Anybody concerned about this build?

[ REBEL FLEET (381 points)
1 • Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette - General Rieekan - Task Force Antilles (69)
2 • Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette - Task Force Antilles (39)
3 • Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette - Task Force Antilles (39)
4 • Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette - Task Force Antilles (39)
5 • Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette - Task Force Antilles (39)
6 • Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette - Task Force Antilles (39)
7 • Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette - Task Force Antilles (39)
8 • Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette - Task Force Antilles (39)
9 • Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette - Task Force Antilles (39)

Since the Hammerhead was announced I've been trying to think of whether there's any real answer to this. It's just 45 hull points spreading a lot of damage around, with zombie powers. 9 activations, and you can choose to go second and have a good set of objectives they can't farm.

Ideas from anyone? I know it'd be annoying to try to fly, with a lot of ships getting in each others' way and such, and maybe a Konstantine Interdictor fleet could cause it to ram itself to death, but in general it's just a lot of ram to consider, and K-Int fleets aren't really otherwise competitive.

Gunnery Team ISD should be able to kill 2 a turn.

5 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Gunnery Team ISD should be able to kill 2 a turn.

This is pretty much the best ship answer, really. A mean ship with Gunnery Team can get a lot of pain thrown out there, often overwhelming the damage spread due to the blob of Hammerheads needing to stay so close, thus at least evening out the Antilles benefit to the Hammerhead player with an easy-to-use Gunnery Team benefit to the opposing player.

Bomber fleets when flown competently should do okay too. Focusing fire against one point of the Hammerhead blob limits the ability of the Hammerheads to spread damage or to meaningfully flak back. With only one redirect and not many shields those bomber attacks add up. It would largely come down to how effectively the Hammerheads were at chasing down the carrier ships.

I've also found that competently flown small-base ships at speed 3 can avoid a lot of the killing fire from a Gunnery Team ISD-II. Even if they charged straight in (which would be silly), they're going to kill that ISD too- and ISDs aren't super popular in the meta right now due to their nature as giant targets.

2 minutes ago, Duk3 said:

I've also found that competently flown small-base ships at speed 3 can avoid a lot of the killing fire from a Gunnery Team ISD-II.

A single ship absolutely. No disagreement there.

A mob of 9 ships with an upgrade that only works if they're fairly close to one another? I'm much more skeptical that they can all avoid a Gunnery Team slap-down.

Two ISD1s. Gunnery team, OEs, XI7s. Burn baby burn. ?

Fair, but it's got some versatility- if you're heading in against an ISD-II with GT, you can leave them in a giant cluster to allow you to spread off up to 8 damage from a shot. Pair that with their evade and redirect and Rieekan and you let one get popped, shunt some damage around for the second, and then at speed 3 your fleet is in black range of the ISD next turn, or this turn if it's coming toward you.

Just now, Destraa said:

Two ISD1s. Gunnery team, OEs, XI7s. Burn baby burn. ?

Maaaaan, I wish two ISD-Is with that loadout was competitive. As a specific counter to the Hammerswarm, yeah it'd probably work OK. And you'd certainly get to finally blast the crap out of some rebels!

24 minutes ago, Destraa said:

Two ISD1s. Gunnery team, OEs, XI7s. Burn baby burn. ?

You can't have Gunnery Teams and OEs on the same unit, both are weapons Teams.

29 minutes ago, Destraa said:

Two ISD1s. Gunnery team, OEs, XI7s. Burn baby burn. ?

XI7s are pretty much a waste in this instance. Unless shooting at the side they weren't going to redirect more than one point anyways.

Gunnery Teams and Leading Shots seems a better way to go.

6x APT Raiders. Bypass the Task Force and just deal all the crits forever from behind. Add Motti for minor survival boosts, or even Jerjerrod if you want to really go pulling handbrake turns into the maelstrom.

5x40= $200 + tax at retail.

I found the counter.

32 minutes ago, Alzer said:

You can't have Gunnery Teams and OEs on the same unit, both are weapons Teams.

You can using two different ISDs. One to lay the double front arc to lay into the formation, the other to lay reroll fire. All you need is a comms net gozanti feeding CF tokens to the GT ISD.

55 minutes ago, Duk3 said:

Maaaaan, I wish two ISD-Is with that loadout was competitive. As a specific counter to the Hammerswarm, yeah it'd probably work OK. And you'd certainly get to finally blast the crap out of some rebels!

I run a pair of OE/XI7 ISD1s regularly, if anyone tells you it isn't competitive, they clearly don't know how to properly command and support them. Ask @Darth Lupine what I can do with them sometime.

i wonder how many points of free damage i would get from them ramming each other trying to stay in distance 3 for the title?

20 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

5x40= $200 + tax at retail.

I found the counter.

Borrow from a friend = priceless

14 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

Borrow from a friend = priceless

Look, if you wanna say you are gonna find a way to field them, go ahead.

But don't you sit there and lie to me about having friends!

7 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

Look, if yoy wanna say you are gonna find a way to field them, go ahead.

But don't you sit there and lie to me about having friends!

If we're playing anecdotal evidence, we have a kid in our meta who's switching from Imperials to Rebels specifically to use a bunch of Hammerheads. I'm gonna have to learn to navigate around a lot of them, haha.

2 x ISD 1 with OEs + X17 cost 240 points. & 3x gozantis & ozel, 329 points. Add squadrons. Presto. "If you wanna play large ships, spam flotillas and it's doable".

3 hours ago, TerrorScream said:

i wonder how many points of free damage i would get from them ramming each other trying to stay in distance 3 for the title?

If they have any idea what they're doing? None. I've flown a 9 activation, speed 3-4 list in CC. I almost NEVER ram myself. The first few games have a learning curve, and if you try not spamming navs you can get into trouble, but it doesn't take too long to get the hang of it.

The same counter to a cr90b ramvette list now i would believe

27 minutes ago, Admiral Theia said:

If they have any idea what they're doing? None. I've flown a 9 activation, speed 3-4 list in CC. I almost NEVER ram myself. The first few games have a learning curve, and if you try not spamming navs you can get into trouble, but it doesn't take too long to get the hang of it.

Not to disparage your skill (which you have in spades beyond me - based on my albeit distant observations) - but one key difference is the Title - or rather, the intention of using the title...

Did you specfically practice keeping a tight formation, or were you able to nav all over the place? because I feel that's a key difference... (Because I've ran the full Cracken Fleet in CC as well, and I certainly had no intention of keeping things that tight, so I had no problems...)

I think 3 raiders and two gozantis and a heavy Rhymer ball would give it a run for its money. Or an interdictor with a g8 to make them all run into each other

What are you guys talking about. its 9 squadrons of course.

Any list with 134 points in squadrons will have a nice run against the list.

And especially Sloane will like to fly against these.

Every single fleet is a counter. How are the hammerheads going to deal damage?