If I've got the wording right here, Tarn basically gets to treat the two ships Shara has locked as ones that he has locked, forcing them to reroll dice, while also having his own lock on Norra to let her reroll the blank that Finn adds.

That would be awesome but it looks like it doesn't work that way. Shara's ability only effects a ship when it is attacking. Tarn can consider those targets locked by him while he is attacking but that really doesn't help at all with M9-G8 since he can't consider those ships locked when they are attacking.

If I've got the wording right here, Tarn basically gets to treat the two ships Shara has locked as ones that he has locked, forcing them to reroll dice, while also having his own lock on Norra to let her reroll the blank that Finn adds.

That would be awesome but it looks like it doesn't work that way. Shara's ability only effects a ship when it is attacking. Tarn can consider those targets locked by him while he is attacking but that really doesn't help at all with M9-G8 since he can't consider those ships locked when they are attacking.

Ah, you're right. Guess that's what I get for listbuilding on two hours of sleep

If I've got the wording right here, Tarn basically gets to treat the two ships Shara has locked as ones that he has locked, forcing them to reroll dice, while also having his own lock on Norra to let her reroll the blank that Finn adds.

That would be awesome but it looks like it doesn't work that way. Shara's ability only effects a ship when it is attacking. Tarn can consider those targets locked by him while he is attacking but that really doesn't help at all with M9-G8 since he can't consider those ships locked when they are attacking.

Ah, you're right. Guess that's what I get for listbuilding on two hours of sleep

M9-G8 on 1 ship and Finn on another us interesting though - although expensive like hell and falls apart when the M9 carrier dies.

only problem with m9g8 thane, and ARCs in general, is that the auxiliary arc is so depressingly worthless without gunner/tailgunner/r3-a2

when all you got is two dice, even with a free mod, I'm fairly certain just farting at the enemy would cause more damage

Precisely. That's why I put tail gunners on both of my ARCs. I've found that they're extremely difficult to coordinate efficiently otherwise. Thanks to her ability Norra with Tail Gunner is actually even more dangerous from the rear than up front (higher chance of not getting a single blank and a guaranteed crit more than make up for the difference of variance between the green and red die). However if you try to fly her along anything else than another ARC with Tail Gunner or another ship that can fire in the rear with little to no loss of efficiency (such as Miranda), sooner or later you face a tough choice. You either keep your other ships in the fray but Norra moves steadily away from the engagement and then is a dead weight for a couple of turns before she can come back into action OR you move them together as you should, but then only Norra provides any meaningful firepower while the rest of them do nearly nothing.

BTW I've found this is also why Backdraft is so hard to use efficiently. He's the only small imperial ship that is actually effective when firing in the rear. So he wants to fly away from the enemy while the rest of his squad would rather turn around (defenders) or just stay in the dogfight and dodge arcs (pretty much all the other imperial aces). The result is that sooner or later they get split up and can't support one another well.

The droid can also be used defensively for your whole list. TL an enemy ship with TLT and modify both of their attacks. Put it on a Ghost with TLT and watch 3/4 shots miss. It is very useful, but isn't guaranteed, which means he is on the cusp of fun and competitive.

I've found the droid works well on Shara. You lock two enemies (when you can - keep your guys locked if you can't), preferably shooting before your list... Then when they attack you, M9G8 forces them to reroll their positive results, and then your squad spends Shara's TL to modify their attacks. You get to modify both attacks each round. Not bad!

M9G8 is ****ing awesome. Use it on Shara with Weapons Engineer. She TLs a friend (Norra) and priority kill #1 for your list (aka the ship Norra is attacking). Now Norra gets a reroll to increase her damage output, can use Shara's TL to reroll really bad rolls while keeping her TL for her ability. Shara also makes enemies reroll any crits on Biggs, into hits or misses. Biggs r4d6 bot erases those hits passed two.

Thane is also a good M9G8 bot paired with high PS friends. For instance, he can TL Poe. Poe attacks and gets a reroll. Then enemy attacks. Thane can then use his ability to target lock the next ship attacking, and force them to reroll.

An ARC with M9G8 and Tailgunner is a tough bugger 1v1. Forcing an enemy to reroll a hit into a blank is as good as regen on a 1 agility ship, and then you get to modify your attacks with the TL and they lose 1 agility.

If Thane spend a TL action to TL Poe, he won't be able to take another TL action to TL an enemy that round when the enemy attacks. Can't take the same action twice in a round.

He could TL Poe in the opening round before combat though.

Uh yeah, I assumed that was given if you know how the bot works. Like OL with Comms, he evades opening round every time, no need to explain how he has an evade token and has a TL in first round of action.

Except it isn't a given, because a PS 3 pilot often will not be able to take a target lock on the first turn of the engagement against a higher PS foe.

Not that I'm doubting that G8 can't do good work, mind you- But you should never plan on having a target lock on the first turn of the engagement unless you move second or have Long Range Sensors.

Do you even know how m9-g8 works? You target lock your FRIENDLY ship on the first turn. As in, the Poe or whatever sitting probably range one from your Tarn. Thane/Tarn then switches targets using their pilot ability once actually in combat.

Only way thane wont get a TL during combat is if nobody attacked because youre still outside range3, they managed to arcdodge him at a distance (not easy to do), or they attacked him. The last is most likely since at least in my area Thane has a biggs effect, nobody wants to give him an action even if the only ones he has left arent that great.

>.> The comparison to Omega Leader in conjunction with the words Target Lock (the action OL performs on the first turn of combat) must have confused me.

An arc with m9g8 and weapons engineer is a legit support ship. It's good, maybe great depending on the list. The question is though is it better than bringing a stress mule for me. I'm not sure yet. Being able to hand out double stress like candy on an ARc/gunner build can really be a game changer.

Whether a Stressmule or a an M9-G8 caddy is better will depend on the rest of your build to some extent. Certain ships favour particular builds and so may benefit especially from the mini-Predator. If you list contains any TLTs or anything with a double-tap like Ghost or Corran then M9-G8 can really shine. He can also work well if facing opponents with the same abilities so you can add Dengar and /D Defenders to that list. He is also good if you have Pilots like Poe who really wants to Focus and so benefits from a reroll as he will not be able to count on a TL.

Stressmule is good but certain lists don't care that much about Stress such as /x7 Defenders, Lothal Rebel or Dengaroo (unless you somehow manage to catch Manaroo with a lumbering ARC).

In short, if your list contains double-tappers or Poe, consider Thane/M9-G8. If not, you will probably get more mileage out of Stressmule.

An arc with m9g8 and weapons engineer is a legit support ship. It's good, maybe great depending on the list. The question is though is it better than bringing a stress mule for me. I'm not sure yet. Being able to hand out double stress like candy on an ARc/gunner build can really be a game changer.

honestly, in terms of damage output there's no way to top r3-a2

the stress denying actions is just too clutch ito indirect support (Denying shots by limiting dial and denying defensive tokens by denying actions), and it'll let even the ARC itself put damage through with its 2 die primary + gunner

The arc stressboat makes me wish i could somehow get my SFs to stress people. Since they can..yaknow...splitfire lol.

Probably the exact reason they dont have a crew since Tactician would never be off that thing lol

Stressmule is good but certain lists don't care that much about Stress such as /x7 Defenders

I thought so as well, but some very dedicated control players I've talked to have convinced me otherwise- Without Autothrusters, they're very dependant on token stacking to achieve levels of efficiency comparable to that of more traditional Imperial Aces. Without focus tokens, they lose a lot of their vaunted reliability, and if they're not packing Tie MK.2, they shed stress very predictably.