Ghosts and Decimators... squads to counter them

By RittsMJ, in X-Wing Squad Lists

So we're going into store champs season and my meta is full of Ghosts and Decimators (and large ship scum). While I have a few lists that use them, I'm not as good of a pilot as most I'll be competing against and I'd like to place top 8 ( maybe top 4?!?!) To get shinies. So to the point: what do I fly to beat them?

Ghosts typically have ABT, AC, and Hera (crew). Decimators are typically RAC with either Kylo or Vader/Gunner or both.

Tie swarms counter those 0 agility ships rather nicely

8 is the new 9 (99)

The Inquisitor (34) - TIE Adv. Prototype
Push The Limit (3), Proton Rockets (3), TIE/v1 (1), Autothrusters (2)

Carnor Jax (35) - TIE Interceptor
Push The Limit (3), Royal Guard TIE (0), Autothrusters (2), Shield Upgrade (4)

"Omega Leader" (30) - TIE/FO Fighter
Juke (2), Comm Relay (3), Shield Upgrade (4)

I heard T-65 X-Wing's are best...

Focused fire is your friend here. The decimator is a ton of points on a ship that can only attack 1 target a turn and rarely has more than 1 wingmate. With 0 agility, it'll only be able to survive about 2-3 rounds of fire, in spite of it's whopping 16 hit points. The ghost is more difficult to focus down if it's running alongside Biggs, since he'll be drawing most if not all of the fire. However, ghosts will necessarily have blind spots where your ships can be safe. Once Biggs is off the table, if you have at least 1 sufficiently maneuverable ship, you can probably spend most of the rest of the match taking minimal fire.

Lots of ships = more guns = more damage getting through. Deci w/ Kylo loves two and three ship lists, so it can keep one blinded for two turns. If you come with 4 or 5 ships, you arent losing half or a third of your firepower. Kanan also, can only drop two, or sometimes three attacks with his focus, leaving nothing for his attack. So bring 4 or 5 ships and eat through biggs in one round.

if you want to run with the crowd dengar/assajj is a great foil to the ghosts.... not sure about rac though (mind you assajj double stress should be fairly effective at keeping kylo contained).

I played my Ghost list a gainst an Imperial list today. We split two games. He had two SF's and a Lambda for support. The SF's delivered enough firepower to handle the Ghost. It's the Rebel regen flanker you'll have to deal with. I ran Norra with R2-D2 and C-3PO. In the game he won, he parked QuickDraw behind Norra and traded two-for-one shots.

14 hours ago, RittsMJ said:

So we're going into store champs season and my meta is full of Ghosts and Decimators (and large ship scum). While I have a few lists that use them, I'm not as good of a pilot as most I'll be competing against and I'd like to place top 8 ( maybe top 4?!?!) To get shinies. So to the point: what do I fly to beat them?

Ghosts typically have ABT, AC, and Hera (crew). Decimators are typically RAC with either Kylo or Vader/Gunner or both.

Thug life, problem solved :-)

10 hours ago, Ralgon said:

if you want to run with the crowd dengar/assajj is a great foil to the ghosts.... not sure about rac though (mind you assajj double stress should be fairly effective at keeping kylo contained).

Would you provide more detail on the build and strat? Assajj goes in first to stress RAC then engage Dengar?

You want to fly like all of your ships have Swarm Leader.
RAC lists win by bumping one of your ships, proc'ing Dauntless, and then attacking another ship. Spread out but keep guns on target. Also, any excuse to bring back Tie-swarms is a good excuse.

4x ICT Y-wings. Just straight escort the ships off the board.

Failing that, I'll throw my hand up for my favourite anti large ship list: 4x Bombers with Homing Missiles. I've OTK'd a Ghost and Decimator with this several times, and you'll always have very effective missiles left over to attack any ace with. There's variations on how you build it, but personally I'm a fan of 2x Gamma Vet with Chips and Deadeye for flexibility of shifting targets, and 2x Scimitars with LRS.

No shields means you need to control range against RAC to avoid crits, but he can only shoot one of you. Worst case scenario, you lose a Bomber to unlucky crits and concentrated fire from the wingman, but that leaves the rest of your ships to open up a fully modified salvo on him, so it's not all bad.

You just need focus fire and the ability to fight outside their comfort zone. A ghost with Autoblaster turret has clear weaknesses to anything shooting outside that range 1 band and decimators in general hate autothrusters and focus fire.

I have had good luck with this list against RAC/Echo and even Defenders.

Snaparchy (99)

Jess Pava (26) - T-70 X-Wing - R2 Astromech (1), Integrated Astromech (0) (Primed Thrusters for 1pt)

Green Squadron Pilot (21) - A-Wing - Juke (2), Chardaan Refit (-2), A-Wing Test Pilot (0), Snap Shot (2)

Green Squadron Pilot (21) - A-Wing - Juke (2), Chardaan Refit (-2), A-Wing Test Pilot (0), Snap Shot (2)

Braylen Stramm (31) - ARC-170 - Weapons Engineer (3), M9-G8 (3), Alliance Overhaul (0)

If you don't have 2 Juke's (like me, I have Proxied to play the above) you could try this with the PS1 looking to block.

Snaparchy (One Juke) (99)

Jess Pava (28) - T-70 X-Wing - R2 Astromech (1), Pattern Analyzer (2), Integrated Astromech (0)

Green Squadron Pilot (23) - A-Wing - Juke (2), Chardaan Refit (-2), A-Wing Test Pilot (0), Autothrusters (2), Snap Shot (2)

Braylen Stramm (31) - ARC-170 - Weapons Engineer (3), M9-G8 (3), Alliance Overhaul (0)

Prototype Pilot (17) - A-Wing - Chardaan Refit (-2), Autothrusters (2)

Anything that hits hard. As most have said here, it just takes throwing a lot of dice at it. The list I use that I built specifically to contend with Heragators features Keyan w/ Opportunist & HLC, with Wes & Stresshog as his wingmen. 0 Agility ships have a lot of health, and can be seriously intimidating, but they're also usually 40-60% of a person's list.

Fly calm, focus your fire, get the hits, and it ain't nothing but a big target.

Ghosts and Decimators are literally all I face. I'm going to try a phantom w/ tie swarm this weekend.

The Young and Angry:

100 points

“Echo” (45) TIE Phantom (30), Gunner (5), Advanced Sensors (3), Push the Limit (3), Advanced Cloaking Device (4)
“Youngster” (19) TIE Fighter (15), Rage (1), Hull Upgrade (3)
Academy Pilot (12) x 3


This is a hit and run list. The idea is to spend one turn shooting, and the next turn re-positioning. Everybody gets stress, but everyone is fast with lots of greens too. There is a lot of accurate fire-power here. Fragile? You bet. But it should hit like a hammer.

What do you think?

24 minutes ago, BanthaFather said:

Ghosts and Decimators are literally all I face. I'm going to try a phantom w/ tie swarm this weekend.

The Young and Angry:

100 points

“Echo” (45) TIE Phantom (30), Gunner (5), Advanced Sensors (3), Push the Limit (3), Advanced Cloaking Device (4)
“Youngster” (19) TIE Fighter (15), Rage (1), Hull Upgrade (3)
Academy Pilot (12) x 3


This is a hit and run list. The idea is to spend one turn shooting, and the next turn re-positioning. Everybody gets stress, but everyone is fast with lots of greens too. There is a lot of accurate fire-power here. Fragile? You bet. But it should hit like a hammer.

What do you think?

Echo is your Beast, you need to keep her safe. I would personally suggest VetInst and sensor jammer, or FCS for more punch. If you go with the punch route, you may have enough to upgrade a Academy to a black/crack. Otherwise hang on to the bid for echo, with all the PS8's out there she will want it!

If you didn't already know, ACD will not activate if you are stressed. I assume that is why adavanced sensors to action before green move. As I have seen Echo flown, she really likes the 1speed hard turn.

Edited by JSwindy
13 minutes ago, JSwindy said:

If you didn't already know, ACD will not activate if you are stressed. I assume that is why adavanced sensors to action before green move. As I have seen Echo flown, she really likes the 1speed hard turn.

Whew, glad you caught that before I fielded it. Gonna take that advice:

The Young and Angry:

“Echo” (45) TIE Phantom (30), Gunner (5), Sensor Jammer (4), Veteran Instincts (1), Advanced Cloaking Device (4)
“Youngster” (19) TIE Fighter (15), Rage (1), Hull Upgrade (3)
Academy Pilot (12) x 3

I think the Rage on Youngster is actually pretty ingenious. I would've gone for Expose, personally, but Rage might work better thanks to tokens & rerolls (damage only sticks if you hit after all).

But, I don't think you'll be able to get off more than one pass, two at most.

38 minutes ago, Drakeheart said:

I think the Rage on Youngster is actually pretty ingenious. I would've gone for Expose, personally, but Rage might work better thanks to tokens & rerolls (damage only sticks if you hit after all).

But, I don't think you'll be able to get off more than one pass, two at most.

Hopefully that's about all I'll need. It's a gamble, I think, but if I fly well, Echo should be able to deal with whatever the TIEs leave behind.

Torps/Missiles beat Ghost/Biggs. I like to fly Scum with a Boba Fett crew to get rid of Ghost Title or TLT Turret. RAC Kylo is still a pain, but as long as you keep Dengar in arc, you can get rid of blinded pilot the same turn it's applied. I try and put a K4 crew with a torp plus EM on Dengar to A) get around Biggs or B) apply a big alpha strike as a return shot for Dengar. I use Unhinged droid to add another 3 green moves to increase my options for K4.

The usual wingmates for Dengar are Ketsu, Asajj, Bossk or Fenn. Each have their pros and cons.