Protectorate Star.: •Fenn Rau (35)

Autothrusters (2)

Concord Dawn Protector (1)

Opportunist (4)

HWK-290: •Dace Bonearm (34)

Munitions Failsafe (1)

Ion Cannon Turret (5)

Saboteur (2)

"Hot Shot" Blaster (3)

HWK-290: •Palob Godalhi (31)

Munitions Failsafe (1)

Ion Cannon Turret (5)

Saboteur (2)

"Hot Shot" Blaster (3)

Total: 100/100

This is a theoretical list I've been working on. Thoughts?

Edit: (My phone acted up and made this thread twice. Respond to this one)

So, my question to start would be, do you want a list that utilizes Dace Bonearm, or one that utilizes Opportunist? I don't think the two mesh together well in this list.

As a starting point, with Palob, I would suggest losing Hot Shot Blaster and Munitions Failsafe, and adding Cloaking Device and Stygium Particle Accelerator for the same points.

Depending on what you are looking to do, we can help figure out how to maximize effectiveness in the rest of the list.

I am a big fan of brohwks, and so any list that uses them, I an on board with. However, Hot Shot Blaster is not going to be super useful; you want to stick to range 2 almost exclusively with the Hwks, and you want to be using the Ion Turret.

At that point, why not toss Attani Mindlink on the two Hwks, and BMST. Serves for some nice dice mods, but also a version of Saboteur that is actually useful? Honestly, with this list the focus fire will likely melt enemies one round at a time anyways, so the Saboteur mah not be all that useful. And, while you're at it, why not toss Tacticians on in place of the saboteurs for those corners cases where they'll stress, Ion, and send someone sailing odd the board, or into Fenn's range one murder cone.

The idea is to use Fenn Rau's ability plus Opportunist, combined with Palob Godalhi's ability to steal Focus or Evade tokens to trigger Opportunist to deal a 6 dice attack at range 1. Then use the Ion Cannon turrets for Dace Bonearm to trigger his ability.

Hmm... Well, here's what I see. It's going to take a lot of fancy flying and luck/prediction for your move with Fenn to land Range 1. Then for that to also be the one that Palob has stripped is another factor in it, and he's attacking first, so there isn't the possibility of killing tokens with another shot ahead of him. So if you boost to get range, then you have a 6 dice r1 shot, which averages to 3 hits (because modifiers are going to be hard to come by with this setup.) By comparison, a mindlinked Fenn that gets a focus and a 5 dice r1 shot averages 3.75 hits. While it's fun to chuck 6 dice, without the ability to modify, you are depending quite a bit on the dice gods to like you (don't do it, they hate everyone equally). By comparison, on a PTL Fenn, if you got lucky and landed r1 with your move and were able to take a focus and target lock, your expected hit output is 4.69, with only a 3.5% chance to land 3 or less hits. Opportunist is good, if you can get dice mods to go with the increased output.

Dace is a bit of a conundrum. He's great to run on an Ion/Stress control style list, as he gets free damage on that kind of list. On most others, he doesn't justify his point cost.

As I said above, I'd suggest swapping Palob to a Cloaking Device. You can put in SPA, or you can throw in something else on there like Vectored Thrusters. Sure Cloaking Device can break, but while it doesn't, he's getting 4 agility, and an evade token (with SPA), and the next round, moving crazy like and getting another evade token. It allows him to run in close to utilize his ability far better than otherwise able.

I agree with Kreen that the Hot Shot Blaster is doing nothing for you in this list. BMST would be far better. For Dace though, I'd suggest the Tactician route, and Vectored Thrusters to hopefully grab that range 2 for Tactician to work. Has to be in your primary arc, but hopefully VT will allow for that to happen more often than not. I like the Mindlink thought as well, though I think Fenn would benefit from being on it too as focused 5 dice has better odds than naked 6 dice.

With all of that, this is what it looks like:

Fenn Rau — Protectorate Starfighter 28

So if you boost to get range, then you have a 6 dice r1 shot, which averages to 3 hits (because modifiers are going to be hard to come by with this setup.) By comparison, a mindlinked Fenn that gets a focus and a 5 dice r1 shot averages 3.75 hits. While it's fun to chuck 6 dice, without the ability to modify, you are depending quite a bit on the dice gods to like you (don't do it, they hate everyone equally). By comparison, on a PTL Fenn, if you got lucky and landed r1 with your move and were able to take a focus and target lock, your expected hit output is 4.69, with only a 3.5% chance to land 3 or less hits. Opportunist is good, if you can get dice mods to go with the increased output.

Never tell me the odds

But you have a very good point. Naked dice are not very good, and you're not likely to get him at range 1 by luck most of the time.

What you could do instead, if you wanted to keep the Opportunist, is take out Dace and throw in a light Manaroo. Just Attani Mindlink and Recon Spec. Can toss out focus tokens, or, if Palob focuses or can steal one, she can grab a target lock for Fenn instead.