Hey dudes got a twin-defender build that I wanted to see how you guys thought it would hold up in a tourney that hands out stress like they are hotcakes.

Rexler Brath and Maarek Stele with

[Predator/Ionpulsemissiles/FlechetteCannon/StealthDevice/(TIE/D)]

or I was possibly thinking of switching the Flechette Cannon for an Ion Cannon or Mangler Cannon, but stress seems important; idk.

Anyway any suggestions would be great, thanks!

If you're not going to use the /x7 title, then don't limit yourself to the /D title just because its there. The HLC on Brath with Expertise is strong. A Mangler on Maarek is also strong.

I think Vessery is the best option for the D title.

But but you can't take the mangler or HLC. D's with Ion's are pretty mean. Controlling them will help you set up better shots.

Don't use Stealth Device, use Hull Upgrade. One Flechette is probably enough, the Ion will be a solid pick as the second cannon.

SD is better with the /x7 title. If you are running Double-Ds then hull upgrades are probably better. I would pick 1 Flechette Cannon and 1 Ion Cannon as this gives you the flexibilty to hit targets with whatever is most painful or just go Stress + Ion on one target.

Don't bother giving Vessery Predator as if flown properly, he will get rerolls from shooting at a target his wingman has TL'ed. Doing this requires him to be equal or high PS though so VI would be both better and cheaper on Vess I think. Not a big fan of missiles on ships that cannot take extra munitions as they are too expensive for a single shot and the conflict with the /D title. I would run the following.

39 Vessery (35), VI (1), /D (0), Ion Cannon (3)
40 Maarek (35), Ruthlessness (3), /D (0), Flechette Cannon (2)
21 Omega Leader (21), A Score to Settle (0)
100 Total

Vessery is now PS8 meaning he make use of the Target Locks of either of his wingmen as he can shoot first. This will provide him free rerolls for both his cannon and primary shot. Maarek can use Ruthlessness to cause splash damage on the opponent twice per turn. Omega Leader is cheap but good fun. When she takes a Target Lock, her opponent cannot modify their dice meaning that she benefits from the Bonus of "A Score to Settle" but ignores the penalty.

I wanna run dual Tie/D defenders this weekend at regionals and my bet is:

Vessery + VI + Tractor + Tie/D

Ryad + Pred + Ion + Tie/D

Omega + Juke or Omega + Score + Pattern Analyzer

or upgrading Ryad to Rexler:

Vessery + Trickshot + Ion + Tie/D

Rexler + Predator + Tractor + Tie/D (no expertise cause its too hard to shed stress on defender + 1 point short)

Omega + Score

another fun version is going totally crazy with firepower:

Vessery + Score +Tractor/Flechette + Tie/d

Ryad as above

Scimitar + Homing Missles, LRS, EM

For now first and last one are working like charm. Hope it gives you some ideas

If you're going to run Defenders, Vessery and Ryad are your choices - Rexler and Maarek are way overpriced for the medicore level of their abilities.

TIE/D is poor: you have to be able to compensate for defence (defensively a TIE/D is a pre-Veterans Defender) and offence (spreading one action across two shots will leave both underwhelming), all without sinking too many points into a fragile and obvious target ( minimum spend is 40+ points) or dedicating too much of the rest of your list to supporting it - essentially, TIE/D is a trap for anyone but Vessery, who can at least compensate for its shortcomings with his ability.

Your mod slot must be used for Twin Ion Engine MKII - it's a tax, but otherwise stress shuts down the Defender entirely and renders an expensive ship all but useless.

Missiles on a Defender are a mistake.

Lastly, do not under any circumstances fly a Defender without either title, or consider giving them Mangler Cannons or HLC's. At that point you're back to pre-Veterans, and at that stage you're better off with literally any other use of the points.

14 minutes ago, MalusCalibur said:

If you're going to run Defenders, Vessery and Ryad are your choices - Rexler and Maarek are way overpriced for the medicore level of their abilities.

TIE/D is poor: you have to be able to compensate for defence (defensively a TIE/D is a pre-Veterans Defender) and offence (spreading one action across two shots will leave both underwhelming), all without sinking too many points into a fragile and obvious target ( minimum spend is 40+ points) or dedicating too much of the rest of your list to supporting it - essentially, TIE/D is a trap for anyone but Vessery, who can at least compensate for its shortcomings with his ability.

Your mod slot must be used for Twin Ion Engine MKII - it's a tax, but otherwise stress shuts down the Defender entirely and renders an expensive ship all but useless.

Missiles on a Defender are a mistake.

Lastly, do not under any circumstances fly a Defender without either title, or consider giving them Mangler Cannons or HLC's. At that point you're back to pre-Veterans, and at that stage you're better off with literally any other use of the points.

I disagree. The trick with Tie/D is to build it in a way so offence is action independent. That way you always keeps a focus on the defence. And 6hp, 3 agi ship with focus is not easy to shoot down. After all its just 1 more damage you gonna let though each turn WHILE boosting your damage and control elements way ahead. New cards like Score and expertise (to limited amount due to cost) helps here.

9 minutes ago, Vitalis said:

I disagree. The trick with Tie/D is to build it in a way so offence is action independent. That way you always keeps a focus on the defence. And 6hp, 3 agi ship with focus is not easy to shoot down. After all its just 1 more damage you gonna let though each turn WHILE boosting your damage and control elements way ahead. New cards like Score and expertise (to limited amount due to cost) helps here.

That 'trick' doesn't work for the investment. None of the action-independent attack modification Elite cards is going to be sufficient to stretch across two shots (or is Expertise, which has the dubious honour of being both fantastically too expensive as well as playing even more into the ship's weakness to stress), and defensively you are perpetually a pre-fix ship, which we all know was an absolute joke.

Damage and control will not rise anywhere near enough (since you actually have to hit to get much of either) for the 40+ points spent on the thing, yet it remains so easily killed that it's an obvious target and will not have 40+ points of impact in the time it spends on the table short of outrageous dice luck.

Including a Bomber Shuttle or Lambda to provide support crew sounds good in theory, but completely telegraphs your deployment (thanks to the low PS of those ships) and ties the Defender to those ships, both positionally (it has to stay near enough to benefit from said crew) and functionally (once the support ship/s are gone, it loses a great deal of effectiveness). The only support I'd considered a good match for TIE/D is Major Stridan, but with how costly he is (36pt minimum), you cannot fit a meaningful TIE/D in there and still have room for another ship (since a UPS and a single Defender will not cut it however you build them).

TIE/D is fun, but that's it. It's a pre-Veterans Defender with a moderately better offence but the same overpriced chassis.

17 minutes ago, MalusCalibur said:

That 'trick' doesn't work for the investment. None of the action-independent attack modification Elite cards is going to be sufficient to stretch across two shots (or is Expertise, which has the dubious honour of being both fantastically too expensive as well as playing even more into the ship's weakness to stress).

While i agree about Expertise, Vessery with Score or Predator on anything else, are usually enough to get those 2 (3 in case of vessery) hits pretty consistent. And there is a topic of sheet amount of attacks such dual Tie/d will throw at you - you gonna let tractor/flechette/ion though or you gonna spend that focus/evade to evade it possibly opening yourself to primary?

17 minutes ago, MalusCalibur said:

and defensively you are perpetually a pre-fix ship, which we all know was an absolute joke.

Again i disagree. It was not their defence that was a joke. It was general cost to quality that sucked. Little push in any direction either defensive or offensive is enough. 3 dice w/ focus is not that weaker than 3 dice /w focus and evade. I ofc agree it is weaker but not to a degree you are showing here.

17 minutes ago, MalusCalibur said:

Damage and control will not rise anywhere near enough (since you actually have to hit to get much of either) for the 40+ points spent on the thing, yet it remains so easily killed that it's an obvious target and will not have 40+ points of impact in the time it spends on the table short of outrageous dice luck.

Like i said - unless you defensive dice are really hot, the mere threat of geting hit with tractor knowing there are 3-4 more shots incoming or perspective of flying 2 times on a rock can make someone like Fenn or another fragile ship to spend its defensive tokens.

17 minutes ago, MalusCalibur said:

Including a Bomber Shuttle or Lambda to provide support crew sounds good in theory, but completely telegraphs your deployment (thanks to the low PS of those ships) and ties the Defender to those ships, both positionally (it has to stay near enough to benefit from said crew) and functionally (once the support ship/s are gone, it loses a great deal of effectiveness). The only support I'd considered a good match for TIE/D is Major Stridan, but with how costly he is (36pt minimum), you cannot fit a meaningful TIE/D in there and still have room for another ship (since a UPS and a single Defender will not cut it however you build them)

Agreed here. Ups would be nice but like you mentioned to expensive. Thats why i suggested supporting them with even more firepower.

17 minutes ago, MalusCalibur said:

It's a pre-Veterans Defender with a moderately better offence but the same overpriced chassis.

Again i disagree for reasons above Its totally different Defender in my opinion. And when X7 nerf will hit flechetted tie/ds will in fact be good counter to they x7 counterparts.

Ok, so a modified version of twin Defenders +1 for your consideration:

Col Vessery (38 pts)

Base 35pts, w/ VI (1), TIE MK2 (1), TIE/D (0), Tractor Beam (1)

Countess Ryad (36 pts)

Base 34pts, w/ PTL (3), TIE MK2 (1), TIE/X7 (-2)

Omega Leader (26 pts)

Base 21 pts, w/ Juke (2), Comm Relay (3)

Total 100 pts

Col Vess and OL are both PS8, allowing Vess to use his action to reposition or focus, then pick up TLs for both shots off his ability using a TL placed by OL or Ryad.

The TB forces defensive token use or loss of agility...add in OL carrying an evade token and being able to modify an enemy evade roll to instead be a focus, and you can strip tokens off quickly to allow Ryad a good shot as well....the list hits hard pretty fast and both OL and Ryad are fairly tanky in end game engagements...now just to finish painting 2 First Order Defenders to look cool on the board...

This is still a favorite of mine!! If you feel you need Twin ion on both defenders concussion missiles aren't a bad substitution. Credit where credit is due, I tweaked this from a list Karhedron had up here awhile back

"Deathfire" (28) - TIE Bomber

Homing Missiles (5), Conner Net (4), Extra Munitions (2), Long-Range Scanners (0)

Colonel Vessery (36) - TIE Defender

Trick Shot (0), TIE/D (0), Tractor Beam (1)

Countess Ryad (36) - TIE Defender

Push The Limit (3), TIE/x7 (-2), Twin Ion Engine Mk. II (1)

1 hour ago, Vitalis said:

While i agree about Expertise, Vessery with Score or Predator on anything else, are usually enough to get those 2 (3 in case of vessery) hits pretty consistent. And there is a topic of sheet amount of attacks such dual Tie/d will throw at you - you gonna let tractor/flechette/ion though or you gonna spend that focus/evade to evade it possibly opening yourself to primary?

Vessery is an exception, as I already pointed out, because his ability does a lot to mitigate the weaknesses of the title. A single reroll per shot (from Predator) and a single focus token across two shots is not going to produce consistent results that validate the investment in the ship.

1 hour ago, Vitalis said:

Again i disagree. It was not their defence that was a joke. It was general cost to quality that sucked. Little push in any direction either defensive or offensive is enough. 3 dice w/ focus is not that weaker than 3 dice /w focus and evade. I ofc agree it is weaker but not to a degree you are showing here.

The ship as a whole was a joke because it could not have enough impact on the game (and was easily countered) for the points it cost. A TIE/D Defender is no different to that ship in defensive terms (doubly so since they have two attacks to spend focus on and thus deny themselves any defensive modification), and it does not provide enough of an offensive boost (as detailed above) to compensate.That's not even covering the tax of Twin Ion Engine MKII (now autoinclude) or the cost of the cannon and Elite choice.

So in summary, TIE/D is a pre-Veterans Defender with a slight boost in offence but an increase in cost as well, leaving it in more or less the same spot - painfully overpriced for what it can actually do, unless you're Vessery.