Just as an example of the initial formation:

TESTED
5x Outmanoeuvre Blacks.

Game One:
vs Seyn (Marksman), Whisper (Juke, Passive Sensors, Fifth Brother, Stealth Device), Vader (Hate, Fire Control, Afterburners)
Not really a match... he dangled Seyn as bait, but did not position himself well enough the turn prior to engagement and didn't recognise the Striker Jump. Took only 1 Damage on a Striker to wipe Seyn whilst Vader was not even shooting yet, and Whisper was in an awkward position. The dice kicked him in the rattlers, mine being Super Hot, his being Ice Cold.

Outmanoeuvre Triggered 3 or 4 times, but were not essential to seal the deal. Vader likes having 3 defense dice, not 2. Whisper likes having more than one defense. Neither like 5 Angry Strikers at once when the other can not help thin the numbers.

Game Two:
Blackout (Fanatic, Advanced Optics), Recoil (Predator, Advanced Optics), FO Test Pilot (Fanatic, Optics)
This is a Very Difficult match up, I think, list-wise. Silencers with an Initiative advantage are Lethal and/or Evasive to the Max, so you have to choose how to approach carefully. A dense obstacle field is very useful to Blackout. I tried stalling up one board edge whilst he Zipped up the other. This leads to a no-escape situation for me: The Silencer is too fast for me to escape/reset properly and all I am really doing is potentially moving myself in to a compromised position. So, I turn in with a broad net. I was fortunate that Blackout couldn't shoot or dodge to save his life, even with the ability... but Outmanoeuvre was Critical here. 4 Outmanoeuvre shots meant that he was only rolling 2-3 defense at a time.... without a focus. However, even with that sort of advantage, had he rolled any evades at all he would have survived. I managed to nip that one in the bud for the loss of only one Striker and Critical damage on another. At that stage, I forced the Test Pilot to bug out and gave Recoil a tough time in the middle of the asteroids. Test Pilot cycled in whilst I cramped Recoil.... came down to an unfortunate Asteroid roll. He probably would have died from incoming fire, but if he didn't lose Recoil on the final turn I would have lost on points (2 destroyed, one halved Strikers vs Blackout & Recoil).

Outmanoeuvre was proven here.
I managed maybe 7 Outmanoeuvre shots here, four of which downed Blackout in a turn (....because he couldn't roll an evade at all).

However, I am not convinced Outmanoeuvre is the way forward... at least not in a single ship type list, or possibly in the way I fly (a little too direct at times). It might be worth it if you spread a wider net or split completely and try to force an opponent to choose.
They are Monsters if you are chasing someone or dance in a direction they were not expecting.

Outmanoeuvre Strikers are worth a shot. It might work for your play style. It does not quite fit mine as much, or I need to remember to spread more.

... but a 40 point Outmanoeuvre I3 Striker could be useful flanker/bait for the Imperials in other lists.
Unfortunately, if you turn it in to 50 Point Sabacc, I don't think that it is worth it: Too obvious a target.... unless you fit 150 points of Scary Imperials on the other side?

I think I could, and probably should, try the Outmanoeuvre Strikers again to get a fairer test for them, but my next test is the Ruthless Hulls, I think (unless anyone around here specifically asks me to fly 5 and Duchess.... I mean.. it would be rude not to if they asked for it).

On 1/15/2020 at 6:57 PM, Magnus Grendel said:

On 1/15/2020 at 5:58 PM, Vespid1311 said:

Formation is
1 2 3
5 4

I've used that one, too. It's a nice setup - easy to turn into a wall heading along either board edge or to spread out into a net moving across the board at a 45' angle.

I'm not sure how to adapt for 6. Given Duchess' different Initiative, I guess field an 'arrowhead' in one corner and then deploy Duchess separately?

I would consider that, or (if you want to keep something similar), have Duchess in the corner and the fifth Sentinel in the gap in between. Duchess and Fifth Striker dial in a 1 as you Starburst out, and adjust Ailerons accordingly.

As you were saying, 5 I1s do not like I2 ships.

EDIT
So... I just discovered that Palpatine Scarif Reapers cost only 50 points..... I'm sure that there is nothing in that....

3 hours ago, Vespid1311 said:

However, I am not convinced Outmanoeuvre is the way forward... at least not in a single ship type list, or possibly in the way I fly (a little too direct at times). It might be worth it if you spread a wider net or split completely and try to force an opponent to choose.
They are Monsters if you are chasing someone or dance in a direction they were not expecting.

Outmanoeuvre Strikers are worth a shot. It might work for your play style. It does not quite fit mine as much, or I need to remember to spread more.

... but a 40 point Outmanoeuvre I3 Striker could be useful flanker/bait for the Imperials in other lists.
Unfortunately, if you turn it in to 50 Point Sabacc, I don't think that it is worth it: Too obvious a target.... unless you fit 150 points of Scary Imperials on the other side?

I think I could, and probably should, try the Outmanoeuvre Strikers again to get a fairer test for them, but my next test is the Ruthless Hulls, I think (unless anyone around here specifically asks me to fly 5 and Duchess.... I mean.. it would be rude not to if they asked for it).

I think mixing and matching Outmanoeuvre and Ruthless/Hull Upgrade seems to make sense. Even if you split up your squad, someone is probably engaging head on, and they won't get any use out of the talent.

In my head, deploying 2,3,and 5 as Hull Upgrade/Ruthless to 'go up the centre', and 1 and 4 as Outmanoeuvre ships to slip up the outside flank(s) might work.

3 hours ago, Vespid1311 said:

I would consider that, or (if you want to keep something similar), have Duchess in the corner and the fifth Sentinel in the gap in between. Duchess and Fifth Striker dial in a 1 as you Starburst out, and adjust Ailerons accordingly.

In that situation, I'd probably have Duchess dial in a 2 and stall her ailerons; you kind of want her to end up behind and/or flanking.

I'd leave a space for her - because generally an enemy will set up on the opposite corner (unless they want to joust 6 strikers, in which case....I don't really know what to say. Either they've seriously misjudged the effect of eighteen-rounds-rapid head on or your in some serious trouble) - so deploying Duchess separately puts her closer to the enemy....which is probably not what you want.

That said, if they deploy on the corner 'above' you, putting duchess in the far corner might be a good idea.

3 hours ago, Vespid1311 said:

Just as an example of the initial formation:

TESTED
5x Outmanoeuvre Blacks.

Game One:
vs Seyn (Marksman), Whisper (Juke, Passive Sensors, Fifth Brother, Stealth Device), Vader (Hate, Fire Control, Afterburners)
Not really a match... he dangled Seyn as bait, but did not position himself well enough the turn prior to engagement and didn't recognise the Striker Jump. Took only 1 Damage on a Striker to wipe Seyn whilst Vader was not even shooting yet, and Whisper was in an awkward position. The dice kicked him in the rattlers, mine being Super Hot, his being Ice Cold.

Outmanoeuvre Triggered 3 or 4 times, but were not essential to seal the deal. Vader likes having 3 defense dice, not 2. Whisper likes having more than one defense. Neither like 5 Angry Strikers at once when the other can not help thin the numbers.

Game Two:
Blackout (Fanatic, Advanced Optics), Recoil (Predator, Advanced Optics), FO Test Pilot (Fanatic, Optics)
This is a Very Difficult match up, I think, list-wise. Silencers with an Initiative advantage are Lethal and/or Evasive to the Max, so you have to choose how to approach carefully. A dense obstacle field is very useful to Blackout. I tried stalling up one board edge whilst he Zipped up the other. This leads to a no-escape situation for me: The Silencer is too fast for me to escape/reset properly and all I am realyl doing is potentially moving myself in to a compromised position. So, I turn in with a broad net. I was fortunate that Blackout couldn't shoot or dodge to save his life, even with the ability... but Outmanoeuvre was Critical here. 4 Outmanoeuvre shots meant that he was only rolling 2-3 defense at a time.... without a focus. However, even with that sort of advantage, had he rolled any evades at all he would have survived. I managed to nip that one in the bud for the loss of only one Striker and Critical damage on another. At that stage, I forced the Test Pilot to bug out and gave Recoil a tough time in the middle of the asteroids. Test Pilot cycled in whilst I cramped Recoil.... came down to an unfortunate Asteroid roll. He probably would have died from incoming fire, but if he didn't lose Recoil on the final turn I would have lost on points (2 destroyed, one halved Strikers vs Blackout & Recoil).

Outmanoeuvre was proven here.
I managed maybe 7 Outmanoeuvre shots here, four of which downed Blackout in a turn (....because he couldn't roll an evade at all).

However, I am not convinced Outmanoeuvre is the way forward... at least not in a single ship type list, or possibly in the way I fly (a little too direct at times). It might be worth it if you spread a wider net or split completely and try to force an opponent to choose.
They are Monsters if you are chasing someone or dance in a direction they were not expecting.

Outmanoeuvre Strikers are worth a shot. It might work for your play style. It does not quite fit mine as much, or I need to remember to spread more.

... but a 40 point Outmanoeuvre I3 Striker could be useful flanker/bait for the Imperials in other lists.
Unfortunately, if you turn it in to 50 Point Sabacc, I don't think that it is worth it: Too obvious a target.... unless you fit 150 points of Scary Imperials on the other side?

I think I could, and probably should, try the Outmanoeuvre Strikers again to get a fairer test for them, but my next test is the Ruthless Hulls, I think (unless anyone around here specifically asks me to fly 5 and Duchess.... I mean.. it would be rude not to if they asked for it).

Thanks for the Batrep! Like I mentioned before I already played 5 sentinels plus duchess and it felt pretty good. But going up against swarmy and beefy I2+ lists can really be a problem. Especially if you consider the latest points change which buffed lower Ini pilots. So the I3 strikers might be the way to go. I’ll test the Ruthless 5‘s tomorrow.

Had my match. It was a tough one. Made a bad call for the first engagement, and made a critical mistake in the middle, but I'm relearning the ways of the Aileron.

So, my opponent brought 4x Resistance, Jess & 3 Red Sq. Vets. He kept them in a box and picked off my strikers one by one. I brought 3 Black Sq. Scouts, Duchess, and Feroph with Sloane.

He gave me Player 1, which was not ideal (I lost the roll, so it could have been a very different game). My opening engagement had a striker zoom up for a block. I got the block, but the striker got destroyed...outside of range 3 of Feroph & Sloane! Ack! That was a terrible start to the match. Later on I mis-dialed Feroph with a 1-straight, colliding into the back of a T-70 instead of jumping over it with a 3-straight. Woops.

Here's a link to download the logfile from ListFortress. For some reason my opponent saved it as a "parakitor" file 🤭 . Just replace ". PARAKITOR" with ".vlog" when you save it and you should be able to view it on Vassal.

OK, so what did I learn? Well, deploying the three rocks along my edge was helpful. We had a wide open field, which was easy on my Ailerons. Unfortunately, I didn't come through the rocks slow enough. The idea is to come out of the rocks while they're heading into the rocks on the engage, but he had enough room to make other choices. My bringing Duchess around the flank also meant he could turn towards her for shots rather than worry about the obstacles. Yeah, I forgot to say that I threw Duchess away pretty sadly. In hindsight, I probably could have turned away with her, denying him a shot. I'll have to watch it again.

The other big lesson was flanking with Strikers is great WHEN THERE IS NO SLOANE! Feroph (with Sloane on board) wants to trail behind the strikers at a safe distance, but close enough to contribute. Jumping out for a block, and flanking wide probably aren't the wisest choices. Not sure. Need to play more.

The i3 was DEFINITELY helpful, but since I was shooting first, I wouldn't get rerolls that round. I actually kind of want to try this squad again with Duchess replaced by a Black Sq. Scout, and keep a little bit of a bid against opposing i3's so I can make sure I shoot last. Because that way I can be attacked, destroyed, they get double stressed, and then for simultaneous fire we all get to shoot the stressed ship and get a reroll. I'm sure I would feel differently about Duchess if I hadn't thrown her away, but she's always fragile. Just thinking out loud here.

The game ended in his favor, 200-128. He had one T-70 at 1 hull, and another T-70 with a shield remaining. So it was a well-fought battle, but I really need to practice my approach.

3 hours ago, Parakitor said:

I actually kind of want to try this squad again with Duchess replaced by a Black Sq. Scout, and keep a little bit of a bid against opposing i3's so I can make sure I shoot last. Because that way I can be attacked, destroyed, they get double stressed, and then for simultaneous fire we all get to shoot the stressed ship and get a reroll. I'm sure I would feel differently about Duchess if I hadn't thrown her away, but she's always fragile. Just thinking out loud here.

I can imagine a lot of people will go one 'step' into the metagame: "generics have become cheaper, so I will take I3 generics to get the drop on regular generics". Having played the Bughouse Swarm a fair bit - who have a 5 point initiative bid because there's bugger all else a generic nantex can buy given they have one talent slot and that's it - I've found that initiative control useful more often than I expected.

For the sake of a few points, making sure you know how you're going to handle other I3 generics is a good plan!

Giving up Duchess is a big ask - she's a great ace given that she has little serious competition for the title of squirrelyest hyperspace legal imperial pilot - but if you're using Sloane that's not an issue.

I'd probably suggest that dropping Duchess might work, but you need a way to cope with the other aces if you do (and in fairness, you'd still need a way to handle the Vonregs, Raus and Damerons of the world even if you kept her). What I might suggest is dropping Duchess to a Black Squadron pilot and instead have an Informant share the lay-z-boys and wet bar in Feroph's passenger compartment.

That way, you can keep tabs on what your opponent's best ace has planned, which goes some way to making up for not having an initiative 5 pilot of your own.

I second that.
A minor bid that allows you to choose Initiative is Great. Having done this with both Phantoms and Vipers, both taking and giving it away, I can wholeheartedly get on board with that for a swarm.

***

Single game test tonight (I got the bye first round):
5x Ruthless Hull Black Scouts

vs

5x Sentinels and two Academy TIEs (not as terrible as it sounds.... he took down a double Jedi, double Y list in the previous game, that is a lot of bodies to clog things with).

This was.... not even close. Like, maybe 20 minutes and three turns long.
Turns out that if you can not block the higher initiative ships, things get torn apart Really Quick.
To be fair to my opponent, this was him properly dabbling in Strikers for the first time and he botched an Aileron+1 Hard onto Debris, and his set up was odd (3 Strikers in one corner, 2 Strikers and two TIEs in the other... so I stare down the 3 Strikers with my entire force...)... but the combination of the extra Hull and Ruthless is Brutal against lower initiatives.
I am trying to start working with the Ruthless philosophy/framework @Magnus Grendel provided above. I don't think I really needed it this game, but it helped. Instead of mindlessly going for maximum damage, I took a moment to actually think about whether or not I would be able to reasonably use it. Turns out that, in this case, it generally would be. I wiped two opponent Strikers straight away and left one with one hull. Running the numbers now, turns out I was only slightly lucky to do so (realistically, shouldn't have managed 3 damage on a potshot at the remaining ship).
After all was said and done, between Ruthless and slightly-above-expected attack rolls, I don't think I had any more than 2 blanks in the two attacking turns we played. Ruthless against weak lower initiative ships is utterly disgusting. Lost half a Striker in total (saved by Hull Upgrade) with two more with one damage taken, and took down all opposing Strikers (bar one health on one) by the end of Turn 3.

I feel that I1 is a bad decision now, having been the deliverer of an Initiative Smackdown... but would need more play through with it to see that. Can still conceivably see Duchess + 5 as viable, and it is still on my to-do list. 5 with Hull and Bombs might be interesting for casual play.

Obviously, needs a greater test.... but the combination of Ruthless and the Additional Hull seems Good.
If you have the initiative, five 3 Dice Focus attacks will wipe most small ships in one go.
With the additional Hull, suddenly you are basically a Torrent defensively and it takes genuine effort to take down.... and, if they don't, party time.
With the additional Hull, I was less concerned about Ruthless.

Feels about as good as changing from Predator Blacks to Duchess/Blacks all with Crack. Strikers with Hull just feels better overall.

I think I may break out into something different. I've been at a forest pest conference this week, and one of the recurring themes is "NO monocultures!" In other words, plant a variety of trees in a city landscape (the urban forest) so that if a new pest comes along, only a portion of your trees will be at risk. I guess it's similar to the idea of combined arms.

Listening to the latest episode of Scum and Villainy Podcast, I heard Blaire Bunke and the guys talk about how it's not just Rebels that can jank swarm now. Here's what I came up with:

Nu Squadron Pilot (32)
Fire-Control System (2)
Advanced SLAM (3)
Xg-1 Assault Configuration (0)
Tractor Beam (3)

Planetary Sentinel (31)
Planetary Sentinel (31)
Planetary Sentinel (31)
Academy Pilot (22)
Academy Pilot (22)
Academy Pilot (22)

Total: 199

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0: https://raithos.github.io/?f=Galactic Empire&d=v8ZsZ200Z164X113WWW104W144W13Y213XWWY213XWWY213XWWY229XY229XY229X&sn=Unnamed Squadron&obs=

Basically Tractor with the Gunboat, joust with the other 6, hope for the best. But I guess it comes down to this: is two TIE strikers better than three TIE fighters? Normally yes, but Tractor Beam changes things a bit. Now, it's still just 6 ships shooting because the Tractor Beam does no damage, so is it better than 6 strikers? Or 5 + Reaper?

I don't know man. My faith in strikers has been shaken (no they didn't ask me to do something dishonest 😆 ). I'm going to keep fiddling with Imperial jank swarm in the squad builder, but I think before I give up on strikers I need to sit down at the table and work out approaches on my own, not in a game. Try out obstacle layouts and deployments. Especially how to use Duchess to keep them honest without getting her killed. It's just been so long since I've seen success with them that I'm wondering if I'm just chasing rainbows.

I got a chance to try the 5 hull/ruthless in vassal and a handful of fly casual for practice. Initial impressions:

Vassal - Flew against a buddy sporting 3 PS4 fearless fangs and a torp toting Genesis.

• 4 ships above PS4 made for a lot of tough choices for my opponent. Never had a good opportunity to trigger Ruthless in this one. Fangs with fearless feel like the natural predator to Strikers.
• Got a great initial engagement. Traded a couple points of health on each side. Neither of us got any ship to half points at R2/3. Gotta agree - hull upgrade just feels right .
• Following turns I got caught up in the chase and turning to engage. In retrospect I probably should have boomed and zoomed out with the strikers, but with so many arcs there were always opportunities to take "good" shots. Once I lost a couple strikers I found it hard to keep quality shots on target. Also, ruthless was out of the question once I was down to 3.
• We called it with one full striker and one half striker on the board vs a torpless Genesis and a 1 hull fang. 15 points in his favor
• Felt close the entire game and with better flying I could see this having lots of potential in a Hyper meta. Going 6-7 rounds with this seems like it would be mentally exhausting though!

Fly Casual - Taken with a grain of salt since the AI just loves to joust

• Vs a swarm of 5-6 lower PS generics this list runs wild. I don't think I feel comfortable flying 6 PS1 strikers after seeing how quickly this list picks apart lower PS. Its disgusting.
• Vs lists of PS3+ 4-5 ship lists the experience was very different. It becomes a game of beefy attrition and it feels like dice variance has a lot of the say in the game.
• Vs triple "aces" flown by the computer this list feels... good. I think vs a good real player this is a harder game than it might initially seem unless your range control is spot on.
• Blocks for good trades are absolutely crucial vs aces. Ending with 2 strikers vs a dented Vader still felt iffy.

I also found that with this list I wanted to violate the golden rule of focusing one ship. Instead the ailerons made target switching more natural but also I found that 2 green still melt fast even with the extra hull. It felt like value to spread some shots to force lower PS lists to spend their focus early. I'm curious to hear what others feel after playing it too. Mostly I'm curious whether anyone feels this can hang with the Hyper power levels now that the points have given room for the extra toys. I would expect only one or two lists in Hyper to rise as contenders in an Extended meta but my knee jerk is that this is not one of them.

Want to contribute as well .Played 2 games with 5 Ruthless/Hull Ini 3 Strikers.

Yesterday I played against Rey/Poe with lots of tools. I set up in one corner and split my forces up a bit. As I saw an opening everyone came in to approach Rey. Unfortunately Rey had Han Solo crew (which no one's playing) so she got 5 evades. Poe came in as well using Black One with Static Dis. Vanes. Both Resistance Pilots annihilated one Striker. With only 4 Strikers left I only did 5 damage on Rey because she was able to spent her thousand evades. After that opening engagemet one Striker after the other gets popped.

We played again and I split up my forces a bit more across the board threatening both Poe and Rey. I was able to do damage without losing a Striker. The good thing was that I forced Rey to turn away from the fight for one round. So all 5 Strikers went after Poe and built one killbox after the other. Even with Black One Poe couldn't escape and died. Rey came back into the fight a bit late and got evaporated a few rounds later.

Overall thoughts

- Hull Upgrade on each ship is huge. I think it's the way to go when you want to play a swarm. Nice "synergy" with Ruthless and keeps you above half longer.
- I was to aggressive using Ruthless in the first game. As others mentioned before it's better if you can get a kill shot or to push a crit through. I triggerd it three times in the second game. The first time to kill Poe and 2 times to kill Rey.
- Playing against higher initiative ships or aces is tough and requires lots of experience flying this list.
- Losing the first Striker felt really bad because you have "only" 4 remaining. I played 5 Sentinels with Duchess last week where it felt totally ok to lose strikers. On the one hand having six guns on the board is really powerful. On the other hand having I3 instead of I1 is an improvement not to underestimate when you play against other I1-2 beef.
- my most important point is that flying so many strikers is really tough. There's no 1 forward to victory with a k-turn following. Especially the opening engagement is something you need to practice, practice, practice.
- My friend and I came to the conclusion that this list has legs and can win stuff, if you put enough time into practicing and trying out different movement patterns to see what works and what not.

6 hours ago, Ryuneke said:

Overall thoughts

- Hull Upgrade on each ship is huge. I think it's the way to go when you want to play a swarm. Nice "synergy" with Ruthless and keeps you above half longer.

-snip-

- My friend and I came to the conclusion that this list has legs and can win stuff, if you put enough time into practicing and trying out different movement patterns to see what works and what not.

Man, it sounds so good, but I tried hull strikers last summer and it's the first time I went 0-3 at a tournament and dropped. It was i1 back then, so maybe the initiative + hull is enough. Maybe I should try that again.

10 hours ago, Ryuneke said:

Great looking Strikers!

I did some more practice games with the 6 plus bombs.

- Focused almost all the time, which worked much better (thanks).
- Used the corner setup slotting my sixth in at an angle in the opening. Made for a much easier opening.
- Paid more attention to obstacle placement and used the seismic charges much better. Been giving one to a lead ship and one to a trailer. Caused some A-wings to burn actions rolling away from obstacles that were going to blow.
- The cluster mines are nice for a little more board control, but I think I drop them too early (after initial pass into the obstacle field) and should try to keep them for a more pivotal moment (Of course there’s risk then of wasting them.) I’m still going to try out Fifth brother or some other upgrades like Outmanuever instead of bombs.

It feels more middle tier to me at this point. But there is going to be a real spread of things in Hyperspace. This can at least hang with a lot of them if we find the right combination and strategy.

@Parakitor

Just reviewed your game (starting to learn Vassal).
I agree that you didn't come through the rocks slow enough (perhaps the Strikers closer to the opponent could have turned up your edge first to allow one more turn of positioning, or at least distance on initial turn?), but a bigger problem may have been your initial setup: in having First Player, you do have to consider your options more.... but you were too spread out to capitalise on any block you would have been able to get on that initial engagement. That first engagement lost you a Striker with no significant damage inflicted because you could only bring two attacks to bear. If that engagement was delayed one more turn (or you were closer together to begin with), you would have everyone on target and a few juicy blocks to go with it. Your opponent jumping straight from the start probably didn't help.

I think you did well mid-game with what you had, some nice bumps and self-bumps getting you in to awkward spots for the opponent and allowing you to start picking off them off, but losing that initial engagement was costly.

****

I am starting to think of my opening positions more....
I get the feeling that starting on a 45 angle might be better than pointing into the board, especially if you must place first and you are against a squad you probably shouldn't joust. Starting on an angle allows you to ailerons up your board edge (useful for 3 Soft + Barrel Roll to gain maximum distance away from jousters/towards the rest of your list) or to Ailerons towards mid-field to come back around. If you are against a squad that wants to joust you, you have to make sure that they move around the board first, maybe get them off kilt with obstacles, some form of delay to rearrange your forces or even just a poor engagement angle.

A quick one.

Played against 5 RZ2 As today (ZZ, Tali, Zari and 2 Baby Generics, all with Heroic Optics, I think). Opponent was coming back to A Wings after not playing with them for 6 months, so was rusty.

I am a bit concerned about it as a matchup (especially in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing). A little variance in their defense (and/or bad variance in your attack) goes a long way.
I did a few bumping moves (more on that in a moment) and got it back for the win, but consistent offense from them does make Strikers sad.
Best thing to do, so far, appears to be to spread and/or bump in such a fashion that there is no consistent shots against the same target.

I started with 5 lined up 45 degrees across my board edge, but chose to run up that side edge with the (correct) assumption that my opponent's spread As would run away and take the opposite edge and/or middle of the field. The 45-across-board-edge probably does not quite work for this approach if your opponent chooses to take the middle unless they choose to rush into the middle (that way, you have your net already set). My ships did string out as I went chasing A Wings (not with the specific intention of getting in arc, though that happened once before the first big engage, more with the intention of just forcing a run-away from them). Because of the stringing out, when I wanted to be aggressive, it did not work as well as it could have, and when I went slow I lost shots.
Not ideal for this specific match, and I probably could/should have used the corner starburst (or even just a straight joust block against the baby As and work it out later), but I will work on it some more.

Again, Hull Upgrade came to the rescue, allowing me to maintain half points better and allowing me to Ruthless without killing them. Did make a dumb Ruthless choice midgame (1 Hit to 2, against an A with a Focus Defense), but two out of three Ruthless choices weren't bad.

So. Bumping.
Learning point for me is that, if you have a set of Strikers (or anything for that matter) that are set to bump (either by design or by way of the opponent creating a partial block) and they have different turning manoeuvres, choose to do the Hard Turning Ship before the Soft Turning ship (if they are trying to go in the same general direction).
I had a situation whereby a Striker's move was 1 Straight Aileron into a 1 Soft Curve Right and the next Striker over was a 1 Aileron Left Out 1 Hard Right In. Ordinarily, because they are neighbours, this means that they will likely bump anyway (barring subtleties in movement templates over the game). However, it does mean that the Hard Turning Striker will bump in such a fashion as to have less of an arc to its right than the scenario reversed due to the nature of needing both front and rear midlines to be on the midline of the movement template.
This lost me a shot, lost me concentrated fire on the same target (had only 2 shots instead of 3) and potentially could have lost me the game (had poor attack variance this turn, and only 3 of my Strikers got to shoot at all, instead of all of them... though, to be fair, one died before its turn).

Somewhat related:
A 1 Soft Aileron Out followed by 1 Hard In gets you less forward distance than 1 Straight Aileron followed by 1 Soft In (if "Forward" is measured from your initial position).
Knowing that would have made that specific movement order decision even easier.

Another game yesterday.
Pulled a win on the last turn against 2 TIE FOs, 2 SFs with Reinforce and Kylo with Optics.

Learning points:

• Gas Clouds have Consequences! At one point, I had 4 out of 5 Strikers with Strain - one by design (was never going to get shot), one as an alternative Aileron move to limit trouble and two as fairly gross misjudgments on my behalf (turns out that I have overestimated my ability to judge aileron+moves... need more game time), and the next turn saw one of those pick up another on its way to SLoop out of there. The loss of action compounds the gain of Strain. Double Plus Ungood, do not recommend.
  
• Reinforce on 2 Agility is interesting . Reinforces (sic) what I thought about higher agility ships with Reinforce (it is good because you are limiting the incoming fire down to one in many cases). It is hard to focus down a moderately chunky boi when it is wiping off half of your attack most shots. If the attack is not good, you can dodge outright with some luck, as usual. However, it really needs some form of passive attack mods to work properly. Staying on the board is good, but if you are not being effective in offense too, then all you are is glorified beef/blocker. SFs generally do not have that.... not generically anyway. Fanatical SFs, on the other hand.... That might be interesting. Not sure if it is good, but it is interesting.
  
• Related to the above, Target Priority and Numbers are things . One stage (the turn I strained everyone) I had two realistic options:
  - All 5 Strikers (R1, R2 Focus Reinforce, R1 Gas ?Reinforce, R2 Reinforce and R3 ?Reinforce) against an undamaged reinforcing SF (2 Shield, 3 Hull... Angled Deflectors) that is right in the middle of your flightpath and can make some significant blocks/hassle next turn, as well as a 3 dice attack this turn. 5 Damage goes through, you have wiped your biggest threat not named Kylo.
  - Up to 3 Strikers (R1 Focus ?Reinforce, R1, R2 ?Gas) against a reinforcing SF with 1 shield/3 Hull remaining and will only be a weak attacking annoyance for the next turn or three, but eliminates 2 R1 attack options against your ships.
  Keeping in mind that Ruthless is a thing (only two ships are realistically threatened, and are currently at any real risk of dying if dice goes against them, Ruthless can go on to other ships if need be) and you have initiative advantage here, I'll give you a moment to think about your options......
  ....
  ....
  ....
  How about after your first shot (R3 to undamaged SF, only real shot it can take) plinks off a shield?
  ....
  ....
  ....
  OK.... I chose to continue to wear down that previously undamaged SF.
  BAD decision: Running the numbers suggest that I am only likely to wipe it maybe half of the time.... whereas I have about a 70% chance to wipe that already-damaged-and-leaving SF before it shoots without Ruthless. As it stood, I managed to only drop shields... using two Ruthless shots too. Highly unlikely, but Super Sad. Lost a Striker as a direct result of this, and probably would not have been the case if I had chosen correctly. That sort of internal maths needs to be worked out better on the fly. 5 Bad-Average shots may not be as good as 3 average-good shots .
  
• However... Ruthless seems to be Good as a final turn spike . As my opponent was flying rather conservatively with Kylo, I was basically aiming to outpoint him by pointing a lot of arcs in the general movement lines of Kylo and taking out everything else. His safe moves therefore leave him with bad/no shots, leaving my Strikers to deal with only four 2 Dice ships (much more palatable). This means that I have less to worry about early-mid game, and therefore have untouched Strikers at the end... meaning that I can use Ruthless ruthlessly against those mooks. Hull Upgrade comes to the rescue again, allowing me to break both TIE FOs in the one turn (one was lucky, failing to roll any paint on 4 dice, the other was Focus/Ruthless at R1) whilst staying above half points. If I lose a Striker whilst leaving an FO on the board, I would have lost the game... but all 4 living Strikers had two damage. That is the second game in recent times that the Ruthless/Hull combination has won me the game on the last turn. Despite still making poor decisions with it, I am starting to be more convinced that it is OK. Yet to face genuine Beef/Swarm, genuine Alpha Strike and genuine Aces, so that opinion may change. For now, I am happy and will continue to be Ruthless. Hull upgrade is now an almost certainty for me on the Generic Strikers (in Hyperspace). It is going to take something special to get them off for now.

2nd game in the Vassal League, but I forgot the log file. Oh well. I was flying:

"Duchess" (42)
Captain Feroph (47)
- Seventh Sister (9)
Black Sq. Scout (34)
Black Sq. Scout (34)
Black Sq. Scout (34)
TOTAL 200

Rstan flew:

"Holo" (54)
- Proud Tradition (2)
Omega Squadron Ace (28)
- Proud Tradition (2)
Omega Squadron Ace (28)
- Proud Tradition (2)
Lieutenant Rivas (27)
"Muse" (30)
- Proud Tradition (2)
Epsilon Squadron Cadet (25)
TOTAL: 200

I won the roll, so I gave him initiative, which was a pretty big help. Adaptive Ailerons could be used to change my heading on the fly, bit most of the time I still went with my intended Aileron. The bigger help to giving away initiative is just knowing whether to spend my focus for offense or defense, because I defend first, then return fire.

I had a much better engage. Seventh Sister spooked him, so he focused fire on her, only landing 4 damage on Feroph. My Strikers destroyed an Epsilon Sq. Cadet before it got to fire. A lot of maneuvering happened, some TIEs dropped on both sides, and then Holo one-shotted a full-health Black Sq. Scout at range 2: hit-hit-crit into blank-blank, and the crit was Direct Hit. Sigh. Well, that finally tipped the scales in his favor. Duchess revenge-killed holo, but I couldn't quite claw my way back. 132-200 loss.

Another interesting moment was when Feroph jammed Holo, who then bumped. My opponent thought he would have to pass his jam token to one of his TIE fighters, all of which had a focus token. But wait! Lt. Rivas says he can lock onto a ship at range 1-2 that gains an orange or red token, so Rivas locks onto Holo, and Holo passes the lock to the Epsilon Cadet just so the Cadet can keep its focus. Sneaky, sneaky!

I like the way my squad flies, so I'm leaning on this one for the Store Championship this Saturday. In my opinion, Seventh Sister is way better than Death Troopers because if nobody is in range to use the ability, you still have a passive mod (oh, Force, why are you so good in this game?). But I just don't know what to do with Duchess. When I go wide to flank, she takes too long to get into combat, but when I am close enough to be targeted, she just eats it. Honestly I'm considering if there is something I can do with the 8 points I gain by dropping Duchess to a Black Sq. Scout. Probably not.

-OR-

Take advantage of the fact that I actually own 6 TIE strikers for maximum zip-zip and pew-pew:
4x Black Sq. Scout
2x Planetary Sentinel
TOTAL 198

Same health as my Feroph list, but an extra gun (if my Sentinel survives the first round of combat). Sentinels can block and draw fire and stuff.

I like that Seventh Sister thought.
I think that might come in very handy.

8 hours ago, Parakitor said:

But I just don't know what to do with Duchess. When I go wide to flank, she takes too long to get into combat, but when I am close enough to be targeted, she just eats it. Honestly I'm considering if there is something I can do with the 8 points I gain by dropping Duchess to a Black Sq. Scout. Probably not.

Hmm... I personally feel that, without Afterburners, Duchess as a flanker seems like a mistake unless you have her as a Close Flanker (as in: not wide out and completely out of trouble, but at least some distance away from the rest of the units). Without Afterburners, she can't stray too far away from the rest of the squadron. Her ability is really more to slow her down than speed her up to get in the thick of things, and to make things awkward if someone is trying to get away/come through obstacles to get her.
I generally don't flank too much with Duchess if she doesn't have Afterburners.
I am usually flying her starting the in the middle of the Swarm and/or keeping her close to the tail of the rest of the ships if they need to start by going up a board edge.
I get four options to Ailerons if need be to get closer or maintain distance. She tends to have a target on her head, so this means that she can be a focal point for the opponent to charge at.... meaning that they have to accept that they are going through Strikers spreading and circling in to get to her if they want the prize or that she might stop short if there is a SLoop Bloom.
Also really useful for navigating dense obstacle fields and getting in to blocking positions for those that might wish to choose those lanes.

However, assuming Hyperspace, dropping her to Black Scout will net you a bunch of Seismic Charges (useful for opening lanes for the big one and making Sad Droids), Ruthless on all (because hilarity?), or (if you really want Feroph to earn his pay and/or be burned down immediately) Kallus and/or Intimidate.

....Intimidate on Feroph and Ruthless on the Strikers seems like a potentially interesting Synergy, especially useful against low-ship-count lists if you can get Feroph up in their grills. With reduced agility, Ruthless becomes automatically more useful if/when you have to use it. Making an ace sad for a turn and pounding an additional 2-3 hits on should turn the tide in your favour. Of course, you have to catch them first... but that is part of the game... and generic Strikers are among the better choices for generics-hunting-aces.... at least for a turn or two.
Also makes Agility 2 Ships, which tend to be more predictable anyway, sad for a turn.
You are trying to keep Feroph alive, of course, but when it has to happen, or if you can spread Ruthless around several ships, it can really make a difference.

9 hours ago, Parakitor said:

Take advantage of the fact that I actually own 6 TIE strikers for maximum zip-zip and pew-pew:
4x Black Sq. Scout
2x Planetary Sentinel
TOTAL 198

Ooh. That gives me a nice thought.

• Black Squadron Scout x 3
  • Ruthless
• Planetary Sentinel x 3

Gives you two three-ship elements (small enough to fly as 'one big ship), each of which is the same initiative, making movement order easier to cope with.

24 hull is enough that I don't mind burning the odd point for ruthless, and you've got three I1s you can use as blockers but aren't stuck en mass at I1 - if you're in a fight against a bunch of I2 generics like 5 X-wings, the scouts can go nine-round-rapid and have a fair chance of getting a kill before the enemy fires.

25 minutes ago, Vespid1311 said:

Hmm... I personally feel that, without Afterburners, Duchess as a flanker seems like a mistake unless you have her as a Close Flanker (as in: not wide out and completely out of trouble, but at least some distance away from the rest of the units).

This is exactly what I've been feeling!

25 minutes ago, Vespid1311 said:

Her ability is really more to slow her down than speed her up to get in the thick of things, and to make things awkward if someone is trying to get away/come through obstacles to get her.

Wow. So simple, and yet profound. I don't think I've thought about her that way, or at least not for quite some time (I tend to forget things easily).

25 minutes ago, Vespid1311 said:

....Intimidate on Feroph and Ruthless on the Strikers seems like a potentially interesting Synergy, especially useful against low-ship-count lists if you can get Feroph up in their grills. With reduced agility, Ruthless becomes automatically more useful if/when you have to use it. Making an ace sad for a turn and pounding an additional 2-3 hits on should turn the tide in your favour. Of course, you have to catch them first... but that is part of the game... and generic Strikers are among the better choices for generics-hunting-aces.... at least for a turn or two.

Also makes Agility 2 Ships, which tend to be more predictable anyway, sad for a turn.
You are trying to keep Feroph alive, of course, but when it has to happen, or if you can spread Ruthless around several ships, it can really make a difference.

What about Intimidation on a couple Black Sq. Scouts? Run two up front and two in the back. I just don't like Ruthless against Feroph because her whole point is keeping a valuable crew piece on the table.

But I like the idea of Intimidation because there are so many times where my strikers say to each other, "My best shot is the guy touching you, and your best shot is the guy touching me."

25 minutes ago, Vespid1311 said:

...Intimidate on Feroph and Ruthless on the Strikers seems like a potentially interesting Synergy, especially useful against low-ship-count lists if you can get Feroph up in their grills.

My experience so far has shown that Hyperspace leans towards 4+ ships. I think Intimidation + Death Troopers might still work out though. Maybe.

44 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Ooh. That gives me a nice thought.

• Black Squadron Scout x 3
  • Ruthless
• Planetary Sentinel x 3

I want to try this just so I could run the Planetary Sentinels on green bases (because they are novices) and the Black Sq. Scouts on red bases (because that are blood thirsty).

But I am just having a hard time getting on board with Ruthless. The more I play, the more I value each hull point. Yeah, if it helps you finish off an enemy ship it's nice, but you won't know whether you needed to use it until they roll defense dice. Exceeding the number of his necessary because they blanked out when you damaged one of your own ships feels really bad.

11 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

But I am just having a hard time getting on board with Ruthless. The more I play, the more I value each hull point. Yeah, if it helps you finish off an enemy ship it's nice, but you won't know whether you needed to use it until they roll defense dice. Exceeding the number of his necessary because they blanked out when you damaged one of your own ships feels really bad.

Understood and agreed. Ruthless is nice but it's very much subject to over-use when I've seen it.

3 & 3 just seemed a bit more elegant than 4 & 2, and it let you use those 'spare' points for something (and still have a small initiative bid when facing other heavy swarms).

A swarm of Initiative 1 TIE/sk looks like it should have potential - the balancing act between having 3 Initiative 3 pilots (Black Squadron Scouts) or 1 Initiative 5 pilot (Duchess with some toys) feels like a comparatively hard one to call.

1 hour ago, Parakitor said:

Wow. So simple, and yet profound. I don't think I've thought about her that way, or at least not for quite some time (I tend to forget things easily).

Agreed wholeheartedly. Duchess' ability to stall her ailerons and use a speed 1 straight or turn without them is the real key to her value, and that tends to come up when in a knife fight with the enemy.

10 hours ago, Parakitor said:

But I just don't know what to do with Duchess. When I go wide to flank, she takes too long to get into combat, but when I am close enough to be targeted, she just eats it.

Understood. I agree about Afterburners - the TIE/sk is deceptively slow without them.

I just can't hack it. 99-115 loss against 4 T-70s. Once again, I couldn't get my far out striker into range for the first two rounds of combat, which really sucked the power out of the squad. Oh, I was running 4x Black Sq. Scouts and 2x Planetary Sentinels. There was only one moment where the initiative 1 got in the way of the others, so I think it flies pretty okay. Need to come up with a new approach.

EDIT: And by "new approach" I really mean "new deployment." I placed fighters a lot closer together than usual, but I covered both sides of the asteroid field, and he came in hot with a 4 straight + boost. That meant my far out guy had no time to navigate into range. Maybe I just cluster everybody in the middle and figure it out later.

6 hours ago, Parakitor said:

I just can't hack it. 99-115 loss against 4 T-70s. Once again, I couldn't get my far out striker into range for the first two rounds of combat, which really sucked the power out of the squad. Oh, I was running 4x Black Sq. Scouts and 2x Planetary Sentinels. There was only one moment where the initiative 1 got in the way of the others, so I think it flies pretty okay. Need to come up with a new approach.

EDIT: And by "new approach" I really mean "new deployment." I placed fighters a lot closer together than usual, but I covered both sides of the asteroid field, and he came in hot with a 4 straight + boost. That meant my far out guy had no time to navigate into range. Maybe I just cluster everybody in the middle and figure it out later.

What T-70s were you facing? A 4-ship element could be anything from 1111 with toys to 1116 (three and Poe) or 4444 (4 black squadron aces).

You've got 333311 - if you're facing I1 pilots I'd be tempted to say 'screw it' and cluster up for eighteen-rounds-rapid.

4 straight and boost is fine, but the T-70 doesn't have focus-link-boost, so if your opponent does that they've got no tokens; in theory a head-on pass between strikers with focus tokens and x-wings without should end badly for the T-70s unless he's able to concentrate against a very small part of your list.

Being far enough out that you had ships out of the fight for two turns is an issue. I agree that without afterburners you need to be pretty conservative with how far you spread out your deployment.

What do you mean by 'covered both sides of the asteroid field' - some in each corner? all in one corner facing each way?

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

What T-70s were you facing?

What do you mean by 'covered both sides of the asteroid field' - some in each corner? all in one corner facing each way?

All i3 with Heroic + Optics.

My new obstacle setup is three on my edge, so I have 4 strikers kind of in the middle, and one in each corner. I probably should use my lanes better with two pairs lined up with the middle lanes, and one pair in a corner. Whichever corner my opponent deploys in, I can slow roll with strikers on that side while awaiting reinforcements.

On 1/30/2020 at 12:10 AM, Magnus Grendel said:

• Black Squadron Scout x 3
  • Ruthless
• Planetary Sentinel x 3

I thought of this a while back, though I have a few concerns. I have flown 3 Ruthless Scouts with two Reaper blockers and it is not that hard to pick off the higher Initiative Strikers (even with Reapers blocking).
With 3 and 3, you might have more firepower to back it up, as well as better alternatives for blocking.
I would probably try to fly the Sentinels as a screen, or 3x 2 (as in each Ruthless Striker has a Sentinel counterpart that travels loosely with them).
I think that, if you are confident with your blocking capability, 4 Ruthless 2 Sentinels might be better.... but you had better be good at corralling your opponent or goading them through choke points.

On 1/30/2020 at 12:11 AM, Parakitor said:

What about Intimidation on a couple Black Sq. Scouts? Run two up front and two in the back. I just don't like Ruthless against Feroph because her whole point is keeping a valuable crew piece on the table.

That's a fair point.... but it has got me thinking.
I was originally thinking of doing an I1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 Strikers (for the memez), and it is doable but probably not particularly good (the I4s really need to drop in price).... but we will get to the interesting bit of that in a minute.

Intimidation on Strikers can be quite useful because it is a lot easier to bump with a Striker. Ailerons help here to reposition into an orientation that will allow you to block or to angle back in such a way that you run into your target (if they move before you).

Two thoughts:
2x Intimidation/Hull Scouts, 2 Ruthless Hull Scouts and a Ruthless Scout (199)
All I3 give flexibility in movement, 2 Intimidators gives more options in blocking. I can see an argument for taking Hull off one of the Intimidators and making sure all Ruthless Strikers have additional defense. Your punchers probably should be survivors, not the blockers... but more hull on the blockers will help them become good Ruthless targets and/or might help shrugging off one additional attack.

The variation is to get Vagabond on the board. Vagabond loses you the same Initiative and costs an additional point.... but is an I2 blocker with a Talent Slot. Ignore the ability in this case (though that too has some merit). Intimidation with an I2 seems Pretty Good... Intimidation with an I2 and I3 give you A Lot of flexibility in blocking/intimidating. Have you blocked at I2? Then the I3 is another gun on the board or will drain a second agility. Missed at I2? Second opportunity.

I think I am going to have a look at these as options a little later. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of Intimidation on Strikers.

12 hours ago, Parakitor said:

All i3 with Heroic + Optics.

Quad T70s, in all variations except for the Quad I1s (as long as they don't block, you should be able to skin them and/or dance around them before they shoot), have me concerned. They are too tough to reliably eliminate with a single salvo (50% without Heroic at R2, 40% with it) and, in return, can reliably wipe one of yours. You have to be crafty and/or ensure that you drag them through the rocks - They are too linear in movement to have an advantage in a congested space.

...

Time is an issue for me at the moment, but a bit later on I want to discuss Obstacle theory and starting positioning. I feel that there is a large discussion to be had there.