The recent FAQ and nerf-ing has had me thinking. I think everything that was nerf-ed is still good, but they are all now counter-able. But even before the nerf people had already started to talk about the "New" "Best" list. Some people even accused FFG of missing it in there nerf. What ever your read of how we got here we seem to be in the era of mind-link now.

The Thing about Mind-link (and all the newly nerf-ed lists) is they are vulnerable to stress. So instead of trying to really figure out the new meta I have been focusing on countering the new meta, and I thought the answer was probably stress. As I was looking at my options, I didn't really want to pull out my old stress-hog, he was fun, but it tended to be a good bait to draw aces in, aces, who didn't want it to live past round two. I also wanted to try out a stressing list with slicer tools so that eliminated directed me to the Scum faction.

Asaj was an obvious first choice, but then I started looking for other ways. I realized wanted to try out Tactician. He's been out for a long time, but I haven't flown him much. So now I needed a good solid ship with a crew slot. One cheap enough that I could get a couple of them, put on mind-link, slicer tools, and tactician.

My Answer the G-1A!

I love it. Partially, because I just love the look of the ship. But also because I haven't ever seen it played at all in a tournament, and I have fought against the Syck like five times. It is a lot like a Scum B-wing, that came out just after B-wings weren't good any more.

I tried them for the first time last night. And all my hopes were realized.

I am not sure if they are going to be THE list, or THE way to beat the new meta, but it was just a lot of fun to pull out that ship that seemed to be dead on delivery and make them so good.

4 minutes ago, Hrathen said:

The recent FAQ and nerf-ing has had me thinking. I think everything that was nerf-ed is still good, but they are all now counter-able. But even before the nerf people had already started to talk about the "New" "Best" list. Some people even accused FFG of missing it in there nerf. What ever your read of how we got here we seem to be in the era of mind-link now.

The Thing about Mind-link (and all the newly nerf-ed lists) is they are vulnerable to stress. So instead of trying to really figure out the new meta I have been focusing on countering the new meta, and I thought the answer was probably stress. As I was looking at my options, I didn't really want to pull out my old stress-hog, he was fun, but it tended to be a good bait to draw aces in, aces, who didn't want it to live past round two. I also wanted to try out a stressing list with slicer tools so that eliminated directed me to the Scum faction.

Asaj was an obvious first choice, but then I started looking for other ways. I realized wanted to try out Tactician. He's been out for a long time, but I haven't flown him much. So now I needed a good solid ship with a crew slot. One cheap enough that I could get a couple of them, put on mind-link, slicer tools, and tactician.

My Answer the G-1A!

I love it. Partially, because I just love the look of the ship. But also because I haven't ever seen it played at all in a tournament, and I have fought against the Syck like five times. It is a lot like a Scum B-wing, that came out just after B-wings weren't good any more.

I tried them for the first time last night. And all my hopes were realized.

I am not sure if they are going to be THE list, or THE way to beat the new meta, but it was just a lot of fun to pull out that ship that seemed to be dead on delivery and make them so good.

Interesting! It seems similar to a list from a couple years ago (just before Scum hit) that went by Panic Attack. The concept there was a trio of B-Wings with E2 and Tactician, and a Y-Wing with an Ion Cannon and R3-A2, with the Y-Wing later gaining the title once that became an option.

I'd like to drop one of them and bump the other to 4-LOM. If 4-LOM can self-stress, he basically says, "Stay at range 3, Meatbag!" At range 1 you get the stress from his ability and at range 2 you get the stress from Tactician.

EDIT: Oh, and did you mean Gand - Link instead of Grand - Link?

Couple of friends & I were kicking around some Gand builds the other day. The one we eventually settled on was 4-LOM & 2 Gand:

4-LOM: Rage, Advanced Sensor, Mist Hunter, Tractor Beam, Inspiring Recruit, Inertial Dampeners

2x Gand Findsman: Rage, Advanced Sensor, Inspiring Recruit, Inertial Dampeners, Vectored Thrusters

19 minutes ago, Budgernaut said:

I'd like to drop one of them and bump the other to 4-LOM. If 4-LOM can self-stress, he basically says, "Stay at range 3, Meatbag!" At range 1 you get the stress from his ability and at range 2 you get the stress from Tactician.

EDIT: Oh, and did you mean Gand - Link instead of Grand - Link?

I thought about 4-LOM, but since the whole list has mind-link, I didn't want to get stressed in the first place.

Yes they are Gand pilots, but there was something in DS9 called the Grand-Link. It's a lame pun.

I like the G-1A but never could sort out how to be a little more defensive. I must not be flying it right because that 1 green die may as well be no green die. If you don't have the title on the ship, which is the better upgrade: Vectored Thrusters or Auto Thrusters?

4-Lom with tactician and sensor Jammer? Except mindlink doesn't care so much about sensor Jammer....

4 hours ago, Force Majeure said:

I like the G-1A but never could sort out how to be a little more defensive. I must not be flying it right because that 1 green die may as well be no green die. If you don't have the title on the ship, which is the better upgrade: Vectored Thrusters or Auto Thrusters?

It doesn't have much by way of green dice, but it was only a couple of years ago when green dice were considered the worst investment in the game. They can take 8 total hits. The other trick IMO is keeping them cheap, so that losing one isn't that big of a deal. In a jousting situation, where you are trading blows they hit hard enough and have enough HP that they do pretty well.

If they have a weakness it is that then need to dogfight (get stuff in there arc) and they don't have a great dial, or any repositioning actions. Repositioning actions though really work best when you have a high PS, so keeping them cheap means that no boost or barrel roll isn't too bad.

Instead of giving them Vectored thrusters just give them the title (you have to buy a tractor beam) but that gives you the barrel roll action, for the same price as vectored thrusters.

If you wanted to make it a better Dog fighter you could go with Zuccuss, VI, there title a tractor beam (which you don't have to ever fire) and Engine upgrade. It makes him okay at arc dodging.

My answer to the poor dogfighting was the tractor beam effect on the Shadow Caster. I haven't used it this way yet. I am still trying out this list, but I hope to be able to pull ships into arc. I did move a ship to range 2 so I could tactician it. That was fun.

I recently started playing 2 Gand findsmen with Sarco Tugboat and Ka'ato Z-95 all with mindlink. Ka'ato has tracers chimps and crane. The rest is season to taste. It's super fun and you get so many free actions the Gands can evade every turn. Also everyone is PS 5 so you have a lot of movement flexibility.

5 hours ago, Force Majeure said:

I like the G-1A but never could sort out how to be a little more defensive. I must not be flying it right because that 1 green die may as well be no green die. If you don't have the title on the ship, which is the better upgrade: Vectored Thrusters or Auto Thrusters?

G1a can't use autothrusters

11 minutes ago, Hrathen said:

It doesn't have much by way of green dice, but it was only a couple of years ago when green dice were considered the worst investment in the game. They can take 8 total hits. The other trick IMO is keeping them cheap, so that losing one isn't that big of a deal. In a jousting situation, where you are trading blows they hit hard enough and have enough HP that they do pretty well.

If they have a weakness it is that then need to dogfight (get stuff in there arc) and they don't have a great dial, or any repositioning actions. Repositioning actions though really work best when you have a high PS, so keeping them cheap means that no boost or barrel roll isn't too bad.

Instead of giving them Vectored thrusters just give them the title (you have to buy a tractor beam) but that gives you the barrel roll action, for the same price as vectored thrusters.

If you wanted to make it a better Dog fighter you could go with Zuccuss, VI, there title a tractor beam (which you don't have to ever fire) and Engine upgrade. It makes him okay at arc dodging.

My answer to the poor dogfighting was the tractor beam effect on the Shadow Caster. I haven't used it this way yet. I am still trying out this list, but I hope to be able to pull ships into arc. I did move a ship to range 2 so I could tactician it. That was fun.

Title + tractor is 1 or cheaper than vectored. But only works on one ship

Oh, I forgot, with mind link, you can evade with your Gands if you don't need your Shadow caster doesn't needs move its arc.

8 hit and an evade isn't to shabby.

Derp! I totally forgot about the boost requirement for AT.