I finally got a TIE Aggressor and managed to get in two games with it in one day. The list I ran was as follows;

Rexlar Brath; Expertise, TIE X7 and Twin Ion Engine

Colonel Vessery; Veteran Instincts, TIE X7 and Twin Ion Engine

Sienar Specialist; Twin Laser Turret, Lightweight Frame

All I have to say is it's definitely not a meta shaping ship, but for 25 points it acted as a very good annoyance.

The first game was a 2v2 200 point match where each player got 100 points to play with, so this wasn't really a good testing game but it gave me a chance to learn how to fly it.

The second game was against a friend of mine who almost always flies Rey plus something else, this time it was a Resistance Sympathizer with I think it was Bo-Shek (this list took him to top 8 in a 30 person Store tourney) Both Vessery and Brath did what they do best and the aggressor plinked away shields from the safety of the asteroid.

It's definitely not a good missile carrier like they tried to make it unless you go with the high PS pilot, but it has a place as a relatively cheap annoyance.

Since imperial can't get a true Biggs pilot to protect the valuable ships we have to settle for the annoying bee that will sting if left alone.

In both matches that's exactly what happened, either my opponent spent time trying to kill the aggressor when it just ran away and my Defenders lit the targets up, or they spent time trying to kill the Defenders and the Aggressor just dealt tiny bits of damage.

Well it is an Imperial ship, naked it isn't much, cost too many points to be relevant. But as far as upgrade options it has a lot of offensive options but no real defensive options. It can get chased down by faster ships and LWF is not the same as agility 3. No evade action.

So like all Imperial ships good on offense, but dies easily.

45 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

Well it is an Imperial ship, naked it isn't much, cost too many points to be relevant. But as far as upgrade options it has a lot of offensive options but no real defensive options. It can get chased down by faster ships and LWF is not the same as agility 3. No evade action.

So like all Imperial ships good on offense, but dies easily.

Eh, it takes a little work to go down, same as a Y-wing. The cases where you don't have 3 dice are pretty rare in my experience, you just rarely get 4. Focus+3 greens is solid defense, it's just still RNG and can fail horribly. The dial will keep it flying for a bit, and if they're chasing a 25 point ship why are your other 75 points not making mincemeat of their list?

Yeah. LWF is definitely not agility 3, but the Aggressor does survive way longer than it has any right to for it's point cost.

3 minutes ago, BadMotivator said:

Yeah. LWF is definitely not agility 3, but the Aggressor does survive way longer than it has any right to for it's point cost.

Not really. It takes about the same firepower to kill as a Y-wing on average, but it has more variance. The better dial and barrel roll does make it harder to shoot at though, which also prolongs its lifespan. I've had good results with TLT aggressors, since it's easy to put two more nasty ships in the other half of the list (Sabaac/Omega for instance, and just ask them what scares em the most).

Kestal with Twin Laser Turret and Ruthlessness. I have so much fun with it. Your wingman is Quickdraw.

6 minutes ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

Kestal with Twin Laser Turret and Ruthlessness. I have so much fun with it. Your wingman is Quickdraw.

I haven't run Kestal yet, but I really want to run her with Cruise missiles and Crackshot, just to REALLY mess up an Ace's day...

31 minutes ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

Kestal with Twin Laser Turret and Ruthlessness. I have so much fun with it. Your wingman is Quickdraw.

That looks like a whole load of fun

RoV

It's solidly in the 'meh' category. I'd only ever really consider using the cheap 25 point Sinear Fleet Specialist with TLT and LWF- and 9 times out of 10 I'll choose another filler like a Striker or Omega Leader.

I find the Aggressor to be completely unnecessary to the Imperial faction- if it were gone tomorrow you'd never notice.

Intensity, however, is the bees knees.

Sienar PS 2 pilot plus LWF and TLT. 25 pts well invested. Agi 2.5 and 4 Hull 1 Shield. Or Agi 1 Y Wing... Compares well. No super super named pilots and my favourite wave 11 ship. By far. Of course not the best. But Imperial's tiny micromachines fill my hearth. Advanced, TAP, Agressor...

Double Edge, lightweight frame, lone wolf, Twin laser turret. Amazing little flanker. Or bait. Either works because the function of the ship is to distract. It does that quite well.

3 hours ago, Warlon said:

I haven't run Kestal yet, but I really want to run her with Cruise missiles and Crackshot, just to REALLY mess up an Ace's day...

What aces?

The only low HP ace really left in the meta is Fenn.

The ship is entirely quite meh. Unable to really carry ordnance, low HP, dies to super stacking and overpowered stuff very easily.

2 hours ago, Hexdot said:

Sienar PS 2 pilot plus LWF and TLT. 25 pts well invested. Agi 2.5 and 4 Hull 1 Shield. Or Agi 1 Y Wing... Compares well. No super super named pilots and my favourite wave 11 ship. By far. Of course not the best. But Imperial's tiny micromachines fill my hearth. Advanced, TAP, Agressor...

Personally I am not too sure on the value on LWF on a cheap TLT carrier. Just because a TLT is range 2/3 and if you are using TLT you want to be skirting around on the edges of the play area where you would not be befitting from the LWF. Of course if they decide to gun for you then I guess LWF would be useful.

It doesn't seem to have much of an impact on the meta, though this may yet change as there's nothing horribly wrong with the platform itself. Now that Nym is ascendant, TLT isn't a bad weapon to build your list around. TLTs natural enemies - the aces - are all but wiped out. Meanwhile there are plenty of AGI 1 or AGI 2 ships flying around and they eat TLT shots like candies. Ironically though, in the era of bombs and autoblasters good old Y-wings might be better TLT platforms than TIE Aggressors - even if they don't quite have manueverability that barrel roll offers.

4 hours ago, Warlon said:

I haven't run Kestal yet, but I really want to run her with Cruise missiles and Crackshot, just to REALLY mess up an Ace's day...

I've had Kestal used against me once, she killed Fenn Rau in a situation where anyone other than Kestal wouldn't have. Although in fairness, it was 200pt Epic Game and Fenn Rau HAD just survived a joust with basically 170pts of Imperial Shipping all by himself. Just.

Decent dial, slightly overcosted, high variance (green dice), underwhelming.

It's a functional but boring TLT carrier, which to be honest is all it's good for. The named pilots are pretty crap (Kestal is a points sink and Double Edge is taken only for his Elite slot), but a PS2 with TLT is a nice filler that I've found slots well as the third ship into my personal favourite list.

I've been using LWF on it simply because the points were spare, but it's a fair point that R3 is where it wants to be, and R3 is where LWF is largely useless.

1 hour ago, Keffisch said:

Decent dial, slightly overcosted, high variance (green dice), underwhelming.

Have you flown it much? I've gotten in several games and found it to be quite decent - it flies very differently from other TLT carriers. I've found the named pilots' abilities to be highly situational, but that isn't a knock on either the frame, or it's cost.

No, it isn't meta-defining. And I'm more than happy with that. It's one of the more balanced designs I can recall seeing in a while.

45 minutes ago, Parable said:

Have you flown it much? I've gotten in several games and found it to be quite decent - it flies very differently from other TLT carriers. I've found the named pilots' abilities to be highly situational, but that isn't a knock on either the frame, or it's cost.

No, it isn't meta-defining. And I'm more than happy with that. It's one of the more balanced designs I can recall seeing in a while.

Yep and I'd happily settle for a "decent" ship, but the named ones are overspecialized and the generics are prone to green dice failure - and 5 health won't cut it in today's meta - unless you bring 3-4 Aggressors.

The barrel roll is great though!

I am all for new ships being balanced, because otherwise you get powercreep if each wave HAS to introduce a new ship that just destroys all others.

Ruthlessness + TLTs on this is a fun idea. Just to clarify though, Ruthlessness will only trigger once if either of the TLT shots hit and NOT twice if both shots hit, correct?

Just now, sirjorj said:

Ruthlessness + TLTs on this is a fun idea. Just to clarify though, Ruthlessness will only trigger once if either of the TLT shots hit and NOT twice if both shots hit, correct?

Correct.

Double Edge (Deadeye, Sync Turret, LWF) is my favorite budget filler right now. Alternately, Double Edge (Expertise, Sync Turret, Cruise Missile, LWF) is a great ship to run alongside a SF TIE with Targeting Synchronizer. Double Edge gets the nod for me because he is the cheapest Aggressor with an EPT, his ability is nice but rarely triggers.

Both the Aggressor and the Sync Turret are much more effective in practice than the online community give them credit for. Not meta-shattering certainly, but inexpensive and performance in line with cost.