Kavil, Palob, Torkil all with TLT & Predator (Dengar on Torkil in its place). Eats a Defender every round

As mentioned, Homing Missiles. Add in Crackshot, even better. Shot by Tomex Bren, we have ourselves a dedicated defender hunter.

TLTs will get past all the green dice and tokens.

Bring back IG88B!

Bring back Gunner on PWT ships!

Bring back 4 dice Phantom!

One of the main reasons Defenders felt so underpowered when released was the meta at the time. Gunner makes them feel bad and can generally force 1 damage through a round (or the Defender risks token/palp spending ad eating Gunner shot with less tokens to back it up). Phantoms and HLC IG88 are also able to reliably sneak damage through against 3 agility and can still evade minimal 3 dice attacks per round. The X7 title will make it less effective, but it is still effective.

Interesting. I found gunner effects relatively weak on them because of their high health and focus+evade. They can very easily control what kind of damage gets through (barring a very bad roll) in order to make sure gunner doesn't trigger by taking the one damage. If they roll hot on the first roll, then they still have gunner on the first shot.

They move in a straight line. Block with a cheap ship to deny them their actions. Don't take them head on. Turrets allow you to stay out from in front of them.

That. Times 1000.

Unless you have Old Teroch w/ his title. Then feel free to joust with them (but make ABSOLUTELY SURE you get to Range 1).

I took on a set of 3 VI x7 Glaives yesterday with one of my new lists, and just barely clutched out a win. It was Fenn Rau w/ Stealth, PTL, Title; Old Teroch w/ Autothrusters, VI, Title; and Zuckuss w/ VI, Baffle, Mist Hunter, Tractor Beam, and Ketsu Onyo.

Stealth on Fenn Rau was a mistake. It did not help even once. Had a disastrous exchange on the first round of firing, even though Zuckuss' tractor beam hit and Fenn/Teroch got to range 1 of a Defender. Didn't quite kill the first x7 and lost Fenn on opening combat due to god-awful dice. Wasn't looking good. Eventually, though, Zuckuss pumped some more damage through another x7, but it ended up with Teroch vs 3 x7 Glaives, 2 of them almost dead. Was not optimistic, but some clever maneuvering/jousting with Old Teroch allowed me to actually take the rest of them down.

That was a stressful game, let me tell you.

Whisper + Deci can beat defenders.

41 Whisper w/ VI, FCS, Kallus, ACD.

59 Oicunn w/ EH, Palp, RC, IonProj, Dauntless.

This is a fun one I've been flying that can go toe-to-toe with defenders. You still need to fly well though, cause they'll shred anything they catch in arc.

Kath+tailgunner+fearlessness...

Ketsu ability and TLT's

Ketsu is great against Defenders. They don't like auto-losing dice, and you can't even block her to avoid it.

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.

I turn all the time on my x7s. I'm happy to 3 turn all day long.

Defenders with ion cannons. Once 1 hits, the x7 won't escape.

Defenders with ion cannons. Once 1 hits, the x7 won't escape.

I've beat ion /Ds with x7 before. First round he ioned one of my defenders, I killed one of his. I'll take that trade. x7 has way better defense and only marignally less offense (if any, depending on dice) due to the ability to have both tl/focus on ryad and vessery (in my build at least) while the /Ds can only modify one of their attacks (outside of vessery if someone else has a TL, and things like predator or whatnot, which just keep maknig you more and more expensive).

Palob

Zuckuss

4 lom

R2a2

Sabine

Thermal detonators

Conner nets

Abt+ accuracy correctors

Moralo 88 + inertial dampners

Kath outmanuver/tailgunner

Ion weaponry

Skill levels to use and therefore results will vary.

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.

Defenders with ion cannons. Once 1 hits, the x7 won't escape.

I've beat ion /Ds with x7 before. First round he ioned one of my defenders, I killed one of his. I'll take that trade. x7 has way better defense and only marignally less offense (if any, depending on dice) due to the ability to have both tl/focus on ryad and vessery (in my build at least) while the /Ds can only modify one of their attacks (outside of vessery if someone else has a TL, and things like predator or whatnot, which just keep maknig you more and more expensive).

He doesn't get any evade bonus at range against cannons, so the key is not rushing in too eager.

Another vote for TLTs. They are not quick but they will grind through those token stacks. They are tough and the shields help keep them alive but they are not Soontir-level unhittable.

Nah tlt sucks against x7's these days, faced it the other week y wing vs my defender he struggled to get one damage through with modifications.

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.

Best I have seen is Dengar / VI Ketsu, was almost embarrassing.

Take the three biggest rocks you can.

Green move with Ketsu to bump a Defender, gain target lock via K4 on said bumped Defender. Apply Tractor Beam, barrel them on to a rock to deny shot or off you at the very least, fire four dice at them, apply a second tractor token.

Dengar fires three to four dice at the one agility Defender. Defender rolls his one agility dice, Zuckuss crew forces a reroll . .

Engage troll face.

The worrying thing for me is that it comfortably beats Defenders, which means it eats any small base Rebel ship alive. Regen or not. Especially if you put Latts crew on Ketsu just in case the other player brings ANY PtL users and/or debris fields.

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.

Nah tlt sucks against x7's these days, faced it the other week y wing vs my defender he struggled to get one damage through with modifications.

Really? I have had TLTs Golds make a persistent nuisance of themselves to Defenders. They can usually be counted on to take off a shield per turn, especially if something else has fired at them already to deplete their token stack.

Try this:

Ketsu w/VI, Shadowcaster title, Dengar, EU
Palob w/ICT, Zuckuss, wired

2x Binary pirates.

Rush Ketsu into range one and Palob and the z's into range 2. Once Ketsu has fired at PS9, you should have 1 tokenless defender with 1 agi, possibly on a rock, ready to be finished off or ioned to a harmless position next round.

Nah tlt sucks against x7's these days, faced it the other week y wing vs my defender he struggled to get one damage through with modifications.

Really? I have had TLTs Golds make a persistent nuisance of themselves to Defenders. They can usually be counted on to take off a shield per turn, especially if something else has fired at them already to deplete their token stack.

They murdered regular defenders and /D for sure but x7's not so much they can kill the y wing far faster than it kills them.

The Derpfender guy used a combination of gravity and a mid-size sedan. You could try that.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/122908-destroyed-my-defender/

How long d'you reckon until someone accidentally necroes that thread?

It has already been done.....

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/122908-destroyed-my-defender/page-8#entry2440627

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.

in summary,

which is basically like a collage of the most essential upgrades regardless of what you face

why you wouldn't take any of these in literally every single list you make is utterly beyond me