With discussions about 4 x X-wings recently, I thought a squad-concept list about the Killergorilla Kiajugodzilla Millievanilla Thrillerinmanilla whatever-the-heck-it's-called.

Ultimately, the Cartel Brute is a nice, very flexible ship.

• 8 hull means it's got the durability of a B-wing.
• 22 points means it's got the cost of a B-wing.
• With Barrel roll, lots of durability and little agility, and the implication of a poor dial ("all its speed 1 and 2 turns are red"), it's going to be pretty similar to the B-wing in practice.

• Question 1 is how you'd equip them.
  • No cannon and no systems slot is a mark against it!
  • Astromech:
    • Unhinged astromech (hopefully) gives it speed 3 green turns, which makes it actually pretty fast - especially for a scum ship.
    • 6 hull is tough enough for Salvaged Astromech to probably be a good buy. It's not as good as integrated astromech, but it's close.
    • Without the unhinged, you probably lack the green dice to support Overclocked astromech (it's not like you'll need that focus defensively much anyway, and the ship has no means to double-tap other than the odd cluster missile shot).
    • R4 Agromech is worth bearing in mind. Obviously that's better on multishot ships like the Twin Laser Turret Y-wing, or Deadeye torpedo ships, but the ability to shoot, spend a focus and pick up a lock that you can then use on that attack if you need to is far from bad:
      • You get an average damage of 2.625 hits on an attack - compared to 2.25 with just focus or 2.81 with focus and a 'proper' target lock.
      • If you spend the lock if you have any blanks, you still have about a 41% chance of being left with a 'free' lock post the attack.
  • Missiles and Torps are much better value on a ship with Reload.
    • 1 points ordnance - allows a 2 point astromech or a 1 point astromech and a 1 point illicit.
      • I probably wouldn't want to waste the effort of Thread Tracers when I only have 4 ships - because 1/4 of your firepower spend setting locks up hurts - but it's an option, and there are worse things to spend points on.
    • 2 point ordnance - allows a 1 point astromech or illicit only
      • Flechette Torpedoes - nice in theory, rubbish in practice - because ships with 4 or less hull tends to mean in practice swarm components (too many for stressing one to be a really big deal when it actively costs you damage), Poe Dameron (who can spend all game flashing his backside at you whilst shimmying around doing The Dance Of The Seven Target Locks) and various Imperial Aces, who tend to be more than capable of avoiding the shot in the first place.
      • Seismic Torpedoes - very nice. Having the option to turn any obstacle in the game into a one-off half-bomblet is nice anyway, but when trying to manouvre 4 fat ships with lousy dials, it's probably really, really good. Especially since you probably only need one - you can reload it if somehow a second shot is crucial.
      • Extra Munitions - rather a waste unless you're looking at an ace who might not want to waste an action reloading.
    • 3 point ordnance - allows no other upgrades costing points
      • Cruise Missiles would give some easy-to-use punch to the squad, but if the ship has a bad dial then the cruise missiles will suffer in effectiveness.
      • With slow, unwieldy ships in large numbers that want to boresight a target, Ion Pulse Missiles spring to mind. A large ship ionized and dogpiled by 4 bullseye arcs is going to get turned to chunky salsa double-quick.
      • Plasma Torpedoes are okay, but suffer from the lack of modifiers. Of course, paired with Long Range scanners, even they can do okay - lock up at range, then move in and focus, generic TIE bomber fashion. Getting a second shot of plasma torpedoes would be a bit of a deluded dream, though, requiring you to break off long enough to get a reload action, then a target lock action (from Range 3+), then a focus action as you re-engage.
    • 4 point ordnance - needs you to save points somewhere else.
      • Cluster missiles - if you've got deadeye/R4 Agromech or glitterstim, you might be able to get enough oomph from these things to justify buying them. But that's sinking a lot of points into the combination - on an ace, maybe. On anything less, probably not.
      • Harpoon Missiles - 'the default' missile because it can do just about anything.
      • Concussion Missiles - hard to see what this gives you that Harpoons won't.
      • Proton Torpedoes - with a built-in mini-focus, it's equivalent to harpoons in raw damage, trading the splash damage (not always good with a 4-ship list!) for extra criticals.
    • Scrambler Missiles - depends on cost and effect, really.
    • More expensive ordnance - just...no.
  • Illicit
    • Scavenger Crane - it's essentially a free reload action if you get a kill. Nice, but much more valuable on people without the reload action.
    • Glitterstim - unlimited focus. Nice if packing missiles, so you can lock and still get focus with no actions, I guess.
    • Contraband Cybernetics - actions and red moves when stressed at a cost of double (or triple if you do a red move) stressing yourself. You're likely to multi-turn-stress yourself, but for one point it might win you the game. Even if you never use it, the potential to pull a Koiogan turn through some debris and then get an almost-focus-plus-target-lock bullseye attack from an R4 Agromech is a threat your opponent has to honour.
    • Inertial dampeners - anything which improves the maneuvering options of a ship with a bad dial is good. The ability to pull a hard stop is likely less useful with this ship than (say) a YV-666 with a 180 forward arc, but it's far from a bad use of a point.
  • Modification:
    • It can pack Long Ranged Scanners if not taking anything else. Not to be paired with R4 Agromech, though.
    • Guidance Chips if packing any ordnance

My first thought for possible 25 point builds would be:

• Cartel Brute
  • R4 Agromech
  • Contraband Cybernetics
• Cartel Brute
  • Unhinged Astromech
  • Inertial Dampener
  • XX-23 S-Thread Tracers
  • Guidance Chips
• Cartel Brute
  • Unhinged Astromech
  • Seismic Torpedoes
  • Long Ranged Scanners
• Cartel Brute
  • Ion Pulse Missiles
  • Guidance Chips
• Cartel Brute
  • Salvaged Astromech
  • Contraband Cybernetics
  • Long Ranged Scanners

Oh - and one deeply silly idea (rather expensive, though)

• Any [Elite] M-12L Pilot
  • Deadeye
  • Advanced Proton Torpedoes
  • Overclocked Astromech
  • Guidance Chips

I too very much like the Kimono-Hella fighter. I have individual pilots slotted nicely into other squads, but I haven't consider going with a pure squad of them largely because I feel that they will have too limited maneuverability. If I were to try fly 4 of them, I think I'd use your first suggestion, R4 Agromech/Contraband Cybernetics.

However, if I were to fly only generics, I'd probably fly 3 of the (presumably) elite Generic better kitted out with some ordinance and Deadeye.

23 hours ago, Greebwahn said:

I too very much like the Kimono-Hella fighter. I have individual pilots slotted nicely into other squads, but I haven't consider going with a pure squad of them largely because I feel that they will have too limited maneuverability. If I were to try fly 4 of them, I think I'd use your first suggestion, R4 Agromech/Contraband Cybernetics.

However, if I were to fly only generics, I'd probably fly 3 of the (presumably) elite Generic better kitted out with some ordinance and Deadeye.

The problem there is that you're down to three ships - and it's pretty easy to lose one of them before it can get a shot off to an alpha strike (or even just 3-4 normal primary weapon attacks - it's not like the DrillaKilla takes much killing if you can concentrate fire on it) - if I lose 1 ship of 4 I can be pretty confident the remaining 3 can put down some pain, but losing 1 of 3.....that's starting to leave the return fire looking pretty shoddy.

Besides which, with Long Range Scanners you don't really need deadeye. Granted, it is better - you can adjust your target on the fly - but in theory the lock + focus with LRS will deliver about the same punch as the focus + chips of the deadeye bird, and it's not like the 'elite' generic has a high enough pilot skill to really change the firing order (this is why I'm so glad it has 1 missile 1 torpedo slot!)

That is certainly fair. But honestly, if your opponent focus fires one Kiwanis Griller down in the first round, 2 properly kitted others should be able to take one down in return.

That being said, 4 is a lot of toughness and a lot of dice to try evade, so I can see it being very dangerous.