I know the forums are practically on fire with how annoying ISYTDS is to play against, but I'm a slowpoke and didn't get into the conversation, but I finally got enough time off of work and life to get a couple of games in against a friend of mine.

I ran Whisper with V.I, ACD, FCS, and Agent Kallus, and RAC with V.I, Palp and Kylo Ren with a 1 point initiative bid.

And, oh my goodness, I have been shown the dark side, and it is terrifying and beautiful.

RAC firing at PS 10 against Rey, I use Palp to guarantee a critical, and I roll something like 2 hits and a critical or 2 crits and a hit. Either way, the crit snuck through. What had I chosen? Blinded Pilot, and that crit prevented Rey from shooting at Whisper who was range 1 in arc. After that she just went down in flames.

I can definitely see why Kylo Ren is so hated right now (other than the obvious temper tantrums from the movie), although the first game we played my friend ran 4-5 rebel ships and nearly killed Chiraneu, so lots of ships keeps Kylo Ren from being super effective.

I've only flown him twice now, but my friend was visibly annoyed with how ISYTDS works, and Rey practically didn't do anything the whole match.

PS 10 RAC is definitely the most annoying way to use him. I think he's good for the game because he preys on 2 ship lists. This allows him to act as a cyclical balancing mechanism against a certain list type. Plus it makes swarms more appealing.

3 minutes ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

PS 10 RAC is definitely the most annoying way to use him. I think he's good for the game because he preys on 2 ship lists. This allows him to act as a cyclical balancing mechanism against a certain list type. Plus it makes swarms more appealing.

Swarms would definitely tear this list apart, I could maybe get rid of 1-2 ships before they just eat RAC alive, but with Parattani and small amounts of ships being the meta right now I think it'll do alright.

This was also my first time playing with Ren, so obviously I was like "Uh...blinded pilot sounds pretty good." But up against something like Fenn Rau or Dengar, I might opt for the PS 0 card instead.

I flew Kylo (Upsilon shuttle pilot) in a recent store championship and I definitely took blinded pilot the first two times he triggered in almost every match. If you can shut down your opponent's damage output in the initial pass it really makes them fight an up hill battle the entire game.

It may just be the area I'm in, but I've only flown against a RAC w/ Kylo once, and it was in a store championship a few weeks back. Good flying on my part had it so where my ships were always separated from from RAC by a rock, usually at range 3... Save for when I got in for the killing blow. Mux dropped him to PS 0, and then Sunny Bounder, range 1, rolled 3 hits into 4 with her ability to finish RAC off... It was beautiful. The condition had sat on Sunny nearly the entire game, never getting procced.

4 minutes ago, Innese said:

It may just be the area I'm in, but I've only flown against a RAC w/ Kylo once, and it was in a store championship a few weeks back. Good flying on my part had it so where my ships were always separated from from RAC by a rock, usually at range 3... Save for when I got in for the killing blow. Mux dropped him to PS 0, and then Sunny Bounder, range 1, rolled 3 hits into 4 with her ability to finish RAC off... It was beautiful. The condition had sat on Sunny nearly the entire game, never getting procced.

depends on the meta, the RAC you faced didnt use Palp for R3 crit. For me 3 ship Link is more prevalent so I run Gunner/Captive in place of Palp (since most people will have to shoot RAC anyway)

1 hour ago, spacelion said:

depends on the meta, the RAC you faced didnt use Palp for R3 crit. For me 3 ship Link is more prevalent so I run Gunner/Captive in place of Palp (since most people will have to shoot RAC anyway)

I know Vader doesn't trigger Kylo Ren outside of the movie, but once I playtest it again I might swap Palpatine for a Gunner/Vader combo, just to utterly demolish Fenn Rau and other aces, and Kylo Ren the other threats.

Whisper is probably my favorite wingman for the Kylomator, 4 dice usually with rerolls is a pretty good chance of getting at least 1 crit, and if I'm feeling lucky (or unlucky) Palp a critical just to make sure. And even with the cloaking change of whatever-year-it-was Phantoms are still hard to pin down, plus you could always forgo the Blinded Pilot crit and instead smack a Damaged Cockpit onto the biggest threat and laugh maniacally as they try to pin you down.

Most versions I've see have Pred instead of VI, since you can just ps0 something higher. Unless you're worried about the mirror.

Blinded better than PS0.

2 hours ago, MegaSilver said:

Most versions I've see have Pred instead of VI, since you can just ps0 something higher. Unless you're worried about the mirror.

There's definitely pros to using Predator over V.I, such as being able to actually mod your dice outside of the one focus result after using Kylo Ren.

I've flown Phantoms for forever, so "PS is King" is engraved into my mind, so the first thing I look at when building a list is "Can I kill a ship before it fires?" Something I noticed in the two games I played was he would spend as many tokens as he could to avoid the blinded pilot or PS 0.

2 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Blinded better than PS0.

Generally, yes, but having a Phantom as the wingman can change that. Making anything that would shoot before the Phantom shoot after the Phantom is a pretty big deal.

6 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Blinded better than PS0.

True, but there are only 2 copies of it in the deck, so if for WHATEVER reason Dengar/Fenn Rau/whatever PS 9+ pilot survives the onslaught from Kylomator, in my list's case it may be more beneficial to make them PS 0 so that I don't have to worry about them shooting my phantom before it can cloak.

Or if I were running the predator version instead I could keep Whisper cloaked and somewhat out of the fight and just have Chiraneu go nuts to get the big threat down to PS 0 so that Whisper can plague them for the rest of the game.

It's a lot easier to kill an ace when they move first and shoot last, for they become predictable.

9 minutes ago, DR4CO said:

Generally, yes, but having a Phantom as the wingman can change that. Making anything that would shoot before the Phantom shoot after the Phantom is a pretty big deal.

Also my stepson plays Quickdraw + Doom RAClo with Proton Bombs and he makes Dengars and such PS0 so he knows when to bomb them...

Err..... no.

Blinded is still better than PS0. You just follow up with PS0 if your first two Blindeds don't happen.

1 minute ago, Blail Blerg said:

Err..... no.

Blinded is still better than PS0. You just follow up with PS0 if your first two Blindeds don't happen.

If I can shoot first then yeah.

But people looooooove making PS 9 pilots PS 11, so Whisper would have a much harder time lining up the shot.

On the first shot, making them PS 0, would make it much easier for Whisper to do what she does best, and after the PS 0 card is dealt I can start blinding them.

I agree that in most cases Blinded is better, especially against something like turrets or alpha strike lists, but for my poor little phantom who just looks at a laser and explodes, I may deal the damaged cockpit if it suits me best.

Also keep in mind I've only flown the list twice, so I'm sure to make modifications to the list/strategy as I fly it more ?

When I fly Kylo, I fly him similar to the following:

Rear Admiral Chiraneau (63)
VT-49 Decimator (46), Predator (3), Kylo Ren (3), Gunner (5), Hotshot Co-pilot (4), Dauntless (2)

“Wampa” (14)

Lieutenant Colzet (23)
TIE Advanced (23), TIE/x1 (0), Sensor Jammer (0)

Totalling 100 pts.

Chiraneau is pretty standard - shoot to miss on one target to strip focus, then push a kylo crit through on another. I normally get him to bump an opposing ship to decrease the fire coming at him.

Wampa is a generic distraction that helps a great deal against certain aces.

Colzet is the real key to the list. Say I'm facing Dengaroo at the height of its power. I push a single crit through on Dengar to blind him. Then I ignore him and go after Manaroo. Colzet keeps flipping Blinded pilot up on Dengar until Manaroo is dead, then Dengar gets PS 0'd.

I really want to try DeciKylo + colzet to perma-blind one ship for the whole game. First I need a Batwing, though.

(Like what astech said ^.)

There's so much Dengar near me that I'm going straight to RAC Kylo Decimator, with both ships either at PS10 or PS9 with 97 bid. I need to be able to control moving/shooting order to avoid Dengar's wrath.

• Rear Admiral Chiraneau - Adaptability, Kylo Ren, Rebel Captive, Gunner, Engine Upgrade (61)
• Darth Vader - Lone Wolf, TIE/x1, Advanced Targeting Computer, Engine Upgrade (36)

OR

• Rear Admiral Chiraneau - Veteran Instincts, Kylo Ren, Rebel Captive, Gunner, Engine Upgrade (62)
• Rexler Brath - Veteran Instincts, TIE/x7, Twin Ion Engine MkII (37)

1 minute ago, SOTL said:

There's so much Dengar near me that I'm going straight to RAC Kylo Decimator, with both ships either at PS10 or PS9 with 97 bid .

So will you just have Kylo Crew flying his card around the board? Are there rules against this! X-wing is broken!!

2 hours ago, Astech said:

When I fly Kylo, I fly him similar to the following:

Rear Admiral Chiraneau (63)
VT-49 Decimator (46), Predator (3), Kylo Ren (3), Gunner (5), Hotshot Co-pilot (4), Dauntless (2)

“Wampa” (14)

Lieutenant Colzet (23)
TIE Advanced (23), TIE/x1 (0), Sensor Jammer (0)

Totalling 100 pts.

Chiraneau is pretty standard - shoot to miss on one target to strip focus, then push a kylo crit through on another. I normally get him to bump an opposing ship to decrease the fire coming at him.

Wampa is a generic distraction that helps a great deal against certain aces.

Colzet is the real key to the list. Say I'm facing Dengaroo at the height of its power. I push a single crit through on Dengar to blind him. Then I ignore him and go after Manaroo. Colzet keeps flipping Blinded pilot up on Dengar until Manaroo is dead, then Dengar gets PS 0'd.

I've thought about something like this, but with FCS on Colzet. Last years store champs ran Colzet Wampa Vader and a Palp shuttle and man it was annoying as hell to people.

27 minutes ago, SkyWarp said:

I've thought about something like this, but with FCS on Colzet . Last years store champs ran Colzet Wampa Vader and a Palp shuttle and man it was annoying as hell to people.

I've tried FCS on colzet in the above list, but he really doesn't need the action economy. He has one use, really, and sensor jammer synergises so well with HotCop.

6 minutes ago, Astech said:

I've tried FCS on colzet in the above list, but he really doesn't need the action economy. He has one use, really, and sensor jammer synergises so well with HotCop.

I feel like if you run the maths on that you're better with FCS and a focus action than sensor jammer and a TL action. It'll be close, though.

Edit: Ive run it and SJ is slightly better than focus, assuming they don't have any other dice modification. It's worse than just taking an evade action though.

2 minutes ago, SOTL said:

I feel like if you run the maths on that you're better with FCS and a focus action than sensor jammer and a TL action. It'll be close, though.

If you take a focus action it's pretty much 6/8 or an evade. The evade action is, obviously, 1 evade. Sensor Jammer is, provided a single ship attacks colzet wthout a focus, is essentially 1 evade. If the opponent focuses fire on him it gets way better than any action, and still lets him target lock for his attack.

FCS is also an unreliable way to maintain a target lock on, say, Miranda.

12 minutes ago, Astech said:

Sensor Jammer is, provided a single ship attacks colzet wthout a focus, is essentially 1 evade.

FCS is also an unreliable way to maintain a target lock on, say, Miranda.

Unless they've got any rerolls, in which case it's half an evade. Or Expertise, when it's zero of an evade.