I would be very grateful for any feedback on this list. My guess is that it lacks defense, but damage output should be very high.

• Triple 8 pilot skill is respectable if not in 'ludicrous ace' territory.
• Given that the ships you've picked aren't really arc-dodger types (aside maybe from Duchess), I suspect it's probably good enough.
• Tomax is one heck of a hitter - crack shot missiles are nasty, and he has two of them up his sleeve.
  • Unless you're specifically trying to allow for heavy swarms like Lowhhrick & co, I'm not sure that you wouldn't get more mileage out of cruise missiles than harpoons.
  • The Harpooned! condition is nice, but you don't have any reliable means of setting it off (a face-up damage from Brath is still not a critical unless caused by a critical result)
  • You can get a 4-dice shot with Bren even whilst still able to do banks or hard turns.
  • If you can line up a 5-dice shot, especially if you can combine fire with Brath and tractor the target first, you can deliver a brutal one-two punch.
• The weak point is probably duchess. Her ability to duck and weave is nice but she's still only a 3-dice primary with a single-use crack shot, and a serious vulnerability to range 3 turreted primary weapons.
  • She is not the TIE interceptor she vaguely resembles, and whilst she is a great 'budget arc dodger' she really needs veteran instincts for the role.
  • If you really want to maximise opening punch - or at least draw attention away from the somewhat fragile-for-his-points Brath, maybe Pure Sabbac with Veteran Instincts? That makes your TIE Striker suddenly a much bigger enduring threat unless your opponent makes an effort to hurt it quickly.
• Swapping Crack Shot Duchess for Veteran Instincts Pure Sabbac, and downgrading Tomax Bren's Harpoon Missiles to Cruise Missiles frees up 2 points. Potentially dropping off Rexler Brath's Twin Ion Engines MkII frees up a third - enough to pack Cruise Missiles and Guidance Chips on the TIE defender, too, if you think that'd be useful.

I would run Veteran Instincts or Lone Wolf on Duchess. She lives longer when she can either reposition at PS10 or consistently modify her defense dice. Not saying Crack Shot isn’t good, it just isn’t conducive to keeping Duchess in the game.

I prefer Ryad or Vessery for Defenders. Rexler Brath’s pilot ability gets a big boost from Expertise, but you only get 1 focus token per round, and you will probably need it on defense. I’ve seen so many game in which Brath’s ability goes unused; I’m not convinced he’s ever worth the points.

Great feedback from Magnus.

I would VI Duchess. The more she sees happening before she moves, the more she can take advantage of Ailerons or not.

Rexler TIE/D is the most you can overpay for a Defender. I imagine you're up at PS8 with everyone for tractoring but spending 43pts on a ship you're going to use just for a tractor beam is a massive waste. It's also hurting Duchess who wants to be higher PS.

I would pull points out of Rexler to upgrade to Ion Cannon, maybe Vessery with Ion > Rexler with Tractor.

I'm not a fan of Tomax - I would have QuickDraw here - but I guess he's fine as he is. Cheap enough I guess.

I see what you are doing and I love it.

However, having flown a lot of Tomax, he really need Long Range Scanners. Allows you to get a missile shot off in the first turn of shooting, even against higher PS ships. It also allows you to go in with TL+Focus.

Otherwise, yah. Sabaac for Duchess, and you've got yourself a list. Rexler may not be ideal, but he is the go-to-guy for tractor beaming the enemy before the rest of your list shoots.

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

• The weak point is probably duchess. Her ability to duck and weave is nice but she's still only a 3-dice primary with a single-use crack shot, and a serious vulnerability to range 3 turreted primary weapons.
  • She is not the TIE interceptor she vaguely resembles, and whilst she is a great 'budget arc dodger' she really needs veteran instincts for the role.
  • If you really want to maximise opening punch - or at least draw attention away from the somewhat fragile-for-his-points Brath, maybe Pure Sabbac with Veteran Instincts? That makes your TIE Striker suddenly a much bigger enduring threat unless your opponent makes an effort to hurt it quickly.
• Swapping Crack Shot Duchess for Veteran Instincts Pure Sabbac, and downgrading Tomax Bren's Harpoon Missiles to Cruise Missiles frees up 2 points. Potentially dropping off Rexler Brath's Twin Ion Engines MkII frees up a third - enough to pack Cruise Missiles and Guidance Chips on the TIE defender, too, if you think that'd be useful.

I agree with this, but I'd complete the list a little differently:

Rexler w/ predator, TIE/D, tractor & hull upgrade = 44

Tomax w/ crackshot, cruise missile, extra munitions & LRS = 30

Pure Sabaac w/ VI, LWF & AA = 25

99

This gives you a few things which I believe are important for the list to perform well:

1) Long-range Sensors on Tomax: now you can TL higher PS enemy ships and thanks to all PS 8, you can gaurantee a 5 dice cruise missile shot early in the game through clever positioning. Quite simply, you dial in a 4 straight with Tomax on the turn you know shooting will start. BUT! You also set your dials on Sabaac OR Rexler in a way to deny your opponent from rushing into range 1 of Tomax (to avoid the cruise missile) if they have higher Pilot Skill, AND if they have lower Pilot Skill, you instead use your own ships to block Tomax and push his final position backwards so that enemy blockers cannot get into range 1 of him.

2) Hull upgrade on Rexler. You need one ship that can survive a beating! Hull upgrade on a Defender provides a meaningful boost in durability and you won't regret it, I promise. Your other two ships are very fragile and they will get burned down quick if caught in heavy fire. At least that is not true for Rexler with hull upgrade.

3) Small initiative bid. Having to move first against Miranda is incredibly obnoxious and you risk getting outflown by a good Miranda player. Since most rebel lists build to 100, this gives you a substantially greater advantage against one of the most commonly seen rebel ships (PS 8 is also fairly common in imperial lists, so it will help you in those matchups too).

If you really want to keep Expertise & Twin Ion mk 2, you can of course just do that (and you can even stick with harpoon missiles if you really prefer), but I truly believe the hull upgrade is more important in this particular list.

Great advice guys, thank you all. I guess VI Vessery works well in the list with an Ion Cannon, but that's where I would prefer a TL ship in the third slot which a Striker can't do. I just really love the Striker!

19 minutes ago, Smudger13 said:

Great advice guys, thank you all. I guess VI Vessery works well in the list with an Ion Cannon, but that's where I would prefer a TL ship in the third slot which a Striker can't do. I just really love the Striker!

Omega Leader says "hello". But yes, it becomes a different list.

3 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Omega Leader says "hello". But yes, it becomes a different list.

Yes OL is the obvious choice! I've flown her too many times though, it's time for a change. I think the other way to take this list could be to use Quickdraw in place of Rexlar with some upgrades to support Tomax and Sabacc, like targeting synchroniser / draw their fire / decoy. I know that has been used to good effect before with a TIE D instead of Tomax but, again, he's a guilty pleasure. I imagine the list will live or die based on whether the alpha strike can get ships off the board as it will melt to concentrated fire.

I think you may want to look at the list that came second in the Lothal Open. He had Targeting Synch Quickdraw with Tomax. The third ship he used was Carnor Jax, but that's just seasoning to taste.

That is interesting. Never seen a quickdraw loaded up like that, almost as a dedicated support ship. Not even LWF!

I like this list. I have one that's pretty similar

<b>Tomax Bren (24)</b><br /><i>Crack Shot (1)</i><br /><i>Extra Munitions (2)</i><br /><i>Cruise Missiles (3)</i><br /><i>Proton Bombs (5)</i><br /><i>Long-Range Scanners (0)</i><br /><br /><b>"Pure Sabacc" (22)</b><br /><i>Veteran Instincts (1)</i><br /><i>Lightweight Frame (2)</i><br /><i>Adaptive Ailerons (0)</i><br /><br /><b>Colonel Vessery (35)</b><br /><i>Veteran Instincts (1)</i><br /><i>Ion Cannon (3)</i><br /><i>TIE/D (0)</i><br />
<br />
<b><i>Total: 99</i></b>
<br />
<a href="https://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Galactic%20Empire&d=v4!s!190:140,-1,126,-1,241,41:-1:24:;239:27:48:31:;70:27,22,-1:34:-1:&sn=New%20Squadron&obs=">View in Yet Another Squad Builder</a>

or not. Can't get ever seem to get the 'Yet Another List Builder' code to work here. A little help, please?