So I'm just thinking - I've never seen anyone actually USE Rutheless Strategists and I'm wondering if it could actually be a thing.

For reference in case you don't have it in front of you.

The idea here, is that I don't generally LIKE to bring a lot of squadrons into my lists because for me, Armada is about the huge ships, and not about the fighters. So my dream is to have a ship-based solution that can shut down squadrons. I USED to simply destroy all their ships and count 400 points for victory - but with Flotillas that is now much harder to reliably do.

So first off, you need a ship that can take it, and you need some squadrons of your own that can engage other squadrons, and also have hull available for taking damage. At first glance I thought of a swarm of TIE Fighters, because you can get a TON of them, but with only 3 hull for 8 points each, I wondered if I couldn't find a better option. I looked to the rebels and found some better options, namely the Y-Wing or the YT-1300. But there are pros and cons for trying to incorporate ruthless strategists on either side. I'll talk rebels first.

Rebels:

Y-Wing is probably the best option overall, because they are moderately fast, and have a lot of health, and they can also do some serious damage AFTER you defeat your opponent's squadrons. YT-1300s are also an interesting option because they have even more hull, (granted they are also more expensive), but also have blue dice - and that is important because of Toryn Far.

You see, if you are going to be using your ships for Anti-Squadron attacks, you are very likely going to be throwing a ton of blue dice at your opponent's squadrons. Having a Toryn Far in the middle of your fleet gives your blue dice a MUCH better chance of hitting. And Toryn will also help your YT-1300s attack enemy squadrons, enemy ships, AND counter attacks - so triple bang for your buck, while the Y-Wings roll black dice against ships, so you'd need to further upgrade your fleet with a bomber command center. If you went with YT-1300s you wouldn't need a GR-75 at all if you didn't want it... and even if you did you wouldn't be restricted to Bomber Command.

In terms of ships - I think the Assault Frigate MkIIA is your friend here. Two blue dice for Anti Squadron, and blue dice on every arc will synergize well with having Toryn Farr nearby. It can help you get that accuracy if you are shooting a squadron with scatter - (Or you can give it H9 Turbolasers as well). I think the key is to have at least TWO ships with Ruthless Strategists and H9s though, because if you've only got one heavy-hitting anti squadron ship, your opponent can simply try to avoid it and really limit you.

Imperials:

A TIE swarm can certainly fit a ton of squadrons on the table, and while they only have 3 hull each, they also have the advantage of being able to be virtually Everywhere - so it's very likely that when you are shooting at your opponent's Jan Ors, Luke Skywalker, or Mauler Mithel, that you will have at least 1 or 2 TIEs engaged with them, offering plenty of options for Rutheless Strategists. There's also the amazing Mauler Mithel for YOU to use as well, able to synergize by dealing additional unblockable damage to multiple squadrons at once. TIE Bombers are also cheap and have a lot of hull here, but like the Y-Wings, they have heavy so won't be able to lock down ships on their own.

For upgrades I think the Empire has some serious advantages here. Agent Kallus is the first choice for crew - allowing you to possibly roll a red die (or two if you have concentrate fire and REALLY want to kill that Tycho!). Additionally, if Vader is your commander you could also reroll some anti squadron dice at the price of spending defense tokens.... but it's certainly an option if you REALLY need it.

For ships - At least one Victory is a great option here. Tossing on Warlord and H9's will give you 100% chance of hitting unobstructed squadrons on every attack. additionally the raiders can take them, but there is also the Glad II, which has two blue dice without being as expensive as an ISD.

Anyone had any luck with Ruthless Strategists to shut down squadrons? I think it's pretty cheap even if you end up facing a list with only 1 or two squadrons in it.

I've tried it on a Raider-II with a few advanceds. It struggled a little against heavy bomber swarms. My current thinking right now is to use one or two yv-666s to soak the fire, with a fighter coordination team nearby to keep it mobile. Throw in a few stock TIEs to tie things up and it could be a worthwhile force.

The YVs are expensive but it might be cool to use Bossk and ensure that he gets a damage that way.

I'm in a similar boat in that I prefer to run ships to any significant amount of squadrons. My problem was that I was often coming against a mid-to-large compliment of squadrons, and had few answers. I ran some testing on that card to see if it was worthwhile adding in a couple of Bombers or something equally cheap-n-chunky to soak up the fire. It was... vaguely effective? It did do out some damage, but it felt more like I was doing some of my opponents job for them, than actually putting it up to the squadrons.

My eventual solution to the problem was Raider Is with Ordnance Experts. Specifically four of them, with ordnance on board to make them a ship threat too. Two black AA dice with rerolls virtually guarantees at least one damage, with two damage being fairly consistent. I added Kallus and Impetuous to one, for added damage against named pilots, which does great work.

I tested the same set up with Quad Laser Turrets for added potential damage (since there were no squadrons at all in my list, this didn't seem like such a wasted upgrade), but I found the fact that I was taking multiple Raiders meant I had the firepower to burn through a decent chunk of a squadron ball in one pass anyway, and the I didn't want to dive too many points into such a fragile ship.

I use Ruthless Strategists from time to time in my Imperial builds and it is amazing in a right build. The best squadrons to use it with: TIE Bombers, TIE Adv, Having Bossk in the mix doesn't hurt either. I ususally use them with either RDRII Impetuous (can kill Jan in one activation) or GSDII Demolisher (scary alpha strike).

I use it.

With Kallus/Impetous and Mithel/Dengar.

I plink them Imp aces down to 1 hull, then Mithel 3-4 of them to death.

Fun times.

I have used it with Rieekan and Wedge to decent effect. Let the enemy pounce on your squadrons, they likely put Wedge in to Heroic Death Mode, then you blast back with 2 blue AA from a MKII A, pour damage on to the enemy squadrons all while adding the damage to Wedge, who is likely dead anyway. All the fun, none of the fuss. And as others have said, you get Toryn Farr in there and the AA becomes pretty consistent. Also, Ruthless Strategist gets around those obnoxious Scatter tokens that Imperials have in spades.

I'm experimenting with it. Won a summer kit recently with it too. Combo with GSD2 Demolisher and cheap squadrons, you can melt an unprepared fighter swarm. You might lose some squadrons yourself, but if the enemy is depending on their squadrons to win the game for them they'll quickly be in for a rude surprise.

Add in Biggs ability to move damage around your various escort squads and you can take a couple YT-1300 to soak up not only squad damage, but also Ruthless damage as well...

Its a "Thing".

If you havn't seen it, then you havn't experienced the "Thing".

...

Gunnery Teams is not the Be-all and End-All... I've been advocating this for quite some time... Ruthless Strats is a viable option if you have something else to add to the AA game in the first place...

With ruthless can I hit any friendly engaged fighter in a turn or only choose one of the engaged

But where will you fit Sensor teams?

Biggs only transfers dmg from attacks....

Biggs only transfers dmg from attacks....

I stand corrected...nice catch!

But where will you fit Sensor teams?

Jonus. Sensor Teams are finished.

With ruthless can I hit any friendly engaged fighter in a turn or only choose one of the engaged

You can choose any friendly squadron engaged with your attack target. Ball the enemy up, engage them with several squadrons, and trade 2-3 squads for a very substantial portion of the ball.

Just realised something hilarious.

Quad Laser Turrets are an attack. Ruthless Strategist just requires an attack! Stack em!

Just realised something hilarious.

Quad Laser Turrets are an attack. Ruthless Strategist just requires an attack! Stack em!

And add Agent Kallus to the mix.

Just realised something hilarious.

Quad Laser Turrets are an attack. Ruthless Strategist just requires an attack! Stack em!

It requires an Attack.

It does not require an attack to hit.

So its even better, when you really work it out.....

Ruthless Strategists went through the Calgary Meta like Sullustian Vindaloo a few months back... It basically reset everything that everyone was expecting to do with Fighters, Bombers, Rhymer Balls, and Such........

... For once, I think we were ahead of the game, and the world is actaully catching up to us... Which is really scary.

Just realised something hilarious.

Quad Laser Turrets are an attack. Ruthless Strategist just requires an attack! Stack em!

It requires an Attack.

It does not require an attack to hit.

So its even better, when you really work it out.....

Ruthless Strategists went through the Calgary Meta like Sullustian Vindaloo a few months back... It basically reset everything that everyone was expecting to do with Fighters, Bombers, Rhymer Balls, and Such........

... For once, I think we were ahead of the game, and the world is actaully catching up to us... Which is really scary.

Nice. All it takes is one person to show up with a list full of something new - and blow everyone's mind. Imagine if nobody ever actually tried a Rhymer Ball - and then suddenly it showed up some day.

I looked at the card and really felt it could be very powerful, but I never used it myself. Glad to see players will start experimenting with it!

Just realised something hilarious.

Quad Laser Turrets are an attack. Ruthless Strategist just requires an attack! Stack em!

And add Agent Kallus to the mix.

Consider this -

VSD2

Warlod

Quad Turbolaser Cannons

Quad Laser Turrets

Kallus

Ruthless Strategists

Leading Shots

Concentrate Fire Command

Attack say... Tycho. Roll a Blue, add a red for Kallus, add another red for Concentrate Fire, add ANOTHER red if there's at least one red accuracy(set to an accuracy but Warlord sets it to double hit), you could end up with 5 Damage plus a red accuracy and then do an additional damage with strategists after that. Even if Tycho Braces the 5 down to 3, he's still dead (due to ruthless) and doesn't get to even roll his own counter.

Not many squadrons would want to attack you though, due to the counter.

Just realised something hilarious.

Quad Laser Turrets are an attack. Ruthless Strategist just requires an attack! Stack em!

And add Agent Kallus to the mix.

Consider this -

VSD2

Warlod

Quad Turbolaser Cannons

Quad Laser Turrets

Kallus

Ruthless Strategists

Leading Shots

Concentrate Fire Command

Attack say... Tycho. Roll a Blue, add a red for Kallus, add another red for Concentrate Fire, add ANOTHER red if there's at least one red accuracy(set to an accuracy but Warlord sets it to double hit), you could end up with 5 Damage plus a red accuracy and then do an additional damage with strategists after that. Even if Tycho Braces the 5 down to 3, he's still dead (due to ruthless) and doesn't get to even roll his own counter.

Not many squadrons would want to attack you though, due to the counter.

It sounds like an overkill points-wise and will require to sacrifice a front arc VSD shot, so I think that RS is more likely to find itself on cheaper ships (GSD/Raiders). Think about it this way - your VSD is 119 points. For the similar price (120) you can get 2 RDR2 with Ruthless, titles, RS and Kallus and QLT on one of them.

Just realised something hilarious.

Quad Laser Turrets are an attack. Ruthless Strategist just requires an attack! Stack em!

And add Agent Kallus to the mix.

Consider this -

VSD2

Warlod

Quad Turbolaser Cannons

Quad Laser Turrets

Kallus

Ruthless Strategists

Leading Shots

Concentrate Fire Command

Attack say... Tycho. Roll a Blue, add a red for Kallus, add another red for Concentrate Fire, add ANOTHER red if there's at least one red accuracy(set to an accuracy but Warlord sets it to double hit), you could end up with 5 Damage plus a red accuracy and then do an additional damage with strategists after that. Even if Tycho Braces the 5 down to 3, he's still dead (due to ruthless) and doesn't get to even roll his own counter.

Not many squadrons would want to attack you though, due to the counter.

This would be awesome if you can also make that ship work as part of a larger fleet.

Just realised something hilarious.

Quad Laser Turrets are an attack. Ruthless Strategist just requires an attack! Stack em!

And add Agent Kallus to the mix.

Consider this -

VSD2

Warlod

Quad Turbolaser Cannons

Quad Laser Turrets

Kallus

Ruthless Strategists

Leading Shots

Concentrate Fire Command

Attack say... Tycho. Roll a Blue, add a red for Kallus, add another red for Concentrate Fire, add ANOTHER red if there's at least one red accuracy(set to an accuracy but Warlord sets it to double hit), you could end up with 5 Damage plus a red accuracy and then do an additional damage with strategists after that. Even if Tycho Braces the 5 down to 3, he's still dead (due to ruthless) and doesn't get to even roll his own counter.

Not many squadrons would want to attack you though, due to the counter.

It sounds like an overkill points-wise and will require to sacrifice a front arc VSD shot, so I think that RS is more likely to find itself on cheaper ships (GSD/Raiders). Think about it this way - your VSD is 119 points. For the similar price (120) you can get 2 RDR2 with Ruthless, titles, RS and Kallus and QLT on one of them.

I spent too long trying to work out what R2D2 had to do with this. Far too long.