I just finished listening to the S&V podcast. (Love those guys, but this episode had terrible sound). And they were talking about how we would see a lot of TLT's because of all the x7 TIE Defenders in the meta right now. Their logic basically went like this. x7 Defenders are hard to kill, TLTs kill stuff well so TLTs will be old against defenders. But m experience is totally the opposite.

A month or so ago when I was just learning how amazing the x7 title was I took a heavy Defender list to a tournament. And I faced off against not one, but two TLT spam lists. They were amazingly easy to kill. TLT's are good for consistent damage but they aren't great against everything.

First of all ships with 3 defense are no longer a guaranteed 2 damage against. In fact there is a pretty good chance that the TLT will will miss at least one of his shots simply because your opponent has 3 agility dice. But the fact that one shot from a TLT can only ever do one damage means that a Defender can not spend his tokens when the rice come up really bad against him. He is just going to take one damage, then he can spend the token against then next shot or save the focus for attack.

I found that a bunch of TLT usually did some damage but never very much against my Defenders, but Defenders take 6 hits to kill. And doing 1-ish damage a round is lot worse than 2-ish damage a round. I lost a defender initially, but after that I never seemed to lose a ship.

I also found that though TLT y-wings can shot 30 degrees Defenders are really good at getting behind and then into range 1 of those low maneuverability y-wings.

What do you all think? Did I just get lucks, or are TLT's really not that good against TIE Defenders with x7 titles.

If the TLT player is very good then it becomes a VERY tight game.

You're correct that TLT isn't a guaranteed 2 damage per shot but with 4 TLT focusing on one Defender (with just 1 focus, 1 evade) that ship is in trouble. The raw maths slightly favour the TLT I think, and it becomes about positioning for the defenders to either stay at long range so some TLT are out of range, or barrel in close to get into donuts. If the defenders get ahead the TLTs can't claw it back as the tokens cover more of the incoming fire.

If you can drop 2 y-wings before losing 1 Defender you win, but if you trade 1-1 early game then the TLTs should be able to win.

The X7 defender is great against a limited amount of targets. But against 4 ships with 2 attacks each, that evade and focus token disappears fast. The white 4k gimmick means little against a turret. The first Y-Wing will strip tokens, and from there the TLTs have a distinct advantage, all having modified attack dice against completely unmodified defense dice. The TLT Ys easily kill a defender a turn, the same is potentially true in reverse but not likely.

X7s have a butt turrible match up against 4 TLT Ys. The TLT player would have to have a stroke mid-game to mess that up so badly as to lose. You have to kill 2 Y's before you lose a single defender if you're going to win.

Not gonna happen. The math is just absolutely not in the X7's favor here. You have to do 16 damage to them, they have to do 6 damage to you. And if you don't roll perfect evades every time? Oops, looks like you take a damage. All they have to do is roll well ENOUGH.

My experience mirrors the OP. x7s really don't have a bad matchup at all vs TLT. The hypothetical worst case scenario still isn't likely to kill an x7 on the approach, and after that one TLT will be dead and a Defender probably won't be taking fire from more than two per turn. At that point, Y-wings are dropping a lot faster than Defenders.

The X7 defender is great against a limited amount of targets. But against 4 ships with 2 attacks each, that evade and focus token disappears fast. The white 4k gimmick means little against a turret. The first Y-Wing will strip tokens, and from there the TLTs have a distinct advantage, all having modified attack dice against completely unmodified defense dice. The TLT Ys easily kill a defender a turn, the same is potentially true in reverse but not likely.

X7s have a butt turrible match up against 4 TLT Ys. The TLT player would have to have a stroke mid-game to mess that up so badly as to lose. You have to kill 2 Y's before you lose a single defender if you're going to win.

Not gonna happen. The math is just absolutely not in the X7's favor here. You have to do 16 damage to them, they have to do 6 damage to you. And if you don't roll perfect evades every time? Oops, looks like you take a damage. All they have to do is roll well ENOUGH.

I think you're pretty heavily odds-against to down a Defender in a single turn, especially if they have Palp Shuttle - it's probably at least as likely you lose a TLT before it fires.

Neither side cakewalks it and the maths are pretty close.

Same here tlt just isn't the threat it was to defenders before x7 came along, you'll probably lose one ship to spam but your not at much risk of losing.

And one on one the tlt is in a pretty poor position.

The X7 defender is great against a limited amount of targets. But against 4 ships with 2 attacks each, that evade and focus token disappears fast. The white 4k gimmick means little against a turret. The first Y-Wing will strip tokens, and from there the TLTs have a distinct advantage, all having modified attack dice against completely unmodified defense dice. The TLT Ys easily kill a defender a turn, the same is potentially true in reverse but not likely.

X7s have a butt turrible match up against 4 TLT Ys. The TLT player would have to have a stroke mid-game to mess that up so badly as to lose. You have to kill 2 Y's before you lose a single defender if you're going to win.

Not gonna happen. The math is just absolutely not in the X7's favor here. You have to do 16 damage to them, they have to do 6 damage to you. And if you don't roll perfect evades every time? Oops, looks like you take a damage. All they have to do is roll well ENOUGH.

I think you're pretty heavily odds-against to down a Defender in a single turn, especially if they have Palp Shuttle - it's probably at least as likely you lose a TLT before it fires.

Neither side cakewalks it and the maths are pretty close.

If there's a shuttle on the table, you're not downing a Y a turn. Not happening. First off, to guarantee max damage on a Y, you need to burn mods, like your focus token. Cool, now you're only on evades and one palp use. Additionally, if the Y even rolls an evade result, forget killing it. you don't have the dice. You can't spend your focus turn 1 against 4 TLT Ys and expect both defenders to survive until the end of the turn. The X7 only wins if the dice sucks for the TLT player and is god like for themselves.

Raw dice rolls are how the X7 player wins. Maneuverability means nothing, these are turrets, and 1 focus and 1 evade token and even palp is meaningless against 8 three-dice attacks. Even if you don't lose a defender turn 1, oh, believe me it's gone next turn. Now how are you going to kill a Y? You'll finish off the one you damaged last turn, but from there the attrition is just not in your favor.

Sounds like an interesting matchup actually. Turrets but low agility versus some of the best raw jousters in the game.

Never seen this specific matchup but IRL there are ways both players can influence the raw math of this. The defender player won't be able to dodge every turret for sure, but it's possible and likely the TLT Fire is going to be split across multiple targets because some of the imperial,ships should be getting into range one whenever possible.

All I can do is refer to our experiences in the team, where we have strong Defenders players and a very good TLT player. It's a close match, which probably our results are 60-40 in favour of defenders but, speaking as the defender player, it makes me sweat billets and I could accept it's 50-50.

If either player makes a single significant error it's probably game over.

My experience mirrors the OP. x7s really don't have a bad matchup at all vs TLT. The hypothetical worst case scenario still isn't likely to kill an x7 on the approach, and after that one TLT will be dead and a Defender probably won't be taking fire from more than two per turn. At that point, Y-wings are dropping a lot faster than Defenders.

I second this. TLT Spam is only okay vs x7 Defenders.

I think it is close to 50-50. If one looks a just probabilities, and assumes all engagements happen at range 2, then it is pretty much a toss-up, with a slight edge to the defenders. So the 60-40 advantage seems pretty reasonable.

On the first salvo, the TIE/D's expect to get about 6 or 7 hits onto one of the Y's, not quite enough to bring it down.* The Y's expect to get about 3 hits on one of the D's. Of course, there is a lot of variance in this, so the results can be very far from the expected values.

The following round should see the end of that Y, and quite possibly the D as well.

At 3v2, the D's actually have the advantage, I think. The D's can expect to get about 4 hits onto a Y, while suffering only 2 hits to a D. Again, a lot of variance in all of those dice being thrown on both sides of the table. That helps the Y's more than the D's, but I think the D's have a slight edge.

Now...

If we take away the assumption of range 2, then really the advantage goes to whoever can better control the range of the fight. If the first salvo is at range 3, then the Y's gain a big advantage. If it is at range 1, then the D's have an even bigger advantage. This positioning will be a stronger factor in the outcome, I think, than anything else.

* All of my expected values are from an X-Wing probability calculator, and are estimates.

I haven't run into 4 x TLT, but I have played a few Caster + 2 x TLT matches, and 2xTLT struggled to push even a single damage through. It wasn't unusual to have a token or Palp left over after the four shots. I'm prepared to believe adding another 4 TLT shots would tip the balance, but...no, it doesn't seem like a tough matchup. And in the face of 4xTLT I'm absolutely bringing the shuttle in hard. If they ignore it, great, free modified shots. If they burn it, great, that means at worst it'll be 3 TLT Ys v 2 untouched Defenders, and I like those odds.

Fundamentally, the TLT player has a problem: they can run overclocked and mod both shots or they can run unhinged and actually maneuver. They can't do both.

I mean, it's not a bad matchup for the TLT list. But it's hardly a good one.

myar, you have to qualify "TLT"

naked/barely modified dice are still naked/barely modified dice. I've actually, and quite literally, missed lambdas with 50% of my TLT shots when they first came out

if you want TLTs to stick to anything, just like anything else in this game, you gotta modify your dice

slap on R4 aggro

or m9-g8 from another ship (Tarn's great for this)

or, if you're awesome, freaking Palob with zuckuss crew. The man eats x7s between his ability and zuckuss re-rolls. No joke, I've killed x7 ryad with his primary

but really Zuckuss Palob is just awesome in general and you should fly him anyway

The X7 defender is great against a limited amount of targets. But against 4 ships with 2 attacks each, that evade and focus token disappears fast. The white 4k gimmick means little against a turret. The first Y-Wing will strip tokens, and from there the TLTs have a distinct advantage, all having modified attack dice against completely unmodified defense dice. The TLT Ys easily kill a defender a turn, the same is potentially true in reverse but not likely.

X7s have a butt turrible match up against 4 TLT Ys. The TLT player would have to have a stroke mid-game to mess that up so badly as to lose. You have to kill 2 Y's before you lose a single defender if you're going to win.

Not gonna happen. The math is just absolutely not in the X7's favor here. You have to do 16 damage to them, they have to do 6 damage to you. And if you don't roll perfect evades every time? Oops, looks like you take a damage. All they have to do is roll well ENOUGH.

I think you're pretty heavily odds-against to down a Defender in a single turn, especially if they have Palp Shuttle - it's probably at least as likely you lose a TLT before it fires.

Neither side cakewalks it and the maths are pretty close.

If there's a shuttle on the table, you're not downing a Y a turn. Not happening. First off, to guarantee max damage on a Y, you need to burn mods, like your focus token. Cool, now you're only on evades and one palp use. Additionally, if the Y even rolls an evade result, forget killing it. you don't have the dice. You can't spend your focus turn 1 against 4 TLT Ys and expect both defenders to survive until the end of the turn. The X7 only wins if the dice sucks for the TLT player and is god like for themselves.

Raw dice rolls are how the X7 player wins. Maneuverability means nothing, these are turrets, and 1 focus and 1 evade token and even palp is meaningless against 8 three-dice attacks. Even if you don't lose a defender turn 1, oh, believe me it's gone next turn. Now how are you going to kill a Y? You'll finish off the one you damaged last turn, but from there the attrition is just not in your favor.

Boy do you not know how to fly against a shuttle or defenders.

That big white thing does a lot more than ferry an old man around.

if it's palp Defenders vs thugs, shouldn't there be a white whale actively trying to get within range 1 of at least 2 thugs ?

We've actually tested this match up quite a bit at the LGS, against quad TLT and 2 TLT and 2 Ion Warthogs. I'm a big Y wing player. I love the 2&2 list I just mentioned and am practicing for Regionals season. We were trying to figure out what Defenders will do in they encounter 4 Ys because In straight dice, the Y wings have the advantage. X7 folds up to voluminous fire, even only one damage at a time. In almost every test, the Y wings cleared a Defender in the first exchange and one Y wing was left limping away, the rest untouched. Every time they joust me, as Defenders tend to do, the Y wings are the clear winner. Only in one game did the Defenders clear a Y wing in the first turn of fire, and it was the Shuttle that did it, so it still got to attack and a Defender went down here, too. The defenders are much less likely to clear one first exchange than I expected.

With further examination, Defenders can absolutely win, but they have to shake up their tactics. If they just joust or chase, the Y wings have the advantage in nearly any situation. The Defenders need to setup a tight asteroid cluster, and delay engagement as long as possible. Engage them in the rocks and single them out. And don't always shoot at the one you have at R1 unless you know you can clear it, because it's more important to clear one that is still going to attack. Feed them the shuttle first. As the Y wing player, I don't much care about the shuttle and I'd rather deal with it last, but I also MUST put all attacks on one ship. If you make it my only choice, you've done a good job. It will typically survive for a turn and I'll have to devote one or more ships to finish it. Also, if you play against a 2&2 list instead of just quad TLT, eat some TLT shots for a bit and single out the Ions first. Much more of a threat because they can take away your attacks.

Don't joust them. Bad idea.

I think TLTs are one of the trickier match-ups for x7s but the damage needs to happen early or it's an uphill struggle for the Y-Wing player. A bad round of shooting while you still have 4 ships on the board can seal the game there and then because once you start losing TLTs the token stacks on the x7s get better and better.

Assuming all 8 TLT shots at a single Defender I, as the Imperial player, would expect to avoid 1-2 shots through tokens and 1-2 through dice alone (remember at least half the TLT shots will be unmodified). I should still have all my ships alive after turn 1, but I'd expect to lose one turn 2, probably after killing a Y-Wing and starting in on another.

My experience suggests it's a damage race with the Defender player able to avoid damage through range control and put through unexpected spike damage every now and then. I'd say it's a match-up that favours the Defenders but not by as much as people are suggesting. The Defender player definitely benefits a lot from practicing against the TLTs but I;m not sure the same can be said of the TLT player.

I think TLTs are one of the trickier match-ups for x7s but the damage needs to happen early or it's an uphill struggle for the Y-Wing player. A bad round of shooting while you still have 4 ships on the board can seal the game there and then because once you start losing TLTs the token stacks on the x7s get better and better.

Assuming all 8 TLT shots at a single Defender I, as the Imperial player, would expect to avoid 1-2 shots through tokens and 1-2 through dice alone (remember at least half the TLT shots will be unmodified). I should still have all my ships alive after turn 1, but I'd expect to lose one turn 2, probably after killing a Y-Wing and starting in on another.

My experience suggests it's a damage race with the Defender player able to avoid damage through range control and put through unexpected spike damage every now and then. I'd say it's a match-up that favours the Defenders but not by as much as people are suggesting. The Defender player definitely benefits a lot from practicing against the TLTs but I;m not sure the same can be said of the TLT player.

Everything you say here is true. This is why I prefer the 2&2 list as opposed to quad TLT. Twin Laser Turrets NEED R4 Agromech. Without it they can't touch Interceptors and their damage against Defenders is still strong but less. 2 TLTs with R4 and 2 Ion Warthogs with Unhinged. Joust with the ions, skirt with the TLTs. Make TLT attacks first to bait them to spend tokens. All TLT shots are modified. Then attempt to ionize them. If you don't clear a defender, its ionized and you K-turn behind it. One finishes that one while the remaining Y-wings pursue the other Defender.

As I said above, in the straight joust, even with quad TLT, the Y wings have a slight edge. This match up is close, but the Defenders have to single out Ships and clear them ASAP. Create a dense asteroid field and fly through them, use Barrel rolls to get to R1 and avoid the turrets whenever you can.

But if you let the Y-wings engage on their own terms, when you face either list, you will lose the dice off, unless the Y-wings roll extremely poorly.

It is a pretty even matchup and can go either way. Dice plays a big role, but skill does play a part too.

I played 2 X7s + Inquisitor vs 4 TLT. It was a very close game in which I sqweaked out a win.

The one match I saw which fielded the (4) Rebel TLT's vs. a (3) Defenders list and was an interesting one. Round one was a seemingly cautious approach by the squads. Round two found the the Defenders at R1 of the leading two Y's (tight formation of those two by the R player) and the Ds killed one Y and un-shielded the other trailing Y leaving only one trailing Y-Wing with a TLT shot. It was a slaughter. It shouldn't have been I'm sure...

The players were going to try again as the match took ten minutes; and the Y-Wing player was going to really adjust his approach. I couldn't stay and watch, but I know it had to go better for the TLT Y-Wings list the second time.

X7 defenders are a very interesting matchup vs TLTs, at least vs my list which replaces one y-wing with a bumpmaster:

scout, adaptability, feedback, intel

3 thugs, TLT

I loose some of the raw power of 4 TLTs, but I gain some control which helps prevent shots and token stacking through blocking.

Plus with feedback the scout becomes a real threat on its own against aces.

But the fact that one shot from a TLT can only ever do one damage means that a Defender can not spend his tokens when the rice come up really bad against him.

I don't know I've come across some pretty nasty goreng in my time....