Okay the title is a little misleading. It's not so much that the combo didn't work as it either didn't work as well as you hoped, or required just too much investment for what was essentially a gimmick. I have two:

1) French kissing a Sea Urchin: The title references an old Silent Death joke. Anyway, this was an Assault Frigate Mk2 A with Spinal Armaments and Paragon, giving it a four dice arc in all four arcs and an extra die if you got double arc'd...how could that not be awesome? Approaching such a ship would be like trying to french kiss a sea urchin...in theory. In practice those points seem to be better invested in a Gunnery Team and reliably keeping 2+ enemy ships/squadrons in your side arcs. It's not useless, it just wasn't quite as cool as I was hoping.

2) Junk Knight: This one seemed obvious to me. A YT-1300 freighter with Jan Ors flying escort. At a wopping seven hull, with escort and the ability to use Jan's Brace tokens, how could this not be great? It could soak up damage for days and protect your more fragile ships. The reality...well I found it fell short in two places. First the speed...speed 2 is way too slow for an escort, it often cannot keep up with the ships it wants to protect. This can be somewhat mitigated by the Independance title or the new Flight Officer, but then you're sinking still more points into a mediocre combo. Two was a little thornier as I suspect it comes more to opinion but...I don't find Rebel Squadrons really need escort all that much. Most boast at least five hull and A-Wings would be way too tied down hiding behind a lumbering two speed guy. HWK-290's do benefit some from that protection, but I'm not sold on fielding one just to protect HWKs.

So those were mine. Any combos you guys imagined in your heads that didn't work out so well on the table?

Jan and 1300 work fine, but you need to roll slow or take FCT.

Overload pulse and Avenger.

We've all tried it. It's not all bad, but it's just too much effort and too costly to set up

One of my local players just cannot stop trying to make Overload Pulse (on Raider-IIs or VSD-IIs) + Avenger ISD a thing. He's been trying for months on and off. It only ever works against players who are worse than him.

You may note that "only effective against players worse than you" is not the kind of effectiveness profile that is actually useful.

Or OLP ON THE Avenger...and within 2 seconds of posting everyone and their dog on the forums shuts you down by reminding you the order of crit effects and defence tokens

One of my local players just cannot stop trying to make Overload Pulse (on Raider-IIs or VSD-IIs) + Avenger ISD a thing. He's been trying for months on and off. It only ever works against players who are worse than him.

You may note that "only effective against players worse than you" is not the kind of effectiveness profile that is actually useful.

Tell him to try putting it on another ISD or Interdictor

Well, they are the rules and all...

I tried an Ackbar80 with H1 and 2 AF+GT+QTC. Just got mauled by fighters and lack of activations. I'm determined to try it again after regionals.

Well, they are the rules and all...

And we all know that's what you LIVE for. Maybe you could try explaining the rules of TI3 to my group, they can never seem to remember them

• Ackbar anything: Being able to consistently do well in a tourney using Ackbar. At least once in every tourney I/you need to chase down something and having to keep your side arc on your target doesn't jive with chasing anything down. It's the main reason I'm not fond of Ackbar. He's great when you don't need a high score to progress in a tourney but if you need a high score and your opponent doesn't, good luck chasing him down and getting all of your shots fired from side arc.

• Soontir Fel and a TIE advanced swarm: Soontir always gets locked down outside of the TIE Advance ball or gets exposed when key TIE Advances' get killed, ... or most often, Soontir can't get into engagement range at the same time the protecting Advances' are engaging the enemy. The Advances always get engaged without the enemy being engaged by Soontir.

• Repair Crews swarm: It just too much work to keep all of your Repair Crews flotillas within range 2 and activate them in the order needed to use Repair Crews. I've tried it with 1 flotilla, 3 flotillas, and 5. It's just too much work for little returns, and I usually ended up ramming all of my flotillas and needing to use the Repair Crews on the flotillas, hah.

I tried an Ackbar80 with H1 and 2 AF+GT+QTC. Just got mauled by fighters and lack of activations. I'm determined to try it again after regionals.

I want to give this a try too.

Well, they are the rules and all...

Stop ruining the fun with your logic and common sense.

Please, a board game? How Pedestrian...

... Honestly, just jealous. havn't played a proper board game in years

As for Combos that didn't quite work out - I mean, I guess I've been "lucky"... Horrid Luck is Horrid Luck, and when you're statistically abysmal, its the luck (or lack) of the dice that causes my Combos to fail, rather than the combo itself...

So far, The "Nose Punch" has worked....

• Ackbar anything: Being able to consistently do well in a tourney using Ackbar. At least once in every tourney I/you need to chase down something and having to keep your side arc on your target doesn't jive with chasing anything down. It's the main reason I'm not fond of Ackbar. He's great when you don't need a high score to progress in a tourney but if you need a high score and your opponent doesn't, good luck chasing him down and getting all of shots fired from side arc.

Now, if only there was a speed 4 broadside ship....

Seriously you just wrote out the logic for my build, take it that step further. There is a solution to your problem

One of my local players just cannot stop trying to make Overload Pulse (on Raider-IIs or VSD-IIs) + Avenger ISD a thing. He's been trying for months on and off. It only ever works against players who are worse than him.

You may note that "only effective against players worse than you" is not the kind of effectiveness profile that is actually useful.

Tell him to try putting it on another ISD or Interdictor

It's been tried. It still doesn't work. It's not getting the crit that's the problem (he uses Screed), it's the fact that for the whole thing to work you need ALL of the following to be true:

1. OLP ship activates first and is able to attack Target at medium range
2. Target eats the OLP crit effect (doesn't Admonition it or Lando it or Evade reroll it or whatever)
3. Target somehow remains in good firing position of the Avenger
4. Avenger is in range to activate after these steps and make a meaningful attack on the target ship where its exhausted defense tokens not being able to be spent makes a difference.

If at any point any of those steps don't go off as planned, the entire combo falls apart. It's an extremely brittle combo for that reason. Need to activate the Avenger ISD first or it's trouble? Combo breaks. OLP ship is out of range or dead? Combo breaks. Pulsed ship ran away before you could shoot it? Combo breaks. Pulsed ship isn't dumb enough to fly into someplace where it's in effective range of two blatant combo pieces? Combo breaks. Pulsed ship dodges the crit somehow? Combo breaks. Avenger only gets a long ranged shot in and the damage roll isn't too impressive? Combo still worked, but not for much good.

The best way to get it done is to try OLP and Avenger on the same ISD-II. Get in a side arc shot with OLP and then a front arc shot on the same target after the defense tokens get fried. It's still janky, though, and you generally would've been better off with Leading Shots in your ion cannon slot which is just consistently useful with the big batteries on the ISD-II.

Or take multiple OLPs....

I tried an Ackbar80 with H1 and 2 AF+GT+QTC. Just got mauled by fighters and lack of activations. I'm determined to try it again after regionals.

I did this. Those flotillas burned wonderfully, as did the mc30 and the neb. But way too limited overall.

Nk-7

By the time you get rid of and IMPORTANT token, the ship is either dead or you are.

Double nk-7 and nym.

Or take multiple OLPs....

Also been tried. It helps with getting the initial OLP in but the remaining elements of the combo can still struggle to connect. It also further exacerbates the list's commitment to the combo which makes disruption of anything the combo is relying on even stronger.

It's also not that strong in the current meta where larger ships aren't as common as they used to be. All that setup to snuff a CR90 is not very rewarding given the ISD could've done it without any extra help.

NK-7 and Interdictor was one that I tried multiple times with mixed results.

I want NK-7 to be good so badly. It's just so expensive.

NK-7 and Interdictor was one that I tried multiple times with mixed results.

I want NK-7 to be good so badly. It's just so expensive.

I can't help but feel that if NK-7 wasn't required to exhaust to use its effect it might be more popular. Double-arcing with it would be extremely good, but for 10 points it had better be extremely good! Alternatively, the attacking player getting to select the zapped token would also be much better. I understand why FFG would be worried about making a defense-token-nuking upgrade too good, but it's never really seemed to pull its weight in games I've played with it.

• Ackbar anything: Being able to consistently do well in a tourney using Ackbar. At least once in every tourney I/you need to chase down something and having to keep your side arc on your target doesn't jive with chasing anything down. It's the main reason I'm not fond of Ackbar. He's great when you don't need a high score to progress in a tourney but if you need a high score and your opponent doesn't, good luck chasing him down and getting all of your shots fired from side arc.

• Soontir Fel and a TIE advanced swarm: Soontir always gets locked down outside of the TIE Advance ball or gets exposed when key TIE Advances' get killed, ... or most often, Soontir can't get into engagement range at the same time the protecting Advances' are engaging the enemy. The Advances always get engaged without the enemy being engaged by Soontir.

• Repair Crews swarm: It just too much work to keep all of your Repair Crews flotillas within range 2 and activate them in the order needed to use Repair Crews. I've tried it with 1 flotilla, 3 flotillas, and 5. It's just too much work for little returns, and I usually ended up ramming all of my flotillas and needing to use the Repair Crews on the flotillas, hah.

That's because mathematically Ackbar is garbage.

The only way I've gotten the OLP/Avenger combo to work is with an ISD 2 w/ OLP and Screed with a ton of activations and a bid for first. Line up the double arc, proc OLP with the side arc and Screed, and then you can unload that glorious unblockable front arc

• Ackbar anything: Being able to consistently do well in a tourney using Ackbar. At least once in every tourney I/you need to chase down something and having to keep your side arc on your target doesn't jive with chasing anything down. It's the main reason I'm not fond of Ackbar. He's great when you don't need a high score to progress in a tourney but if you need a high score and your opponent doesn't, good luck chasing him down and getting all of your shots fired from side arc.

• Soontir Fel and a TIE advanced swarm: Soontir always gets locked down outside of the TIE Advance ball or gets exposed when key TIE Advances' get killed, ... or most often, Soontir can't get into engagement range at the same time the protecting Advances' are engaging the enemy. The Advances always get engaged without the enemy being engaged by Soontir.

• Repair Crews swarm: It just too much work to keep all of your Repair Crews flotillas within range 2 and activate them in the order needed to use Repair Crews. I've tried it with 1 flotilla, 3 flotillas, and 5. It's just too much work for little returns, and I usually ended up ramming all of my flotillas and needing to use the Repair Crews on the flotillas, hah.

That's because mathematically Ackbar is garbage.

Did you define all of your Variables...

... all of them?