Inspired by IG88E's post here, I decided to post a battle report that I had been too lazy to write this week =).

Like many, lately I've been a bit annoyed with the state of the game as in my league I ended up facing 3 Dengar/Nyms, 2 Miranda/Nyms and 1 PS11 Alpha Strike. I get that the meta changes and people like playing the new hotness, but my annoyance mainly came from the sheer repetitiveness of the lists I faced, despite having won 4 of the 6 matches (with 4 or fewer ships with 6 or fewer hit points, all below PS10) to move onto the next phase. So knowing the current state of my local meta, at my last tournament (20 people/3 rounds/Q3 kit) I decided to go for heavy hitters that have effects that ruin Nym's day. To that end I decided on the following:

It's 100 points, and I know that taking a mindlink list is pretty much joining the enemy (I'm generally a triple aces player), but it's a list that I hadn't seen before and figured that it would take people by surprise.

Warning: Wall of text xD

Round 1: Xavi

This opponent typically flies out-of-meta lists and this day was no different with triple T-70s. He flew Snap (VI, B1, BB8, IA), Nien (SS, R3-A2, IA) and Jess (forgot the droid, PA and IA). the first round of combat was on his side of the table near the center, and Ketsu lost a few shields whereas his Nien handily evaded everything. On the next turn I moved inaldra in to try and block (while avoiding Nien's stress-inducing Snap Shot), but his Jess jumped over Inaldra and my Ketsu ended up bumping Jess (who was in both my mobile and forward arc), and Asajj moved along his edge (parallel to Ketsu) with her arc facing inward. Nien and Snap moved in closer, at R1 of Inaldra but missing the block. I then stressed Jess and TBed her onto a rock (she wouldn't have had a shot anyway, but there was no reason not to). Xavi tried to focus down Ketsu instead of taking the R1 shots on Inaldra, but didn't do much damage. In return I left Nien with a damaged sensor array and Snap without shields (my reds were perfect and his unmodified greens didn't help him). On the next turn Inaldra turned away and focused and Jess did a hard turn (without clearing her stress) to try to get a shot (she didn't). I expected Nien to do a k-turn or talon roll, so I turned Asajj in with a 3-turn (who got snap shotted and stressed), while Ketsu just barely jumped over Asajj with a 3-bank, and turned her mobile arc to face where Nien would likely go. Nien did the expected k-turn (into R1 of Asajj's mobile arc) and managed to flip over his crit, and Snap bumped Asajj. At the start of combat I gave a second stress to Jess. Snap missed his shot on Ketsu, Ketsu then killed Nien, who then shot at Asajj due to simultaneous fire and maybe got rid of a shield. Asajj did some damage to Jess, and Jess and Inaldra had no shots. On the next turn I managed to destroy Jess between my two shots and her double stress, and a few turns later I cleared off Snap.

100-22

Round 2: Juan

Juan generally flies meta lists and/or creates his own strong lists after analyzing the meta (he made top 8 in the European Championship with RAClo Jax) and today he was flying Miranda/Nym. We know each other's play style after having faced off so many times over the last few years, and I know that he plays for the long game and rarely ends up in a position where he's forced to commit to coming into combat range before he's ready. Anyway, his Miranda had a TLT, Sabine, EM, Conner, Cluster, Thermal and Adv SLAM, and Nym had AS, EU, Genius, Bomblet, TLT, VI and title.

In this match I set up Ketsu in my left corner facing right, and Asajj and Inaldra in my right corner facing left. Miranda was set up across from Asajj and Nym across from Ketsu, with both facing me. I sent Ketsu forward along my edge, while Inaldra did a 1-bank towards the middle and Asajj the same (bumping Inaldra). Nym came forward slowly and Miranda turned towards Nym. Several turns later saw Asajj in the top-right corner turning left, with a thermal detonator left behind by Miranda near the center-top of the table (but with enough space to fly between the edge and the bomb's range), and Ketsu and Inaldra were heading towards Asajj, with Ketsu's arc facing backwards. Nym was behind Ketsu and Inaldra at R3, and Miranda did two left 2-turns after dropping the bomb to be parallel to his table edge but now near the middle of the table and coming towards me. On this turn I traded one of Ketsu's shields for 3 of Nym's (he spent his action on a boost or BR to try to get out of range and blanked his defense). On the following turn I went forward with Inaldra (towards the corner) to focus and get out of range of both enemy ships, Asajj got parallel to Juan's board edge and just outside of the bomb's range, and Ketsu 3-banked (now moving up the right-hand side) and moved her arc left towards Miranda. Miranda's maneuver landed her right at range 2 of both of my mobile arcs, so she slammed to get to R3 of Asajj. Nym had a rock to evade and had to turn away from the fight. Ketsu's R2 shot on Miranda left her down two shields and TBed, and Asajj's shot got the first damage card on her, which was a PS0 crit. Juan ran off with Miranda with a double 3-bank, Asajj shot forward past the bomb (towards the top-left corner), and I looped my other ships around the asteroid in the top-right corner to follow Asajj. Nym slowly moved up towards Asajj. On the next turn I moved Asajj forward some more (towards the left edge), caught Nym in my mobile arc at R2, and traded shots (a shield for his last two). On the following turn Asajj did a 1-bank towards Nym and Ketsu got into firing range. Nym did a 3-forward, dropped a bomb and boosted to escape Asajj's mobile arc (and the bomb), but we were both still in each other's primary arcs. Asajj lost her last shields from the bomblet but took nothing from the unmodified shot (she had a focus, evade and a leftover TL from the previous turn), and then the two lancer pilots returned fire and took Nym down. After that it was just a case of hunting down the PS0 Miranda carefully.

100-0

Round 3: Domin

Domin mostly plays empire, and today was no different, he had the Inquisitor (PtL, AT, title), Vader (Adap, title, AC, GC, CM) and Quickdraw (VI, FCS, LWF, title and CM). This match turned out to be the most strategic one of the day, because any of my ships could be brought down pretty quickly by those missiles if I wasn't careful. In the end I set up the same as in the previous game, and Domin set up his 3 ships in the top-left facing me. I slowly brought Ketsu towards the right, while Inaldra and Asajj turned and started going up the board, and the triple aces started coming down my left. A few turns later Ketsu had rounded the asteroid in the bottom-right corner, Asajj was coming down from the mid-top and Inaldra was in between. The Inquisitor came down to my edge of the board and started turning up towards Ketsu, while QD and Vader were more center-left and converging on Ketsu as well. I exposed Ketsu a bit too much and took primary weapon shots from all three of his ships (between the rocks neither Vader nor QD could do long maneuvers for a good cruise missile shot), while Inaldra could only try to hit the Inquisitor at R3, and Vader dodged both Ketsu's and Asajj's R3 shots. The next turn saw Ketsu dive right into the fray with a 3-turn coming straight down towards me), blocking QD (who tried to sloop in the same direction), but at R1 of the inquisitor. Inaldra blocked Vader and Asajj stressed him. Ketsu took maybe a hit from the Inquisitor, but Vader lost both of his shields and maybe got a damage card. After that I turned Ketsu towards my left corner and moved the arc to the back, swung around the big center rock with Asajj, and kept turning around the big rock in the bottom-right corner with Inaldra. Vader did a green but had no shot (Inaldra was right to his side) and QD went forward towards Inaldra and BRed to get Ketsu into his rear arc. Asajj stressed QD and Ketsu managed to blow away his shields with one R2 shot, and I TBed him right in front of the rock in the bottom-right corner, while his two rear shots were mostly evaded (one at Ketsu and one at Asajj). Asajj then brought QD down to 1 hull. After that Ketsu slow-rolled 1-forward, Asajj did a left 3-turn in towards the enemy ships, and Inaldra tried to run off and evade so she could stack tokens for defense. The Inquisitor was out of range but ready to turn in on the following turn, but Vader did a 3-turn and had Inaldra in his sight just outside of R1. QD was killed by the asteroid. Vader launched a 4-die missile, and Inaldra rolled triple blanks with a focus+evade and exploded. Ketsu was out of range but Asajj managed to leave Vader on 1 hull in exchange.

After multiple turns flying around the map, and alternating which ship of mine would evade and which would be the focus generator, Ketsu was down to 4 hull (with a PS0 crit), and the Inquisitor was shieldless, with Vader still on 1 hull and Asajj full. Soon after that I managed to get a block on Vader with Ketsu, and had the Inquisitor at R1 in her mobile arc and facing away with focus+evade. Asajj managed to burn down Vader, and Ketsu snuck a blinded pilot crit onto the Inquisitor. Domin then conceded.

100-36

In the end, 542 points of MoV was enough to claim victory and get a new card and tokens. I didn't end up using the cargo chute, so next time I'll probably swap it for a burnout slam to get a little bit of repositioning/blocking capability. Oddly enough, I didn't face a single Dengar, which might have been a more difficult pairing than Nym/Miranda, but at least I was able to show that the list that I designed as a Nym-killer proved to be effective in that role. I did find it somewhat boring to fly compared to my usual aces, so I doubt I'll play it for more than 10 games or so (there's also that attanni nerf rumored to be on the horizon), but I will play it some more to see if I can get people to fear it and not take Nym every single time they go out to play

Very nice write-up! Love to see uninspired meta lists getting crushed.

Congrats to your victories

Have to definetively try out Ketsu next time. He has a lot of hidden potential

Yes, Nice write up. I agree that Burn Out SLAM will be more useful on a Lancer than cargo chute.

Awesome! Same feeling here within my Xwing leauge in NYC; Way too many Nym centered lists.

I guess I am part of the anti Nym guys as I do enjoy mixing up my squads.

Thanks for sharing

Today I played another 3-round tournament (with the same kit) with this list (trading the cargo chute for the burnout slam), and managed to go 3-0 again to make second out of 14 players.

The first pairing was against 2 PS3 scurrgs with deadeye, concussion missiles, chips, extra munitions (one with the title and collision detector and the other with Boba crew), alongside a scout with ASTS, plasma torp, chips, K4 and unhinged. The scout got its only torpedo off on Ketsu pretty early (and I blanked my defense), and a few turns later due to a dice spike in my opponent's reds (10 out of 10 hits, 3 with full mods and 7 without any at all) Ketsu was brought down. Fortunately on the same turn I killed the Boba scurrg without it firing any missiles, and the other one ended up triple stressed to get into that kill box. After bringing down the second scurrg to 3 hull, it managed to get away and destress itself, so I focused on the scout, which I ended up bringing down a few turns later after getting hot reds as well. After that my opponent conceded as he hadn't done any damage to Asajj or Inaldra yet.

100-45

The next round was vs a rebel stress list, Braylen with R3-A2 and tactician, Liberators with expertise, intel agent and tactician, and Eaden Vrill with an ion cannon, Rey, smuggling compartment and cargo chute. I had to play this one quite carefully do to the nature of stress and attanni, and used Ketsu as bait, but only the wookiees bit (always thinking with their stomachs XD). I managed to go from range 3 to range 1 every time, and never took a stress token from a tactician, and quickly traded Inaldra for Braylen. Even so, Eaden was hitting hard with full mods and managed to get the shields off of both my lancers in exchange for all of his. Ketsu later got caught in a corner and ate a cargo chute, but with a few bumps and attanni focus tokens she escaped with 4 hull. A couple of turns later I swung Asajj back into play and killed off Eaden but took a couple of hits from the wookiees, and a few turns later between the stress and tractor beams it was over for the liberators.

100-56

The final round was against another mindlinked list, only this time with Fenn, Dengar and Inaldra. My opponent ran away with his Inaldra better than I did with mine, and I lost her quickly, but in exchange I managed to get Dengar an Fenn in a traffic jam between the asteroids and peeled off Dengar's shields and left Fenn on 2 hull. After that Fenn looped about, Inaldra ran, and Dengar was hot on Ketsu's tail, causing her about 1-2 damage/turn on average. Fenn soon became aggressive again, wanting to get back into the fight, and I caught him in R2 of both of my mobile arcs, so he boosted to get into R1 of Ketsu and was just barely in both of my arcs, so I tractor-beamed him back into R2 of both, and stressed him. Dengar's and Fenn's shots left Ketsu on 2 hull, but Ketsu's shot finished off Fenn and Asajj plinked off Inaldra's shield. 3 turns later I got double R2 shots on Inaldra and killed her despite her double tokens, and a few turns after Dengar was on 2 hull and Ketsu was dead. After that it was a full Asajj vs Dengar, and I managed to finish him off before he could get half points.

100-59

The victories weren't quite as overwhelming this time, and again I didn't use my illicit upgrade, but it seems like the list continues to fare well against all comers.

Actually I am playing this list since Polish Natio (13 in swiss, tops dropped :-( ). In 12 games in Poland on tounaments I lost just 3 games it is quite universal on this meta, but on saturday I lost against Dengar Nym... I felt to easy against it and I played tooo risky.
In my opinion this list is very accurate but you have to fly with a good plan and cannot made mistakes...
Illcit IMO is not necessary better is to take 99 points against Dash Miranda.

Me and my Friend who build with me this list in July we are calling it "Shadow Ladies"

Nice to know that others have achieved great results with the list, I've not faced Dash/Miranda with it yet so I'll keep the initiative bid in mind. My name for it is "Shadow Link", both because they're mind-linked and because it's an appropriate list name for a Zelda fan

There was close to 5-1 and 3rd place but i nlast game Dash were on 1 hp and the time was out and my Inaldra 2 hp (fookin Lone Wolf...)

I played this list against Vader Quickdraw Deathfire and won 100-14 - losing Inaldra to.. a bomb I tried to not hit but hit anyway by a hair~

Played it against Latts and Ketsu (PS9) and won with only Asajj remaining

Now I've ditched Inaldra (cause of max 2 Mindlinks rule update) and introduced a 15 pts Cruise missile Guidance Ship Z95 (:
Won against 4 Scyks + 1 Z95, won against YV, Fenn and Thweek (the Z95 got a 5 dice rocket into Fenn that I blocked... gg!)