So I had a hard time deciding what to use as a third ship in my defender build for Hoth. I got tired of stressing about it and decided to just throw it out and run five strikers for fun. This is the result:
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!
Edited by Droidlover
Then Sabbac fell to 6 dice attack from Jess Pava. beauty. but my opponent made major mistakes allowing me to do that.