There is not doubt in my mind that Avenger and Boarding Troopers have together the most synergy in any upgrade cards. This extreme amount of synergy is pushing this combination into overpowered territory.

Obviously the best way to counter this strategy is to stay out of close range. Most ships flying with a certain degree of paranoia can do this. However what about the big, slow ships? What about Home One, Victory, Interdictor, and possibly Profundity? Engine Techs may help, but I'd expect a well flow speed 3 ISD to catch up by the end of turn 6 and dump its payload.

Example problem is the common Akbar Defiance, your 200pts tank will cop a 1 round damage burst of 8 damage without defence tokens. If double arced it may be KO'ed from full. With bombers it may need to discard all defence tokens just to limp through the round (Akbar lists generally don't carry may fighters).

A potential counter I have thought up (and I'm sure I'm not the 1st, but have not seen it mentioned anywhere) works around denying squad tokens.

• Step 1: Ion Cannon Batteries: Your big ship with at least 3 blue dice runs the Ion Cannons and hopefully have 2 or more chances to burn the stored squad token/s. You get to choose which token too.
  • Further options; Defiance, Quad Battery Turrets or Torryn for more blue dice rolls, DTT for red dice insurance as no leading shots, Disposable Capacitors for extra chance at long range, Screed for crit insurance.
• Step 2: Slicer Tools/Cham Syndulla. Then Slicer tools or Cham swoops in to deny a squad dial. Cham needs to swoop in the turn before, generally needing player 1 to follow-up with 1st activation, but shuts it down for 3 turns/the game- thus could do this a turn in advance. Slicers can work the turn prior, provided the ISD has moved, thus the dial you change is the one for the next turn. Flotillas also do well as black dice ISD lack accuracy results.

Additional thoughts; All three upgrades are useful against any list. The loss of leading shots is big though. Even the removal of 1 squad token will hamper many plans, as dials are pre-stacked. May result in loss of other commands like Nav or Repair.

Example build; Akbar Defiance Mk 2.0; Command Cruiser (instead of assault), Raymus [or alternative], Engine Techs, Ion Cannon Batteries, ECM, Tractor Beams. A GR-75 with Slicer tools, another with Torryn/Comms. 166pts left over.

• With C.F dial and Defiance, that is 5 blue dice with 2 re-rolls.
• Ion Cannon Batteries and Tractor beams adds another level of protection, does the ISD get slowed out of range, or forgo squad dials for Nav dials, meanwhile not getting in repairs?
• Ideally you could bait their biggest ship in close, deny their combo, slow their speed and deny their repair.

Counters to this counter: Thrawn and Hondo.

Anyone have any other ideas to counter Avenger's Boarding Troopers. Anyone tried something like this?

Edited; realised I was quoting Concentrate Fire commands to activate boarding troopers not Squadron commands. Fixed

Lando and Targeting Scramblers are unaffected by Avenger BT. If you can lower the total damage by forcing a reroll of double hits or hit/crits, it could keep the ship alive to return fire.

Also perhaps the Interdictor using Grav Well to position obstacles in the way as a screen can force Avenger BT wide and allow more time to bomb it.

Getting first player is probably the best counter! Keep out of that front arc.

Shove 4-6 Hammerheads infront of it. Can't take Gunnery teams.

1 hour ago, TallGiraffe said:

Shove 4-6 Hammerheads infront of it. Can't take Gunnery teams.

Sure, spend more points than the Avenger combo on a ship set that can't kill it but you claim moral victory by dying slower.. gold

I ran Devastator and a targeting scrambler Interdoctor at the UK Nats specifically to take out BT Avengers.

Works a charm but my list was squadronless and lost to bomber lists of which I faced three.

One game against a 4 activation double ISD list, the Dictor survived a front arc from Relentless and two fronts from Avenger before dying to three ram damage.

I got the win by swapping the Dictor for his Motti'd RBD Avenger and his two Goz.

20 minutes ago, beefcake4000 said:

Sure, spend more points than the Avenger combo on a ship set that can't kill it but you claim moral victory by dying slower.. gold

Lol. My naked Garel's Honor just the other day took an ISD down to 5 hull on its own. I think you underestimate their chances. Regardless, he illustrates a valid point: it can only kill one thing at a time. It's still very vulnerable to well-constructed and well-flown MSUs.

On topic: @Divad, generally speaking you're going to be better learning to outmaneuver it that trying to bring jank to blackout the squadron command. I've run lists designed to do that before (for squadron defense, not for BTVenger specifically), and it's super unreliable. Knowing how to outmaneuver this list will serve you much better. I did it with a Liberty just a couple weeks ago: push into the front arc. Your very heavy ships should be able to weather a single shot out that front arc assuming they haven't been softened up already. It'll hurt, but you'll burn the combo, and get a return shot--just make sure you're able to get out of that arc or kill him in return, or the second front arc will still finish you off.

There are plenty of other tactical options for dealing with it, but they're obviously very list-dependent. Some options:

Just as they did against Demo when they first came out, flotilla blockers go a long way against these kinds of one-hit wonders. Particularly against the ISD1 version, flotillas are fairly likely to weather that front arc with scatter, so use them to force the choice: pop BT on a flotilla, or gamble on being stuck in place. Then threaten the position they're in with your own ships. Or better yet, block with two, and guarantee the stiffarm. With that large base, it can be very hard to position around a well-placed flotilla blocker without having to weather return first.

You can also use blockers to funnel Avenger to where you want it be. Want to make sure it gets a front arc shot into your Liberty's front arc, and only into your front arc? Set up something like this:

Pin it at long range with a flotilla or two while you pepper it with your fast CR90s or your bombers. All of the super-high activation/super-high bid BTVenger fleets are either squadronless or very squadron-light: punish it for that. Bombers are still amazing, and Yavaris B-wings can still put some serious hurt on an ISD really fast.

Rieekan works fine against it. Yeah, you're going to lose a ship, but that was going to happen against most competent opponents anyway (with exceptions, of course). Make him trade for it. ISDs are expensive.

Decentralize the strength in your list. If you're banking on one ship staying alive the whole game, this is gonna be rough matchup for you. If you're a super pickle MC80 player, you're just going to have to accept that this is your hard counter and learn how to deal with it with your specific list, or switch it up to adapt. Super pickles have been doing very well recently, so you kind of had to expect a counter to crop up...

Non-token defenses are obviously ideal against this. Lando, Admonition, Derlin, Targeting Scramblers, Cracken, or natural obstruction are all well-suited to improve your chances of weathering that shot.

Or, just bring 4 MC30s and 3 GR75s and teach him the meaning of "trading up."

Aside from the OP, I would have love to see more of these kind of topics about Rieekan Aces counters. That being said. I think ABT is absolutely OP and a no-brainer autoinclude with a minimal amount of skill needed beyond "move this thing ahead and shoot".

Back to the OP.
I dont see the "stay away from close distance" as a counter at all. There is an amount of skill to distribute in every game depending on what you face and the weaknesses or strenghts of your list. Skill balance may fall in your side if you are running a moderate fighter screen against a full Sloane 134 points in example. Therefore you will have to be better than your opponent, odds will not favour you at first. ABT is disbalancing this to make the opponent have the 100% of the skill charge in their shoulders.

Swapping orders with ST or Syndulla is not working either since ABT works aswell with a banked token from turn 1.

Trying to have more firepower to avoid it to drop the deadly blow is just nonsense. It is an ISD plataform, the most durable plataform in the Aramada table top game.

6 hours ago, Divad said:

Anyone have any other ideas to counter Avenger's Boarding Troopers. Anyone tried something like this?

Honestly I have not a single idea on how to counter ABT besides relying in luck entirely. Or comprimising the entire list so it will be less competitive against other standard lists.

Someone mentioned in a previous thread that he had an experience with ABT aproaching his Liberty. He knew what was happenig, he could react to it, he saw it comming, he know what was happening, and there was nothing he could do about it. Thats ABT.

EDIT: People here are talking how to take down an ABT, everyone can take down an ABT, its only 130ish points. Dont forget the rest 270 points behind that ABT. 130sh is not bad for a trade off, specially of your strategy is to put everything in his front to block it while those 270 points screws your fleet from the flanks and most probably get tabled.

If it doesnt have gunnery teams, then instead of keeping out of its front arc, put absolutely everything into its front arc.....

I'm an ok player, I don't play often enough to be great but I'm competent. I've been using the Avenger with Boarding Troopers and an XI7 to push through the damage at long and medium ranges. I find that I lose when the opponent ignores the ISD and shoots up the other ships I have. With so many points soaked up in the ISD what remains is either small in number or not too tough. Deploying second helps the opponent here.

Against its voley: Lando, Targeting Scramblers, Admo, Derlin, obstruction, TFA.

To avoid the voley: maneuvering (avoid double arcs or front arcs, it is something you did before BTs right? RIGHT?), flotilla blockers.

As vengeance: Riekaan as always.

To prevent BT uses: slicers, ICBs

To screw the whole mechanic: better bid, activation advantage (he shoot first but you moved last the round before!)

To reduce the meaning of the combo: little ships that actually don't care about BTs or Avenger at all.

To reduce the lost: objective points parties.

To try ONE thing ONCE and fail doesn't mean anything.

Unless what we are looking for was a no-brainer counter to a combo we blame for being no-brainer.

Let's be clear, Avenger BT can be built so that it is impossible to prevent it from having that squad token when it activates barring (I think) one critical.

The only defenses are:

- Don't have a ship worthy of the combo (running MSUs)

- Kill it before it triggers

- Dodge the front arc

-Modify attackers roll (Lando, Targeting Scramblers)

There is one more way.
Give the ISD a Life Support Failure crit. Most don't have squadron commands ready in case of this.

1 hour ago, Tokra said:

There is one more way.
Give the ISD a Life Support Failure crit. Most don't have squadron commands ready in case of this.

That's the one. Couldn't remember the name. Though I suppose a player could strap leading shots to their ISD and bring Thrawn. Then, literally no way to stop them activating BT if in close range

I think a lot of people missed the point here.

I'm not trying to think up a list that will counter the Avenger with Boarding Troopers, as if I have some kind of Armada-related omniscience and know I'll be facing nothing but them at a future tournament.

I'm thinking about cost-efficient options to add to a list that will generally struggle against Avenger ones, but doesn't also cripple it against non-Avenger fleets. In this way, ICBs are useful against many ships/upgrades. The other point about ICB is that you are wasting the ISD's commands while delaying the combo. Without the combo you are laughing with ECM. Every turn you delay it is another 6-8 damage Akbar puts onto the ISD.

To those suggesting to outmanoeuvre it, some ships simply lack that ability, ie the Home One. Engine techs help, but it can't run forever from a speed 3 JJ ISD. Now with Tractor Beams this may actually be possible. Meanwhile Tractor Beams, while underrated can be used against other lists also, such as slowing down Demo to keep it in your kill zone.

1 hour ago, Church14 said:

Let's be clear, Avenger BT can be built so that it is impossible to prevent it from having that squad token when it activates barring (I think) one critical

My OP covered this. The general idea is ICB remove tokens, slicers/Cham remove [change] dials. Comms may give more tokens, but as long as the ICB ship activated after the Comms ship that isn't an issue. Only Hondo and Thrawn guarantee a squad token/dial at the start of the ship phase, and I don't expect every list to have these 2.

A question to those who run Avenger BT. How do you plan to trigger it? Do you simply bank a token turn 1 then use it when you need it, meanwhile never stacking another squadron command dial. How will your play style change if against a ICB MC80 that can potentially remove your precious token? Do you now mix in another squadron dial? Now what if that MC80 has Tractor Beams too, now you need Navigation dials as well or you will be outran. What if you see slicers? You most likely have a Comms net too, but now you have to activate it before the ISD, unless you have 1st-last activation advantage, which is unlikely.

A comms net flotilla. Use it as a speed bump in front of Avenger to buy you one more turn of lighting up AvengerBT before it gets to you. So far has been far and away one of the best local counters for cheap

5 hours ago, Kendraam said:

I ran Devastator and a targeting scrambler Interdoctor at the UK Nats specifically to take out BT Avengers.

Works a charm but my list was squadronless and lost to bomber lists of which I faced three.

One game against a 4 activation double ISD list, the Dictor survived a front arc from Relentless and two fronts from Avenger before dying to three ram damage.

I got the win by swapping the Dictor for his Motti'd RBD Avenger and his two Goz.

That was against me mate.....was a great trade....for you. Haha

That Interdictor took ages to go down!!!

Devastator was amazing with no defense tokens. He was literally devastating.

Thanks for an enjoyable and challenging game.

1 hour ago, SmurfWedge said:

That was against me mate.....was a great trade....for you. Haha

That Interdictor took ages to go down!!!

Devastator was amazing with no defense tokens. He was literally devastating.

Thanks for an enjoyable and challenging game.

Lol - *waves
Great to meet you

Loved the game, not just because I won - always enjoy tournaments, get to meet some great people and always enjoy myself, win or lose - shame i lost the last three! Actually, apart my third round game, the other two losses to bomber lists were probably only due to poor flying on my part.

Think the G8s and the Scramblers won it for me - thought i was doomed after we deployed but managed to get Devastator out and round Avenger

1 hour ago, Divad said:

A question to those who run Avenger BT. How do you plan to trigger it? Do you simply bank a token turn 1 then use it when you need it, meanwhile never stacking another squadron command dial. How will your play style change if against a ICB MC80 that can potentially remove your precious token? Do you now mix in another squadron dial? Now what if that MC80 has Tractor Beams too, now you need Navigation dials as well or you will be outran. What if you see slicers? You most likely have a Comms net too, but now you have to activate it before the ISD, unless you have 1st-last activation advantage, which is unlikely.

Veteran Captain.

Now I would like to try SFO.

I wouldn't change my play style against ICB. Or to be more precise, I added veteran captain as the "change" to face ICBs.

5 hours ago, ovinomanc3r said:

Against its voley: Lando, Targeting Scramblers, Admo, Derlin, obstruction, TFA.

To avoid the voley: maneuvering (avoid double arcs or front arcs, it is something you did before BTs right? RIGHT?), flotilla blockers.

As vengeance: Riekaan as always.

To prevent BT uses: slicers, ICBs

To screw the whole mechanic: better bid, activation advantage (he shoot first but you moved last the round before!)

To reduce the meaning of the combo: little ships that actually don't care about BTs or Avenger at all.

To reduce the lost: objective points parties.

To try ONE thing ONCE and fail doesn't mean anything.

Unless what we are looking for was a no-brainer counter to a combo we blame for being no-brainer.

All of this. There is no bolt-on solution to your Wave 4 list that will always counter this ship. It is eminently designed to kill one big ship per game. Preventing it from doing that without major changes on your end is going to be hard. This comes up every time a new super good idea comes out that wrecks somebody's pet fleet. You have two options:

1) get better with your fleet so you know how to beat the new hotness, or

2) change your fleet to remove the vulnerability to the new hotness. In this case, that involves getting rid of the super pickle or finding a way to protect it.

The onus is only on you to be super good against this fleet if you refuse to change your approach in response to it.

15 hours ago, Divad said:

Example problem is the common Akbar Defiance, your 200pts tank will cop a 1 round damage burst of 8 damage without defence tokens. If double arced it may be KO'ed from full. With bombers it may need to discard all defence tokens just to limp through the round (Akbar lists generally don't carry may fighters).

I've flown Ackbar Defiance against Avenger BT three times:

Match 1: I was player 2, he chose Advanced Gunnery, and tried to fly through my side arc, giving no me a full double broadside into his rear. Avenger dead at end of turn 2.

Match 3: This was a double ISD build, both with BT, but no squadrons. Avenger got the BT off, and the attack took away all shields on the side and put a few damage cards through. My broadside reply and squadron attacks then killed Avenger and I sailed away from the other ISD for the win.

Match 3: Another double ISD build with flotillas, no squadrons. I had engine techs on Defiance, so I stacked Nav commands all game, effectively making Defiance speed 3. I made him chase me, which led to Avenger getting stuck behind his other ISD. I killed the other ISD and flew away and out of Avenger's arc on turn 5. Match win.

An MC-80 with Engine Techs can outmaneuver an ISD-you just have to stack those Nav commands. I find Nav is usually the best command-it helps you line up more shots (thus helping offense more than CF) and can help you evade shots by getting out of arc or range (helping defense more than engineering).

Avenger BT is powerful, but I don't think it's OP. It can be defeated through better maneuvering and careful choice of objective. That's why it didn't do well at Nationals.

1 hour ago, dsnowak said:

An MC-80 with Engine Techs can outmaneuver an ISD-you just have to stack those Nav commands. I find Nav is usually the best command-it helps you line up more shots (thus helping offense more than CF) and can help you evade shots by getting out of arc or range (helping defense more than engineering).

This is true as long as mc80 has a deployment advantage. Otherwise ISD (or a support ship) can be deployed and navigated into mc80 front arc.

However ET mc80 is more maneuverable than most people think. The only reason I won my match against an Ackbar death pickle at Nationals is that i decided to not engage it and focused on killing the rest of the fleet and not dying. Incidentally I personally feel that Avenger/BT is a trap and didn't fly it (I flew 2ISD Avenger build without BT)

BTA is strong, but something of a one trick pony. ?

But I like the concept of a straightforward build that can absolutely devastate a single target in one activation. It enriches the game.

12 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

If it doesnt have gunnery teams, then instead of keeping out of its front arc, put absolutely everything into its front arc.....

Played @Drasnighta today and if it weren't for my good luck, this absolutely would have worked!

I've been trying to figure this out myself, and I think a lot of the engagement also comes down to surrounding the ISD in question and being able to apply all of your firepower at once into it.

Which I am not well versed in....

I've been starting to see BTA quite a lot and my Interdoctor scenario list really does not enjoy having its medium ships getting one-activationed off the table.

2 hours ago, Green Knight said:

BTA is strong, but something of a one trick pony. ?

But I like the concept of a straightforward build that can absolutely devastate a single target in one activation. It enriches the game.

I mean..that specific combo is a one-trick pony, that is attached to an ISD for a grand total of 8 points. The rest of the list remains quite flexible and dangerous while that occurs.

There is as well another card/way to counter the BTA ISD.
A Gozanti with Tua and ECM can, if nothing else is interfering, block an ISD for two turns. This is enough time to either kill the ISD or get out of his way. So its 9 points (in upgrades) to counter the 8 points for the BTA combo.