Thats the other problem of the pre-move tractor: how do you plan for that?

Thats almost the same level of complexity as predicting Echo movement, which i can do but it is NOT EASY lol. Much like Echo, there will be at least 2 extremely viable outcomes for movement, but most likely 3. There can be others but more than 3 that are actually a good idea is unlikely.

The flip is instead of predicting their ship, which is largely can you keep arc on her somehow, youre predicting your own ship to not hit a rock or bump after being shifted to the side a bit or boosted forward a bit. Its not only much more punishing if you predict wrong, but you have 0 control over half of the movement.

Getting shifted behind a rock before you move will be one of the most common things the tugboat does. Strips action step, potential damage, AND can potentially cancel a shot either by flying the wrong way or landing on the rock.

I can see a bunch of rocks being clustered in the center of the map, as people will be nervous to approach the edges while there is one of those little guys around.

They aren't any harder to kill than TIE bombers though, so I can't see them staying around being too much of a threat. Still kinda Scum Biggs'ish. I wonder if you put the in a squadron with a HLC Scyk and Chimp Missle Suhlak...

...which little guy do you shoot first?

The tugboat. Easily.

The tugboats wont do much damage, or atleast reliably since odds are theyre always barrelrolling or tractoring for their action and not focusing. But they will not only royally screw up your ships with that auto pre-move tractor, but also set up better kills for their buddies as a result.

Intel Agent comes to mind with these guys. See a dial, tractor him where that dial screws him over the most. You dont care about knowing what it is for your move, you care about knowing where he will be after your move.

Im both going to love and hate these things...lol...

As mentioned, theyre about as hard as a bomber to remove (-1 hull, big whoop). In my experience with bombers, they either somehow stay around for eons or instantly go poof. I somehow either evade everything or take 2 crits right off the bat and the crits are really, really bad.

Thats the other problem of the pre-move tractor: how do you plan for that?

Thats almost the same level of complexity as predicting Echo movement, which i can do but it is NOT EASY lol. Much like Echo, there will be at least 2 extremely viable outcomes for movement, but most likely 3. There can be others but more than 3 that are actually a good idea is unlikely.

The flip is instead of predicting their ship, which is largely can you keep arc on her somehow, youre predicting your own ship to not hit a rock or bump after being shifted to the side a bit or boosted forward a bit. Its not only much more punishing if you predict wrong, but you have 0 control over half of the movement.

Getting shifted behind a rock before you move will be one of the most common things the tugboat does. Strips action step, potential damage, AND can potentially cancel a shot either by flying the wrong way or landing on the rock.

I just realized you can make a ship like a SV move at an insane speed. Take the Virago with Cloaking Device. Decloak 2 forward. Move the Tug in and tractor it another 1 forward. Then move at speed 4 forward. Follow it up with a boost. Probably dosn't make a bunch of sense... but still pretty cool.

Yeah thats one thing im going to try and do purely because its one of those "wh....what the heck did you just do?" tactics that im kinda known for lol.

I think the -1 agi on the ship you just pushed is going to kill that strat though. Only scum ships that really wouldnt care are large ships. They dont have any tanky small ships, best they got is evasive and this kinda nullifies the evasion lol

Yeah thats one thing im going to try and do purely because its one of those "wh....what the heck did you just do?" tactics that im kinda known for lol.

I think the -1 agi on the ship you just pushed is going to kill that strat though. Only scum ships that really wouldnt care are large ships. They dont have any tanky small ships, best they got is evasive and this kinda nullifies the evasion lol

Maybe the PS9 Quadjumper (Zuvio + VI) with a couple of TLT Y-Wings and Mux or Palob? It gives you some options for moving the dead spots around.

Im getting one Quadjumper for Unkar Plutt. He will be Dengaroo's bane:

Unkar Plutt (15)

Ketsu crew(1)

Primed Thrusters (1)

EMP (2)

19pts to block Dengar, take him to 1 agility. EMP so you both go 1 forward the following round, keeping him in your arc to reduce him another agility (thanks to Ketsu). Then fly 1 bank backwards next round and block his sloop (primed thrusters for adjustments). 3 rounds of no double tap for Dengar and he is at agility 0 for two rounds!!!!!

(used Tie Advanced since there is no Quadjumper in Vassal)

I was only planning on getting one...

...perhaps now I'll get two - and paint the second one like a Tonka truck.

4 or 5 most likely for me.

Depending on the dial, they might be fun to run with Xizor. One less ship, and thus less ablative armor, but the goons would be useful for something besides zapping.

We know the dial, it's in the article. 1 straight and bank red reverse, 1 straight and turn (NO bank) white forward, 2 straight and bank green, turn white, 2 sloop red, 3 straight green, bank white.

It's SLOOOOOOOOW.

I'll be grabbing one. There's no particular need for more I don't think, I can't see myself ever running more than one at a time.

Not so much about the tugboat itself but:

PS3 Z95 Black Sun Soldier + Homing Missile + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (20 pts)

PS3 Z95 Black Sun Soldier + Homing Missile + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (20 pts)

PS3 Z95 Black Sun Soldier + Homing Missile + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (20 pts)

PS3 Z95 Black Sun Soldier + Homing Missile + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (20 pts)

PS5 Z95 Kaato Leachos + Crack Shot + Tracer + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (19 pts)

Convinced me I need at least five. I lay no claim to this build and shall credit @Duraham for the idea.

Not so much about the tugboat itself but:

PS3 Z95 Black Sun Soldier + Homing Missile + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (20 pts)

PS3 Z95 Black Sun Soldier + Homing Missile + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (20 pts)

PS3 Z95 Black Sun Soldier + Homing Missile + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (20 pts)

PS3 Z95 Black Sun Soldier + Homing Missile + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (20 pts)

PS5 Z95 Kaato Leachos + Crack Shot + Tracer + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (19 pts)

Convinced me I need at least five. I lay no claim to this build and shall credit @Duraham for the idea.

PS kill Kaato, PS kill a z the following round before it can fire, cruise to victory.

Not so much about the tugboat itself but:

PS3 Z95 Black Sun Soldier + Homing Missile + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (20 pts)

PS3 Z95 Black Sun Soldier + Homing Missile + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (20 pts)

PS3 Z95 Black Sun Soldier + Homing Missile + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (20 pts)

PS3 Z95 Black Sun Soldier + Homing Missile + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (20 pts)

PS5 Z95 Kaato Leachos + Crack Shot + Tracer + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (19 pts)

Convinced me I need at least five. I lay no claim to this build and shall credit @Duraham for the idea.

PS kill Kaato, PS kill a z the following round before it can fire, cruise to victory.

The thing is everytime you kill a Z-95 it reloads the missiles of it's entire squad, it's not just enemy models. I don't think it's a bad squad at all.

@SpaceInvader

With all due respect I believe we are not in the barbaric age of high PS war anymore, dear sir. Nevertheless, you do have a valid point.

At PS3 and more ships to take care of, I believe they require more or less the same expertise as triple jumpmasters to run. No fancy white sloops surely, but that's where kaato comes to play. They can still K-turn and shoot their missiles!

Disclaimer: *provided the tracer hits*.

Rebel Z missile swarms did great competitively and I'm quite optimistic with this as well. Ser Rodent just pointed out one of its hidden tricks

Not so much about the tugboat itself but:

PS3 Z95 Black Sun Soldier + Homing Missile + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (20 pts)

PS3 Z95 Black Sun Soldier + Homing Missile + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (20 pts)

PS3 Z95 Black Sun Soldier + Homing Missile + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (20 pts)

PS3 Z95 Black Sun Soldier + Homing Missile + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (20 pts)

PS5 Z95 Kaato Leachos + Crack Shot + Tracer + Scavenger Crane + Guidance Chips (19 pts)

Convinced me I need at least five. I lay no claim to this build and shall credit @Duraham for the idea.

PS kill Kaato, PS kill a z the following round before it can fire, cruise to victory.

The thing is everytime you kill a Z-95 it reloads the missiles of it's entire squad, it's not just enemy models. I don't think it's a bad squad at all.

They have to shoot them first.

Drop one to a Primed Thrustors and take Intel Agent, so you can precisely barrelroll them into the other tugboat bombs.

Imma get two. One to play and have fun and to be crazy.

The other to use as an actual tug pulling some tanks and stuff to be a cool little terrain-like thing kinda like the senators shuttle idea.

2 for me! I picked up 2 Micro Machines Quadjumpas a few weeks ago- having fun with that spoiled dial. (I use a Post-it Pad, writing maneuvers each round)

X-Wing QuadFrogger coming soon!

I'm looking forward to spamming the tugboats. I think some 6 or 7 ship mix of Zs and Tugboats could be fun. Depending how you mix in crew and upgrades, it could create some really interesting targeting priority conundrums for opponents. Also, getting one or two tractor beams tokens off makes the 2 attack guns on the Zs that much better en masse.

That said, I'll probably buy at least 3 of em.

Imma get two. One to play and have fun and to be crazy.

The other to use as an actual tug pulling some tanks and stuff to be a cool little terrain-like thing kinda like the senators shuttle idea.

2 for me! I picked up 2 Micro Machines Quadjumpas a few weeks ago- having fun with that spoiled dial. (I use a Post-it Pad, writing maneuvers each round)

X-Wing QuadFrogger coming soon!

I've found that printing out the dial chart, taping it to piece of metal (I have some small canister lids that work well) and then using a magnet to mark my chosen move works well.

Imma get two. One to play and have fun and to be crazy.

The other to use as an actual tug pulling some tanks and stuff to be a cool little terrain-like thing kinda like the senators shuttle idea.

2 for me! I picked up 2 Micro Machines Quadjumpas a few weeks ago- having fun with that spoiled dial. (I use a Post-it Pad, writing maneuvers each round)

X-Wing QuadFrogger coming soon!

Bop-Bop-Bop-Boppup!!!

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HEE, HEE... I got a few of them (three I think it is) Micro Machines TIE FO S/F ... ATTENTION SIRE!

Why nobodies on here hate them is quite beyond my capacity!

Imma have bout six REAL ones soon.

Imma get two. One to play and have fun and to be crazy.

The other to use as an actual tug pulling some tanks and stuff to be a cool little terrain-like thing kinda like the senators shuttle idea.

2 for me! I picked up 2 Micro Machines Quadjumpas a few weeks ago- having fun with that spoiled dial. (I use a Post-it Pad, writing maneuvers each round)

X-Wing QuadFrogger coming soon!

I've found that printing out the dial chart, taping it to piece of metal (I have some small canister lids that work well) and then using a magnet to mark my chosen move works well.

Good Idea!!

I just figured out how to use an old TIE dial and glue on a paper dial I printed- slapped into a dial upgrade.

Yeah, I'm thinking 1 or 2 Quads right now. Probably 2 Rebel Ties and a single U-Wing and a single Upsilon. Haven't decided yet on the Striker...maybe 3.

2 of them for 2 Thermal Detonators and 2 Scanners

I'm looking forward to spamming the tugboats. I think some 6 or 7 ship mix of Zs and Tugboats could be fun. Depending how you mix in crew and upgrades, it could create some really interesting targeting priority conundrums for opponents. Also, getting one or two tractor beams tokens off makes the 2 attack guns on the Zs that much better en masse.

That said, I'll probably buy at least 3 of em.

Quadjumpers could also make Mangler cannon crits from Scyks easier to push through.