So with Heroes of the Resistance out (and Wave X in the pipeline) I think there's a few ships that need to be observed, simply because they seem to be better than one would expect. I've got two that come to mind, and am curious if there's any other ships that doesn't, or hadn't seen much competitive play that people think might be good now, simply because of new builds or a changing meta.

First is Major Rhymer, the stupidly overcosted Tie Bomber. I've played against him a few times, and I think he might finally almost not be terrible with Snap Shot. Rhymer with Snap Shot and Tactician is surprisingly good at stressing. That range 1-2 band for Snap Shot is huge, and catching say, Soontir or Poe at Range 2, before they have a chance to boost or barrel roll to a better position, leads to them being stressed and unable to do anything. Double stressing is very possible for Rhymer, and the damage output of throwing 4 or 5 dice from a single ship in a round isn't bad either, especially because the Snap Shot shot is usually against unmodified dice.

Rebel Captive on Rhymer, if you've got the points, works well with this build too, it takes him up to 33 points, but the ability to TRIPLE-stress a ship is huge, or just being able to hand out multiple stress tokens in general. It also makes Rhymer an unappealing target, especially if you're only running a few ships, so that can lead to him staying in the board longer than he deserves.

The second ship, one that I got to try out last night, is Shara Bey with Weapons Engineer and M9-G8 (and Adaptabiliy, because hey, 0 points.) The crazy amount of flexibility this 34 point ship gives you is insane- you can target 2 of your ships right at the start of the game, to give them soft-Predator, you can target lock enemy ships to cut down their offense AND you can have allies spend those target locks to bump up their accuracy. She gives you a LOT of dice control (although forcing an opponent to reroll a hit, into a crit, does suck. Stupid Damaged Cockpit.) And you can move those target locks around as needed, letting you pick the best option as the situation demands.

The only downside is Shara is much weaker end game- she can't target lock herself, or double target-lock a single ship, so she is just an ARC with the ability to reroll an opponents dice, if she didn't already spend the lock on her attack. Definitely recommend being aggressive with Shara, get her in the fray or at least have her effecting as much stuff as possible- run her like a soft-Biggs. Make her such a powerful influence that your opponent can't afford not to shoot at her.

Honorable mention to Wes Janson now, simply because of how important tokens are to a lot of ships, but there's still not a great build for the guy. Just run him cheap.

Good points on both ships, especially on Shara! Didn't even think of that but it does sound like a fun build in 3 ship list!

Personally I think if you have the points to put rebel captive on Rhymer, do it! As you say, it really does make him an unappealing target. If you have fewer points, maybe intelligence agent is a good bet as well.

I'm not sold on Snapshot Rhymer... it's a lot of points for a ship that has a very big chance of doing nothing all game... I do agree that Snapshot + Tactician is a nice troll build, I just don't see him making a meaningful impact.

Why do people keep putting m9g8 on shara when thane can do it more flexibly (combat phase tl shenanigans) for cheaper and without having to sacrifice his modifiers

If anything, shara with m9g8 is redundant. They both give friendly ships rerolls

Why do people keep putting m9g8 on shara when thane can do it more flexibly (combat phase tl shenanigans) for cheaper and without having to sacrifice his modifiers

If anything, shara with m9g8 is redundant. They both give friendly ships rerolls

I think the idea is to give friendly ships rerolls (use her lock) while making enemy ships less accurate (forced rerolls). I can see alot of appeal in Thane though, especially as using Shara's locks will only work if you're shooting after your opponent.

Honestly the forced opponent reroll, while nice and objectively better than nothing, has very marginal effect if the opponent has modifers

Where m9g8 has shined is in turning TLTs into TLTerrors

Miranda specifically is just monstrous with it on her

Problem is thats about it

Low ps isnt great and the high ps ys are pretty redundant (dutch locks and horton already rerolls) and thE ARC itself is so utterly flaccid without stress or tailgunner that i dont ultimately find it worth it

Esp when r3a2 is cheaper

As for nontlts...well, why not build them with self sufficient full mods?

Now Tarn is another story

26 points and often ignored, turns miranda into a beast with minimal investment and, if shot, keeps his tl to return fire on whatever shot him (unlike with r7 where you have to spend the lock)

Well done, intelligent OP; you almost have me seeing the possibility that Major Rymer isn't dead....

I do like it when people revive older ships to have a go with them. You can catch people by surprise. I really should try the Major Rhymer with Tactician at some point.

I also like Mauler Mithel with Snapshot, as well. Not that many points to get 3 dice. It's also a high PS ship.

I disagree on Rhymer. He's still a good chunk too expensive even with the ability to use him as a range 1-2 stresshog. Bombers... just die. I'd expect him to get burned in the initial approach and thereby waste 32+ points.

I also disagree with Rhymer, you've got a minimum of 28pts that aren't doing or soaking (reliable) damage just to stress a single target.

Rhymer is someone to watch - as he sits on the shelf.

I don't think the Rhymer idea is terrible, being able to get that stress with snap shot before you opponent can take his action is a lot nastier than a normal single stress.

The problem that he has, and I think precludes him from being worth the points, is that his PS7 is too high to be useful against a lot of builds. For example, palp defenders don't normally have any PS above 6. In Dengaroo, Dengar is PS9 but doesn't care about stress, Manaroo is PS4 so you'll struggle to stress her with snapshot.

The strange thing about snapshot is that it works better on low PS ships where EPTs are generally more hard to come by, which is why the obvious carriers are green squadron a-wings.

Why do people keep putting m9g8 on shara when thane can do it more flexibly (combat phase tl shenanigans) for cheaper and without having to sacrifice his modifiers

If anything, shara with m9g8 is redundant. They both give friendly ships rerolls

I'm not sure if it's a good reason, but the only reason I see is if you plan on using those locks to fire off some Homing Missiles. Putting locks on two different ships makes it much harder for the opponent to stay out of arc/range. Something like this could be interesting?

Why do people keep putting m9g8 on shara when thane can do it more flexibly (combat phase tl shenanigans) for cheaper and without having to sacrifice his modifiers

If anything, shara with m9g8 is redundant. They both give friendly ships rerolls

I'm not sure if it's a good reason, but the only reason I see is if you plan on using those locks to fire off some Homing Missiles. Putting locks on two different ships makes it much harder for the opponent to stay out of arc/range. Something like this could be interesting?

Shara Bey (28)

Veteran Instincts (1)

Plasma Torpedoes (3)

Weapons Engineer (3)

M9-G8 (3)

Guidance Chips (0)

Alliance Overhaul (0)

Biggs Darklighter (25)

R4-D6 (1)

Integrated Astromech (0)

Tala Squadron Pilot (13)

Homing Missiles (5)

Guidance Chips (0)

Tala Squadron Pilot (13)

Homing Missiles (5)

Guidance Chips (0)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

That's not a bad build. The one thing rerolls are good for is not so much turning hits into not-hits, as turning crits into not-crits - which supports R4-D6 getting 3+ non-critical hits and getting to block damage.

Shara pairs well with missiles - giving you focused, target locked homing missiles (always nice) and biggs to hide behind until you've launched.

I'm not convinced it can do much after the missile volley, but it's still going to hurt - possibly enough to tip the fight in your favour.

The problem is that the job of providing locks for a pair of missile Zs could be done by Lieutenant Blount with XX-23 S-Threads, for much less expense - and I'm not sure that her post-launch firepower is enough to justify the increased cost.

I'm not sold on Snapshot Rhymer... it's a lot of points for a ship that has a very big chance of doing nothing all game... I do agree that Snapshot + Tactician is a nice troll build, I just don't see him making a meaningful impact.

Bombers are not particularly slow by any means. It would be pretty hard to avoid his range 2 band the whole game. Also, he can barrel roll as well. I think Rebel Captive is a must. Yeah you are paying out the nose for a Bomber, might as well make him a pain in the butt to kill. Throw some Ion control in the list and you can lock something down.

Why do people keep putting m9g8 on shara when thane can do it more flexibly (combat phase tl shenanigans) for cheaper and without having to sacrifice his modifiers

If anything, shara with m9g8 is redundant. They both give friendly ships rerolls

If one of the other ships is Norra, it does make sense.

Btw, can you use the M9-G8 reroll and then spend the TL to add a focus result? And could you spend Shara's TL plus Norra's TL to add 2 focus results?

I never asked myself these questions but it seems you could...

Norra says spend "a" target lock to add "1" eyeball so no adding multiple eye results. You could (as Norra) spend Shara's TL to reroll and then your own TL to add an eye.

Rhymer is better with PTL and APT. Target lock, focus take 5 hits and crits. Just ugly.

I actually enjoy Snap-Stress Rhymer aswell.

Here's him and his little friend :

TIE/sf Fighter: · "Quickdraw" (29)

Draw Their Fire (1)

Special Ops Training (0)

Sensor Cluster (2)

TIE Bomber: · Major Rhymer (26)

Snap Shot (2)

TIE Shuttle (0)

Tactician (2)

· Rebel Captive (3)

Hey I know Rhymer is overcosted by like 4 points, but that 1-2 bubble on Snap Shot is harder to deal with than you might think and it really hurts high PS aces. He may not be clearing house at any tournaments, but just...watch out for him. He's shifty.

Shara with M9-G8 is mostly just maximizing the use of her target locks. She might be more expensive or predictable than some other ships with that astromech (and now that you bring it up, Tarn with M9-G8 and Miranda seems like a lot of fun) but she gives you a lot of control over how combat goes. She's sneaky good.

I'd also like to mention a ship that got really good after wave 8- Keyan Farlander. With FCS, Hera crew and Rage, he comes in at 34 points...and is a monster. While he suffers from being a B-wing and not very lasting against continous fire, this build really maximizes his consistency. When he Rages, he gets a focus he can defend with and with the stress tokens, one he can attack with. If you also luck out and are able to plot a green the next turn he'll have cleared 2 stresses and be able to Rage again...but with Hera and FCS you're fine if that's not the case, since you can K-turn and still have target-lock focus with your stresses.

Basically it means that Keyan can do any manuever he wants, whenever he wants and always has target-lock focus when attacking, making him absurdly accurate. He can't barrel roll too often, but the ability to continously k-turn or hard-1 is a solid replacement.

Why all the flak on Major Rhymer? I LOVE his Pilot ability! That's it! Get him boys!

Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk! Woop-woop-woop-woop!

I think a lot of people like Rhymer, it's just he is too expensive for what he does. For 31 points you get a tooled up Inquisitor. I know what I would rather in a competitive build.