Force them to turn hard to get to you, Defenders hate turning. half the game is asteroid placement and initial positioning.

Adjust your approach so that after the first engage you force your opponent to hard turn to get to you.

I had a game yesterday Bossk vs Countess were we were doing a merry go round around the steroids.

Needless to say Gonk was aboard too and brought Bossk back to full health before he finished of the Countess.

To be more specific, PTL (almost exclusively Ryad) defenders don't like hard turns. Any other defender can 3-hard all day long

I like that feedback array literally has a defender on it giving you the hint of what to do.

Any zuckuss + 4lom ship or palob with zuckuss or just the standard scum token manipulation in general is a real problem for all imperial ships, x7 defenders being no exception. The consistent way to give them trouble is the stuff you would always fight token ships with as long as it is permanent and can wear through the 6 hp.

Issue with a feedback swarm is keeping them in range with a headhunter dial.

feedback for me is now exclusively on large ships

esp when running a modified torp scout list, modified specifically for a mostly imperial meta (and modified relative to the standard, because **** running torp scouts without feedback)

the final match was against your good ol x7 Ryad and x7 vess with a palp shuttle, and the torp scouts dun ******* goofed

don't think I've ever rolled worse, literally 1/2 hits out of every torp fired (yes, FOUR BLANKS)

and that's why you bring the goddamn array

also zuckuss palob

no joke, he killed Ryad with his primary weapon

he's a good man, that palob (for scum dependent definitions of "good")

The Defender is a Big Thing right now, and they're super tanky. Worse, the usual ace counters (like bombs, autoblasters, and stress) are way less effective against these guys thanks to their guaranteed actions and high hit points. So what's your preferred way to munch Defenders? What lists are best against them? What tactics?

Biggs

R4d6

Integrated Astro

Kanan

Advanced sensors

Recon specialist

Tactician

Tactical jammer

Tlt

Ghost title

Fletchet torp.

Zeb

Phantom title

Chopper

The idea is pretty simple, Kanan will attack first, hopefully stress something twice by the end of the round. Has a nice strong attack. Good to eat up token's. Biggs attacks. Biggs really messes up targeting priority, if you fly it right, and Kanan has tactical jammer, plus his ability which will help survive the defender attack,

Then biggs can attack, and Kanan gets his tlt shot, and fletchet torp out the back

Another take on this list.

Biggs

R4d6

Integrated Astro

Kanan

Advanced sensors

Recon specialist x2

Autoblaster turret

Tactical jammer

Cracken

Adaptability

Homing missiles

Guidance chips

Don't know if this squad would be as efficient as the other one, but cracken with homing missles means no evade for defender, so good chance hell use up his other modifiers, then gives kanan a free target lock, which helos with his punch. Biggs of coarse messes up targeting priority, and gets to shoot back as well.

Kanan works best against 2-3 ship builds since he can basically reduce all their attacks by 1 red dice. Plus Kanan does have a autoblaster turret for when things get close and it's better than having no shot at all.

By the time biggs dies your opponent will likely focus on Kanan, but that still means cracken is there to help, and if he goes for cracken, that eveb better

Miranda's sacrificial 5-die homing missiles really puts them in a funk. I take her with lrs over gc so she can bully high-ps aces with them too. She can knock the stealth off of a Soontir, and there's not a **** thing Palp can do about it.

I go all in with Miranda and add Jan. After the Homing Missile, I can shunt out a 5-die TLT attack to really finish off a 1-health Soontir. The problem is, it's a 1-trick pony. Once they see Miranda on the table the high PS pilots will try and avoid her TLs. An alternative config is to take Airen Cracken, because he eliminates a key weakness - Wes Janson, who is almost always PS10.

Horton Salm is also strong against them - with an R3-A2 and a Plasma Torp he can punch through fairly often and deal minimum 2 damage. I would only bother taking TLT on him or Miranda, or a ship with Predator minimum. You struggle to put damage through.

The way around these is to take Long Range Scanners on Miranda. First turn you lock on to what ever you want dead, then focus until you get your shot. The beauty of Homing Missile is that you don't spend the target lock (and deny evade token) so your range 3 or 2 6 dice shot (with Jan) will have double mods, just as good as guidance chips. Take autoblaster turret on Miranda as well so if they do decide to go for range 1, they can eat a 4 dice, focus/target lock unavoidable turret.

Exatcly, lrs over gc every time for me. The threat alone can take an ace out of the fight for quite a while, and slamming for a round can let you reset an engagement if they sneak in behind you. I think HM Miranda with lrs, em & abt is 38pts really well spent. I run her with Nora and Biggs, they make a great team.

Interesting idea... but I couldn't imagine running Miranda without ASlam for those Connor Net drops.

Still, a neat idea. Never thought of taking LRS on her.

Just make sure Corran costs more and that only one of them makes it to the end-game.

http://imgur.com/tnsx0QI

Caught Ryad at range one of Old Teroch and Fenn Rau. She died before Manaroo had a chance to shoot.

Super Dash. Stay out of arc while pelting away with that big ol' cannon.

Super Dash. Stay out of arc while pelting away with that big ol' cannon.

If you have palp, x7 defenders aren't actually especially scared of dash. I ran my vessery/ryad/palp list against dash/miranda the other day. Lost vessery without him having fired a shot. Had a bad round - ryad hit a rock by probably less than a millimeter, leaving her unable to barrel roll as planned. Vessery missed blocking miranda and ate a 2 damage conner net after sabine crew. Because ryad dind't get to BR, dash was able to BR over where she would have been and get an HLC shot at vessery along with mirandas boosted range 1. he rolled 5 blanks in 6 dice and ended at 1 hp to explode to a thermal detonator the next round, leaving ryad and palp vs dash and miranda. Still got dash down to 2 hp before ryad eventually died. If I hadn't screwed up that one round it would have been an entirely different game.

Crazy thought,

an ion cannon......

Well the k-turn is predictable. You'll need to plan a good block combined with a solid attack to the face.

Blocker : Decimator or shuttle on the imperial side, Ghost on the rebel side, or contracted scout on the scum side.

Face smasher: your choice

Well the k-turn is predictable. You'll need to plan a good block combined with a solid attack to the face.

Blocker : Decimator or shuttle on the imperial side, Ghost on the rebel side, or contracted scout on the scum side.

Face smasher: your choice

The great thing about x7 is even if you DO get blocked, you still get your evade token.

Best way to murderize Defenders?

- Maarek Stele in a Missile Boat.

Seems like this is a good way.

Fearless Boba Fett with an Autoblaster Cannon will put down a lot.

I'm a huge fan of phantoms, carnor, omega leader and miranda. Especially miranda, tlt and homing missle do dirty things to defenders. Defenders also aren't as stress immunue as once thought, which makes braylen with gunner and r3a2 a good buddy. Pair with biggs for maximum madness.

Having flown a defender list extensively and achieving a decent success with them (got to top 16 at a 200+ ppl tournament and won several smaller ones) I can tell you what I don't like to see on the other side of the table:

1. Whisper - an extremely uncomfortable target for a defender. She can use her decloak to approach from the side, leaving you few good maneuvers. 4 speed K-turn is often not enough - your cone of fire simply isn't wide enough to ensure that a combination of decloak, maneuver and barrel roll won't carry her outside of it. Hard turning won't work either because that puts defender way too close to Whisper, making it absurdly simple to arc-dodge. On top of that 4 dice primary attack is usually enough to punch damage through and 4 dice defence makes it hard to hit her on the few occasions you have the opportunity to do so. Add Rebel Captive and Palp on a friendly decimator and defenders are in trouble. If they don't get a great round vs her early on, they'll start dropping like flies and their chances of getting her shrink rapidly.

2. Mass TLTs - while I haven't encountered a classic TLT swarm yet with defenders (though they do begin to resurface lately) I know that Kanan with TLT and a shuttle coupled with Biggs is a hard one for defenders. I know this because I have played vs defenders with such a list and done surprisingly well. 4 TLT shots per turn do wear them down quite nicely and the sheer bulk of Kanan+Biggs mini-formation makes it hard perform those K-turns, especially if you don't fancy putting yourself in range 1 of Kanan's primary. Miranda also works rather well provided you have some means to nuke down at least one defender early on.

3. Triple u-boats - don't see them much anymore but they're still dangerous. They make excellent blockers and defenders are reasonably predictable, so they're often capable of blocking a defender with one ship and nuking it down with the other 2. Once they're out of torpedoes it gets much harder (but still not impossible) to hit defenders. The point is, U-boats are so durable that if defenders suffer losses early on they might simply not have the time to finish them off and lose on points.

4. Dash - ok this one's important - ONLY if played by an expert player. Poorly (or simply averagely) flown Dash is doable, especially if for PS8 defenders. But if defenders are PS5/6 and the Dash player really knows what he's doing, they're in trouble. With good obstacle placement Dash will give defenders very few opportunities to shoot at him. Once they start going down their chances of ever getting a shot diminish radically.

5 Norra - I haven't faced Norra with defenders yet but I have faced defenders with Norra and boy does she work well. She's got great firepower and if a single defender is left dueling her 1 on 1 it basically means Norra won.

TLDR: bring ships that can cover a lot of distance laterally, can shoot from multiple angles and either shoot with 4 dice or just shoot a lot.

I'm no expert pilot (and I'm pretty sure I don't play many), but I'm 3 out of 5 vs. all Defenders list (just play patient at first):

Deathrain” (37)

TIE Punisher (26), Accuracy Corrector (3), Extra Munitions (2), Seismic Charges (2), Conner Net (4)

The Inquisitor (31)

TIE Advanced Prototype (25), Push the Limit (3), TIE/v1 (1), Autothrusters (2)

Tomax Bren (32)

TIE Bomber (24), Crack Shot (1), Extra Munitions (2), Homing Missiles (5), Long Range Scanners (0)