As a mostly imperial player, you just gave my squadrons a pretty clear priority target.....

Norra, if you can get a bunch of blue antiship dice around her, can strip shields in seconds. I had her + 3 Ywings (1 of which was Gold for 2blues) with a BCC around completely strip an ISD of two shield facings (intentionally taking shields out here). Little lucky on my end since ALL of them had a crit in their attack and i was rerolling hits to try to get the crits, but still that was hilarious to see the ISD's shields just completely shut down before my Home One could broadside it.

You gotta remember that crit effects are in addition to the damage rolled. The crit icon doesnt do the effect and go away, it still deals damage, so if theres a shield there the Crit effect removes 1 shield THEN damage goes through from the roll.

Probably the only reason you dont see her much is price. All the ships that can actually abuse that ability are TERRIBLE at antisquad and their pricing limit dedicated antisquad. In that same list i only had a VCX and 3 Xwings outside the bomberball lol. Was not enough, though fortunately the 2 AA from my Nebs was enough to fill the void.

On 17/2/2017 at 4:25 PM, Norsehound said:

That's okay, then the normal bombers just do what they're supposed to do: Deliver crits.

It's everything up until that point, which makes all criticals count as normal hits in addition to removing an extra shield. Ergo, she helps shields get stripped faster so normal crits can deliver face-up damage cards faster.

This is especially useful for ships with lots of shields if you have lots of bombers, against targets like ISDs. Afterall in the right conditions two b-Wing attacks with her will blow up a Raider.

Because a raider dont have redirect defense token. Its like flanking a neB (cmon everyone has flanked a neB at some point even not intentionally).
An imperial player can simply troll Norra all the way by letting the crits comming in and then redirecting, making her half useful.
Take for instance you put norra and 2 B's in front of an ISD you are targetting its huge front hull. Norra rolls hit/crit! Imperial choose not to redirect that makes 1 shield down plus 2 dmg. His hull is now on 1 shield. B's atack and roll hit/crit + hit!! Oh my god this is my day. Imperial player chooses to redirect damage, so by norra its one shield to the front 3 damage redirected to one side.
Last B is atacking and rolls.... hit/crit + hit!! never in your life, but hell why not, this is an example. So at this point Norra is useless since front hull zone has no shields, so ISD redirects to the other hull 3 damages. Any other crit obtained at this point is useless in terms of carrying Norra with you. And all of this was in the best possible situation. The ISD is standing brace token green and no damage taken with 11 hp left. Good luck.

In a more realistic way, the front hull zone would absorb all damage to 0 for a couple of shots until norra is useless, then you start redirecting and bracing.

If an ISD is using defense tokens on 2 die attacks, that is a-ok in my book.

2 minutes ago, FatherTurin said:

If an ISD is using defense tokens on 2 die attacks, that is a-ok in my book.

On thr flip side, if im running a rebel bomber wing and the ISD is letting my bombers go to town without using defense token mitigation, I'm pretty freaking stoked.

5 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

On thr flip side, if im running a rebel bomber wing and the ISD is letting my bombers go to town without using defense token mitigation, I'm pretty freaking stoked.

If I was better at meme creation I would make on of the "choose two buttons" one (come on, we all know it) that says:

"Save defense tokens and get blown up by bombers."

"Use defense tokens and get blown up by MC-80."

49 minutes ago, xerpo said:

Because a raider dont have redirect defense token. Its like flanking a neB (cmon everyone has flanked a neB at some point even not intentionally).
An imperial player can simply troll Norra all the way by letting the crits comming in and then redirecting, making her half useful.
Take for instance you put norra and 2 B's in front of an ISD you are targetting its huge front hull. Norra rolls hit/crit! Imperial choose not to redirect that makes 1 shield down plus 2 dmg. His hull is now on 1 shield. B's atack and roll hit/crit + hit!! Oh my god this is my day. Imperial player chooses to redirect damage, so by norra its one shield to the front 3 damage redirected to one side.
Last B is atacking and rolls.... hit/crit + hit!! never in your life, but hell why not, this is an example. So at this point Norra is useless since front hull zone has no shields, so ISD redirects to the other hull 3 damages. Any other crit obtained at this point is useless in terms of carrying Norra with you. And all of this was in the best possible situation. The ISD is standing brace token green and no damage taken with 11 hp left. Good luck.

In a more realistic way, the front hull zone would absorb all damage to 0 for a couple of shots until norra is useless, then you start redirecting and bracing.

You've never faced stacked BCCs have you?

Are you overlooking the end result that the forward shields of the ISD are down to 0 from three bomber strikes? You're also down a brace and a redirect. In my experience, there's more than just two B-Wings with Norra. Norra has to do her bombing run, and there is usually a third B-Wing. All of them are double-tapping out of Yavaris after Fighter Coordination Teams are helping them move into the best position.

Sure, Norra is "useless after shields are gone", but that still just opens you up to crits. Say those B-Wing attacks kept coming... you'll burn your contain to stop the crits coming in that Norra won't be using, but now you're fending off flipped damage cards against any source that's rolling a crit- whether it's those bombers or the ships commanding them. Say Yavaris cleans you're shields and the enemy is also running three TRCs. Do you burn the contain against their guranteed hits, or save it for when those bombers have their second round of bombing strikes?

9 hours ago, Norsehound said:

You've never faced stacked BCCs have you?

Are you overlooking the end result that the forward shields of the ISD are down to 0 from three bomber strikes? You're also down a brace and a redirect. In my experience, there's more than just two B-Wings with Norra. Norra has to do her bombing run, and there is usually a third B-Wing. All of them are double-tapping out of Yavaris after Fighter Coordination Teams are helping them move into the best position.

Sure, Norra is "useless after shields are gone", but that still just opens you up to crits. Say those B-Wing attacks kept coming... you'll burn your contain to stop the crits coming in that Norra won't be using, but now you're fending off flipped damage cards against any source that's rolling a crit- whether it's those bombers or the ships commanding them. Say Yavaris cleans you're shields and the enemy is also running three TRCs. Do you burn the contain against their guranteed hits, or save it for when those bombers have their second round of bombing strikes?

Is Norra great? Yes.

I would just caution about overstating her effectiveness. Often people tend to look at the raw numbers without any context. Take the examples given above. While it is great you are really only improving your damage output by two shields. Run the scenario without Norra and you don;t end up too far behind. It's up to a player's perspective to decide if that is worth it for an additional 7 points and the opportunity cost since that means you could fit in almost another Y-Wing. Another example of avoiding raw numbers without context just to illustrate further was the Mon Karren debate. People thought it was groundbreaking when revealed but play testing and numbers showed that is really generated maybe 1 more damage against it's favored prey, big ships.

Just to reiterate. Norra is good, really good but maybe just temper the expectations a little bit.

10 hours ago, Norsehound said:

You've never faced stacked BCCs have you?

Are you overlooking the end result that the forward shields of the ISD are down to 0 from three bomber strikes? You're also down a brace and a redirect. In my experience, there's more than just two B-Wings with Norra. Norra has to do her bombing run, and there is usually a third B-Wing. All of them are double-tapping out of Yavaris after Fighter Coordination Teams are helping them move into the best position.

Sure, Norra is "useless after shields are gone", but that still just opens you up to crits. Say those B-Wing attacks kept coming... you'll burn your contain to stop the crits coming in that Norra won't be using, but now you're fending off flipped damage cards against any source that's rolling a crit- whether it's those bombers or the ships commanding them. Say Yavaris cleans you're shields and the enemy is also running three TRCs. Do you burn the contain against their guranteed hits, or save it for when those bombers have their second round of bombing strikes?

So this fleet has Yavaris with FCT, Norra, 3 b wings, 3 ships with TRCs (presumably cr90s), and 2 bccs? Well assuming Dodonna, I'll worry about the remaining 51 points of ships and squadrons by engaging whatever squadrons he has with my 4 a wings. I assume my other ships can kill more than their points worth of his stuff, as I don't really think all these things together in one fleet can really work.

Butttttttttt I might just be being pedantic about this theoretical fleet to be a pain in the butt, haha!

Mythics is undefeated in the bay area with this list. We're no slouches, he's that good and it's that hard to beat.

It's 134 points of a fighter/bomber mix that, I'm guessing, is only defeated by a squadron that goes hard 134 points of fighter-killers of its own. 3x B-Wings, Gold, Norra for the bomber core. Wedge and Shara form the escort with Jan to fill either role, freeing up bombers or being soft counter, and shielding the generic B-Wings. 5 activations with three flotillas, Yavaris, and a Pelta. Rieekan is there, so if you kill Shara when she tries to lock you down, she'll do it for a few turns more. Wedge will strike back with 6 dice against two targets when ultimately he's activated by Yavaris when you move in to try stopping the B-Wing ball.

If I'm ever in another regionals tournament, I'm thinking about taking my version of his list, simply because people are ready to dismiss the power of this list out of hand. Of course, Mythics himself will likely be there and ready to beat me as he always does, usually on the first pairing.

Gold, Norra, BBB, 71 points

Wedge, Shara, Jan, 55 points

126

What am I missing in this example?

Also, seriously, run Dagger. Swarm and Toryn make that squad a reliable squad to squad

8 minutes ago, Church14 said:

Gold, Norra, BBB, 71 points

Wedge, Shara, Jan, 55 points

126

What am I missing in this example?

Also, seriously, run Dagger. Swarm and Toryn make that squad a reliable squad to squad

Iirc he has a Z95 as the final points.

8 hours ago, Norsehound said:

It's 134 points of a fighter/bomber mix that, I'm guessing, is only defeated by a squadron that goes hard 134 points of fighter-killers of its own. 3x B-Wings, Gold, Norra for the bomber core. Wedge and Shara form the escort with Jan to fill either role, freeing up bombers or being soft counter, and shielding the generic B-Wings. 5 activations with three flotillas, Yavaris, and a Pelta. Rieekan is there, so if you kill Shara when she tries to lock you down, she'll do it for a few turns more. Wedge will strike back with 6 dice against two targets when ultimately he's activated by Yavaris when you move in to try stopping the B-Wing ball.

I mean, IG88 exists? As does saber squadron, so you can just snipe Jan. Jendon says either one of them can do it again, and maybe Marek Stele. Yeah, you'll lose them to a counter attack from Wedge and Shara and whatever, but if Jan dies, you can lock down his fighters with TIEs for a few turns. You're not trying to kill all his fighters, you're just trying to delay better. It's almost like I just wrote an article about this topic...

You could also try flak from Raiders. double arc some squads and watch people die. Agent Kallus is really good in the wave 5 squadrons meta!

On 2/21/2017 at 9:32 AM, FatherTurin said:

If an ISD is using defense tokens on 2 die attacks, that is a-ok in my book.

this kinda puts emphasis on why bombers vs ships are so good, despite usually never doing more than 2 damage max (Norra's ability causing a third if shields around).

You cant do anything about it. Spending tokens on those attacks is such a waste if they were attacking you via squad activation because you still got 4-6 die attacks to worry about afterwords. Sure in the squadron phase spend spend spend but honestly if im running Bomber lists i have squad activations out the wazoo, theyre not operating on their own merits.

Keyan would love for you to let your ISDs front shields go to zero to troll Norra.

Potential max damage from a triple-tapping Keyan with Norra: 15 ?

25 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

Potential max damage from a triple-tapping Keyan with Norra: 15 ?

That might be a little misleading. In order to that kind of damage means you actually only end up doing 4 hull damage to your target and it can really only be done against a large ship with advanced projectors (explanation: 15 damage requires that the arc you are firing at has shields through all three of Keyan's shots at 5 damage a piece).

Just to illustrate further putting Keyan in context in the Norra scenario and smart uses of redirect:

1. Keyan w/o Norra can do 12 damage with the triple tap.

2. Keyan w/ Norra can do 13 damage with the triple tap if your opponent saves the redirect for subsequent shots.

3 hours ago, Green Knight said:

Potential max damage from a triple-tapping Keyan with Norra: 15 ?

Combo cost: 37+62+10= 109 for an attack that might never happen due to multiple things that an experienced player can do about it.

Ackbar advices: Combos are great, expensive combos are a trap!

3 hours ago, Matt Antilles said:

Keyan would love for you to let your ISDs front shields go to zero to troll Norra.

An Imp player would love to see how you fly 20 juicy fleet points in a 5 hull 2 speed dude.

39 minutes ago, xerpo said:

An Imp player would love to see how you fly 20 juicy fleet points in a 5 hull 2 speed dude.

Pelta, AFFM, FCT. Suddenly he's speed effectively better than 4. Adar Tallon him with the Pelta, use Yavaris, and bam, 3 shots from distance 5 away starting (just need to be 1 away when shooting!).

4 hours ago, ImpStarDeuces said:

That might be a little misleading. In order to that kind of damage means you actually only end up doing 4 hull damage to your target and it can really only be done against a large ship with advanced projectors (explanation: 15 damage requires that the arc you are firing at has shields through all three of Keyan's shots at 5 damage a piece).

Just to illustrate further putting Keyan in context in the Norra scenario and smart uses of redirect:

1. Keyan w/o Norra can do 12 damage with the triple tap.

2. Keyan w/ Norra can do 13 damage with the triple tap if your opponent saves the redirect for subsequent shots.

Sourpuss! ?

I did say theoretical.

Anyway, a common h1 mc80 could take 15, even wo projectors - just the redirects. An isd could almost do it.

2 hours ago, xerpo said:

An Imp player would love to see how you fly 20 juicy fleet points in a 5 hull 2 speed dude.

I don't have to, I'm banking points on my camping objectives I won through bidding with cheaper ships. If you want to win the game, you have to come to me.

Where Yavaris, Norra, and my B-Wing aces are waiting.

I have a dream where one day a squadron-based thread on this forum doesn't get hijacked by Norsehound and/or Blail Blerg complaining about the fleet they can't ever beat.

I know I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

I hope someday you'll join us and the world will be as one.

2 hours ago, Norsehound said:

I don't have to, I'm banking points on my camping objectives I won through bidding with cheaper ships. If you want to win the game, you have to come to me.

Where Yavaris, Norra, and my B-Wing aces are waiting.

I'm curious what the bid to go second is. Because last weekend I faced people bidding 10-15 points to go second....Imperials and Rebels both.

9 hours ago, Snipafist said:

I have a dream where one day a squadron-based thread on this forum doesn't get hijacked by Norsehound and/or Blail Blerg complaining about the fleet they can't ever beat.

I know I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

I hope someday you'll join us and the world will be as one.

I also dream of a day when the forums can acknowledge defensive Rebel fighter builds are as much of a legitimate game-breaking threat as Rhymer and Demolisher. As long as players continue to deny this with the likes of, "Just throw a Raider / a few unfocused squadrons at it", my PTSD is going to continue reciting the strongest list in this game I've encountered that can only be beaten in a tournament setting by not engaging it.

Alas, until then, I have to point out powerful combinations where I see it. Because that's the apex of the game from my seat, and the thing to beat in the current life of the meta.