Personally I never would play Dengaroo (I hate that list), but is it nowadays dangerous to field that list? I can imagine that Black market slicer tools will give Zuckus all of his revenge stress back with pain.

Are there Dengaroo players out there who stopped playing that list because of slicers? Or other reasons?

What is the fate of Dengaroo?

No, it won't. BMST is good against aces like Soontir where you will manage to do 1 - 2 normal damage and need a way to finish him off: Tadaa! Slicer Tools! With Slicer Tools alone you will need an average of 6 activations. It can be done, but needs some time.

Against Dengaroo however it won't do too much. You will need 18 activations to kill Dengar with BMST (considering you will only hit half of the time). That takes forever, so you will need other means to hit Dengar. Z95 are good carriers for BMST but they will have a harder time dealing normal damage. Ships like the shadow caster or Jumpmasters will be able to deal normal damage to dengar, but they will usually be better of with TL or Focus instead of using BMST.

So I guess BMST will help dealing 1-2 damage to dengar but it won't be an auto-kill for the list (and you can just take 1 TLT Thug instead of 2 BMST Z95 and will do more damage). So while Dengaroo might suffer a tiny little bit, it won't end the era.

No, it won't. BMST is good against aces like Soontir where you will manage to do 1 - 2 normal damage and need a way to finish him off: Tadaa! Slicer Tools! With Slicer Tools alone you will need an average of 6 activations. It can be done, but needs some time.

Against Dengaroo however it won't do too much. You will need 18 activations to kill Dengar with BMST (considering you will only hit half of the time). That takes forever, so you will need other means to hit Dengar. Z95 are good carriers for BMST but they will have a harder time dealing normal damage. Ships like the shadow caster or Jumpmasters will be able to deal normal damage to dengar, but they will usually be better of with TL or Focus instead of using BMST.

So I guess BMST will help dealing 1-2 damage to dengar but it won't be an auto-kill for the list (and you can just take 1 TLT Thug instead of 2 BMST Z95 and will do more damage). So while Dengaroo might suffer a tiny little bit, it won't end the era.

I agree BMST is great when it's hard to get through a lot of defense dice, but against something with average low defense dice, TL + Focus is better. Saying that the ability to use BMST out of arc means it doesn't really hurt at 1pt popping it in if you have a slot.

No, but Dengaroo isn't as good as it once was anyway now that top level players have worked out how to counter it.

Will slicer tools be the end of it? No, unless you're running a list with 3+ copies of it, they're just not that scary to Dengar. And if you're running a list with 3+ BMSTs, you're probably weak against a bunch of other things.

That said though, I think the era of Dengaroo ended back with imperial veterans. x7 defenders? Especially with Palp? Dengar just struggles to put enough damage through on those, and they can definitely put damage on him, or have the speed to hunt down Manaroo. Not to say Dengaroo isn't a strong list, but I don't expect we'll see it dominating at Worlds. Most top tier lists can beat Dengaroo when played right.

By the way cybu, because BMST is putting a damage card through, it's only an average of 10 activations to kill dengar. Still agree with your basic point though.

Probably not. They will kill PTL aces with 3-4 health, but that's it. Dengar will GLADLY take 50 % chance of taking 1 damage from a Z-95 (and it gets better the better the ship). Any ship will do better shooting at him regularly.

No, it won't. BMST is good against aces like Soontir where you will manage to do 1 - 2 normal damage and need a way to finish him off: Tadaa! Slicer Tools! With Slicer Tools alone you will need an average of 6 activations. It can be done, but needs some time.

Against Dengaroo however it won't do too much. You will need 18 activations to kill Dengar with BMST (considering you will only hit half of the time). That takes forever, so you will need other means to hit Dengar. Z95 are good carriers for BMST but they will have a harder time dealing normal damage. Ships like the shadow caster or Jumpmasters will be able to deal normal damage to dengar, but they will usually be better of with TL or Focus instead of using BMST.

So I guess BMST will help dealing 1-2 damage to dengar but it won't be an auto-kill for the list (and you can just take 1 TLT Thug instead of 2 BMST Z95 and will do more damage). So while Dengaroo might suffer a tiny little bit, it won't end the era.

Slicer tools is assigning a damage card to the ship. It bypasses the shields. So you only need 4 hits not 9.

The thing is that if you have one or more Z95 or other ships, equipping slicer tools is not expensive. But they can make multiple damage in one round

No, it won't. BMST is good against aces like Soontir where you will manage to do 1 - 2 normal damage and need a way to finish him off: Tadaa! Slicer Tools! With Slicer Tools alone you will need an average of 6 activations. It can be done, but needs some time.

Against Dengaroo however it won't do too much. You will need 18 activations to kill Dengar with BMST (considering you will only hit half of the time). That takes forever, so you will need other means to hit Dengar. Z95 are good carriers for BMST but they will have a harder time dealing normal damage. Ships like the shadow caster or Jumpmasters will be able to deal normal damage to dengar, but they will usually be better of with TL or Focus instead of using BMST.

So I guess BMST will help dealing 1-2 damage to dengar but it won't be an auto-kill for the list (and you can just take 1 TLT Thug instead of 2 BMST Z95 and will do more damage). So while Dengaroo might suffer a tiny little bit, it won't end the era.

Slicer tools is assigning a damage card to the ship. It bypasses the shields. So you only need 4 hits not 9.

The thing is that if you have one or more Z95 or other ships, equipping slicer tools is not expensive. But they can make multiple damage in one round

5 hits.

Dengaroo was always a gimmicky list that largely depended on the enemy not knowing what to do (hint: ignore Dengar, kill Manny!). Once people learned how to beat it, it's popularity waned.

ARCs are now the last nails in Dengaroo's coffin. Keeping them in arc isn't always easy for Dengar. They might be slow but often have multiple movement options that can be hard to predict and once you get stressed you can no longer reposition. And once they start firing from the back Dengar only has 1 green die to defend himself with which severely limits the efficacy of Lone Wolf and his gazillion focus tokens. On top of that ARCs tend to generate tons of crits. Some of the nastiest ones can be flipped via action or action and die roll. Unfortunately when you're stressed you can't exactly do that. So if you draw console fire, -1 agi, -1 attack or something equally bad you're pretty much stuck with it till the end of the game.

As for BMST, it failed to impress me so far. It costs an action to use which leaves the ship carrying it vulnerable to fire and typically ineffective in combat. It's also unreliable and useless in many match ups. The most popular PTL ace right now is Ryad. Killing her with BMST usually takes longer than the BMST carrier's typical lifespan. And if you mean to combine BMST and regular fire you need to get through her shields anyway - and good luck with that if one of your ships is busy slicing. The same is even more true for the likes of Dengar, Dash or Norra. Pretty much the only case where BMST is a possible game winner would be against 2 hull aces such as Corran, Jake or Inquisitor. With a bit of luck you can actually take them out quite quickly using solely BMST. Unfortunately they're not flown much anymore and besides, I imagine a list containing them would just focus down the BMST ship right away.

Yeah, that's what kind of bugs me about slicers. I've seen it a bit, and it's mostly been ignorable, including when I've been running a party bus. Unless you put tonnes of them in a list and have some way to force people to take stress, they're likely to do 1 or 0 damage on the occasional times you pull reds or Thrust Control fires or whatever. It's not the last great hope against dengaroo or party buses because Dengaroo is pretty much over and the party bus has enough hull to not care that much.

It suppresses Soontirs and Inquisitors a bit, but not a vast amount, because of the random nature of it and the fact that they will almost never have more than one stress, so you can't focus them down with it.

The biggest casualty of it is Tycho, and it's not like anyone was really running him much in the first place.

It feels like it's supposed to be really good, given how many times it's showing up in the recent and near-future waves, but it just feels pretty mediocre to me.

I mean, nobody that self-stresses wants to see a bunch of BMSTs on the other side of the table. If you're running a pair of Z95s as wingmen for an ace, that can give Dengar some serious choices. If he zuckuss' and can't take down your ace quickly, those Zs are going to be a major pain in his backside. Just blocking and BMSTing over and over again, ain't nobody got time for that! But if Dengar takes shots at the Zs, that gives your ace/damage dealers time to do their thing.

The biggest casualty of it is Tycho, and it's not like anyone was really running him much in the first place.

Corran also suffers although a large part of his popularity was due to his performance against U-boats. Now that they have been nerfed, I have a hunch that Poe will become the Rebel's Ace of choice.

It feels like it's supposed to be really good, given how many times it's showing up in the recent and near-future waves, but it just feels pretty mediocre to me.

For 1 point, I would be worried if it was any better. It is situational but handy against self-stressing Aces (particularly Palp-Aces) which are a fairly big part of the meta right now. For dealing with big ships, you are better off just throwing red dice at them.

It's OK for a point, sure.

I mean, compared to what else Scum can get for a point...

But in most cases where I'd think of equipping it, I can and would find an extra point for Feedback Array. The guaranteed damage is just so much better for my style of play.

Feedback array is only Range 1 whereas Slicer Tools are 1-2 (effectively, they cover 4 times as much board area) making it much more likely that you can actually catch your prey. Also Feedback arrays damage the user unlike BMSTs which simply require an action.

I popped it on Ventris last game, 1pt card, did 2 hits over the course of the game.. that was 1/6 of the enemy forces hits just from that. OK I could have TL'd instead, and I did a few times, but actually, BMST is a guaranteed 'attack' if you are in range after you move, you can't guarantee whether Fel will even be in arc to shoot when he moves at PS9.

Yes.

But feedback covers your rear and gets you shots when otherwise you wouldn't shoot because you're bumped or out of arc, and still lets you take defensive actions.

That's why I find it so beneficial, because it allows you to block do damage, and still have a better chance of surviving incoming fire.

And in the case of the YV, it allows you to protect your vulnerable rear very effectively.

I mean, nobody that self-stresses wants to see a bunch of BMSTs on the other side of the table. If you're running a pair of Z95s as wingmen for an ace, that can give Dengar some serious choices. If he zuckuss' and can't take down your ace quickly, those Zs are going to be a major pain in his backside. Just blocking and BMSTing over and over again, ain't nobody got time for that! But if Dengar takes shots at the Zs, that gives your ace/damage dealers time to do their thing.

Nobody's saying BMST can't work against aces if you get a couple of dedicated BMST carriers. The problem is that such a list is not optimal for any other match up. There's a reason few people put 2 random Z-95s in their lists - they're usually just not worth the points. With BMST they get slightly pricier on top of that. So if you bring such a list to a tournament and you don't get to see aces on the other side of the table, you're not in a good position. Other anti-ace choices such as stressbot and minelayers are at least effective against non-ace lists as well. BMST is not and it does require a dedicated carrier (you don't want to use actions of your primary killer on slicing) which is why it's so hard to fit it in a list. Not impossible mind you. I've been testing a pretty nasty list designed around keeping the enemy stressed and it's been surprisingly effective but not really thanks to BMST - it just worked by shutting down the enemy action economy and BMST is only (very) occasionally useful.

The biggest casualty of it is Tycho, and it's not like anyone was really running him much in the first place.

Corran also suffers although a large part of his popularity was due to his performance against U-boats. Now that they have been nerfed, I have a hunch that Poe will become the Rebel's Ace of choice.

Since when have corran been great against Uboats?

The only reason you EVER saw corran against uboats was not because of him, but rather his wingmen, Mr.-I Tank-torpedos-Biggs and Mr.-What-tokens?-Wes.

Corran brought firepower and regen to the list for late game foes.

3 green dice without autothrusters/palpatine and 5 hull is not a great place to be vs serious firepower.

Against Dengaroo however it won't do too much. You will need 18 activations to kill Dengar with BMST (considering you will only hit half of the time).

Slicer tools is assigning a damage card to the ship. It bypasses the shields. So you only need 4 hits not 9.

5 hits.

What a train wreck...

No. If it was a sure thing and not subject to RNG then maybe. 50% chance is not good enough.

More to my post:

1st round there are no stress tokens on the board so you lose a ship. 2nd round he has a couple of stress tokens so takes 2 damage max, you lose your next ship. Maybe another one too if you are flying a BMST swarm. And... you see where this is going. As you remove the stress after BMST you lose the ability to do a 50/50 damage and he kills a ship per turn, maybe 2 if you shoot him too. And in this matchup I think Manaroo can also get involved and do more damage.

I just don't see BMST stopping Dengaroo.

No, but Dengaroo isn't as good as it once was anyway now that top level players have worked out how to counter it.

Let me fix that for you:

"No, but Dengaroo isn't as good as it once was anyway now that IMPERIAL VETERANS HAS RELEASED AND PALP + X7 + X7 BEATS IT THE MAJORITY OF THE TIME."

There you go.

I just don't see BMST stopping Dengaroo.

Agreed, and to be fair, I don't think it was designed to. Ironically, I think the best things to threaten Dengaroo are arc-dodgers with autothrusters attacking from outside Dengar's primary arc. These are the sort of ships that tend to be most vulnerable to BMST.

The other tactics for beating Dengaroo are more general. Hunt Manaroo if possible to rob Dengar of his infinite token supply. Don't joust Dengar (especially at range 1) as you are just playing to his strengths. Strategies like this are probably more important than specific ships or upgrades.

No, but Dengaroo isn't as good as it once was anyway now that top level players have worked out how to counter it.

Let me fix that for you:

"No, but Dengaroo isn't as good as it once was anyway now that IMPERIAL VETERANS HAS RELEASED AND PALP + X7 + X7 BEATS IT THE MAJORITY OF THE TIME."

There you go.

If I'd meant that, I would have said it.

That's one of the strategies that can beat it, but not by any means the only one.

Jesus.

For like the tenth time: Dengaroo is finished, it's been dead for two months in serious tournaments. Slicer tools bothers it less than all the other **** that beats it a lot harder, like the /x7 title, Shadow Casters, ARCs, double Ghost etc etc etc...

Is there a time vortex on these forums or something? Feels like discussions from three months ago just keep recirculating...