I've put five Strikers on the table and had an absolute blast! They're squirrelly, and most opponents blunder into a wide PS3 killbox. But, I'm thinking of using four Black Squadron Scouts with AA, LWF, and Outmaneuver, and Pure Sabbaac (sp) with AA, LWF, and Crackshot. The trade of that fifth ship worries me, though. People will gun hard for Sabby, and plopping a PS7 into a mini-swarm of PS4 mucks with the blunder box...

Anyone have experience with something like this? I know Outmaneuver will hit hard, so maybe I'm worrying for nothing.

I flew Sabaac for the first time last weekend. Man that ship is fun to fly!

If you want to get really crazy, run Sabaac with Swarm Leader. 6 dice at ranges 2 & 3, 7 dice at range 1.

15 hours ago, Alekzanter said:

I've put five Strikers on the table and had an absolute blast! They're squirrelly, and most opponents blunder into a wide PS3 killbox. But, I'm thinking of using four Black Squadron Scouts with AA, LWF, and Outmaneuver, and Pure Sabbaac (sp) with AA, LWF, and Crackshot. The trade of that fifth ship worries me, though. People will gun hard for Sabby, and plopping a PS7 into a mini-swarm of PS4 mucks with the blunder box...

Anyone have experience with something like this? I know Outmaneuver will hit hard, so maybe I'm worrying for nothing.

Three scouts and sabbac, rather than four.

But....yeah.

The biggest problem you'll hit, if my experience with Scarif Defenders is anything to go by, is getting locked into a given movement order.

Crackshot Pure Sabbac is a good call, though - he's likely to go down quickly, so Crack Shot lets you put out as much damage as you can before you get hammered.

Oh - if you want a really silly squad, try Scouts with Adrenaline Rush. Being able to get an action on the turn you pull a segnor's loop, and adaptive ailerons the turn afterwards, makes a huge difference to a striker - if you've been using the 5 strikers, you're probably used to how catastrophically the dial collapses when you're stressed, from possibly the most manouvrable ship in the game to the green moves of a T-70 X-wing with no astromech....

Played another game with five last night against two Star Vipers and an ordinance-heavy Nym kitted with Clusters and Synched Turret. Bumped Nym twice in a row, and he followed that by rolling up on some debris...WOOT! Okay, calming down now.

My dice were meh, and I literally nibbled my opponent's whole list for 1or 2 hits the whole game. Plink, plink, plink. I won though, another 100-20 game. That makes me 3-1 (three 100-20, and 76-100). I'm not really having too much difficulty being stressed for one, maybe two turns. I just think having even a passive EPT like Outmaneuver will make me fly dumb, try to set up differently, so I think I'll fly five a half-dozen more times to lock in the flying mindset before changing it up.

A spectator of last night's game said he spent most of the game trying to predict where my Strikers would go/end up, and said he gave up after several turns. Heh, at one point I got target locked by a Viper, but that Striker ended up so far away from that Viper after two turns that he moved the lock to a different ship.

I. Love. Strikers!

Strikers are really fun. I've never run 5 of them because I prefer some variety in my lists, but here's an idea that could help get more out the 5 striker build:

Countdown w/ AA = 20

2 Scouts w/ crackshot, LWF & AA = 23 x 2

2 Trainees w/ AA = 17 x 2

100

Now, I haven't actually flown this, so I can't say with certainty that its objectively better than 5 Scarif Defenders. However, here's the tradeoff:

Lose:

3 lightweight frames. A drop to PS 1 on 2 ships and a spread of different Pilot Skills across the list (therefore trickier to fly because you can't activate ships in any order you like).

Gain:

2 crackshots. 3 Ships at higher Pilot Skill (4 & 5). This will prove very helpful against the plethora of PS 3 ships out there (jess pava, wookie liberators, contracted scouts & lok revenants mainly). Also you get Countdown. Best Striker pilot ever. His ability is so useful and basically guarantees that he will be your last ship (if it comes down to that). And once you've thinned down the opponent's list, it actually becomes VERY difficult to kill Countdown!

Imho, you gain much more than you lose...

On 09/11/2017 at 3:50 PM, Alekzanter said:

I've put five Strikers on the table and had an absolute blast!

Strikers are really

Sabacc, Countdown, and Duchess might be the coolest pilot cards available in any single box. All of them are a joy to use.

This just makes me want to change my Christmas list from gunboats to strikers. I have always liked them even though I have never flown them.

This is absolutely lethal:

I've found it's hard for my opponents to focus their fire on the same ships from turn to turn, so I'm thinking "Countdown" w/ Adaptive Ailerons as a swap. I used him in an Escalation tourney and I was pleased with the amount of frustration he caused (not the NPE kind). Taking LWF on him isn't necessary, his special ability more than makes up for its absence. I simply took a focus action every time I could and kept him at range 2/3, and he worked well as a distracting sniper. He's also an excellent blocker in a pinch.

I have a quick question about his ability vs TLT... Would the results be cancelled after both sets of dice have been rolled? I can check the timing chart, again, but I'm thinking this makes lists with single TLT carriers less effective against "Countdown". EDIT: I just checked the timing chart, and I think I'm correct in my interpretation: I could choose to use his ability after both sets of attack/defrnse dice have been rolled. Yes?

As an aside, I think the next 200-point Epic game I play will pair these five Strikers with four Zeta s/f, each with SpecOps Title and FCS. Should be interesting counter-styles to pair, eh?

14 minutes ago, Alekzanter said:

I have a quick question about his ability vs TLT... Would the results be cancelled after both sets of dice have been rolled? I can check the timing chart, again, but I'm thinking this makes lists with single TLT carriers less effective against "Countdown". EDIT: I just checked the timing chart, and I think I'm correct in my interpretation: I could choose to use his ability after both sets of attack/defrnse dice have been rolled. Yes?

No. Because you have to use his ability at the 'cancel dice' step, which occurs in each attack - if you trigger it against the first TLT, you take a point of damage and will be stressed, meaning you can't use it against the second TLT. Countdown's weak spot is being shot at multiple times - and that includes gunner-type and perform-this-attack-twice-type weapons.

Given that a TLT only ever does face-down damage cards anyway, it's not really gaining you anything.

Yeah, countdown's ability is useless against TLT, ion cannon/turret, flechette cannon, etc. However, I don't think that makes countdown any less amazing. His ability is strong, no question.

That does get me thinking about what happens when Countdown is attacked by accuracy corrector. I can't be bothered to look that up right now though...