Had my first try with the Strikers in a while. A friend has just bought seperatists, so we had a quick-build game which was his first game of 2nd edition.

He had:

• DBS-404
• General Grievous
• Precise Hunter
• DFS-081

I had

• Planetary Sentinel x 2
• Planetary Sentinel x 2
• Duchess

I lost 3 sentinels before finishing off his squad. The first two went down in the initial pass (concussion missiles off the precise hunter revealing a direct hit on two ships isn't fun)

Thoughts:

• Grievous is a beast to kill. 7 hull, 2 agility, defensive rerolls when outflown, and discards the first two ship criticals. I finally killed him - or so I thought -when he used Treacherous to get rid of the final hit and strain one of the strikers into the bargain.
• Duchess was awesome as ever. Being able to just stall the ailerons at will and use speed 1 straights and turns is amazing. I genuinely feel she's the best striker pilot as well as the cheapest named one.
• The whole networked calculation thing never really came up; -404 and the Precise Hunter both pack target lock ordnance, and he quickly found himself outflanked, so he didn't actually get to calculate that much.
• Gas clouds are annoying when you're trying to kill stuff.

I am reasonably convinced that Treacherous is actually an ok/good card masquerading as a bad card.
Fantastic if you can align it right/your opponent aligns it right for you.
I had it used twice against me in (meaning that my ship was obscuring my own attacking ship) and I have got to tell you that Strain tokens on TIE Defenders Suck when the next incoming shot is 4 dice. Like... T70s are not exactly soft targets, but when your Defender becomes one, it feels sad.
Just a shame/blessing that the best ships to utilise it are Belbullabs.

Can also Confirm that Gas Clouds are not my first choice when looking at Strikers. Happy if my opponent brings them, but I am not taking them for myself. Too many ways to reduce the damage on the opponent.

I have a small fun event this weekend, Hyperspace restrictions.
Thinking about giving the Black Cracks + Duchess a fly, see what that does for me (well... it's that, or maybe Boba Guri). After flying Star Vipers for a while, I am wondering if it will be nice to get back in to double-movement-mandatory ships. Brain melting.... but Nice....?

...
Just realised that 4 Blacks and Afterburner Duchess also fits.
This requires further thought.....
(probably better for Crack Shot for all, though... right?)

2 hours ago, Vespid1311 said:

I am reasonably convinced that Treacherous is actually an ok/good card masquerading as a bad card.
Fantastic if you can align it right/your opponent aligns it right for you.
I had it used twice against me in (meaning that my ship was obscuring my own attacking ship) and I have got to tell you that Strain tokens on TIE Defenders Suck when the next incoming shot is 4 dice. Like... T70s are not exactly soft targets, but when your Defender becomes one, it feels sad.
Just a shame/blessing that the best ships to utilise it are Belbullabs.

Yeah - the moment that (unlike Dedicated) I saw that it doesn't specify 'friendly' ships, I thought "that's going to be unpleasant". I mean, you can block fire with an expendable droid, but against a swarm, blocking one damage plus straining one ship in the swarm into the bargain is really nice.

2 hours ago, Vespid1311 said:

Just realised that 4 Blacks and Afterburner Duchess also fits.
This requires further thought.....
(probably better for Crack Shot for all, though... right?)

I'd go with Crack Shot or Ruthless for all. Afterburners are nice but best used en masse with strikers; lacking any other shineys Duchess isn't going to want to engage solo, and the speed restriction makes it hard to use effectively - if you wanted to do a speed 3 + boost you pretty much do it with ailerons so it's only really for speed 3 + aileron + boost which suffers from Dark Helmet's brains going into his feet.

Had a go with 4 Black Cracks and Crack Duchess today.

3 rounds of casual Hyperspace.
2 Wins (one due to a single hull Striker refusing to die after 5 multi-modified shots) and a loss (due to a misread on the final turn by me meaning that I did not see a stressed Lulo missing a debris field with a 2 bank and he killed off a limping Duchess).

No real bat-reps to give, but a general feel is that it could be ok-good in the hands of a better pilot.

Same set up as the previous page, with Duchess in the corner.
That set up still has some fragility if someone decides they want to run straight at it, but otherwise is quite flexible if you place an obstacle at not-quite-3-3 from a corner.
Same fragility and dice variance quirks.
Same "I can see the net forming" sense of foreboding for the opposition.

Duchess does bring a lot to the otherwise generic squadron, the ability is just that good. Catch an opponent napping at close range and suddenly you are behind them.
Definitely better than the 5 Generics, and is my new go-to Striker Swarm. Now all we need is for Blacks to go down....

So - had a (small) game night at store last night, with 6 players, and managed to come 2nd.

Better yet, the prize support included afterburners modification cards (Yippee!!!)

I decided to try using a Reaper for the first time in a while. They are very fast but they are also irritatingly hard to turn; it really felt unwieldy compared to the strikers. Which is fine if you're not trying to keep its arc on a target but kind of an issue if you are.

My squad for the event:

• "Duchess"
  • Predator
• "Countdown"
  • Predator
• "Pure Sabbac"
  • Predator
• Major Vermeil
  • Crack Shot
  • Darth Vader

Game 1

My first game was against a gunned-up Vennie - Paige Ticho, Veteran Turret Gunner, pattern analyser, Perceptive Copilot, Trajectory Simulator with Protons & Seismics, with Tallie and a Rookie with M9-G8.

I managed to out-shimmy Tallie with Duchess, but despite Duchess and Pure Sabbac both unloading fire into her, all I achieved was thwacking a single shield off her.

Vermeil and Countdown did some cosmetic damage to the bomber.

Then it ended up in a close-quarter mosh, where the high minimum speed of the strikers and reaper, and bombs and turrets, took a predictable toll.

The squad was well flown and well handled, but I didn't help myself; I pretty much fell into the classic trap of going after Vennie here.

Unlike a 5-ship squad or a true swarm, I couldn't move before the bomber to block its action and couldn't afford to give up a shot even if I could, but hammering the bomber takes far, far too long. In the end I lost Vermeil and Pure Sabbac, and half of Duchess and Countdown, and all I got in return was Vennie when time was called.

This is one of the times my squad of generics would have been preferable; planetary sentinels can block, if needs be, and I can block and still deliver 4 3-dice attacks.

Lining Vermeil up on Vennie was a mistake - Vennie would always have tokens thanks to perceptive co-pilot and pattern analyser. I couldn't specifically line up on Tallie, but I should have gone initially after the X-wing, which would have been significantly more killable and taken M9-G8 off the field.

Game 2

My second game was against first order aces: Midnight with Fanatical, Quickdraw with Pattern Analyser, Fanatical, Fire Control, Special Forces Gunner and Shield Upgrade, and Blackout with Proton Torpedoes and Trick Shot.

This game was lucky on my part combined with a (common) lack of appreciation for the speed of aileron craft. Almost all the obstacles were along a single diagonal; my squad went down it on one side, with Midnight and Quickdraw coming up to meet them, whilst Blackout went along the other side.

In theory, the two TIE fighters would trade loses for loses, whilst the silencer pegged 5-dice, -1 agility torpedoes into my flank, then mopped up the survivors.

None of that happened.

Firstly, 'switchback' bank 1/bank 3 moves a lot faster than people expect, especially with a medium base TIE reaper. So Midnight and Quickdraw found themselves engaging at range 1, not range 2-3 as planned.

Secondly, Blackout locked a striker but didn't actually have arc on it when the shot was measured (it was very close, but no cigar).

Thirdly, Quickdraw and Midnight both locked their targets. Meaning no focus tokens, resulting in Vermeil's ability working and Vader stripping Midnight's shield before the fighting started, and the two TIE fighters fired into Vermeil, not Pure Sabbac, meaning no reduction in my squads firepower.

Fourthly, in four attacks, one at midnight and three at Quickdraw, my opponent rolled a total of one evade. Midnight took a 3-hit attack from Duchess, rolled 3 blanks, and exploded in my first shot. Then Vermeil flattened Quickdraw's shields with a 4-hit attack, and, after the counter-shot, Countdown and Pure Sabbac blew her to shrapnel.

The imperial ships all turned into the respective gaps in the obstacle line, and Blackout - who'd expected to be playing flanker - found himself flying along a wall of asteroids and debris which was now spawning TIE warcraft along its entire length. He (sensibly) hit a speed 5 straight, boosted, and ran for it.

Hunting down the silencer took time, and cost me Countdown, but in the end he went down, helped by Vader knocking out a shield as he pulled a talon roll.

I think this worked okay. I made a few mistakes in specific moves - clipping debris when I really shouldn't have done - but the overall plan (hammer midnight first, then quickdraw) seemed sensible, and worked, admittedly helped by extreme offensive luck.

Game 3

Versus Ketsu Onyo - Shadow Caster, Old Teroch with Fearless, and Talonbane Cobra.

This one more or less worked to plan. Vermeil went up the centre, and - since it descended into a messy bump-fest - was able to slice shields and damage into Teroch, Ketsu and Talonbane using Vader. Being a medium-based ship, Ketsu also couldn't relocate him with a single tractor token...so couldn't get a shot to shadowcaster the second tractor token.

A net of ships closing from multiple directions killed Ketsu fairly fast, then got Talonbane (in close he's far more killable than Teroch), thanks to some silly aileron/segnor combinations which got me behind the khirax - it pulled a talon roll, expecting me to be behind it when I end up on its flank.

My main failing was underestimating the speed of the lancer; combined with the reaper, they are capable of reaching shooting range of each other in the first turn even when moving at less than full speed! If I'd held the speed down, I could have engaged with everyone the following turn at range 2, rather than having the opening shots at range 3 which favoured the agility 2-with-force-and-evade lancer.

My overall thoughts:

• Duchess is amazing. For a pittance of extra cost compared to a Black Squadron Scout, she's an automatic choice, I think.
• Countdown felt so-so. I'm always hesitant of characters whose special abilities make them 'tough' when you can't force an opponent to shoot at them.
• Pure Sabbac was awesome. That 4th die hurts like heck if he's ignored.
• Reapers feel so unwieldy to fly, but bloody heck are they fast in a dead run.
• Predator didn't matter very often.
• Vermeil doesn't feel worth the points. Initiative 4 is nice, but not sufficiently better than Initiative 3 to die in a ditch over. His ability was okay, but I'm not convinced it triggered more than once effectively in the evening. Feroph, on the other hand, feels like a better Vader caddy, since he can afford to be thrown in and is meaningfully tougher.

If I try three strikers and a reaper again, I think my next one to try is

• Captain Feroph
  • Darth Vader
• Duchess
  • Elusive
• Pure Sabbac
  • Elusive
• Countdown
  • Elusive

Strikers do segnor lot so elusive feels like a natural pairing.

One other thought I've had is using unique pilots in a 5-ship squad. I'm convinced Sentinels aren't detectably worse than Scouts: predator or crack shot is nice, but not 5-6 points of investment nice when you're only going up to initiative 3, which doesn't really give you that much benefit.

• Duchess
  • Elusive
  • Fifth Brother
• Pure Sabbac
• Planetary Sentinel x 3

7 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

If I try three strikers and a reaper again, I think my next one to try is

• Captain Feroph
  • Darth Vader
• Duchess
  • Elusive
• Pure Sabbac
  • Elusive
• Countdown
  • Elusive

Strikers do segnor lot so elusive feels like a natural pairing.

One other thought I've had is using unique pilots in a 5-ship squad. I'm convinced Sentinels aren't detectably worse than Scouts: predator or crack shot is nice, but not 5-6 points of investment nice when you're only going up to initiative 3, which doesn't really give you that much benefit.

• Duchess
  • Elusive
  • Fifth Brother
• Pure Sabbac
• Planetary Sentinel x 3

Nice report! Man, I haven't made it to an event in months, but I have a Hyperspace Trial at the end of August, and you can bet I'm putting the TIE/sk on the table once more. What I ran last time, and really had fun with was:

• Duchess
  • Predator
• Captain Feroph
  • Death Troopers
• 3x Planetary Sentinel

This 199 point squad gives me four strikers and a Reaper, which increases the durability of the squad - even more durable than Countdown, if you ask me. With more effects that result in stress, I think it's worth giving the ol' Death Troopers a go again, and they will draw hate towards Feroph, allowing my i1 strikers some more play time. Problem is, last tournament I ran into an i3 Vulture Swarm, and those Planetary Sentinels had a heck of a time with that. I ended up losing with only a little damage done to the enemy. I'm wondering how the following list would do.

• Duchess
• Pure Sabacc
• 3x Black Sq. Scout

This is similar to your idea of mixing generics and limited pilots. Yes, I'm paying 4 points per generic TIE striker just to get to initiative 3. Most 3-ship squad will have higher initiative still, but 5 ships against 3 still gives me good odds. Against 4-ship squads (barring those annoying Resistance squads) I should have higher initiative than at least one of the ships: like the classic 2 Jedi, 2 Troopers squad. I don't know. I guess I need to practice both and see what I like.

--

In response to your thoughts on Elusive, I would have TOTALLY been against it last month. But I recently faced an IG-88 with Elusive that activated 4 times, and was successful 3 of those times. It was frankly irritating, and I think it might be worth exploring on TIE strikers again.

--

P.S. I picked up my 6th TIE striker, and am so ready for TIE Striker wings in Epic!

14 hours ago, Parakitor said:

In response to your thoughts on Elusive, I would have TOTALLY been against it last month. But I recently faced an IG-88 with Elusive that activated 4 times, and was successful 3 of those times. It was frankly irritating, and I think it might be worth exploring on TIE strikers again.

I think it's a nice option but I particularly think it's worth it on Duchess with Fifth Brother; defensive rerolls are worse than offensive rerolls (like predator or target lock) because the odds of a natural evade are noticeably worse. If you're actually getting a dice-modifying token at the same time, you're in a position to benefit from a rerolled focus result, too.

14 hours ago, Parakitor said:

This 199 point squad gives me four strikers and a Reaper, which increases the durability of the squad - even more durable than Countdown, if you ask me. With more effects that result in stress, I think it's worth giving the ol' Death Troopers a go again, and they will draw hate towards Feroph, allowing my i1 strikers some more play time.

Yeah, the reaper ended up face-planting into the enemy squad. A range 1 unpleasantness aura might have done me more good....

14 hours ago, Parakitor said:

Problem is, last tournament I ran into an i3 Vulture Swarm, and those Planetary Sentinels had a heck of a time with that. I ended up losing with only a little damage done to the enemy. I'm wondering how the following list would do.

I've yet to engage massed vultures, and I must admit it's something I'm concerned about. It doesn't really 'matter' - since they exist and it's not my game to dictate stuff - but I must admit it irks me a little that the bloody roger-rogers get a generic with the same initiative as elite squadrons from other factions. Even if the I3s had been a limited-to-many pilot of 'Invisible Hand Fighter Wing' and it didn't make a difference to the actual squad composition, I think it'd bug me less.

I'm not sure on a doctrine for engaging them at all, really. Massed Black Squadron Scouts give me equal initiative, but not superior, and it costs me the durability of shielded planetary sentinels. I figure that ultimately, anything caught in front of a vulture swarm is fecked and the best I can do is not be there. One squad I've mentioned that I need to try out is strikers with bombs and/or mines - I'd be interested to see how they did.

The squad above could drop Sabbac back to a fourth planetary sentinel and pack 10 points of bombs or mines (two proton bombs? one proton bomb and one seismic with delayed fuzes each?) which might give more options against a numerically superior swarm.

18 hours ago, Parakitor said:

Problem is, last tournament I ran into an i3 Vulture Swarm, and those Planetary Sentinels had a heck of a time with that. I ended up losing with only a little damage done to the enemy.

4 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Massed Black Squadron Scouts give me equal initiative, but not superior, and it costs me the durability of shielded planetary sentinels. I figure that ultimately, anything caught in front of a vulture swarm is fecked and the best I can do is not be there.

Been there, done that with both the Sentinels and Black Squadrons.
It sucks so hard that you can not initiative kill. You almost certainly come off worse if you are unable to avoid the majority of arcs. I honestly think that the Afterburner Sentinels would fare better than the non-Afterburner Strikers because you might be able to go further than they can reasonably react to. Wouldn't pin my hopes on it, though.
The only thing that remotely worked for me was either giving away First Player and barrel rolling out of the way (which leads to poor damage output, and you really need good damage output to overcome the same Initiative) or trying to block if I had First Player (another reason the Afterburner Strikers would possibly fare better there.... but can lead to being outpositioned and annihilated if you fail).
Vulture Swarms are not something I want to see when flying massed Strikers.

***
Feroph still interests me, but I haven't run Reapers since my disastrous Hyperspace campaign a few months ago.
Would you put Palp on (rather than on a Lambda)? Seems like the mobility and Feroph's damage mitigation would work alright here. If you could sweep in behind, you leave your opponent in an awkward situation.... though I would not like to lose the Coordinating goodness from the Lambda.
Death Troopers still seems solid.

10 minutes ago, Vespid1311 said:

Feroph still interests me, but I haven't run Reapers since my disastrous Hyperspace campaign a few months ago.
Would you put Palp on (rather than on a Lambda)? Seems like the mobility and Feroph's damage mitigation would work alright here. If you could sweep in behind, you leave your opponent in an awkward situation.... though I would not like to lose the Coordinating goodness from the Lambda.
Death Troopers still seems solid.

If I was taking Palpatine, I'd probably stick with Vizier and try to keep the reaper out of the fight as much as possible. Feroph's tough, but not that tough - especially since droids can play silly games and spend someone else's calculate to modify their dice whilst keeping their own to suppress Feroph's ability.

10 minutes ago, Vespid1311 said:

I honestly think that the Afterburner Sentinels would fare better than the non-Afterburner Strikers because you might be able to go further than they can reasonably react to. Wouldn't pin my hopes on it, though.

That might work. Speed 3 banks, ailerons and boosts might go a long way to coming at opponents from the flank. Aileron bank away, then speed 3 bank the other way and and boost continuing to turn back averages out at a 'speed 8 straight plus barrel roll sideways' - which is a perfect move to end up on someone's flank if you move before them and they're not expecting it (and in my experience people always underestimate how fast strikers can go!)

I'm always in favour of strikers with reheat anyway, just because they're so much fun to use.

6 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

" shielded planetary sentinels."

One squad I've mentioned that I need to try out is strikers with bombs and/or mines - I'd be interested to see how they did.

The squad above could drop Sabbac back to a fourth planetary sentinel and pack 10 points of bombs or mines (two proton bombs? one proton bomb and one seismic with delayed fuzes each?) which might give more options against a numerically superior swarm.

First, I completely forgot about shields on Planetary Sentinels. This probably fits my play style better than anything I've tried yet. I need to get on that.

Second, I tried Proximity Mines on my 5 Planetary Sentinels, but I didn't hit the enemy with a single mine. Granted, I was facing Republic Aces, but they idea was to drop a mine in them so they couldn't dodge it. Unfortunately, my attack vectors with strikers makes mines a no-go because my strikers are just as likely to run over them as my opponent.

The one thing I could change is Slooping less and disengaging more so the aces follow and I drop mines as they chase me. But I'm actually thinking Seismic Charges and maybe Proton Bombs would be better because they have a wider area of effect. Not too sure though.

22 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

The one thing I could change is Slooping less and disengaging more so the aces follow and I drop mines as they chase me. But I'm actually thinking Seismic Charges and maybe Proton Bombs would be better because they have a wider area of effect. Not too sure though.

Might work well. One thing I'd point out is that proton bombs are 5 points. Meaning you have a point spare.

Allows a lot more flexibility to create a threat - drop one bomb with a fuze token from each ship the turn you engage, and one without one the turn you overfly to segnor or disengage, and theoretically you get a massed pattern-bombardment of ten proton bombs going off simultaneously....

A mix of proton bombs and seismic charges could be good. Seismics are cheaper and let you also shell for Skilled Bombardier, which combined with the fact that the blast centres on an obstacle not the device, gives you a lot of reach-out-and-touch-someone range.

Wow. I'll have to think about fuses. Very interesting.

@Vespid1311 I'm glad I'm not the only one who struggles with Vulture swarms. If it wasn't for Energy Shell Charges, I'd easily say that range 3 initial engagement is ideal. Kraken's ability to let them retain calculate tokens makes blocking less appealing. It's tough.

1 minute ago, Parakitor said:

If it wasn't for Energy Shell Charges, I'd easily say that range 3 initial engagement is ideal.

Yeah, I think the Energy Shell Charges are key to their threat. Suicidal as it looks, if you have to go for a 'fair' shootout, still I think range 1 is the best bet - if you're facing three dice wherever you go, you might as well get four dice of your own, and up close it's a lot harder for the separatist player to concentrate more than 2-3 arcs of fire on a single ship.

Had a couple of games with five afterburner strikers.

They didn't do that well - I lost both - the first was against Delta-7b Mace, Delta-7b Luminara Unduli and Wolfe with Seventh Fleet Gunner.

• Luminara Unduli is key to the win here; I mentally tagged Wolfe as the support ship - and he is - but it's Luminara's ability to eliminate one hit if you have no focus token that's painful for a swarm which tends to pull a lot of red moves. Try and engage slowly and then turn to mob her first. Seventh Fleet Gunner is nice but not that devastating since you need to give up a shot to use it, and it's basically boosting the jedi anyway (another reason to kill luminara).

The second game was against Ketsu, Talonbane and Teroch again.

• This one resulted in some awful red dice - using afterburners I was able to mob Talonbane with all 5 attackers without the other two ships getting involved but it took several turns to kill him. Once he went down, I was stuck trying to turn about in a tightly packed area, and couldn't bring enough damage to bear on Ketsu.
• Closing with afterburners on part of the squad, engaging, then disengaging with the second afterburner charge may work? it might give me the clearance to turn about without being under fire whilst I do.

The more I use the afterburner strikers, the more I'm thinking they're really not that great. Whilst afterburners may let me gain a positional advantage, it's limited and I've rarely gotten a game-winning edge. By comparison, shields might well keep a striker alive to return fire, or four generics and 'duchess' gives me an ace/generic mix.

• Planetary Sentinel x 5
  • Shield Upgrade

or

• Planetary Sentinel x 4
• "Duchess"
  • Elusive
  • Fifth Brother
  • Afterburners

Since the second edition, I rarely use Afterburners because of the cost and I rarely use it in game. Duchess is incredible thank to decide to use Ailerons or not (even stressed). I have two versions of her : Duchess/Elusive (Low cost) or Duchess/Juke/Fifth Brother with optional Shield Upgrade (Expensive).

Here what I bring if I have 5x strikers

https://raithos.github.io/?f=Galactic Empire&d=v8ZsZ200Z211X123W82WW165Y213XWWY213XWWY213XWWY213XWW&sn=Unnamed Squadron&obs=

or

https://raithos.github.io/?f=Galactic Empire&d=v8ZsZ200Z211X119W82WWY209XWWWY213XWWY213XWWY213XWW&sn=Unnamed Squadron&obs=

The other one I've been wondering about is trying the reaper again. I didn't get much use out of it as a gunship (Vermeil/Vader), but maybe using it as a battering ram?

• Captain Feroph
  • Intimidation
  • Death Troopers
  • Tactical Scrambler
• "Countdown"
• "Pure Sabbac"
• "Duchess"
  • Elusive
  • Fifth Brother

Feroph becomes a combination distraction/riot shield/battering ram whilst the Strikers follow her in.

On 8/20/2019 at 11:49 AM, Magnus Grendel said:

• Planetary Sentinel x 4
• "Duchess"
  • Elusive
  • Fifth Brother
  • Seismic Charges
  • Afterburners

Tried this yesterday against a list of an academy pilot, Howlrunner, Del Meeko, Gideon and Vader. It worked well - Duchess was amazing as always, and actually gets real use out of afterburners, and the combination of I1 generics to block and an I5 to flank worked really well. It devolved into a close-range bump-fest, where the better primary weapons and hull-over-agility defences of the strikers were more tolerant of lost actions.

With Targeting Computer now being a thing, I was thinking how best to use it. I'm not sure it's a great option for a Striker, but it does give us a cheap way to enable Grand Moff Tarkin on an aileron squad:

• Captain Feroph
  • Grand Moff Tarkin
  • Freelance Slicer
  • Targeting Computer
• Planetary Sentinel x 4

Feroph flies in at the edges and locks, trying to avoid using her lock when attacking as she can then 'bounce' that lock to all 4 strikers. Feroph is an annoying target anyway, but Freelance Slicer makes it worse than normal - if your locked target chooses to attack you, you can (if you need to) 'cash in' the lock to jam the attacker, which not only buggers up their attack roll but enables Feroph's defensive ability. Locking someone becomes a really good defensive move.

You've also got 5 points spare, but I'm not sure what to do with it.

Interesting.
Would you be aiming to have Feroph get that lock a turn earlier than the Strikers coming in?

***

I was going to go the Jendon Route for that massive entry damage:
Jendon + Krennic
4x Planetary Sentinels with Targeting Computer.
2 points to spare.

Sadly, Black Squadron Scouts are just too expensive for that trick (though if you drop Krennic, with 3 Black Scouts with Targeting, you can squeeze an Afterburner Academy pilot for some odd blocking shenanigans).
Given speed and unique movement, the first thing you lock is probably going to be caught.... or you can fake it and Jendon a second time to catch someone else unaware.
However, given I1 and fragility, Sloane might be the better option for a similar effect.

You can do a similar thing with the names Strikers and have 11 points left over.
However, again, I think that the Krennic Tarkin combo might be more effective for less, and keeps your Mod Slot open for Afterburner Duchess and Shield Sabaac.

The other thing I noticed was that if you have generic strikers + ace, the new wave opens up a potential new competitor.

• 4 x Planetary Sentinel
• "Duchess"
  • Elusive
  • Fifth Brother
  • Seismic Charges
  • Afterburners

Is something I've used and think is really good fun. You can play tunes to taste with Her Grace's upgrades (Seismics plus Elusive could be Outmanoeuvre, for instance, or Afterburners Shield Upgrade)

Sabacc does become a lot scarier with the new Snap Shot talent.

• 4 x Planetary Sentinel
• "Pure Sabbac"
  • Snap Shot
  • Proximity Mines
  • Shield Upgrade

Theoretically, someone not paying attention could eat an unmodified 3-dice attack and a focused 4-dice attack in quick succession. That's a lot of firepower for a light snubfighter, but trying to mug him opens you up to being flanked by the generics, and/or flying into mines.

If you really want to make Sabbac public enemy #1, drop mines and shield and take Fifth Brother and Targeting Computer. a 4-dice attack with a force charge and a target lock is not something anyone can afford to ignore!

So, with the very nice points changes, what might be good to fly now?

5 Planetary Sentinels and Crack Shot Duchess?

5 Black Squadron Scouts with Crack Shot and Hull Upgrade/Proton Bombs??

5 Black Squadron Scouts with Outmaneuver???

5 Black Scouts, Hull Upgrade, Ruthless springs to mind, but a swarm with duchess is still tempting. 6 3-dice attacks is a scary new world!

Actually - it's risky, but 6 TIE strikers with Electronic Baffle might be interesting.

Being able to Loop and then have a choice to not stall your ailerons the next turn is potentially worth sacrificing a hull point for.

I have been warming up my ailerons for the past maybe 5-6 games in the past two weeks, partially for fun but partially for the hope that Black Strikers would go down.
4x Black Cracks with Duchess on Crack.
I am about 50-50 and have just about re-learned the Ailerons.
That list went from 199 to 183.

Not to quote the great man himself, or anything, but.....
We are on the Verge of Greatness.

Upgrades for all?

Currently Looking at (in no particular order):
5x Sentinels + Duchess (?Talent)
5x Outmanoeuvre Blacks
Original Strikers (Duchess, Countdown, Sabacc, Black and Sentinel, +5 points... probably Ruthless all)
5x Ruthless Hull Blacks
3x Sentinels + 3x Ruthless Blacks

I feel a little concerned about Ruthless, but I have used it before and it is definitely going to make for interesting testing.

I have thought about Striker All Stars (all named pilots, with various upgrades) but I don't feel it has legs.

1 hour ago, Vespid1311 said:

We are on the Verge of Greatness.

Just a warning - Crack Shot and Predator have both been pulled out of Hyperspace (beware of interdictors!)

Striker All Stars....I'm hesitant given the loss of many upgrades. 4 Ships feels worth a try but losing 2 ships instead of 1 is a much bigger deal.

For that matter, Afterburners and Electronic Baffle are not useable, so forget my previous comment.