Kestal is a total ace-killer missile boat in my opinion. I'm going to fly her with two copies of Cruise Missiles and Deadeye with Guidance Chips. I don't actually love the idea of a turret on her because it makes her too easy of a target. As it is, the build I just suggested is only 29 points, so you can easily fit two Defenders or other crazy ace shenanigans in there, making her less obvious of a target. After that initial volley, she's still basically a TIE fighter with endless Crackshot, so she'll still be useful. I suppose you could add the TLT, but at that point you've got 35 points on a ship with relatively low health and agility. You could ditch the Chips for LWF, but then your alpha strike is more random. But yeah, I'm gonna go with missiles on Kestal!

1 minute ago, Kieransi said:

Kestal is a total ace-killer missile boat in my opinion. I'm going to fly her with two copies of Cruise Missiles and Deadeye with Guidance Chips. I don't actually love the idea of a turret on her because it makes her too easy of a target. As it is, the build I just suggested is only 29 points, so you can easily fit two Defenders or other crazy ace shenanigans in there, making her less obvious of a target. After that initial volley, she's still basically a TIE fighter with endless Crackshot, so she'll still be useful. I suppose you could add the TLT, but at that point you've got 35 points on a ship with relatively low health and agility. You could ditch the Chips for LWF, but then your alpha strike is more random. But yeah, I'm gonna go with missiles on Kestal!

If you are running Deadeye Kestal, throw a Synced Turret on there if you can find 4 points. You get rerolls + focus token in-arc range 1-2 (so no AT already), or can attack and shut down AT+more at range 1-2 out-of-arc with the pilot skill.

wish I could be excited for deadeye, synched + cruise ketsal but the poor girl is so squish

maybe hux? don't like the idea of tossing in so many points for support though.

Do the maths on Kestals ability with TLT. It's poor at dealing incremental damage you wouldn't have already dealt by just focusing up more hits.

7 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Do the maths on Kestals ability with TLT. It's poor at dealing incremental damage you wouldn't have already dealt by just focusing up more hits.

Unless you didn't roll any focus results, which means that you can now cancel out any possible defensive focus or blanks.

Its an extension of using focus tokens offensively.

21 minutes ago, kris40k said:

Unless you didn't roll any focus results, which means that you can now cancel out any possible defensive focus or blanks.

Its an extension of using focus tokens offensively.

And it's your second attack and know you won't need the focus for defence.

Look, I'm not saying the ability is blank, but I AM saying that it's way worse than I think ppl are assuming, especially on TLT.

Against Fenn, for example, it's a 72% chance ineffective if you rolled 1 hit, 40%+ chance ineffective if you rolled 2 hits (i.e. He'll just dodge the shot anyway).

synched + cruise ketsal but the poor girl is so squish

So put something else in your list that your opponent straight up cannot ignore if they want to win. You can run her behind an Upsilon with tactical jammer. You can indeed spend the points on the utterly great Hux crew and give her most of the action economy she needs, while also buffing your Upsilon and another ship to boot. I am continually amazed at the number of nominally Imperial players who don't understand what their own faction is capable of (not you specifically fickle). Expertise is another good if expensive upgrade for her.

I am also continually amazed at the people who call the Aggressor dial bad. It's the best turret-ship dial in the game, with native BR. The ship is going to be much trickier to nail down than a Y-wing is. I don't know if it's going to be top tier, but I sure as hell am going to be trying it out.

27 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

And it's your second attack and know you won't need the focus for defence.

Look, I'm not saying the ability is blank, but I AM saying that it's way worse than I think ppl are assuming, especially on TLT.

Against Fenn, for example, it's a 72% chance ineffective if you rolled 1 hit, 40%+ chance ineffective if you rolled 2 hits (i.e. He'll just dodge the shot anyway).

How are you working out that on Fenn? If you are using a TLT, you are not at range 1, so his pilot ability doesn't add in any defense dice, nor title. If you are talking about using Kestrels Kestal's ability, that means getting 2 Evades on 3 naked greens since no ability to Focus, AT or reroll blanks.

32 minutes ago, DarkArk said:

I am continually amazed at the number of nominally Imperial players who don't understand what their own faction is capable of (not you specifically fickle).

It's not that we don't understand, it's that we don't understand why we'd bother, when it's not cost effective/not likely to survive an encounter with half of the Scum meta.

As a faction that solely relied on the Palp crutch, we're now paying for it with expensive combos to back fragile platforms.

Sure, it can work. But not as often as Rau Boats. Or Jumpmasters in general. Or ye mighty Dengar.

Or, god forbid we counter those, we've now likely wasted too many points to actually, reasonably deal with K-Wing SLAMing bombers, backed by Sabine.

Imps have to play to their strengths. Which, in the current meta, are rather sparse. Costly combos don't really cut it on the regular. It's why the SF is such a standout - the ship is a pretty complete package, no fuss necessary, and it can actually throw out some hurt, instead of just trying to survive and tire your opponents out (looking at you, Soontir, Inquisitor, Omega Leader, etc...).

The Aggressor isn't our messiah. I'm getting a good feeling from Cruise Missiles, but that might just be my love of 5 speed maneuvers showing through...

You can make a self sufficient gressor, just ketsal's ability and cost doesnt lend itself well to that sorta build

Will run tlt lw lwf double edge with the named sf.Should at least be fun

Also people need to play x7s more, theyre still great

3 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

You can make a self sufficient gressor, just ketsal's ability and cost doesnt lend itself well to that sorta build

Will run tlt lw lwf double edge with the named sf.Should at least be fun

Also people need to play x7s more, theyre still great

I truly hope "gressor" never catches on.

15 minutes ago, ArbitraryNerd said:

I truly hope "gressor" never catches on.

It is unavoidable...

It is your GRESTINY

10 hours ago, kris40k said:

How are you working out that on Fenn? If you are using a TLT, you are not at range 1, so his pilot ability doesn't add in any defense dice, nor title. If you are talking about using Kestrels Kestal's ability, that means getting 2 Evades on 3 naked greens since no ability to Focus, AT or reroll blanks.

I recalced it as I'd not done it properly, it's 33% chance of ineffective if you roll 2 hits.

• If you have 1 hit and use Kestal's ability there's a 76% Fenn rolls 1 evade on 3 dice with no mods.
• If you have 2 hits and use Kestal's ability there's a 33% Fenn rolls 2 evades on 3 dice with no mods.

And if you use Kestal to stop him modding one TLT shot he's still got those mods on the other shot so the upside in the damage you pushed through with the ability may yet come back on the other shot.

His ability is not very good.

57 minutes ago, SOTL said:

I recalced it as I'd not done it properly, it's 33% chance of ineffective if you roll 2 hits.

• If you have 1 hit and use Kestal's ability there's a 76% Fenn rolls 1 evade on 3 dice with no mods.
• If you have 2 hits and use Kestal's ability there's a 33% Fenn rolls 2 evades on 3 dice with no mods.

And if you use Kestal to stop him modding one TLT shot he's still got those mods on the other shot so the upside in the damage you pushed through with the ability may yet come back on the other shot.

His ability is not very good.

That's why you shoot with Homing Missiles and Crackshot.

"ROLL NATURAL 2-3 EVADES OR YOU DIE."

Kestal's ability makes a lot more sense when your attacks are more painful. As I've said TLT is all sorts of awful for her ability.

On 10.07.2017 at 4:40 AM, Innese said:

I expect that most TIE/Agg lists will consist of 4 of them running TLT alongside LWF.

If you want to run quad TLT, go with Y-Wings, they do it better.

I look at the AG and struggle to see what value or point of difference it brings to an Imp list. It seems like the devs have just gone: "Here Imps you can have TLT's now so stop your complaining".

20 minutes ago, Deffly said:

I look at the AG and struggle to see what value or point of difference it brings to an Imp list. It seems like the devs have just gone: "Here Imps you can have TLT 's now so stop your complaining".

JM5Ks have a pretty serious vulnerability to TLTs - so throwing 2 or so in an Imperial list allows them to get back into the meta as a faction.

4 minutes ago, Astech said:

JM5Ks have a pretty serious vulnerability to TLTs - so throwing 2 or so in an Imperial list allows them to get back into the meta as a faction.

Your aim is to stay at range 2-3 of them and most JM5K's are torp boats, so you are in their optimal range too. Throwing two of them in is a minimum of 46 points (at PS point lower than scouts), or if you want to out PS them you are looking at minimum 50 points. And that is without LWF too.

They just seem to be an awkward ship, at an awkward price point with named pilots who's special abilities are... awkward.

honestly, Double Edge's ability is just fine

because even if you never use it, he's still basically a generic with an ept slot

The EPT slots on the two named Aggressors are far more important than their pilot abilities.

Theres no doubt TLT is really bad on Kestal, people that want to put that on her are wasting their time. Its not even worth getting a PS9 TLT, thats 29pts minimum for effectively an abilityless PS9 TLT w/ a barrelroll and 2agi 5hp.

literally any other turret her ability is awesome and thats the point. TLT isnt the only turret, its just the easiest due to having range3.

5 hours ago, SOTL said:

I recalced it as I'd not done it properly, it's 33% chance of ineffective if you roll 2 hits.

• If you have 1 hit and use Kestal's ability there's a 76% Fenn rolls 1 evade on 3 dice with no mods.
• If you have 2 hits and use Kestal's ability there's a 33% Fenn rolls 2 evades on 3 dice with no mods.

And if you use Kestal to stop him modding one TLT shot he's still got those mods on the other shot so the upside in the damage you pushed through with the ability may yet come back on the other shot.

His ability is not very good.

No offense meant by this, but again, how are you coming up with these numbers?

I've got:

3/8 chance to roll a natural evade on a die, that's 0.375
Probability of roll a natural evade on one die and/or the other A∪B, 0.609375
The probability of rolling a natural evade on one die and rolling a natural evade on one or both others A∩B is 0.2285... or 22.9% of him evading

Without Kestrals Kestal's ability and Fenn has his typical mindlink'ed focus token and AT:

5/8 chance of rolling a focus or evade result on a die, that 0.625
Either one of two dice coming up a evade or focus is 0.859...
8/8 chance of rolling a focus, evade, or blank (thanks AT!) on a die.
A∩B is 0.859

23% probability of him evading two hits with Kestal's ability vs 86% of him evading two hits without Kestal's ability.

While I agree that putting a harder hitting attack is more important than a TLT, I think you are seriously underestimating the effect of the pilot ability.

Heck, if anything, put an ion turret on Kestal and have someone rip Fenn apart next turn at range 2 in arc as he drifts forward helpless.

15 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

And it's your second attack and know you won't need the focus for defence.

Look, I'm not saying the ability is blank, but I AM saying that it's way worse than I think ppl are assuming, especially on TLT.

Against Fenn, for example, it's a 72% chance ineffective if you rolled 1 hit, 40%+ chance ineffective if you rolled 2 hits (i.e. He'll just dodge the shot anyway).

5 hours ago, SOTL said:

I recalced it as I'd not done it properly, it's 33% chance of ineffective if you roll 2 hits.

• If you have 1 hit and use Kestal's ability there's a 76% Fenn rolls 1 evade on 3 dice with no mods.
• If you have 2 hits and use Kestal's ability there's a 33% Fenn rolls 2 evades on 3 dice with no mods.

And if you use Kestal to stop him modding one TLT shot he's still got those mods on the other shot so the upside in the damage you pushed through with the ability may yet come back on the other shot.

His ability is not very good.

Do you actually have two accounts? If so... why?

Kestal with VI, Ion Cannon, LWF, and Cruise. 33 pts

Stridan, FCS, Hux. 39 pts

"Double Edge" VI, unguided rockets, ion cannon. 27 pts

Hux garuntee's the ion cannon shot hits. walk someone off of the board.