Looks nice for surprising your opponent but somehow I'm not sold on a ship with 2 agi that pretty much has to position itself so that the enemy is right in front of her at range 1. Don't get me wrong, if it works, it can be devastating. But off the top of my head I can think of at least several lists that would just roll over Ketsu+Zs. Like, say, Dash + Ghost, triple u-boats, Biggs+Kanaan, even good old Crack swarm. Well flown arc-dodgers might be able to avoid either the primary arc or R1 entirely. Poorly flown arc-dodgers would get trashed obviously, but that's just the thing with poorly flown arc-dodgers.

The thing about dodging a ship with a PS bid of 97 and a mobile arc; arc dodging is not all that easy to do (unless aces want to PS bid all the way to 97 or lower).

I never said anything about dodging the mobile arc. Nor do you need to. Ketsu's ability only works if you get caught in both arcs AND at range 1. That pretty much means you can't joust her. Getting caught in just her auxiliary arc is fine in the sense that it's just a regular 3 red die attack with re-rolls on 2 dice and possibly a focus as well. Good attack, but nothing aces are not used to handling on a regular basis. I used to fly aces lists for quite a while so I can tell you that any experienced ace player has seen "do-not-approach-from-the-front" lists and is used to facing them. Some of them have a much bigger danger zone (stressbot builds) while others are harder to dodge and flank (crack swarms). Good asteroid placement is essential to limit the possible enemy movement. Then, you just divide your force and approach from multiple vectors, running with the ship they go after and killing with the rest. Moving after Ketsu is obviously inconvenient but her large base does limit her options considerably, so you can usually ensure you're not in both her arcs at close range.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it would be an easy match up for aces (it would certainly be one of the more stressful ones), but Ketsu really is gimmicky and you can use the inflexibility of her pilot's ability to negate it's impact. Once Ketsu's nuked down (and she's not exactly the toughest thing out there), you're left facing a Z swarm, which any competent ace player knows how to deal with, even if he lost one of his aces to Ketsu's shenanigans.

Avoiding the front arc of a ship that moves after you and has boost is easier said than done. Espeically if you want to be getting any shots yourself. So far the 4 games I've played with my ketsu/latts list have all been against aces, and I've had no issues getting range 1 shots in any of them. Stressbots and crack swarms are different because they have to move first so you get to dodge them.

That doesn't make sense with the Ketsu build, though. Ketsu wants to be the front line to go for the bumpage. That way the Z-95's can get shots on whomever Ketsu bumps.

Can Ketsu use the tractor trick even if another ship bumped her? Played three games last night and got absolutely trounced in all three. First time vs the Shadow Caster and it was very unpleasant.

Yup. Any ship in her front arc at range 1. Bumped in the front arc is still in arc at range 1. (Assuming she has her mobile arc forward of course to have the ship in both arcs. If its to the side, anything on that corner to be in both arc)

This is almost ridiculously op. Tractor-boost-kill.

Not quite as bad as it sounds. You can't boost (with Engine Upgrade) or Barrel Roll (with Expert Handling) into another ship. You cab SLAM and bump (with Burnout SLAM when it's released), but only once, and then you can't shoot at the target.

Don't get me wrong, the Shadow Caster has a great, fast dial, and you will be able to get the combo off especially with one of the movement mods mentioned above, but it will be tricky to get it to work consistently once people realise it's coming

Not sure what you're saying here. You don't need to boost or BR into another ship. A lot of the time if they're not in range 1 already, you'll have room to boost (not always, but so far in my experience, usually). If they are in range 1, then...you don't need to boost because you can already use her ability. Its a lot harder to avoid than you might expect when you can't block her to avoid it.

What lists were you playing against? My worry about the Shadow Caster is that it only has 2 agility, not much in the way to assist with that, and only 3 shields. They'll get into the hull fast! Then you're stuck with 4 ships with low PS and only 2 attack die.

Dengar crew makes me sad.

Predator was conceived as an anti-generic card: they probably didn't realise how potent the single reroll was considering it's three points and in the same wave as a three point Outmaneuver (a card that'd probably be 1 point if printed today). With Dengar crew they knew exactly how he'd turn out and they still printed him: a crew member good enough to give other crew a heavy opportunity cost but still a soul crushingly dull card. The similar K4 at least has some activation conditions and requires target preselection.

Yup. I wonder if there was a concious decision to make scum crew rediculously good? K4 was already amazing and Dengar just blew one of the best crew cards out of the water. I assume Dengar was designed like that precisely to try and push the now ace-saturated meta back towards generics in the same way predator was? With zuckuss and 4-LOM the significant disadvantages probably justify the 1 point cost as they're pretty limited in their applications to ships that can circumvent action requirements but Dengar could be easily 5+ points and still a terrific choice.

Yup. I wonder if there was a concious decision to make scum crew rediculously good? K4 was already amazing and Dengar just blew one of the best crew cards out of the water. I assume Dengar was designed like that precisely to try and push the now ace-saturated meta back towards generics in the same way predator was? With zuckuss and 4-LOM the significant disadvantages probably justify the 1 point cost as they're pretty limited in their applications to ships that can circumvent action requirements but Dengar could be easily 5+ points and still a terrific choice.

I would honestly believe that's a possibility. Gotta think that most of the iconic and effective scum characters utilized a large ship, which can normally take crew. To support large based ships for the scum to use, you give it a prime selection of crew. Most of these characters in the scum faction are all highly skilled individuals, most of which are more skilled in combat/tactics/etc. than the average crew for the Imperials and Rebels, canon wise.

Looks nice for surprising your opponent but somehow I'm not sold on a ship with 2 agi that pretty much has to position itself so that the enemy is right in front of her at range 1. Don't get me wrong, if it works, it can be devastating. But off the top of my head I can think of at least several lists that would just roll over Ketsu+Zs. Like, say, Dash + Ghost, triple u-boats, Biggs+Kanaan, even good old Crack swarm. Well flown arc-dodgers might be able to avoid either the primary arc or R1 entirely. Poorly flown arc-dodgers would get trashed obviously, but that's just the thing with poorly flown arc-dodgers.

The thing about dodging a ship with a PS bid of 97 and a mobile arc; arc dodging is not all that easy to do (unless aces want to PS bid all the way to 97 or lower).

I never said anything about dodging the mobile arc. Nor do you need to. Ketsu's ability only works if you get caught in both arcs AND at range 1. That pretty much means you can't joust her. Getting caught in just her auxiliary arc is fine in the sense that it's just a regular 3 red die attack with re-rolls on 2 dice and possibly a focus as well. Good attack, but nothing aces are not used to handling on a regular basis. I used to fly aces lists for quite a while so I can tell you that any experienced ace player has seen "do-not-approach-from-the-front" lists and is used to facing them. Some of them have a much bigger danger zone (stressbot builds) while others are harder to dodge and flank (crack swarms). Good asteroid placement is essential to limit the possible enemy movement. Then, you just divide your force and approach from multiple vectors, running with the ship they go after and killing with the rest. Moving after Ketsu is obviously inconvenient but her large base does limit her options considerably, so you can usually ensure you're not in both her arcs at close range.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it would be an easy match up for aces (it would certainly be one of the more stressful ones), but Ketsu really is gimmicky and you can use the inflexibility of her pilot's ability to negate it's impact. Once Ketsu's nuked down (and she's not exactly the toughest thing out there), you're left facing a Z swarm, which any competent ace player knows how to deal with, even if he lost one of his aces to Ketsu's shenanigans.

Avoiding the front arc of a ship that moves after you and has boost is easier said than done. Espeically if you want to be getting any shots yourself. So far the 4 games I've played with my ketsu/latts list have all been against aces, and I've had no issues getting range 1 shots in any of them. Stressbots and crack swarms are different because they have to move first so you get to dodge them.

That doesn't make sense with the Ketsu build, though. Ketsu wants to be the front line to go for the bumpage. That way the Z-95's can get shots on whomever Ketsu bumps.

Can Ketsu use the tractor trick even if another ship bumped her? Played three games last night and got absolutely trounced in all three. First time vs the Shadow Caster and it was very unpleasant.

Yup. Any ship in her front arc at range 1. Bumped in the front arc is still in arc at range 1. (Assuming she has her mobile arc forward of course to have the ship in both arcs. If its to the side, anything on that corner to be in both arc)

This is almost ridiculously op. Tractor-boost-kill.

Not quite as bad as it sounds. You can't boost (with Engine Upgrade) or Barrel Roll (with Expert Handling) into another ship. You cab SLAM and bump (with Burnout SLAM when it's released), but only once, and then you can't shoot at the target.

Don't get me wrong, the Shadow Caster has a great, fast dial, and you will be able to get the combo off especially with one of the movement mods mentioned above, but it will be tricky to get it to work consistently once people realise it's coming

Not sure what you're saying here. You don't need to boost or BR into another ship. A lot of the time if they're not in range 1 already, you'll have room to boost (not always, but so far in my experience, usually). If they are in range 1, then...you don't need to boost because you can already use her ability. Its a lot harder to avoid than you might expect when you can't block her to avoid it.

I was going to query why VI was so important on this build, but that answers it.

Still, I'd like to try her with Fearlessness, to make that bump + tractor shot on a small ship even deadlier. Or Stay on Target/Outlaw Tech to give lower PS ships nowhere to hide. Tactical Jammer might also work if you're using Ketsu as lead blocker. However, all of those options are way more one-trick-pony style than the VI setup.

How about throwing one or two BTL-A4 Y-wings into the mix? Either TLT for raw damage or Ion for control. It's fewer bodies than the z-swarm, but each warthog packs a lot of punch, and two ion's could easily walk a large based ship off the board if it was covered in tractor tokens.