55 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

Hammerheads are a conundrum for me-

When I play them, they do nothing except die miserably, first or second player.

When I play against them, it's like they get stupid PCP strength and all they do is fly right at me and murder everything.

Ugh this. I have this suicide screen that I've been trying to run. Dice bite hard everytime I get in the right position. Then by opponents casually lark around with them, it shouldn't work, but it does. Lol.

Will watch this thread with interest. Love the concept and the model, but I need them to earn their points back.

So far I like them at my sc I use Cham on Hammerhead to scramble the commands of an AFm2 and forced it off the mat. These little guy are quite durable especially with Leia

48 minutes ago, Kiwi Rat said:

I use one of my HH torp with Flight controllers and Expanded Hanger bay, as a mini carrier at 47 points, that with Leia or Garm can activate 3 sqds in a turn.

I ran something like this at a store tournament and it worked pretty well. Got second.

Saturday I finally get to test my list with a pair of the Scouts running TFO and Spinal Armament beside a Sato'd Mon Karren.

So that should be...probably painful, but we'll see.

If I could just roll average, I'd feel almost unbeatable with the Pirahna Swarm... 6 Hammerheads and "Something else".. That else was a CR90A with Leia, but might be upgraded to a RaymusPelta with Leia and STM!

With just Antilles and Racks, they were putting the pressur eon everyone at the store champs... Until the mid game where they fell flat with die rolls (it shouldn't take multiple hammerheads multiple turns to kill one Gozanti. But Blanks'll be blanks.) - So its matter of using them to trip the flesh from the weaker sides, and let the ISD through. Rack up objectives for more in the end.

But I also know that I'm the only crazy bastard with 6 hammerheads in the area to experiment with them in such numbers... All benefits of my "product for credit" scheme.

2 hours ago, geek19 said:

Also, how many did you have in your Wolfpack? Right now the magic number for me seems to be 3. And did you ever finish that Store Champs write-up that you took them to?

Nope. Had another article to finish and work has been hammering my time.

I'm a little curious as to how many frustrated Rebel players had experience using Raiders prior to using Hammerheads. Nothing else in the Rebel fleet behaves like a Raider, really, and the Raider is the closest ship to the Hammerhead in terms of its use. It took a few waves of experience getting use from them before "Raiders suck" wasn't the default Imperial opinion. It may be that Hammerheads' popularity will improve over time similarly to my beloved Raider as people get used to running them and don't treat them as baby MC30s, just like Imperial players had to get over their initial disappointment that Raiders weren't baby Gladiators.

Or maybe not. I guess we'll see.

I have had a blast trying them out and taking them to a Store Championship. I find myself always gravitating towards taking them with a Leia or Sato builds, and lean more towards the Torpedo version. External Racks with Leia CF and rerolls is always some good fun. The Sato HH Torpedo Corvette with Ordinance Experts and APT's is always a recipe for a fun match.

As @Snipafist said above, I think popularity could improve with more time. I agree with others that 2-3 HH is the magic number.

41 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

I'm a little curious as to how many frustrated Rebel players had experience using Raiders prior to using Hammerheads. Nothing else in the Rebel fleet behaves like a Raider, really, and the Raider is the closest ship to the Hammerhead in terms of its use. It took a few waves of experience getting use from them before "Raiders suck" wasn't the default Imperial opinion. It may be that Hammerheads' popularity will improve over time similarly to my beloved Raider as people get used to running them and don't treat them as baby MC30s, just like Imperial players had to get over their initial disappointment that Raiders weren't baby Gladiators.

Or maybe not. I guess we'll see.

I definitely think that having watched you run Raiders has given me better success with them. They're not FULL Raiders, but the "catching your opponent's ships" thing has definitely helped me get better use out of them. That and knowing how black dice can Bork you, so requiring some sort of reroll on them when you build was always necessary for me.

26 minutes ago, geek19 said:

I definitely think that having watched you run Raiders has given me better success with them. They're not FULL Raiders, but the "catching your opponent's ships" thing has definitely helped me get better use out of them. That and knowing how black dice can Bork you, so requiring some sort of reroll on them when you build was always necessary for me.

I really dig trc Scout variant, 3 points cheaper than trc90 which matters when using multiples... Garel engineer dodonna combo is entertaining, but can be challenging getting the timing right, keeping that corvette alive

I have enjoyed a simple garels honor with external racks. It's so cheap, and with a CF token it can reroll at least one dud. Just flies around the flank, and if it can survive can really wreck someone's day. It has smashed many gozantis to bits, living up to its wonderful card art.

I do enjoy a scout variant equipped with Quad Battery Turrets under the command of Leia. 2 Reds and 2 Blues is a versatile attack pool with a reroll thanks to Leia an the concentrate fire command. It can punch above its weight at long range.

What about usin HH as a litteral ram with TFA. I think it would kind take it to its natural end spread the damage around on the HH, focus the damage on the enemy. Just the damage isnt with guns just hammers......one might say its a length of time involing hammers.

18 hours ago, ovinomanc3r said:

1. The more ships the awesome it looks

2. Navigation. I really enjoy it.

3. The pleasure of several pieces working together like a clock.

4. To see the impotence of the opponent not being able to shoot from his favourite arcs.

5. To see the frustration of the opponent when a heavy hitter is destroyed but tiny and ridiculous ships.

6. Black dice. I love them.

I could do another about heavy squadrons or big ships.

I second the first through the fifth :-)

I think the trouble with the Hammerheads is the sweet spot might be 3 - unless you're running a single Garel's Honor - and of course you get two in a pack. Running two with the fleet titles is risky. If you lose one the whole thing falls flat and let's face it, losing one isn't that difficult given they're small ships with a max speed of only 3.

Perhaps the only way to reliably run the fleet option when you only have 2 of them, is to fly the Scout version with TRCs or Quad Battery Turrets and Leia, and then simply keep them chugging away at long range.

I am interested in see how they do with Gunnery Team, Quad Batts and Leia. I think they are better suited to running slow in a phalanx, only jumping to speed 3 when they need to escape. Looking to try a list with Nebulons and HH Scouts all running slow with Quad Batts. The Nebulon Redemption title and Leia can make them Engineering 4 for a turn. Hopefully that will make them last.

Well I ran two Scout versions last night with quad batteries, dcaps and task force antillies. This was along side a command pelta, a CR90B and two GR75s with a decent squadron push.

They worked pretty well in this match because I could keep them really slow and kept my squadron ball close to keep them getting bombed. They took out two arquittens but both died in the process. So pretty good performance, but I think to be consistent they need to be backing up something bigger/scarier because a GT ISD would have just rolled straight over them!

The other highlight of this game for me was my first ever successful use of cluster bombs by my CR90B against Marek Stele. In the current environment Marek seems to be the key bomber the imps have (rightly so because he is b.s with Jendon!!).

I played one store and finish 3rd, for me, 3 is the magic number too. This fleet I flighted and others I theorised always finish with 3 of them. They are funny but difficult to flight too at least for me.

I was thinking of dropping one HH for better squads and maybe the Pelta title with Toryn Far but decided to keep four. Backed up with the assault Pelta that's six hull damage without firing weapons ?

Apparently if you fly six with rogue squadrons as support and cracken you can get top 8 at nationals. Who knew?

Quote

Sato hammer Vassal
Author: Irishmadcat

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 392/400

Commander: Commander Sato

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36 points)
- Task Force Antilles ( 3 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
= 48 total ship cost

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36 points)
- Task Force Antilles ( 3 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
= 48 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
= 18 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
= 18 total ship cost

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36 points)
- Task Force Antilles ( 3 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
= 48 total ship cost

[ flagship ] Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36 points)
- Commander Sato ( 32 points)
- Task Force Antilles ( 3 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
= 80 total ship cost

1 Shara Bey ( 17 points)
1 Wedge Antilles ( 19 points)
4 YT-2400s ( 64 points)
1 Tycho Celchu ( 16 points)
1 "Dutch" Vander ( 16 points)

My current Sato vassal list. Its fun with a bit of vareity. Most of the losses I had playing it were player error. My tests with Task Force Organa were a disater. Much prefer Ordance experts and antilles.

34 minutes ago, Irishmadcat said:

My current Sato vassal list. Its fun with a bit of vareity. Most of the losses I had playing it were player error. My tests with Task Force Organa were a disater. Much prefer Ordance experts and antilles.

In our game, I would say that you got big benefit from TFA, far more than you would have got from TFO. Whereas I got benefit from TFO, far more than I would have got from TFO.

I think is related to you running 4 hammerheads and me only 2. TFA scales up really well which makes a big difference.

1 hour ago, Ginkapo said:

In our game, I would say that you got big benefit from TFA, far more than you would have got from TFO. Whereas I got benefit from TFO, far more than I would have got from TFO.

I think is related to you running 4 hammerheads and me only 2. TFA scales up really well which makes a big difference.

I find the timign on TFO very finicky. The benefit is not bad for the cost but there is an oppurtunity cost as Garel honors is amazing.

I'd say what I love most about hammerheads is that a group of them loaded out correctly can make for a deceptive threat...

I like to run 3 of them... 1 torp with ExRacs... and 2 scouts with DCaps and slaved turrets... all with TFO and with Leia as the commander

This battle group has the teeth of a Mc-80 and the same threat profile... it can't be ignored... but it is way more flexible and it's attacks are broken into parts so it wears down defense tokens

and the best part is that when the enemy closes on it BAM the whole group jumps to speed 3 and gets out of those tight places

Edit: And the even better part is instead of one big activation you get 3!... Wave six made me go from a low activation xmas Lib player to a MSU player over night!

Put a battle group of these guys loaded out right... then put in a MC-30 flavored for your particular taste (or 2?) and watch your opponents squirm as they decide who to focus on... and more importantly... who not to focus on