I am going to a tournament on the weekend with a fairly standard meta. However, I have been trying SOTL's swarm list from a little while ago with my more casual group and it's been a blast (SOTL called it the Slaughter House). Anyway, I haven't heard much on it, or similar builds, for a while and was wondering if these types of builds are still reasonable to take to a tournament or should I just stick to playing it in a less competitive setting.

The list is as follows:

TIE/fo Fighter: · "Omega Leader" (21)
Juke (2)
Comm Relay (3)
TIE/fo Fighter: · "Zeta Leader" (20)
Crack Shot (1)
TIE Fighter: · "Scourge" (17)
Crack Shot (1)
TIE Fighter: · "Howlrunner" (18)
Crack Shot (1)
TIE Fighter: · "Youngster" (15)
Crack Shot (1)
-- TOTAL ------- 100/100p. --

Thanks for the help.

I fully believe its still viable. We had a backdraft,OL,ZetaLeader,Epsilon list go 4-1 at store champs with highest mov. Slaughterhouse can do it I believe if you know the list well enough.

I think it'll struggle to punch through defensive stackers, more so once the Aussie Truck comes out.

Defensive token stackers shouldn't be an issue. There's a lot of firepower (and Crack Shot and Omega Leader), it was able to punch through all of Soontir/Palp or Dengaroo's defences back in the day - about the only swarm setup that could.

I dropped the list for two main reasons. Firstly you couldn't outjoust the Ryad/Vessery Defenders - you'd wing them on the first pass but their k-turns mean they're on top from that point forwards, secondly the high-PS ordnance lists (like Dengar/Tel) were always my nemesis and they became more popular. I dug it out again earlier this year, first game was against Ketsu & Dengar at PS9 and I got 0-100 tabled, put them away again.

Fundamentally the list is still very solid and it was a lot of fun to play, just poorly positioned for the modern metagame. I think it has a gaping hole against a popular list archetype but if you're not going to meet that then I'm just delighted somebody is going to give it a try.

Slaughterhouse was WAY too good for me to have been the only person playing it.

Can't Reinforce if you get blocked. Incorporating a blocker in the list could be useful. ;-)

You can still crack shot the evade result from a reinforce token, too.

Youngster might as well be a black squadron pilot since his ability doesn't pair with crack shot - saves a point (giving you an initiative bid) and lets him act as a blocker for PS5+.

But if they get 3 evades (reinforce, Jyn/Jan evade, 3PO) and a focus token, you're going to struggle. That's the sort of level of unkillable that we're talking with Biggs walking Wookiees. It's not just reinforce, it's reliably getting two or three evades on every single attack with 9hp, Draw their Fire, Selflessness, potentially regen, etc etc.

Landing even one damage will be difficult, let alone the 23 minimum you need to kill Biggs and two Aussie Trucks.

11 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

reliably getting two or three evades on every single attack

Eh?

Maybe a touch exaggerated, for which apologies. But equally, if you're expecting to get more than 3 guns on the same target every round you're probably expecting more than you're going to get against a skilled opponent. Reinforce plus evade token, C3PO, and at least one focus token will be averaging at least 2 evades per attack for the first 3 attacks each round - and sure, you can crack your way through that. Once. For one round of attacks, against one ship, if you get good enough reds for the crack shots to be meaningful.

Most of your attacks will only have two dice with focus, howl if she's not dead already. You're averaging 1.75ish good results per attack, once you're out of Crack, you stop making a dent, and even on a perfect joust, with crack, you still have only about evens to kill a 9HP reinforced ship.

Not to mention that as you've noted, high PS alpha strikes kill this list pretty much stone dead. Popping TIEs with 4 to 5 dice with focus/TL or equivalent is easy.

Plus, if you end up one on one, you very easily end up unable to ever do any meaningful damage at all to a whole mess of opposing tanky and/or regen ships, not least Corran, Norra, Miranda, but also C3PO Aussie Trucks, a well flown Assaj/Latts crew, with anyone except OL, and he's going to be target number one (maybe two, after Howl) for lists like that.

I struggle to believe that this is going to be amazing in a meta where swarms are basically nonexistent.

I think you're underestimating the squad generally - it was pretty much the premier jousting list of summer 2016, hitting harder and earlier than anything else and removing even large ships before they fire (I was odds on to kill a fully tokened Brobot at R2). It's why the likes of DenTel are a specific problem, they hit hard and earlier.

Im pretty sure Biggs would go down before he can fire in most circumstances as he's 2 less health than a Brobot and 1 less green dice. The Lowhhrick token gives you some of that back but not enough.

I don't think this list is amazing in the current meta, but it's not the defensive lists that scare it, it's the offensive lists. Biggs is a nothing even with his tricks, but Fenn is a serious problem.

Possibly - theory test:

For the sake of not being bothered to write a squad myself, let's look at @Tbetts94 's Rebel Junkyard 2.0 , which is just down-forum from here.

Quote

Lowhhrick (33) - Auzituck Gunship
Selflessness (1), Rey (2), Tactician (2)

Biggs Darklighter (26) - X-Wing
R4-D6 (1), Integrated Astromech (0)

Jess Pava (27) - T-70 X-Wing
R3-A2 (2), Integrated Astromech (0)

Captain Rex (14) - TIE Fighter

• The opening joust won't be against an Auzituck, it'll be against Biggs.
• Lowhhrick can throw one extra evade into a defence roll once, and take all the uncancelled damage once.
• Omega Leader + Howlrunner + Zeta Leader should hurt biggs, but if his shields hold (plus selflessness) you won't get scourge's extra attack die.
• Ultimately, you've got depressingly good odds of not killing biggs on the opening pass. He should be on fire, but if he's still alive at all, you've got problems, because now you're finishing him off after taking casualties and with someone under Suppressing fire.
• Once it gets into K-turning fights, your formation's going to come apart because Zeta Leader will be stressed from his ability and one or two other pilot will be stressed from R3-A2/Tactician
• Granted, the Auzituck can't K-turn either (its biggest weakness) and Jess is probably stressed too, so it's going to turn into a mess.

I'm not saying the TIE swarm won't work, but I accept that the Crack Shot TIE swarm may now be facing (from its perspective) a bit of an immovable object.

I'm wondering if a Snap Shot based swarm might be worth a thought; Both Scourge and Mauler Mithel potentially work very well indeed with Snap Shot. Howlrunner doesn't, but makes a useful third ship in a trio of tie fighters wanting to get to close range and trade shots. I'm not sure what else you'd want, though. I saw a recommendation on pairing TIE fighters with an Operations Specialist - evade as your action then focus up using 'free' tokens - and that might work very nicely with snap shots.

I wonder if the three TIE Fighter amigos and Rhymer might make a nicely effective snap shot group?

List is a pretty high variance list. If your dice are hot, you're going to have a good time. If they're not, you can lose any of these ships to single attacks present in multiple meta staples (not being helped by the upcoming Cruise Missiles!).

Also, anyone able to use THIS list to trounce Biggs as easily as SOTL is suggesting is playing against an inexperienced (or just bad/unlucky) Biggs player. The goal in that list is to screw with your targeting priority, by making some shots go to Biggs, not all. You throw a max of 11 dice outside of range one, and that's assuming Scourge has been triggered. You shouldn't, vs a competent Biggs player, be able to assign enough dice to kill a single ship on the first pass. After that, things get uglier for the list, because maintaining those arcs is difficult. Not impossible, but it's definitely a skill list at that point.

And, yeah, excessive, up-front offense, which is where the meta is going (opinion), gives this list a bad time. Defenders and Dengar give the list a bad time. "Nimble" Rebel Regen (Poe, Miranda, Corran if you ever see him) gives the list a bad time.

It eats some lists alive, I'm sure, but I don't think those are the lists you're seeing as often as you'd like right now.

... Unless you're running against my Deci/QD list, I'd still be pretty sad to see this across the table, hah.

6 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

I think you're underestimating the squad generally - it was pretty much the premier jousting list of summer 2016, hitting harder and earlier than anything else and removing even large ships before they fire (I was odds on to kill a fully tokened Brobot at R2). It's why the likes of DenTel are a specific problem, they hit hard and earlier.

Im pretty sure Biggs would go down before he can fire in most circumstances as he's 2 less health than a Brobot and 1 less green dice. The Lowhhrick token gives you some of that back but not enough.

I don't think this list is amazing in the current meta, but it's not the defensive lists that scare it, it's the offensive lists. Biggs is a nothing even with his tricks, but Fenn is a serious problem.

What about Biggs with focus/focus/evade, low, draw their fire and selflessness on his wingmates, plus probably a regen droid for good measure? Maybe Rex providing debuffs.

I think you're underestimating just how high you can stack Biggs' defence with two wookiees alongside him. Then, when you do finally kill him, you've got either a ship with Fat Han levels of defensive stacking or a ship with only very slightly less. We're rapidly approaching a point where 4 to 5 fully modded dice or GTFO (or using bombs or multiple TLTs) is basically the only way to get through defensive stacking.

Reliably killing a brobot is great - and if you can kill Biggs without using all your crack shots or losing a ship, maybe you stand a chance.

Maybe they'll errata biggs and make it all better. A man can hope.

Selflessness is a good addition and could switch the maths up and keep Biggs alive long enough to fire. Lowhhrick alone wouldn't be enough.

I'd still be very comfortable in the matchup, though. There's not a lot of damage coming back the other way.

Theres reasons to not play Slaughterhouse but 'oh noes Biggs' is sure as **** not one of them.

It's not JUST oh noes Biggs though.

It's oh noes lists designed to keep Biggs kicking well past the time average dice says he ought to be dead (and these are going to be an annoying issue for many lists, not just this one) AND oh noes high PS alphas AND oh noes having only one closer who will be the subject of intense focus fire, etc etc etc.

Look, I played this list to a crazy good win-loss ratio last year, and into the top cut of UK nationals. If I couldn't devour Biggs lists I wouldn't have got there.

There are VERY good reasons not to run this right now. This reasons are PS9 ships throwing 4/5 dice attacks with lots of mods. Anything trying to hold this off with defensive mods is just stalling for time and delaying the inevitable. I've played those games.

But you know, you've never played with or against the list so you probably know better than me I guess.

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

We're rapidly approaching a point where 4 to 5 fully modded dice or GTFO (or using bombs or multiple TLTs) is basically the only way to get through defensive stacking.

Or not letting them get the stack in the first place - hence why I suspect Snap Shot may be a bit of a secret weapon for TIE fighters.

For that matter, TIE/fo can get their arcs all over the bloody place - between their superior dial and tech slot, being able to pull a speed 2 segnor then barrel roll means you can put those snap shot arcs in some really unexpected places.

Plus - again - pairing with Operations Specialist.

Hmm... Might work rather nicely. Anyway - getting rather off topic so moved to a new thread. Concept squad here

Snap/Ops is best on A-Wings.

Tie Fighters do it at higher PS (bad for Snap Shot) with lower closing speed to R1 (no boost), less damage (no Crack Shot), less survivability (less hull), and a worse Ops Spec carrier (Bomber < Sabine TIE).

21 minutes ago, SOTL said:

Snap/Ops is best on A-Wings.

Tie Fighters do it at higher PS (bad for Snap Shot) with lower closing speed to R1 (no boost), less damage (no Crack Shot), less survivability (less hull), and a worse Ops Spec carrier (Bomber < Sabine TIE).

Snapshot SF's with a Snapshot Rhymer ain't bad though. Triggers FCS and you can get tactician to trigger with Rhymer. Probably more damage than A-Wings too since you can trap them with a 4 die primary TL/Focus if you do it right.

Lots of discussion here. This is great. Thanks everyone. Even though it sounds like I have to watch out for the high PS ordnance lists, and Biggs lists may or may not cause some issues, I am still going to run with the above list. I was wondering, though, if anyone had any tips for flying it? I think maybe trying to get a range three initial engagement is best. Buy against ordnance I may just want to move in hard for extra dice. Does that seem right? Are there any other key strategies I should be aware of (I could be completely off regarding the one I just suggested)?

Did you read my original piece about the formation etc?

Most of the time you just want to force a joust ASAP, throw as many red dice as possible and remove something before it can fire. That's your Plan A against almost anything. When that's NOT your Plan A is when the opponent is going to be firing before you and you have serious risk of losing ships before they fire, at which point you have to be more circumspect - try and pull them into a position where you can then get around their firing arcs.

You would try to avoid R3 as your first engagement, with just 2 red dice you need to minimise how much the opponent has to their defense so that Crack Shot is nullfiying a greater % of their evades.

Everyone assumes keeping biggs alive for 5 rounds is an autowin, but you are not putting out hardly any damage either.

It may take 4 or 5 rounds to down Biggs with Slaughterhouse, but it will take a few rounds for wookie list just to take down Howlrunner. And OL goes to work on wookies after that. Nothing saves you from OL. Lol.

Slaughterhouse doesnt need to kill all 23pts to win. Keeping two ships alive which should be easy with no offense firing back, while killing all but 1 of the others should suffice. Let the wookie live that has no firepower, and kill everything else. Sounds good.

Its not as simple as "Keep Biggs Alive!" You still gotta churn out offense. Trade Howl for Biggs. Zeta and Scourge for Jess and Rex. OL and Youngster live along with Low for the win. Or trade Howl for Biggs. OL and Scourge for Jess and Rex. Scourge and Youngster for the W. Your survival lists has to kill 4 ships to win I believe. Will be tough without Braylen stressing the crap out of everything.

Someone should have a match asap and record it

Off topic, is @Stay On The Leader & @SOTL brothers or something? I literally just assumed you were the same person until I realized it's actually two different accounts. Does SOTL not stand for Stay on the Leader?

17 minutes ago, Tbetts94 said:

Off topic, is @Stay On The Leader & @SOTL brothers or something? I literally just assumed you were the same person until I realized it's actually two different accounts. Does SOTL not stand for Stay on the Leader?

Pretty sure it's a one-user-two-accounts thing. I vaguely recall someone talking about forgetting a password at one point, and it resulting in the doubling up.

As far as I can tell, the posts are interchangeable, anyway.