So a LGS I've been playing at the past couple weeks is starting a casual escalation league this week.

Everyone who enters will play everbody else each round. There will be prizes from the summer kit as well as some custom painted ships.

Unlike standard escalation with 4 stages, this one will only be using 3...40/80/120.

So I'm basing my lists off a Scum List I was going to try soon anyways.

40 Point List

Mando Merc - 35

Slave 1 - 0

LRS - 0

Feedback - 2

4LOM - 1

Tractor Beam - 1

Total - 39

80 Point List

Same as above + Predator - 42

Trando Slaves - 29

Dengar - 3

Tactician - 2

Zuckuss - 1

Feedback - 2

Total - 79

120 Point List

Same as above - 79

N'Dru + Clusters + Stims + VI + Chips - 24

Black Sun Soldier + Concussion + Chips - 17

Total - 120

I like the lists a lot. I'm most worried about the 40 Point games as I'll probably face a lot of aces. Feedback and 4lom will help me through that at least.

I'm worried that Feedback and 4-LOM won't help you enough if you get arc dodged into next Tuesday. I might make a super fat U-Boat capable of working as a Torpedo launcher or a Bumpmaster, then you can add a Party Bus in round 2.

I would recommend giving the Slaver 4LOM crew instead of Tactician.

The Zuckuss, 4LOM, Dengar combo is deadly, and the Firespray is a good platform for Tactician anyway.

Lone Wolf with or without RecSpec might be worth considering on the Firespray too. LW will be pretty handy in the first two weeks (assuming the Slaver is the first to die).

The point structure here is really weird. Like, consider it for a minute. Normal escalation games start with 60pts and require you to have at least two ships. With 40pts and no such requirement, the first match will be a super small game. If you want to win, you've gotta be prepared to deal with fat ships but also with Aces. You've really gotta bring something that's prepared to weather any storm.

I'd take a 35pt Soontir with a 5pt bid. I slim 40pt Ghost, with FCS and autoblaster (and hope that I could kill an ace by catching it with my ABT twice while it was trying to chew its way through my super thick hull), or a JM5K that's both Torp Boat AND also part Bumpmaster, so that it can deal with a super fat or an enemy ace.

Crackswarms are usually fine versus aces, but you don't have even enough points in round 1 to field 3 TIEs, so that option is probably out the window for dealing with Soontir or Miranda or something like that. Party Bus is an amazing ship, but I'm not sure it's good enough for a 1v1 situation. If you deal a pile of damage to an enemy ace but it survives long enough to get behind you with 1HP, you're cooked.

I definitely say, start with a Super Ace (maybe even PS11 Vader and just save 5pts), a JM5K Torp+Bump combo, or a Ghost and make sure your ABT game is on point. This seem like the primo options to me.

I would recommend giving the Slaver 4LOM crew instead of Tactician.

The Zuckuss, 4LOM, Dengar combo is deadly, and the Firespray is a good platform for Tactician anyway.

Lone Wolf with or without RecSpec might be worth considering on the Firespray too. LW will be pretty handy in the first two weeks (assuming the Slaver is the first to die).

I might do lone wolf though and save the tractor beam for 2nd round.

The point structure here is really weird. Like, consider it for a minute. Normal escalation games start with 60pts and require you to have at least two ships. With 40pts and no such requirement, the first match will be a super small game. If you want to win, you've gotta be prepared to deal with fat ships but also with Aces. You've really gotta bring something that's prepared to weather any storm.

I'd take a 35pt Soontir with a 5pt bid. I slim 40pt Ghost, with FCS and autoblaster (and hope that I could kill an ace by catching it with my ABT twice while it was trying to chew its way through my super thick hull), or a JM5K that's both Torp Boat AND also part Bumpmaster, so that it can deal with a super fat or an enemy ace.

Crackswarms are usually fine versus aces, but you don't have even enough points in round 1 to field 3 TIEs, so that option is probably out the window for dealing with Soontir or Miranda or something like that. Party Bus is an amazing ship, but I'm not sure it's good enough for a 1v1 situation. If you deal a pile of damage to an enemy ace but it survives long enough to get behind you with 1HP, you're cooked.

I definitely say, start with a Super Ace (maybe even PS11 Vader and just save 5pts), a JM5K Torp+Bump combo, or a Ghost and make sure your ABT game is on point. This seem like the primo options to me.

The plus thing is I'd only be facing a single ace with likely 3-4 hit points. If I can get a couple feedbacks in just need one good shot or 2 for the rest which I've had practice doing before.

So I've made a couple tweaks and submitted my final squads. First games start on Tuesday. You can play in any order you want with whoever is available. Got a alt predator card for participating already (side note: Can't believe I now have 5 of these cards when back in the day I forced myself to buy a 2nd defender just to have 2 copies of it).

40 Point List
Mando Merc - 35
Slave 1 - 0
LRS - 0
Feedback - 2

​Lone Wolf - 2
4LOM - 1
Total - 40

80 Point List
Same as above + Tractor Beam - 41
Trando Slaves - 29
Dengar - 3
Tactician - 2
Zuckuss - 1
Feedback - 2

​Tactical Jammer - 1
Total - 79

120 Point List
Same as above - 79
N'Dru + Clusters + Stims + VI + Chips - 24
Black Sun Soldier + Concussion + Chips - 17
Total - 120

I'll post back with results as they come in!

Those are probably the smart options. However I like to run what I like and what I like is the firespray. It's unfortunate it's not as points effective as aces but until ffg fixes that I'll do the best I can.

This right here is one of the best answers I've read in a while. You know what dude? Props to you. Run what you like, forget the rest.

So did my first game tonight, a 40 point match.

It was against a very new player who only had about a dozen or so games under his belt.

He ran Countess with PTL, x7 Title, and Engine upgrade for 39 points.

He had some practice with her already and was flying her pretty well. I knew it would be a tough match as i can't rely on feedback with 6 health to take out behind multiple tokens.

I ended up winning the game though, only losing 3 shields, all self inflincted from feedback array. Got a direct hit crit one attack which helped as well. He had a few poor attacks which kept me at high health, though even if they had gone his way I still would have won.

As for my upgrades: LRS was nice for the free lock, but i never used it all game. Lone wolf was used many times, but I think I mostly rerolled to blanks with it. 4lom was used twice, once it didn't help as he rolled enough evades, other time it did get my direct hit crit through. And of course feedback was the mvp as it got used 3 times.

I dont know much about my other 40 point matchups yet. I know two for sure. One is a dengar build, and one is a lothal build. Both are beatable but will be close probably.

Got 2 more games in tonight against some more experienced players, though not major veterans of the game.

First game was against Rudor with Title and AT, and the PS1 Tie FO.

I won 80-0 only losing my shields to just avoid losing half the points on my ship. Having 2 ships with only 2 attack die against my 2 agility with lone wolf made it tough to get damage in. I never used feedback, but I did use 4lom 3 times I think, and all 3 times i got extra damage in because of it.

Second game was against a standard lothal rebel build with fcs, autoblaster, hera, and chopper.

I lost 20-60 with his lothal at 5 hull left when the game ended. It's a tough matchup as feedback and 4lom are mostly useless. I basically need to have at least average dice rolls, but probably need a bit of luck as well, and ideally at least one round where I shoot and he can't which is tough to pull off. I decided I'd go with dice luck and take evade every round to help mitigate the damage of his attack dice with at least a target lock each round. I was able to stay at range 2-3 every round but the last which works in my favor, but like I said my dice needed to be a bit better. The first 3 rounds really killed me. I only did 3 damage with 9 attack dice with a target lock for one attack, and lone wolf for the other two. Plus in return I lost all 4 shields even though I took evade all 3 times, was at range 3 twice, and he only had one modifier for most of the attacks.

In retrospect I maybe would just take focus next time and use it on offense and try to kill him as fast as possible instead of trying to avoid damage. But hard to say.

I have one more game left for 40 points matches (though can do extra), then it's on to the 80 and 120 point matches.

Got my first 80 point game in tonight, and my final 40 point game as well. Both were wins.

The 80 point game was against the player I lost to last week with the Lothal build. For the 80 point round he added the standard Biggs with R4D6 and IA, and a naked Bandit Z-95. Things started out well. I killed Biggs and the bandit pretty quickly along with a few shields off the lothal, in return for moderate damage to both of my ships. But then I had a disaster round where neither of my ships had a shot and his lothal had a range 1 shot with fcs and focus on my YV. He got 3 hits and 2 crits, I got no evades, and both crits were direct hits, so a total of 7 damage, which was just enough to finish me off. At that point it looked grim as my firespray was at 3 hull I think and his lothal was at 7 hull. The next turn though he whiffed his shot since he had no actions to modify, and I got 3 more damage in. I then went for broke trying to get a range 1 shot next turn to end it which I did and got the job done.

My 40 point game was against a Dengar build. Dengar had PTL, dampeners, and pain bot. Even with the occasional double tap, only having 2 dice usually against my 2 with lone wolf made it hard for him to do much damage. He got 2-3 damage on me just with painbot, one of which was a mutual damage. I also used feedback once for a mutual damage. We called the game early as the store was closing but I was likely to win as I had 5 hull left and he had 1 hull left.

So now I'm 3-1 for 40 point games, and 1-0 for 80 point games. My total MOV is 340 out of a possible 480.