I've set my mind to playing the popular Commonwealth Defenders list (PTL Ryad, Juke Vess and Palp Shuttle) at Regionals because I know it's a strong list and I've got some experience playing defenders.

Today I played against a friend of mine who tested a couple of scum lists. First was Dengaroo, which wasn't too much of a problem. Not an auto-win, but I felt the matchup strongly favored the defender list.

Next was a homebrew Bossk Partybus / Ventress list. I thought it wouldn't be too hard for the defenders to get behind the partybus and wreck it, leaving only Ventress, which I expected not to be all that dangerous on her own. But the partybus really put the hurt on my defenders as I just couldn't find a way to approach it without getting caught in it's 180° firing arc. This was made even worse by Ventress stressing my ships, often denying them their focus tokens in the following turn, and putting tractor beam tokens on them, both of which made my defense even worse. He had Bossk at PS 8, so he could shoot after Ventress. I usually ended up with one defender destroyed or seriously damaged before they could K-turn behind Bossk.

The worst was his third list, though: Manaroo, Palob (with the scum Cloaking Device, Stygium Particle Accelerator, TLT and Dengar crew) and my personal nemesis: Fenn Rau. All of them with Attani Mindlink. It was brutal. Palob kept stealing focus and evade tokens from me, weakening defense and offense as needed. When I caught him in a bad possition, he would cloak, gaining two green dice and an evade token. When I left him alone, he would plink away at my defenders with his TLT (which is a real pain when he has rerolls and focus tokens on each shot). Fenn Rau was tokened up by mindlink and Manaroo, so he was almost impossible to hit and usually dished out 3-5 hits per attack. I really hated this ship in particular, he would just charge my whole squad head on, taking almost no damage. Manaroo would usually hang back or try to block my ships when needed.

The low damage output of the defenders really showed against cloaking device Palob and Fenn Rau. I usually used the shuttle as a third gun, but it's worse at modifying it's dice, so it doesn't help much against defensive ships.

Also, Palob, Fenn and Bossk were a real problem for my own defense. Commonwealth defenders has only two real ships. If you lose one of them before the enemy loses at least one ship, you have a really hard time winning the match.

Does anyone have tipps for me on how to tackle these builds with Commonwealth defenders? Or are thoss just terrible matchups for the list? Any help is appreciated!

if commonwealth defenders only have "two real ships" then you simply aren't being aggressive enough with the shuttle

that's a 3 dice gun, get it in there!

aim for the low agility first (or palob). Whatever you can most easily focus fire will make winning that much easier

gotta say, though, that Ventress landing a Shadowcaster Tbeam on a palp defender goes completely beyond my comprehension

Against Bossk, you really do have to get all your ships in there. Maximum firepower is needed to take him out as quickly as possible. Trying to get behind him with defenders is risky and not likely to work if your opponent knows what he's doing. If you can make a trade----any single one of your ships for Bossk---its a good trade and you have a chance with 2v1 on Ventress. Having said that, this is a case where triple defenders is absolutely a better list to win this particular matchup.

Against Palob, well, its no secret that Palob is a pretty strong counter to X-7 defenders. No wonder you lost. Its a really, really hard matchup. Doesn't really matter whether you get the shuttle engaged or not. Not saying its unbeatable of course, but be thankful not many players are willing to use Palob! Again, triple X-7 defenders is slightly superior here, because if you manage to trade 1 defender for Palob, 2 more defenders have an easier time dealing with Fenn than one Defender + shuttle.

Or replace Palp with a third Defender

No sympathy, no advice.

if commonwealth defenders only have "two real ships" then you simply aren't being aggressive enough with the shuttle

that's a 3 dice gun, get it in there!

aim for the low agility first (or palob). Whatever you can most easily focus fire will make winning that much easier

gotta say, though, that Ventress landing a Shadowcaster Tbeam on a palp defender goes completely beyond my comprehension

I like your suggestion about going for the easiest target first. I tend to go for the hardest to hit target first, because I want to use the full power of my squad as long as I have it. I can't imagine destroying Fenn when I've got only one defender and maybe the shuttle left. I could try to run with the defender and win by points maybe, but Fenn has the potential to catch and destroy a single defender even when he's alone.

As for Asaj hitting a palp defender: Believe me, it can happen. It's not too relevant for the discussion though, because Bossk hits defenders even when they have their 3 dice.

No sympathy, no advice.

You just won in category "Worst post of the year - least essential in the topic"

I like your suggestion about going for the easiest target first. I tend to go for the hardest to hit target first, because I want to use the full power of my squad as long as I have it. I can't imagine destroying Fenn when I've got only one defender and maybe the shuttle left. I could try to run with the defender and win by points maybe, but Fenn has the potential to catch and destroy a single defender even when he's alone.

this is mindlink Fenn, right?

on a single focus token at most, he doesn't pose any threat at all to a defender

and you'll still win on points if you don't kill him

still good to blast him early if you can, though, because 5 dice full mods while supported. In an assajj/manny/fenn list, he'll probably be the first you should try to kill

but if it's something like Palob/Fenn, Palob can probably be eliminated in a single round if you can bring all 3 ships on him and should therefore die first

I should've emphasized ease of killing over agility, though. Like, Bossk and Asajj makes Bossk the very easy first target because while Asajj is the better lategame she'll also soak damage while Bossk eats you. But if you trade a defender for Bossk, you should still come out ahead.

but when Fenn's involved, I find him a lot easier to kill than a squirrelly manny or asajj

Against Bossk, you really do have to get all your ships in there. Maximum firepower is needed to take him out as quickly as possible. Trying to get behind him with defenders is risky and not likely to work if your opponent knows what he's doing. If you can make a trade----any single one of your ships for Bossk---its a good trade and you have a chance with 2v1 on Ventress. Having said that, this is a case where triple defenders is absolutely a better list to win this particular matchup.

Against Palob, well, its no secret that Palob is a pretty strong counter to X-7 defenders. No wonder you lost. Its a really, really hard matchup. Doesn't really matter whether you get the shuttle engaged or not. Not saying its unbeatable of course, but be thankful not many players are willing to use Palob! Again, triple X-7 defenders is slightly superior here, because if you manage to trade 1 defender for Palob, 2 more defenders have an easier time dealing with Fenn than one Defender + shuttle.

Thanks, that's really helpful! (or in case of Palob: Comforting)

I kept wondering today if it may actually be better in the post U-Boat-meta to play triple defenders instead of palp. I tried a build with Swarm Leader Vess, PTL countess and a delta, but it felt very clunky and kinda boring, so I went back to palp defenders. Maybe I should try again with Juke Vess?

I'm flying a similar list and am also struggling against scums. Mostly Fenn Rau as well. Whisper also is giving me issues. But most other lists have melted before me

Bossk is also a tough opponent to fight for my imperial ships. Usually he nukes one of my ships before it can fire with a homing or cluster missile.

Any ideas how to beat VI homing or cluster bossk?

this is mindlink Fenn, right?

on a single focus token at most, he doesn't pose any threat at all to a defender

and you'll still win on points if you don't kill him

Good point! I got blinded a bit by his early game performance, but now that I think about it, in one game I mostly ignored him because I went after Palob and Fenn ended up not doing too much damage. We were already 6 games in which caused the scum player to land him on asteroids and bumping his own ships. But Manaroo's tokens went mostly to Palob for defense, so Fenn was often left with a single Focus token.

still good to blast him early if you can, though, because 5 dice full mods while supported. In an assajj/manny/fenn list, he'll probably be the first you should try to kill

but if it's something like Palob/Fenn, Palob can probably be eliminated in a single round if you can bring all 3 ships on him and should therefore die first

How would you go about this? Hitting Fenn at Range 1 is just as hard as at Range 3 if you're charging straight at him, because he gets 4 evade dice and an automatic evade. Also, he'll probably have an evade token as well as an infinite amount of focus tokens. Because of mindlink and Manaroo, bumping doesn't really hurt him either - on the contrary, one of your ships can't shoot at him now!

I guess you should set up some kind of kill box for him, where only one of your ships is in his arc at any given time. But 2 defenders and a shuttle aren't the most agile hunters of ps9 aces out there..

With Palob the problem is the cloaking device and his stack of tokens. He gets 2 additional green dice from cloaking, as well as an evade token from SPA. Add to that infinite focus tokens from mindlink as well as another evade token he'l steal from one of your defenders, and you'll struggle to make a dent in him even if all your three guns are pointing at him. Killing him in a single round? Only if he isn't cloaked. You'll need to have him bump you, which is only possible with the shuttle or with the countess, if you have initiative. And both of those aren't known to be particulary unpredictable.

I guess it's really an unfavourable matchup for commonwealth defenders. I'll just have to train a lot against those ships and lists to minimize the disadvantage.

Bossk is also a tough opponent to fight for my imperial ships. Usually he nukes one of my ships before it can fire with a homing or cluster missile.

Any ideas how to beat VI homing or cluster bossk?

If you're not set on a particular list I'd suggest running more, cheaper ships instead of 2 or 3 expensive ones. Imperial A-Holes (Palp, Inquisitor, Omega Leader and Wampa) for example can present Bossk with Palp or Wampa to shoot while the other two keep a distance. That way he either wastes his ammo on ships he doesn't really need ordnance to kill, or he doesn't use his ordnance at all. Both choices are good for you. Or just run some sort of swarm who doesn't care if one ship gets nuked.

I think the best advice is: practice more and fly better. It may sound harsh, but if you're flying a netlist and you have trouble against certain lists, practise until you can beat them, or find something that suits your playingstyle better. Personally I think the main weakness of people who pick up defenders because they want to jump on the Defender bandwagon that's driving around the meta right now, is the predictabiliy. There's more on a dial than just 3 speed maneuvres and K-turns.

Good.

When I have faced Rau, the key to defeating him seems to be swinging wide on the K-Turn after the initial joust. Ryad is particularly useful here with her 5K.

This is because most of Rau's bonuses kick in at Range 1. He will be stressed when he K-turns which means he cannot boost, even if Mindlink/Manaroo are feeding him tokens. Deny him range 1 and you deny him his best toys. Shoot at him from Range 2 and he can be taken apart.

The Jump dial is too good, but really, this is the only rediculously broken thing in Scumville....

Other than that, it's planning, skill, and the dice.

I hate to say it but there are going to be hard matches against Defenders and you have to figure out a way past those. Hang in there and practices but know everyone is going to be building against them.

The Jump dial is too good, but really, this is the only rediculously broken thing in Scumville....

Other than that, it's planning, skill, and the dice.

It only works on two ships/builds. For Dengaroo, without Manaroo's support Zuckuss is not that useful. For Party Buses, they simply doesn't care about the stress. If it was truly that broken, you'd see more ships using him.

I feel like finding a way to integrate Maarek (Defender) or Rexler might help out. Handing a crit to one of those high hull ships as early as you can might help you gut the list before you manage to kill something. If they have the old damage deck, Injured Pilot will hurt no matter who you land it on, and if Maarek lands Major Hull Explosion to deal another crit, you get to use his ability on that card as well. Structural Damage will allow you to get more crits through more easily, and of course Damaged Sensor Array can seriously hamper a ship, Especially the Lancer-class. And Fenn seems to work a bit like an Interceptor, and DSA is their achilles heel.

I like your suggestion about going for the easiest target first. I tend to go for the hardest to hit target first, because I want to use the full power of my squad as long as I have it. I can't imagine destroying Fenn when I've got only one defender and maybe the shuttle left. I could try to run with the defender and win by points maybe, but Fenn has the potential to catch and destroy a single defender even when he's alone.

this is mindlink Fenn, right?

on a single focus token at most, he doesn't pose any threat at all to a defender

and you'll still win on points if you don't kill him

still good to blast him early if you can, though, because 5 dice full mods while supported. In an assajj/manny/fenn list, he'll probably be the first you should try to kill

but if it's something like Palob/Fenn, Palob can probably be eliminated in a single round if you can bring all 3 ships on him and should therefore die first

I should've emphasized ease of killing over agility, though. Like, Bossk and Asajj makes Bossk the very easy first target because while Asajj is the better lategame she'll also soak damage while Bossk eats you. But if you trade a defender for Bossk, you should still come out ahead.

but when Fenn's involved, I find him a lot easier to kill than a squirrelly manny or asajj

Overall i do recommend burning him down ASAP. Cause left on his own he can cause quite a dent in your forces.

With Palob (another favorite of mine) with TLT he has a Range 1 bubble. Use it to your advantage. If he can't shoot you he can't hurt you.

The Jump dial is too good, but really, this is the only rediculously broken thing in Scumville....

Other than that, it's planning, skill, and the dice.

It only works on two ships/builds. For Dengaroo, without Manaroo's support Zuckuss is not that useful. For Party Buses, they simply doesn't care about the stress. If it was truly that broken, you'd see more ships using him.

It only works in two instances where it's completely broken (and criminally undercosted).

Do we have to have this discussion again?

No sympathy, no advice.

You just won in category "Worst post of the year - least essential in the topic"

I stand by it.

The OP is basically saying 'I'm running this lis because it's the best, but I'm losing. Fix it for me'.

Fly something different? Don't just rely on having the best ship in the game.

Or replace Palp with a third Defender

Yes, a Delta with x7 will be much stronger!

The Jump dial is too good, but really, this is the only rediculously broken thing in Scumville....

Other than that, it's planning, skill, and the dice.

It only works on two ships/builds. For Dengaroo, without Manaroo's support Zuckuss is not that useful. For Party Buses, they simply doesn't care about the stress. If it was truly that broken, you'd see more ships using him.

It only works in two instances where it's completely broken (and criminally undercosted).

Do we have to have this discussion again?

Its broken in Dengaroo, its strong but balanced on the party bus. Nuance is dead, is it?

With Palob (another favorite of mine) with TLT he has a Range 1 bubble. Use it to your advantage. If he can't shoot you he can't hurt you.

No but he can still get his sticky fingers on your token stack while his buddies shoot you.