What was he flying with Duchess?

TIE/D ion cannon Vessery and Quickdraw

21 hours ago, Heimdall Ulf said:

Dang you guys, I wanted to be that "one crazy guy who brought 5 Strikers to Hoth".

Kylo Ren's personal Striker Squadron NS-482 reporting for duty!

I almost hope we get matched up at Hoth. If for no other reason, then to have them see how cool it is to have ten strikers on one table, and give us both Hoth playmates ?

4 hours ago, Droidlover said:

I almost hope we get matched up at Hoth. If for no other reason, then to have them see how cool it is to have ten strikers on one table, and give us both Hoth playmates ?

That would be awesome if we got paired up. 10 Striker melee would be one crazy game! Hope to see you on Friday

Thatd be awesome, but will hurt you brains. I've seen a 3v3 phantom match before, and that was bad enough....

I love watching strikers en masse. I always use the wings to show the ailerons move (banking left or right, down for straight, up for stressed/no move) and the visual effect of seeing five come at you is very impressive.

3 hours ago, Heimdall Ulf said:

That would be awesome if we got paired up. 10 Striker melee would be one crazy game! Hope to see you on Friday

Pics please if this happens!!

I went to the shop to play tonight, and they had TIE strikers in stock again. I couldn't quite convince myself to buy all three, so I picked up two, bringing me up to three total. But my friend let me borrow two of his, so I got to fly 5x Scarif Defenders, and it was just as much fun as the first time I flew it! Wow! I just get so much entertainment out of planning their maneuvers with Adaptive Ailerons in mind. I made two big mistakes.

In the photo above, the top right-most TIE striker performed a barrel roll left and back to try to flank my opponent's ships. I did not foresee them performing bank 3 maneuvers toward this guy. If I hadn't barrel rolled, I would have caused a T-70 pile-up, but because I moved out of their way, the back one was able to boost down and dodge some arcs. Oh, and the TIE striker that barrel rolled? He blanked out against 2h2c. One-shot. Ouch.

Mistake #2. See the TIE striker that's just behind the U-wing?

Yeah, I had him adaptive aileron to his right, and then try to Segnor's Loop right...

...it didn't work. "Hello asteroid. How are you?" Fortunately he didn't take a damage when he moved off of it, but he did take damage when he landed, bringing him down to 1 hull. Cassian finished him off with Gunner + FCS combo next round.

I had enough good maneuvers to win this one with three, full-health strikers left, but there were a couple of rounds where I thought, "How on earth am I going to get out of this mess?" My approach was solid, I just need more practice eyeing where everybody is going to end up. I don't think there is a lot of room for error. Can't wait to fly it again!

That's awesome Para!! Thanks for the pics, that's really good reference material but also to know you're enjoying them! How did your opponent go in terms of picking where you would end up? Did you often catch him 'off-guard' so to speak?

On 3/21/2017 at 11:22 PM, Magnus Grendel said:

try electronic baffle and up the pilot to yorr (plus inspiring recruit if you can ) being able to burn stress off strikers (especially at 2 stress for 1 damage) is very nice - you can segnor and kturn and still focus, or use multiple uses of countdowns ability.

He had PtL T-70's with R2 Astromech, which fly a lot like TIE interceptors, which I have flown a LOT of. So I got some good blocks to prevent actions, predicting where my opponent's ships would end up. This was a bit harder because Cassian could pull a stress off one of his ships at the start of the activation phase, so there were some surprise T-rolls. Overall, no, I don't think I really caught him off guard. I just consistently and relentlessly lined up shots and rolled lots of attack dice. But he was a cool and collected player, so maybe he just didn't let on that he was caught unawares with some of my maneuvers.

@Heimdall Ulf & @Droidlover

Any news from Hoth? Did you fly your TIE strikers bravely into battle, or did you select a different squad?

I proudly flew my squadron of vampires on Friday, to a record of 3-4. My list was 5x Imperial Trainee with Ailerons and Hull Upgrade. I decided on the Hull over Lightweight Frame for the guaranteed protection against TLT's (especially double-tap Ghosts, which I never got matched up against of course, heh) and more defense against bombs (never saw any K-Wings either). That squad is just really fun to fly, even if it's not the most effective list out there. I was there mostly for the Vader damage deck to be honest, and it was kind of nice just playing a fun list and not being stressed about winning. I Just threw my ships all over the place and did my best to confuse my opponent as much as possible, and it worked out a little better than I was expecting. I think the most interesting game I had was against a Murder-Bossk with 4 Z-95's packing BMST/Feedback. It was the only matchup I had where other ships were activating before me, so that threw my brain for a loop trying to figure out what to do every turn. Luckily for me Bossk nuked one of my ships every turn so I didn't have to think as hard each subsequent turn, very thoughtful of my opponent to do that for me, lol.

It was a lot of fun to fly that list, every single one of my opponents were great people (I love this community), I got lots of compliments on my paint job, and I won two more games than I was expecting to! All in all a good time was had.

I think @Droidlover did a little better than I did, I think he opted for LWF and upgrading one of the Strikers to Pure Sabacc, if I remember correctly. He's a really great guy, and it was cool to meet and chat with him before/during the tourney.

I didn't see too many other Strikers there, unfortunately. I know Zach Bunn had one in his list (Duchess I think?) and I saw him up at the top tables (unsurprisingly).

I love the versatility of the Striker. I'm thinking of flying this list in the next tourney I play:

• Duchess with Expertise, Adaptive Ailerons, and Lightweight Frame
• Pure Sabacc with Expertise, Adaptive Ailerons, and Lightweight Frame
• Countdown with Adaptive Ailerons and Stealth Device
• Imperial Trainee with Adaptive Ailerons and Lightweight Frame

It comes in at 99 points with a blocker, a tank and two beatsticks that can use their actions to barrel roll or evade for survival.

The most difficult part of reading threads and reports such as these is that they awaken an intense desire to act upon those dark little impulses from which we all obviously suffer. I already have too many untried lists, and too little cash. But the call of multiple Strikers is so...alluring.

5 hours ago, Heimdall Ulf said:

I proudly flew my squadron of vampires on Friday, to a record of 3-4. My list was 5x Imperial Trainee with Ailerons and Hull Upgrade. I decided on the Hull over Lightweight Frame for the guaranteed protection against TLT's (especially double-tap Ghosts, which I never got matched up against of course, heh) and more defense against bombs (never saw any K-Wings either). That squad is just really fun to fly, even if it's not the most effective list out there. I was there mostly for the Vader damage deck to be honest, and it was kind of nice just playing a fun list and not being stressed about winning. I Just threw my ships all over the place and did my best to confuse my opponent as much as possible, and it worked out a little better than I was expecting. I think the most interesting game I had was against a Murder-Bossk with 4 Z-95's packing BMST/Feedback. It was the only matchup I had where other ships were activating before me, so that threw my brain for a loop trying to figure out what to do every turn. Luckily for me Bossk nuked one of my ships every turn so I didn't have to think as hard each subsequent turn, very thoughtful of my opponent to do that for me, lol.

It was a lot of fun to fly that list, every single one of my opponents were great people (I love this community), I got lots of compliments on my paint job, and I won two more games than I was expecting to! All in all a good time was had.

I think @Droidlover did a little better than I did, I think he opted for LWF and upgrading one of the Strikers to Pure Sabacc, if I remember correctly. He's a really great guy, and it was cool to meet and chat with him before/during the tourney.

I didn't see too many other Strikers there, unfortunately. I know Zach Bunn had one in his list (Duchess I think?) and I saw him up at the top tables (unsurprisingly).

Any chance of getting Zachs full list?

7 hours ago, Kleeg005 said:

The most difficult part of reading threads and reports such as these is that they awaken an intense desire to act upon those dark little impulses from which we all obviously suffer. I already have too many untried lists, and too little cash. But the call of multiple Strikers is so...alluring.

This is so true.

7 hours ago, Goseki1 said:

Any chance of getting Zachs full list?

He was flying Vader/Quickdraw/Pure Sabacc. I didn't want to bug him for full list details so I'm not sure what upgrades he had.

18 hours ago, Heimdall Ulf said:

I think @Droidlover did a little better than I did, I think he opted for LWF and upgrading one of the Strikers to Pure Sabacc, if I remember correctly. He's a really great guy, and it was cool to meet and chat with him before/during the tourney.

Yes, I had four trainees and Pure Sabaac with trick shot. All had ailerons and lightweight frame.

I also went 3-4.

Just some background on my flying strikers. I had only put one striker on the table since they had been released, and liked it a lot. I purchased my other four the day before I left for Hoth, and didn't put them on the table as a squad until the night before Hoth. So my experience with flying them was extremely limited.

When placing obstacles, I tried to always create dense field near the middle of the board. The Strikers just seem to have this amazing ability to use the ailerons to navigate the asteroids perfectly, and to move through them at an extremely fast pace. When I deployed my ships, I always spread them out and spaced them evenly from the left to the right. I knew that with the ailerons, I could get from one side of the board much faster than my opponent. So swarming the strikers to the left or right was an easy task, and usually took my opponent by surprise. They seemed just as amazed when I would swarm to one side of the board and then proceed to u-turn and navigate directly back through the obstacles.

My first match was vs Poe and Dash. I couldn't seem to get good angles on Poe. And Dash just seemed to pop a striker every round. Brutal loss. 0-100

Second match was vs a Dash Ghost list. I thought it odd, as Dash had Lone Wolf, so he had to keep his ships separate. I immediately took advantage of this and swarmed all the strikers after the Ghost...it died after two rounds of fire. I then spent the rest of the game trying to chase Dash. I finally got Dash down to half points when time had expired. I only lost Pure Sabaac. Win but i dont remember the exact point spread.

Third round put me up against Poe, Wes and a snapshot a stressbot T-70. I approached through the rocks and surprisingly, he did likewise. After the first round of fire, I took little damage and he had at least a shield off each ship. Then I moved in through the rocks and tried to plug up the holes for a massed attack. He had decided to get out of dodge and left the asteroid field by the only route left to him. I proceeded to chase him out of the asteroids, placing a few more shots on Wes, and dropping the stressbot to 1 hull. He turned around and I lost a trainee while he lost the stressbot. We did a few manuever that ended up putting a hull on Poe, and killing Wes. I lost another trainee in the process. As time expired, my last move was to use ailerons and then either kturn or sloop all three of my ships to get final shots on his last ship, Poe. Poe killed a trainee, and I could not kill Poe. It ended up a tie, and a Final Salvo. With my 6 red dice to his three, I won the match.

Round four put me up against a Rey/Finn, Biggs and Rex. There isn't much to say about this one. It was pretty much a slaughter. Loss 0-100. At least I got a rest between matches.

Round five was an interesting list. It was Fenn, a contracted scout and a YV with several crew. Only the scout and YV had mindlink. Fenn was standard build with PTL. He started Fenn on my right, scout in the center and YV on my left. First round I moved three ships through the center rocks, while Sabaac and one trainee slow rolled toward Fenn. His scout moved toward Fenn and the YV used a 0 manuever. Fenn came down the side on my right. I moved everyone straight in at Fenn as he had no support, and the Scum Ace was dusted in the first round of fire. I then brought everything out the rocks from the right and up toward the scout blocking it and getting range one shots. After two rounds of fire the scout was gone. As that happened, I had a ship that had passed the scout and then slooped behind the YV and that was all there was to that. Win 100-0

Round 6 was very exciting and disappointing. I faced Assaj, Fenn and Old Teroch (all mindlinked). I was a little apprehensive about this matchup, as I had read all about the brutal effectiveness of this build on these forums. Well, I brought all my ships up the left side and then came back down through the asteroids, as he came down my right side and attempted to meet me at my side of the asteroids. After two rounds of approaching pot shots, I had plinked the shields and a hull off Assaj, and had taken little to no damage. I moved out of the asteroids at full force and caused a massive pile up on his side. The following two rounds resulted in Assaj being wiped of the board and Old Teroch left with one hull. I still had all my ships. From this point on, the stress of multiple aileron maneuvers throughout the day must have had a lasting effect on my brain. I proceeded to bump my own ships the remainder of this game. I should have just gotten out of dodge and regrouped for a new approach, but I tasted blood with Teroch being at one hull. I ended up killing Teroch but lost the rest of my ships as Fenn just ate me alive. I should have had this one. A combination of exhaustion and last minute poor decisions resulted in a Loss 68-100

Last match put me up against Brobots. It started well, and he even made a mistake and put B on a rock. I had four range one shots at B and a Range 2 shot through a rock with Sabaac. And that is where my luck ended. Every shot I made resulted in only one hit. Not one hit getting through, just one hit. Now I'm not talking about just that round, every attack I made for the rest of the match resulted in, you guessed it, one hit. And my evades were no better, we were over halfway through the match and I hadn't even rolled one natural evade yet. My opponent and I were just laughing about it by the end. He even offered to let me use his dice, but I just laughed and declined. It was a fun way to release the pressure from the rest of the day. I don't know how, but I did get all the shields off B. LOL. Loss 25-100

Takeaway: The Strikers are extremely quick and maneuverable. Your opponent has no idea where you can go with them. They can move extremely far and are unparalleled blockers for the rest of your guns. When swarming at close range, the 15-20 red dice can be absolutely devastating. The Lightwieght frame is well worth it's points. That extra green die can really mean a difference between a ship that can fire and one that gets removed from the board. That being said, they are extremely susceptible to turret fire, especially big 3-4 dice turrets. Playing multiple strikers really tests your strategy and makes you plan ahead for each aileron manuever and standard manuever for each ship. As one match showed, a long day of those constant maneuvers took their toll.

I really had a great time, and despite my lack of experience with strikers before Hoth, I feel that more practice should allow me to get much bettter with them. Sorry for not listing the names of my opponents, I was actually lucky enough to remember to jot down the squads I went against. All my opponents were great, and thank you all for the awesome experiences. I do wish we had gotten a chance to put ten strikers on a single board. Maybe next time.

I believe I might just have to fly my five strikers at the Campaign Against Cancer in April at South Bend!

There's an error in the article.

Stress doesn't turn off Adaptive Ailerons.

Also, since targeting synchronizer affects regular lock uses then that might be a very good choice as support for strikers on the shuttle.

4 minutes ago, tsuruki said:

There's an error in the article.

Stress doesn't turn off Adaptive Ailerons.

Also, since targeting synchronizer affects regular lock uses then that might be a very good choice as support for strikers on the shuttle.

Stress does turn off AA:

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/xwing-miniatures/images/5/5f/Swx63-adaptive-ailerons.png

Ninja'd

6 minutes ago, Piscopas said:

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/xwing-miniatures/images/5/5f/Swx63-adaptive-ailerons.png

Right, serves me right for quoting my local experts blindly

So one additional thing I discovered, (which I forgot to include in my batrep above) is that the Striker usually only takes a focus. This limited it's attack modification on several occasions. So in order to make a striker list more deadly, I am considering substituting the fifth striker for a bomber with Light weight frame, thread tracers x2, extra munitions. The bomber would follow behind the strikers, and fire before them. Giving them an additional modification for attack would greatly increase the effectiveness of the striker attacks, especially if the focus had to be used for defense.

See here: http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/683714/striker-support

Thoughts?

1 hour ago, Droidlover said:

So one additional thing I discovered, (which I forgot to include in my batrep above) is that the Striker usually only takes a focus. This limited it's attack modification on several occasions. So in order to make a striker list more deadly, I am considering substituting the fifth striker for a bomber with Light weight frame, thread tracers x2, extra munitions. The bomber would follow behind the strikers, and fire before them. Giving them an additional modification for attack would greatly increase the effectiveness of the striker attacks, especially if the focus had to be used for defense.

See here: http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/683714/striker-support

Thoughts?

I like where you're going with this. I'd miss the 5th striker, for sure, but you do need a way to make your shots count. If you ditch Leghtweight Frame, you could grab:

Gamma Squadron Veteran (Extra Munitions, Guidance Chips, XX-23 S-Thread Tracers, XX-23 S-Thread Tracers, Crackshot)

This bumps the PS over most generics, and helps ensure you get those tracers to hit - you don't want to whiff the shot when all your ships are in position.

The other thought I had is Howlrunner.

"Howlrunner" (Swarm Tactics, Shield Upgrade)

This makes Howlrunner just a little tankier, and ensures that a damaged striker will get to fire at PS 8 before it is destroyed, with a reroll on attack, to boot! You won't get rerolls on every ship every round, but hopefully your juking and weaving will keep Howlrunner alive longer. If you expect a lot of PS 2, like stress hog, you can take off her Shield Upgrade to make them all PS 3.

37 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

I like where you're going with this. I'd miss the 5th striker, for sure, but you do need a way to make your shots count. If you ditch Leghtweight Frame, you could grab:

Gamma Squadron Veteran (Extra Munitions, Guidance Chips, XX-23 S-Thread Tracers, XX-23 S-Thread Tracers, Crackshot)

This bumps the PS over most generics, and helps ensure you get those tracers to hit - you don't want to whiff the shot when all your ships are in position.

The other thought I had is Howlrunner.

"Howlrunner" (Swarm Tactics, Shield Upgrade)

This makes Howlrunner just a little tankier, and ensures that a damaged striker will get to fire at PS 8 before it is destroyed, with a reroll on attack, to boot! You won't get rerolls on every ship every round, but hopefully your juking and weaving will keep Howlrunner alive longer. If you expect a lot of PS 2, like stress hog, you can take off her Shield Upgrade to make them all PS 3.

I thought about Howlrunner too. I just don't think Howlie could keep pace with an aileron equipped striker squad. And now that I think about it, I like chips on the bomber more than lwf. Try to make sure those tracers connect. Unfortunately crackshot only works once, so hopefully that first round of locks can be a pivotal attack phase. I have a Hanger Bay tourney this weekend to test it with.

EDIT:

Here is another list on that idea. It reduces the squad by yet another striker(not ideal) but all the tracers should hit the mark each round, and they all end up firing at ps8.

http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/683757/imperial-8s

1 hour ago, Droidlover said:

I thought about Howlrunner too. I just don't think Howlie could keep pace with an aileron equipped striker squad. And now that I think about it, I like chips on the bomber more than lwf. Try to make sure those tracers connect. Unfortunately crackshot only works once, so hopefully that first round of locks can be a pivotal attack phase. I have a Hanger Bay tourney this weekend to test it with.

EDIT:

Here is another list on that idea. It reduces the squad by yet another striker(not ideal) but all the tracers should hit the mark each round, and they all end up firing at ps8.

http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/683757/imperial-8s

You're probably right about Howlrunner.

I'm really nervous about dropping a ship. If you lose one to a PS 9 alpha strike you'll be in a world of hurt. I keep coming up with 4 Black Sq. Scouts w/ Predator, but it seems foolhardy to run just 16 hull at PS 4. Being PS 8 with tracers, 18 hull and unlimited Crackshot tracers seems like it could work. You'll definitely need to take some opportunistic range 1 primary shots with Bren, or you'll fall behind on dealing enough damage. Against current 2-3 ship squads it will probably do alright, but I wonder how it would fare against 5 strikers.