H9/MC30s was Ard's thing (original poster). Lyraeus went with Intel Officer on everything and just focused on stripping tokens.

I posted it originally, and then Ard updated his MC30 fleet with it.

Oh, really? I definitely thought it was the other way around, guess I should've been giving you credit.

Funny how quickly we subtly rewrite our memories to cast ourselves as favorably as possible.

Also, is this something new that Intel Officer and accuracy is good? I'm trying to place my finger on why this discovery is only coming to light now.

The question posed isn't "are upgrades that target defence tokens good?", because, as you so perceptively pointed out, that's a bit of a no brainer.

The debate is whether focusing on negating defence tokens is a more successful means to achieve victory than simply maximising damage output.

Do you have something to contribute on that?

OK, now that I'm home after a crazy busy day at work, let me follow up with a more coherent and less snarky reply:

There's two trains of thought here that I want to entertain and in some form, exercise:

> The first form is simply: Death by a thousand cuts. You do a lot of small, minimal damage that adds up over time because your opponent doesn't have any defense tokens worth spending. When he does spend, he spends for minimal investment. No one likes to spend a Brace token on say, two damage from a bomber, and the same can be said with just about everything. Defense tokens, and especially Brace, are the most coveted defense mechanisms that ships have in order for them to sustain themselves on the battlefield. Shields, hull, the only thing those numbers represent is how much damage a ship can soak before it's gone, and therefore useless to the battle. This game, like X-Wing, has a slippery slope mechanic when it comes to dealing and applying damage. Once you start bleeding ships, your damage also decreases and thus, it becomes an expotentially more difficult time to finish the battle in your favor. Going back to the death by a thousand cuts, these are lists like swarm lists, all bomber lists and lists that predominately pick at you until you commit your defenses.

> The second form is simply: The killing blow. You throw such a huge amount of dice that your opponent either Braces or dies (to that extent). This is your ISD-IIs, AckbarBBs and other big dice throws where their version of damage negation normally comes in the way of XI7s to push hull damage, and Intel Officer to make sure that Brace isn't there to save you next round. In this sense, there is a much greater reliance that your opponent doesn't have the means to defend against your attack, vs. having to feed that damage over time. That's exactly what you should compare it to; a nuke vs. a DoT (Damage over Time), or a frog that gets slowly boiled to death vs. getting thrown in lava. In 40K terms, this is pretty much the Tau's battle strategies of Kauyon vs. Mont'ka.

What do I prefer? I prefer both, in the same list. Let me entertain why: When you have a list that combines both of these elements, big ship/little ships, you start feeding your opponent more choices to overload the amount of strategic decisions he has coming into the battle. In a list where you pick at your opponent to death with swarms, your opponent has a mental idea of how much damage he should expect per die throw. The choices are more simple that way. Same can be said about purely big ship lists where you throw buckets of die, so they know when to be conservative and when to spend defense tokens. When you mix big ships and little ships, you start messing with how they spend their tokens: Players tend to let in more damage from the smaller vessels because they're expecting to save themselves from the bigger ship that's going to fire. Maybe first, maybe second, they never know as long as you control initiative. Thus turns into a battle of mind games where they have to decide whether or not to bleed to death, or having to deal with a baseball bat to the face. For example, activating a big ship first vs. smaller one will more than likely draw out Brace. If it's gone, good, if it's not, your opponent is much less likely to burn the token when your smaller ships fire; thus allowing you to squeeze in more damage. Dice, also plays a huge factor in this, as the larger pools of dice you throw the spikier the damage can be. This means that your opponents also can't predict the outcome of the throw as easily as say.. throwing blues with SW-7s. Inconsistent damage be a good thing, because this means that damage can be average, or swing in a way that's unanticipated. Sometimes this works in your favor because more attacks will be let through because they're saving for a more dramatic effect that never comes.

In conclusion, I like mixing both combat ideologies when constructing a list. This is why I like the fleet I'm currently using with Ackbar, one of the reasons why I like MC30/TRC90 lists (can chip, can rock face), and why I like ISD-II 3-ship lists with the Interdictor. If you look at some other lists like ISD + GSD + Fireball for example, they run similar concepts, but with a minor twist: You sneak in damage where you can get it with squadrons, and then choose whether or not to punk someone in the face. Do your opponents spend their tokens or let in free damage? Or save them for something that can punch you really hard in the face.

When it comes to these kind of games: The more you force your opponent to think, the more you mistakes he can possibly make. The more mistakes he makes, the more you can capitalize on punishing them.

Totally stealing Lyraeus' series title because he can't stop me and it's appropriate.

A discussion with Tirion just now just kind of knocked it all into place in my head: all of my most successful Wave 2 lists have all been about circumventing defense tokens in one way or another.

Shores of Confession (8x CR90B with SW-7): overwhelm defense tokens with ridiculous numbers of piddly but reliable damage attacks.

I'll Shoot, You Run (2 MC30 w/ H9, 3-4 CR90's): guaranteed accuracies out of 2-4 hard-hitting arcs means even ECM and redundant tokens are limited in effectiveness; if I run the IO variant, this is even worse.

Surest of Favors (Haven, Yavaris, 1-2 support ships, and 120+ pts of squadrons): similar to the SW90B Swarm, overwhelm defense tokens with small attacks

Similarly, Clonisher is built to do this by eliminating the brace that it's juiciest targets have only one of (with IO); the triple-VSD Rhymerball sets up a defense token attrition fight by stacking the deck with huge hull and defense pools on its own side and a huge number of reliable attacks wearing down the other side.

So, what do you guys think: is this just a personal tendency, or is this the direction the game is going right now? Or is this just an obvious observation brought on by my fever-addled brain?

Shutting down def tokens is only part of it. An important part, to be sure, but you also have to A) deploy/maneuver to let you focus on one target at a time, while denying that same opportunity to the enemy and B) you need to be able to output sufficient damage to wear down you opponent's ships before he does the same to you.

I'm thinking any "shutdown" strategy comes in as a force multiplier to B, but does nothing on its own: you have to have A in place first, and then you need a credible way to do damage (B). Then your shutdown strategy comes in and boost B by limiting enemy defenses.

I'll make a brief example, from a vassal test run vs. cactusman (he won, very good game):

I have JLTRC90+1MC30Scout+2EAMC30Torp

He has Devastator ISD-II w/GT/IO/XI7/ECM etc, Demo and 2 Raiders.

He has initiative. My Fire Lanes.

Jaina and the 2 Raiders play out on one side, quarreling over 1 token.

Dev and my 3 MCs are contesting the other two tokens.

Demo is somewhere in the middle.

First part:

Devastator can hurt my MCs really, really badly. Two per turn in fact, with XI7s and whatnot. His IO is less useful vs. my double tokens.

I can hurt him pretty good too, but as long as he has that ECM, damage will be limited.

So I have to maneuver (A) to stay out of his front arc. I'm aided by a little luck - and his desire to control the Fire Lanes tokens.

I strip his brace early with an IO/TRC shot from my Scout. Followed by a massive 3 red 2 blue 3 black OE/APT strike from Landmonition. I think it did some 10 - or was it 12 damage?

Devastator went from having lost an handful of shields, to being nearly dead in just a couple of activations. Because I denied him use of defense tokens. But that was ONLY POSSIBLE because he hadn't blown my fragile MCs apart (A) coming in, and because (B) they did credible dmg in the first place.

Second part:

I was, however, not able to kill Devastator right away. My need to keep away from the front arc guns as 2nd player (not easy) and Demolisher screaming in from the flank, forced me wide, leaving me with no followup attack to finish what I had started. Leaving Devastator alive to collect MY TOKENS!!! Bummer...

Next followed more maneuvering, as both sides tried to gain a positional advantage. Demo tried a run at my Landmonition, but failed. Why did it fail? Because of my defenses. Demo is powerful, but when up against a relatively fresh MC30 with both Admonition and Lando, it fell short. Faced with the broadsides of 3 MC30s, Demo wisely ran away.

Third part:

This was when things got a bit rushed - I should have left about an hour ago I decided to try to finish off Devastator in turn 6. My Kylo Ren moment if you will.

So I ran 2 MC30s and JL forward to block Devastator.

One of the MCs was a bit beat up, but the other one was relatively fresh. After some shooting and movement, both end up in blue range of the Devastator. He shoots twice, killing both! The massive volleys, with XI7s and accuracies, completely shut down my defenses. Even the fresh MC goes poof.

Excellent example of what happens when you have A) position B) firepower and C) force multiplication through defense denial.

Oh, and Jaina killed Devastator right after. Sooo worth it!

Also, is this something new that Intel Officer and accuracy is good? I'm trying to place my finger on why this discovery is only coming to light now.

The question posed isn't "are upgrades that target defence tokens good?", because, as you so perceptively pointed out, that's a bit of a no brainer.

The debate is whether focusing on negating defence tokens is a more successful means to achieve victory than simply maximising damage output.

Do you have something to contribute on that?

OK, now that I'm home after a crazy busy day at work, let me follow up with a more coherent and less snarky reply:

[...]

When it comes to these kind of games: The more you force your opponent to think, the more you mistakes he can possibly make. The more mistakes he makes, the more you can capitalize on punishing them.

Cheers for this mate, found your response really interesting. Not having the time for a long response, I agree with the forcing your opponent think policy - the more decisions he has to make, and difficult decisions, the better.

Totally stealing Lyraeus' series title because he can't stop me and it's appropriate.

A discussion with Tirion just now just kind of knocked it all into place in my head: all of my most successful Wave 2 lists have all been about circumventing defense tokens in one way or another.

Shores of Confession (8x CR90B with SW-7): overwhelm defense tokens with ridiculous numbers of piddly but reliable damage attacks.

I'll Shoot, You Run (2 MC30 w/ H9, 3-4 CR90's): guaranteed accuracies out of 2-4 hard-hitting arcs means even ECM and redundant tokens are limited in effectiveness; if I run the IO variant, this is even worse.

Surest of Favors (Haven, Yavaris, 1-2 support ships, and 120+ pts of squadrons): similar to the SW90B Swarm, overwhelm defense tokens with small attacks

Similarly, Clonisher is built to do this by eliminating the brace that it's juiciest targets have only one of (with IO); the triple-VSD Rhymerball sets up a defense token attrition fight by stacking the deck with huge hull and defense pools on its own side and a huge number of reliable attacks wearing down the other side.

So, what do you guys think: is this just a personal tendency, or is this the direction the game is going right now? Or is this just an obvious observation brought on by my fever-addled brain?

Excellent example of what happens when you have A) position B) firepower and C) force multiplication through defense denial.

Oh, and Jaina killed Devastator right after. Sooo worth it!

This sounds like a great game.

Also, is this something new that Intel Officer and accuracy is good? I'm trying to place my finger on why this discovery is only coming to light now.

The question posed isn't "are upgrades that target defence tokens good?", because, as you so perceptively pointed out, that's a bit of a no brainer.

The debate is whether focusing on negating defence tokens is a more successful means to achieve victory than simply maximising damage output.

Do you have something to contribute on that?

OK, now that I'm home after a crazy busy day at work, let me follow up with a more coherent and less snarky reply:

[...]

When it comes to these kind of games: The more you force your opponent to think, the more you mistakes he can possibly make. The more mistakes he makes, the more you can capitalize on punishing them.

Cheers for this mate, found your response really interesting. Not having the time for a long response, I agree with the forcing your opponent think policy - the more decisions he has to make, and difficult decisions, the better.

That is how I like to run lists. Forcing my opponent to make decisions, to eventually mess up because of all the choices in the end can help me out but it is a dual edge sword. You have to be making decisions to force decisions, the only upside is that sometimes your decisions can run on auto pilot if you train yourself mentally.