There are so many different opinions about target priority strategies and most of the people insist that either the one or the other strategy is the better one.

I know, it also depends a bit on your squad, bit gerneraly: whom to kill first?

Manaroo or Dengar?

(e. g. Manaroo with R5-P8, Dengar with overclocked)

Depends on your list. If you have the speed and flexibility to chase mana down, do that. Dengar is pretty lame without her. If not, focussing fire on Dengar can work, especially if you can force him to Countermeasure and Stim at the wrong time.

Probably Manaroo in general as she is slightly squishier, and feeds Dengar his various tokens. If you take on Dengar first you will be risking his retaliatory shot being fully modified. Once Manaroo has gone down, his action economy plummets which makes taking him down less risky.

Of course the Dengaroo player is unlikely to simply sit there so be prepared to take shots as opportunistically as you can. If you are outside Dengar's arc then there is no risk of taking the odd pot shot if that is all you can do. Beware of giving him too many opportunities for his retaliatory shot though as you may do yourself more harm than good.

I played this at a tournament this weekend, using;

Dengaroo v2 (99)

Manaroo (40) - JumpMaster 5000

Push The Limit (3), Recon Specialist (3), Unhinged Astromech (1), Feedback Array (2), Engine Upgrade (4)

Dengar (59) - JumpMaster 5000

Lone Wolf (2), Plasma Torpedoes (3), Zuckuss (1), R5-P8 (3), Glitterstim (2), Punishing One (12), Countermeasures (3)

Dengar struggles when Manaroo is gone and the only way I was pushing damage in some matches was R5-P8. and building on what 'thespaceinvader' said it will also depend on the build out of Denger and Manaroo.

Saying that, I know people are gonna go for Manaroo so I tend to cut them off with Dengar.

Manaroo, if you can catch her.

Otherwise you are playing to Dengar's strengths and insane combos.

You need to assume that between Lone Wolf and infinite focus tokens Dengar will likely defend 2 hits from each shot targeted at him. You also need to assume that for the very same reasons he will score the maximum number of hits on each of his shots while your defence will be significantly less effective than usual, especially if you've already used your focus token. Those assumptions might not hold true if you're lucky with your dice (or the Dengaroo player isn't) but counting on luck is a poor strategy.

Based on the above you need to ask yourself if your list has the sheer firepower to punch through Dengar's near-guaranteed 2 evades and survive his response. If so - go for it. Dengar still only has 9 HPs and without him Manaroo can't do much. Common lists that can do this include:

• Triple u-boats (and probably any ordnance-based list for that matter) - three 4-hit attacks that also strip extra shields are nasty. Dengar doesn't have the HPs to tank this kind of firepower even if he can shave 2 hits off each attack. Watch out for Countermeasures though - it's good to keep u-boats in a loose formation and stagger torpedo attacks. Overloading Dengar's defences by forcing him to use tokens isn't possible anyway so it's best to force him to use Countermeasures on one round and then keep the torpedoes coming in the following rounds. Dengar only has 3 red dice, so even if your green dice are completely neutered by re-rolls it will still take a while for him to chew through your hulls. Just don't shoot him in his arc unless you can do so with torpedoes when he doesn't have countermeasures on. Also, Boba Fett crew really pays here. Get rid of OC4 = win.
• Brobots - specifically the Crackshot - HLC - Glitterstim variety. These guys can simply rush in, lock Dengar, pop glit and win in a straight shootout. Glitterstim and autothrusters should get you through both the Dengar's attacks in good shape, crack shots should neutralize countermeasures and very accurate 4-hit attacks should do the rest. The last time I've seen this matchup Dengar was down to 4 HPs after the first shooting despite having used countermeasures. It didn't last very long past that. Advanced sensors - PTL - mangler/HLC brobots might not do as well though. Rushing past Dengar and killing Manaroo would probably be preferable in their case, which should be easy enough considering brobots' speed.
• Wes-Corran-Biggs - only works if Manaroo didn't take RecSpec crew or Dengar didn't take OC4 (sadly, these days they typically do). This makes things quite simple. Wes takes the focus away and suddenly Dengar is only a bit harder to kill than your typical contracted scout. Just destroy him before he can destroy Biggs.
• Probably several other lists with heavy firepower and good toughness but not that much mobility, such as double ghosts + Biggs (or Y-wing) though I haven't played those lists myself nor seen them in action vs Dengaroo so I can't guarantee they would work.

If you're not running one of the above lists, always go for Manaroo. As dangerous as Dengar might be, if you hold on to your tokens and refuse to trigger his extra attack, you're only facing a single 3 die attack which is survivable even with forced green dice re-rolls. Manaroo is effectively tokenless since she passes her focus to Dengar. If you fly decently, it doesn't take long to nuke her down. Dengar becomes far less threatening when it happens.

I've successfully jousted him with a Lone Wolf x7 before but it's dicey, pun intended.

The other thing to consider is AGI 0 ships. Zuckuss crew doesn't do anything to Decimators or Ghosts, and both RAC and Oicunn can do good damage against Dengar and stand a decent chance at avoiding the revenge shots.

Depends entirely on how good your squad is at catching/killing Manaroo (and thus largely on whether they've ****** up their Manaroo build by taking off Engine Upgrade or Unhinged Astromech).

If you can do it then do it, if you can't then trying to and failing will only make things worse.

Depends entirely on how good your squad is at catching/killing Manaroo (and thus largely on whether they've ****** up their Manaroo build by taking off Engine Upgrade or Unhinged Astromech).

If you can do it then do it, if you can't then trying to and failing will only make things worse.

Well, your squad had better be able to either chase down Manaroo OR win vs Dengar in a straight shootout. If it can't do either it means you need to work on your list.

Depends entirely on how good your squad is at catching/killing Manaroo (and thus largely on whether they've ****** up their Manaroo build by taking off Engine Upgrade or Unhinged Astromech).

If you can do it then do it, if you can't then trying to and failing will only make things worse.

Well, your squad had better be able to either chase down Manaroo OR win vs Dengar in a straight shootout. If it can't do either it means you need to work on your list.

Agreed.

I think VERY few squads are capable of effectively hunting Manaroo unless the Manaroo player screws up with her somehow (most commonly on build or deployment), though. I play a TIE Swarm variant and although TIEs are fast Manaroo is a lot faster, so I've always had more success from just rumbling with Dengar and being careful to block his sloops. The times I've tried to chase Manaroo and she's been flown well I deal her a bunch of damage but not enough to kill her and it turns out to just be wasted effort. The 'variant' part of the list turns out to help quite a bit in the Dengar matchup, mind, I wouldn't expect to have much success doing this with a generic Crack Swarm.

When the Contracted Scout errata hits I'll be dropping the TIEs, though. It'll be a Dengar/Dash/Brobots meta and my TIEs won't enjoy that much at all.

Maybe I'm out of the loop but what errata are you referring to?

Depends entirely on how good your squad is at catching/killing Manaroo (and thus largely on whether they've ****** up their Manaroo build by taking off Engine Upgrade or Unhinged Astromech).

If you can do it then do it, if you can't then trying to and failing will only make things worse.

Well, your squad had better be able to either chase down Manaroo OR win vs Dengar in a straight shootout. If it can't do either it means you need to work on your list.

Agreed.

I think VERY few squads are capable of effectively hunting Manaroo unless the Manaroo player screws up with her somehow (most commonly on build or deployment), though. I play a TIE Swarm variant and although TIEs are fast Manaroo is a lot faster, so I've always had more success from just rumbling with Dengar and being careful to block his sloops. The times I've tried to chase Manaroo and she's been flown well I deal her a bunch of damage but not enough to kill her and it turns out to just be wasted effort. The 'variant' part of the list turns out to help quite a bit in the Dengar matchup, mind, I wouldn't expect to have much success doing this with a generic Crack Swarm.

When the Contracted Scout errata hits I'll be dropping the TIEs, though. It'll be a Dengar/Dash/Brobots meta and my TIEs won't enjoy that much at all.

I'd suggest the key to getting Manaroo is probably similar to getting Dash with lower PS pilots. It's not about pegging where she;s going and chasing her down, it's about covering a lot of ground so she doesn't have anywhere safe to go - ideally ofrcing her to spend both actions running rather than giving Dengar tokens, or get shot at.

Maybe I'm out of the loop but what errata are you referring to?

He assumes a nerf because Scouts are still perceived as OP.

Maybe I'm out of the loop but what errata are you referring to?

He assumes a nerf because Scouts are still perceived as OP.

And rightfully so.

Manaroo always. Treat her like the palp shuttle.

It dies first.

Manaroo always. Treat her like the palp shuttle.

It dies first.

THis is the right answer, but it's not the right answer at the same time. You treat her like the palpmobile, but that doesn't always mean killing her first.

Manaroo always. Treat her like the palp shuttle.

It dies first.

Treat her like the Palp Shuttle that's three times as quick, though, yeah?

I'd suggest the key to getting Manaroo is probably similar to getting Dash with lower PS pilots. It's not about pegging where she;s going and chasing her down, it's about covering a lot of ground so she doesn't have anywhere safe to go - ideally ofrcing her to spend both actions running rather than giving Dengar tokens, or get shot at.

Maybe - again it depends on your list, though. If you split up you give yourself a good chance of doing some damage to Manaroo but also a very good chance that you'll not do enough to kill her. If you stick together and call it right you're a bit more committed but the upside for getting it right is greater. Splitting a TIE Swarm to throw a couple of TIEs at Manaroo won't get you very far.

Manaroo always. Treat her like the palp shuttle.

It dies first.

Treat her like the Palp Shuttle that's three times as quick, though, yeah?

I'd suggest the key to getting Manaroo is probably similar to getting Dash with lower PS pilots. It's not about pegging where she;s going and chasing her down, it's about covering a lot of ground so she doesn't have anywhere safe to go - ideally ofrcing her to spend both actions running rather than giving Dengar tokens, or get shot at.

Maybe - again it depends on your list, though. If you split up you give yourself a good chance of doing some damage to Manaroo but also a very good chance that you'll not do enough to kill her. If you stick together and call it right you're a bit more committed but the upside for getting it right is greater. Splitting a TIE Swarm to throw a couple of TIEs at Manaroo won't get you very far.

3 crack ties probably kill her in two turns if my back of the envelope maths are correct, pr5obably for no loss unless she's packing boomsticks - but then she's not supplying Dengar so job done.

3 crack ties probably kill her in two turns if my back of the envelope maths are correct, pr5obably for no loss unless she's packing boomsticks - but then she's not supplying Dengar so job done.

Yeah, assuming they can stay in range of her for 3 turns despite her being 50% faster than them.

Yeah, assuming they can stay in range of her for 3 turns despite her being 50% faster than them.

Corners are your friend. On a finite sized board, she cannot run forever, especially if you plan your angles right. Of course Dengar is not just going to sit there while you chase his girlfriend but if you force your opponent to react to your moves rather than making his own choices, you have an edge.

3 crack ties probably kill her in two turns if my back of the envelope maths are correct, pr5obably for no loss unless she's packing boomsticks - but then she's not supplying Dengar so job done.

Yeah, assuming they can stay in range of her for 3 turns despite her being 50% faster than them.

Two turns. Which is a lot easier.

3 crack ties probably kill her in two turns if my back of the envelope maths are correct, pr5obably for no loss unless she's packing boomsticks - but then she's not supplying Dengar so job done.

Yeah, assuming they can stay in range of her for 3 turns despite her being 50% faster than them.

Two turns. Which is a lot easier.

Two turns your maths is wrong, then. It's three turns.

Also it could potentially be four turns, as Glitterstim on Dengar means that at least one of those turns she can hang onto both her Focus tokens. And if you're not hugely pressuring Dengar with your other 3 ships there may be other turns she could hold Focus or Boost/Barrel out of range.

Two turns is definitely best possible case scenario.