With the arrival of Hot Cop I'm not sure Fangs have legs. RAC + Hot Cop + Gunner + Vader will burn both the Fang's focus tokens, assuming it doesn't kill the Fang outright.

To be fair, people used to use this same argument to describe the reasons why Soontir Fel will "never see consistent success" (Gunner + Vader RAC, that is). That list just isn't all that prevalent, and is actually beatable by said list that is supposed to be countered by just trying really hard to burn down RAC while RAC is forced to Vader to even consider getting damage through. Of course, HSCP adds a new layer, but it REALLY only adds a layer IF said ship being shot at didn't want to spend its focus token already for defense by rolling focus results, etc.

With the arrival of Hot Cop I'm not sure Fangs have legs. RAC + Hot Cop + Gunner + Vader will burn both the Fang's focus tokens, assuming it doesn't kill the Fang outright.

Luring RAC into pursuit for Fenn and killing him with Manaroo and Asajj/Boba during the process seems like viable tactic. Fenn doesn't need to be a main weapon, he can be a bait. I think Scum players already acknowledged squishiness of Fang Fighters, and in good rooster there is always alternative way of killing things in case of (un)expected Fenn's death

With the arrival of Hot Cop I'm not sure Fangs have legs. RAC + Hot Cop + Gunner + Vader will burn both the Fang's focus tokens, assuming it doesn't kill the Fang outright.

This is true of regional season BUT not worlds.

I really like your review and discussion on the 'state' in the last episode.

List Manaroo/Fenn/Palob had been tested in tournament environment by Jesper Hills and David Sutcliffe in UK, and by myself in Poland. It has ben proven to be fun to play, competitive but to squishy and lacking of punch to be in tier1 or even tier1,5.

However 2 very powerful Attanni lists had been developed:

Asajj Ventress + Attanni Mindlink, Latts Razzi

Fenn Rau + Attanni Mindlink, Title, Autothrusters

Manaroo + Attanni Mindlink

This is my discovery, so I called it Parattanni

David's variation:

Boba Fett + Attanni Mindlink

Fenn Rau + Attanni Mindlink, Title, Autothrusters

Manaroo + Attanni Mindlink

As for Parattanni, it is hard to find bad matchup for this list. Only stress lists can bring some troubles, but not more than for standard Aces lists.

I don't expect this lists to blossom during the Worlds, as they are freshly developed and not well known so I don't think any of competent players have been practicing it, but be ready for Regionals. If it become popular, I feel it jump into Tier1 for at least 2 months until 10th wave shows up.

David has made insightful blog post about Attanni with some discussion below:

http://stayontheleader.blogspot.com/2016/10/attani-mindlink-next-big-thing.html?m=1

We have recorded one of the practice matches with Parattanni. It was test-video so no sound included:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RcHBo0EoN3Q

I just played this. I owe you a beer, perhaps a pack.

I appreciate all the mindlink talk here. I think it a thoroughly undervalued card. Would love to see a mindlink squad make a splash at worlds.

I appreciate all the mindlink talk here. I think it a thoroughly undervalued card. Would love to see a mindlink squad make a splash at worlds.

The closest analogy I can find to describe how mindlink Manaroo felt was when I forgot about my company kitchen card for a year and found out I had 200$ on it. I made it rain candy and snacks in the office. It felt glorious and that's more or less Mindlink and Manaroo with tokens.

I don't know if I mentioned this on a previous show discussion page or of if it was Mynock, but people continually bring up gunner effects as a good way to give defenders a hard time. I've been playing a pair of defenders with a wingman for awhile now and I almost always love seeing ships that carry gunner. Defenders, with a both a focus and evade almost always have the option of limiting the damage to one hit except in some rare situations to avoid the gunner. With six total health, it's going to take awhile for that ship to get the defender down (these aren't interceptors and can easily afford one hit a round). If I'm taking one damage from a 50 point+ ship per turn on my mid 30 point ship, that's a win.

The exception to that is if that gunner comes with a negative effect (like a gunner Ketsu) that I don't want.

I will go out on a limb here, but this podcast was -informational-wise- a simply fantastic podcast!!!!

However, I do have a mild complaint: as I listened to it with my headphones, sound quality issues raised their heads. A note to your sound engineer: one gentlemen (the Captain I believe) was in left channel only and mainly low in output, whereas some speakers were normal volume in both channels (well done) but there was one smart and interesting fellow that nearly deafened me a few times in the right chanel. But, that is an easy fix really. Overall, Very Well done guys!

I don't know who will win worlds, but I'm hoping they have bombers in their squad, THAT would be fresh and fun, haha!

I reuploaded the audio file in Mono by the way. Enjoy!

Oh, and I loved the breakdown on the show except to find out that the list I've been running in prep for World's isn't going to be as unique as I thought! I just wanted to point out my experience against gunner.

I don't know if I mentioned this on a previous show discussion page or of if it was Mynock, but people continually bring up gunner effects as a good way to give defenders a hard time. I've been playing a pair of defenders with a wingman for awhile now and I almost always love seeing ships that carry gunner. Defenders, with a both a focus and evade almost always have the option of limiting the damage to one hit except in some rare situations to avoid the gunner. With six total health, it's going to take awhile for that ship to get the defender down (these aren't interceptors and can easily afford one hit a round). If I'm taking one damage from a 50 point+ ship per turn on my mid 30 point ship, that's a win.

The exception to that is if that gunner comes with a negative effect (like a gunner Ketsu) that I don't want.

I think this is true in general, with the exception of glittercrack bots. If the bots roll two or more hits you can't just allow one damage through because whoops it's two and also here's the other Aggressor's shot and suddenly you're down to two hp and really can't allow one damage through (unless you're only in one arc and plan to run scared after that).

Which is not to say I think it's an unwinnable matchup or anything, just that Aggressors have a pretty decent shot at jousting the Defenders down, with the shuttle or wingman play being the big variable there.

List Manaroo/Fenn/Palob had been tested in tournament environment by Jesper Hills and David Sutcliffe in UK, and by myself in Poland. It has ben proven to be fun to play, competitive but to squishy and lacking of punch to be in tier1 or even tier1,5.

However 2 very powerful Attanni lists had been developed:

Asajj Ventress + Attanni Mindlink, Latts Razzi

Fenn Rau + Attanni Mindlink, Title, Autothrusters

Manaroo + Attanni Mindlink

What was your loadout for Manaroo/Fenn/Palob that you were testing? You mentioned that it lacked punch, but my version listed above has more offensive output than your Ventress/Fenn/Manaroo.

I definitely agree about squishiness, Ventress is far more durable than Palob as she can evade, get Latts to trigger more often via the pilot ability, and has 10 hit points vs Palob's 5. The tradeoff is that your focus token modification is inferior, as Fenn will be running around with 1 less focus on average, and Ventress has 1 focus max vs Palob's effectively infinite stack. Plus Palob's R2-3 TLT turret should generally be better than having 2 arcs, which you occasionally have to keep burning actions to rotate. And Palob's token steal can definitely be a game changer.

It's a nice squad. I'll have to try it out. Manaroo feels a little sad with only Mindlink and nothing else, but she makes the rest of the build work. I agree that it should be more consistent and therefore more competitive than my Fenn/Palob/Manaroo.

I don't know if I mentioned this on a previous show discussion page or of if it was Mynock, but people continually bring up gunner effects as a good way to give defenders a hard time. I've been playing a pair of defenders with a wingman for awhile now and I almost always love seeing ships that carry gunner. Defenders, with a both a focus and evade almost always have the option of limiting the damage to one hit except in some rare situations to avoid the gunner. With six total health, it's going to take awhile for that ship to get the defender down (these aren't interceptors and can easily afford one hit a round). If I'm taking one damage from a 50 point+ ship per turn on my mid 30 point ship, that's a win.

The exception to that is if that gunner comes with a negative effect (like a gunner Ketsu) that I don't want.

I think this is true in general, with the exception of glittercrack bots. If the bots roll two or more hits you can't just allow one damage through because whoops it's two and also here's the other Aggressor's shot and suddenly you're down to two hp and really can't allow one damage through (unless you're only in one arc and plan to run scared after that).

Which is not to say I think it's an unwinnable matchup or anything, just that Aggressors have a pretty decent shot at jousting the Defenders down, with the shuttle or wingman play being the big variable there.

Having played against crack-bots a fair bit, I think you still let one damage through. Crack Shot is going to happen, no sense in trying to block that first shot only to have the second shot come back at you when you're down some tokens and Crack Shot is still a possibility.

Sure you only have 2hp left on a Defender, but you've traded hit points on one of your ships for position and removal of the bots' expendables, while you have two untouched ships and one that will still take work to kill. This is a manageable scenario.

I don't know if I mentioned this on a previous show discussion page or of if it was Mynock, but people continually bring up gunner effects as a good way to give defenders a hard time. I've been playing a pair of defenders with a wingman for awhile now and I almost always love seeing ships that carry gunner. Defenders, with a both a focus and evade almost always have the option of limiting the damage to one hit except in some rare situations to avoid the gunner. With six total health, it's going to take awhile for that ship to get the defender down (these aren't interceptors and can easily afford one hit a round). If I'm taking one damage from a 50 point+ ship per turn on my mid 30 point ship, that's a win.

The exception to that is if that gunner comes with a negative effect (like a gunner Ketsu) that I don't want.

I think this is true in general, with the exception of glittercrack bots. If the bots roll two or more hits you can't just allow one damage through because whoops it's two and also here's the other Aggressor's shot and suddenly you're down to two hp and really can't allow one damage through (unless you're only in one arc and plan to run scared after that).

Which is not to say I think it's an unwinnable matchup or anything, just that Aggressors have a pretty decent shot at jousting the Defenders down, with the shuttle or wingman play being the big variable there.

Having played against crack-bots a fair bit, I think you still let one damage through. Crack Shot is going to happen, no sense in trying to block that first shot only to have the second shot come back at you when you're down some tokens and Crack Shot is still a possibility.

Sure you only have 2hp left on a Defender, but you've traded hit points on one of your ships for position and removal of the bots' expendables, while you have two untouched ships and one that will still take work to kill. This is a manageable scenario.

It's essentially the best scenario to hope for if you're taking two shots from different IGs. Heck, when they roll one or two hits I'm concerned I'll beat it naturally and then have to face four hits on the follow up and is far less manageable.

Really, though, for me the goal is R1 with these guys so gunner doesn't go off and I can easily get behind them next time.

RE: Commonwealth Defenders ... how abuot a modded counter-list:

Why on earth does my podcast app no longer connect to these? It's the only subscription that doesn't work anymore.

It's obviously personal and for some reason this podcast hates me specifically.

Why on earth does my podcast app no longer connect to these? It's the only subscription that doesn't work anymore.

It's obviously personal and for some reason this podcast hates me specifically.

Nova squadron radio is the same way for me. Every other podcast works fine on my normal app but for some reason nova just wont play

List Manaroo/Fenn/Palob had been tested in tournament environment by Jesper Hills and David Sutcliffe in UK, and by myself in Poland. It has ben proven to be fun to play, competitive but to squishy and lacking of punch to be in tier1 or even tier1,5.

However 2 very powerful Attanni lists had been developed:

Asajj Ventress + Attanni Mindlink, Latts Razzi

Fenn Rau + Attanni Mindlink, Title, Autothrusters

Manaroo + Attanni Mindlink

What was your loadout for Manaroo/Fenn/Palob that you were testing? You mentioned that it lacked punch, but my version listed above has more offensive output than your Ventress/Fenn/Manaroo.

I was flying:

Manaroo + Attani Mindlink, K3 Security Droid 31 pts

Fenn Rau + Attanni Mindlink. Title, Autothrusters 32 pts

Palob + Blaster Turret, Dengar, Moldy Crow, Cloaking Device, Vectored Thrusters 35 pts

Little different than yours, but anyway once I've tasted the power of Parattani I am not going back Arc doging Palob was extremally fun tho

I definitely agree about squishiness, Ventress is far more durable than Palob as she can evade, get Latts to trigger more often via the pilot ability, and has 10 hit points vs Palob's 5. The tradeoff is that your focus token modification is inferior, as Fenn will be running around with 1 less focus on average, and Ventress has 1 focus max vs Palob's effectively infinite stack. Plus Palob's R2-3 TLT turret should generally be better than having 2 arcs, which you occasionally have to keep burning actions to rotate. And Palob's token steal can definitely be a game changer.

It's a nice squad. I'll have to try it out. Manaroo feels a little sad with only Mindlink and nothing else, but she makes the rest of the build work. I agree that it should be more consistent and therefore more competitive than my Fenn/Palob/Manaroo.

When Asajj doesn't need to change her firing arc she has Focus, Evade and Stress-to-Evade mechanism. When buffed by Manaroo - which is almost always as Fenn doges arcs and single Focus is in most cases enough, Asajj has 2 Focuses and Evade. Even with rotate arc action taken Asajj often ends with 2 Focuses.

As about Palob's damage output - you are right that TLT is mathematically superior to 3/4 red dices of Assaj. But when we take other factors into consideration - as Palob's life expectancy, Palob's inferior dial, TLT donut hole I hardly find Palob doing more damage during the game than Asajj. Please recall how often do you find Palob taking suboptimal shots due to having optimal targets in rng1, or not taking shots at all. Thats why I dropped TLT in favor of fully modified Blaster Turret shots - i was feeling uncomfortably living in dilemma do I want to be in rng1-2 to trigger Palob ablility, or rng2-3 to be able to shoot with TLT. Both things worked together only at rng2 so they were limiting each other.

I don't know if I mentioned this on a previous show discussion page or of if it was Mynock, but people continually bring up gunner effects as a good way to give defenders a hard time. I've been playing a pair of defenders with a wingman for awhile now and I almost always love seeing ships that carry gunner. Defenders, with a both a focus and evade almost always have the option of limiting the damage to one hit except in some rare situations to avoid the gunner. With six total health, it's going to take awhile for that ship to get the defender down (these aren't interceptors and can easily afford one hit a round). If I'm taking one damage from a 50 point+ ship per turn on my mid 30 point ship, that's a win.

The exception to that is if that gunner comes with a negative effect (like a gunner Ketsu) that I don't want.

I think this is true in general, with the exception of glittercrack bots. If the bots roll two or more hits you can't just allow one damage through because whoops it's two and also here's the other Aggressor's shot and suddenly you're down to two hp and really can't allow one damage through (unless you're only in one arc and plan to run scared after that).

Which is not to say I think it's an unwinnable matchup or anything, just that Aggressors have a pretty decent shot at jousting the Defenders down, with the shuttle or wingman play being the big variable there.

Having played against crack-bots a fair bit, I think you still let one damage through. Crack Shot is going to happen, no sense in trying to block that first shot only to have the second shot come back at you when you're down some tokens and Crack Shot is still a possibility.

Sure you only have 2hp left on a Defender, but you've traded hit points on one of your ships for position and removal of the bots' expendables, while you have two untouched ships and one that will still take work to kill. This is a manageable scenario.

Ive played this matchup quite a bit acutally. 2Brobots vs 3defenders (or 2+Palp) the defenders are going to win almost every time. That 4k gives bots fits.

Dave Semons (Columbus, Ohio area) recently won a tourney in Cincinatti I was at two weeks ago with:

Manaroo - Attani Mindlink, Gonk, R5-P8, Feedback Array

Fenn Rau - Attani Mindlink, Protectorate Title, Autothrusters

Palob - Attani Mindlink, TLT, Moldy Crow, Dengar

Palob was key, usually had a stack of about ten focus tokens for most matches. Given how much I've flown Palob this past regional season, I don't have confidence I can keep that ship around long enough. So for World's, I'm going to try a variation on this list by swapping out Palob for a Party Bus instead (that will mean I also have to drop Feedback Array for BMST as well).

On the topic of the Mindlink squad, I've been enjoying this build:

32 Fenn w/ ML, AT, Title.

25 Palob w/ ML, ABT, Cloak.

43 Manaroo w/ ML, Dengar, Title.

I've dropped lots of the trimmings on Palob, as I find he tends to draw lots of aggro and is generally killed first. The cloak has saved his bacon many times, and also helps for the initial engagement. Fenn is the same build as others have mentioned, and is a great damage dealer. Manaroo with Dengar, Title, and the perma-focus she has in this list is a great blocker and damage dealer. She's often the MvP.

Dave Semons (Columbus, Ohio area) recently won a tourney in Cincinatti I was at two weeks ago with:

Manaroo - Attani Mindlink, Gonk, R5-P8, Feedback Array

Fenn Rau - Attani Mindlink, Protectorate Title, Autothrusters

Palob - Attani Mindlink, TLT, Moldy Crow, Dengar

Palob was key, usually had a stack of about ten focus tokens for most matches. Given how much I've flown Palob this past regional season, I don't have confidence I can keep that ship around long enough. So for World's, I'm going to try a variation on this list by swapping out Palob for a Party Bus instead (that will mean I also have to drop Feedback Array for BMST as well).

Is this the tournament linked below?:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OIiq8pWInAk

Assuming yes - unfortunately Dave forgot to stress his squad after Palob got hit by Wes Jenson stress bot in round 3(?), and then slooped/tallon rolled next turn. I don't think it was intentional, but affected final big time for sure. On the other hand some quality flying there, and nice video.

I flew Mindlinked Manaroo/Fenn/Talonbane (yes, you read that right) to second in a 14-player tournament here.

So... I flew the Asajj, Manaroo, Fenn list yesterday which I commented on. I liked it so much I went out and bought all three ships immediately. (I normally buy whole waves online and just hadn't yet for 2 waves.) I've flown it again 3 more times. That list is the freaking truth.

So. I think mindlink is a sleeper for worlds. It is really good.

Why on earth does my podcast app no longer connect to these? It's the only subscription that doesn't work anymore.

It's obviously personal and for some reason this podcast hates me specifically.

I pm'ed you to help with this. The feed should come from http://scumvillainy.podbean.com/feed/although some people may still get us from Team Covenant.