Hello friends. Quick question here today.

Lieutennant Blount; pilot of a Z-95 headhunter, a ship I generally don't see played. My problem really, is his viability. His pilot ability seems useful for 2 main things: Clearing stealth devices, and ordnances. Since clearing stealth is already in there, let's talk about ordnances. Generally, you'd want to put a missile on him that has a secondary effect(if this attack hits). Ion Missiles and Assault Missiles come to mind. More pressing however, is his survivability. Blount, having a pilot skill of 6, only able to take 4 hits total, and only having 2 agility, can easily be focused down before he even gets a shot off. Ultimate question then: Is Blount viable without VI? Am I just missing something in there, or is he merely a decoy?

Theoretically, for the points I see him as viable. So long as you keep him cheaper than Biggs and you make sure his ordinance is fired at an opportune moment. So...either he draws fire early or he sets up an attack position with ion or splash damages all your opponents ships and then becomes an ace blocker. As a filler I like A's better, but he isn't useless. For example in formation flight he will likely draw the most attention at range 3 to try and take him off the board, with deadeye, either missile you mentioned and GC he could be useful.

1 hour ago, XxChocodotxX said:

Hello friends. Quick question here today.

Lieutennant Blount; pilot of a Z-95 headhunter, a ship I generally don't see played. My problem really, is his viability. His pilot ability seems useful for 2 main things: Clearing stealth devices, and ordnances. Since clearing stealth is already in there, let's talk about ordnances. Generally, you'd want to put a missile on him that has a secondary effect(if this attack hits). Ion Missiles and Assault Missiles come to mind. More pressing however, is his survivability. Blount, having a pilot skill of 6, only able to take 4 hits total, and only having 2 agility, can easily be focused down before he even gets a shot off. Ultimate question then: Is Blount viable without VI? Am I just missing something in there, or is he merely a decoy?

He fits under the category of certain ships I call "living missiles" they can't take much damage (think missile Awing) and are designed to deliver heir payload once and then annoy the heck out of the opponent as more or less expendable blockers/swarmers that do whatever damage they can and if thy draw off some fir than all the better. I usually bring these in from the flanks so they can get their shot off regardless without dying regardless of their PS

something like this for Blount:

What about Adaptability? You can reduce his PS so he can block better after he delivers the missile. Or, you could run him in some sort of a swarm list, nad give him Thread Tracers.

Give him deadeye so he always has a chance to get his shot off.

Fly him in the rear so anyone shooting him first has to do it at range 3 if using their primary guns.

Obviously Biggs keeps him alive. Otherwise Draw their fire can help or any upgrades that let you pass him an extra focus or evade for defense.

I've run kaato this way in my scum squad and he gets his missile off probably 90% or more of the time.

I've thought about giving him Tracers and giving everyone else TL, but have never put it on the table.

another good options is ion pulse missiles. 1 guaranteed damage, and 2 ion tokens. You could still run deadeye to get the shot off.

Blount - deadeye, ion pulse - 21 points.

It's only one shot, but he's a cheap ship that you can zoom in and hit at the right time to put an opponents ship in a bad spot.

He wants either VI or Deadeye for his EPT, for sure. Probably VI.

Using him to proc a massive missile barrage via Thread Tracers is certainly workable.

Advanced Homing Missiles and Ion Pulse Missiles are the other two obvious ones. Assault Missiles are good but not wroth bringing outside Epic IME.

I'd say Deadeye is probably more useful than VI on Blount. He doesn't have any repositioning actions, so high PS isn't going to help much once the ordnance has been launched. Taking the focus with Deadeye also means you're not telegraphing a target, or can change target if necessary.

I'd go

Blount - Deadeye, Missile of Choice, Guidance Chimps

Don't forget that Blount can also guarantee a critical hit through shields with Advanced Homing Missile. OK, Rebels don't have a ISYTDS equivalent (yet), but it's worth bearing in mind.

The real point is that VI makes him a lot less likely to get PS killed and a lot more likely to be able to get the right range band for AHM. And there's no need to give him chimps, so you could put VT on as well.

Realistically, caring what he does afterwards is probably unnecessary, for 20-odd points he can just be a fire-and-forget tool.

With Deadeye he doesn't need high PS to get TL, so that's a clear benefit. He might get PS-killed before delivering his package, however. Veteran's Instincts is a good attempt at solving both problems, but it only puts him up to 8, and there's plenty of things at PS 9 at which he'd like to fire his missile.

There are a few options to add some certainty to Blount's ability to deliver his missile. You could put Deadeye on Lt. Blount and use Roark Garnet to make Blount PS 12 during the combat phase, or use Swarm Tactics on a PS 9 or 10 ship (Tycho with VI and Swarm Tactics?). You don't need Deadeye if you can get him a TL from another source like Squad Leader, Targeting Synchronizer, Shara Bey, Dutch Vander, Lando, Airen Cracken, or Ahsoka Tano.