Grab 3x Debris, make the thighest asteroid field possible
Defenders sucks in thight asteroid fields, and now it punishes their X7 token as well.
Don't be afraid of ryad ' I wont hit her anyway'. That is bullcrap, your opponent won't have palpatine, so 4 hits is probably damage.
But RAC is probably still your worst enemy, but he is a ticking bomb. He will take a TON of damage to get the crits on to you, and with the setup you mentioned, the crits only come reliably on range 1-2. Stay at range 3.
You probably can't evade the blinded pilot shots forever, but if you deal 8-10 dmg before you get it, I think you will survive.

Btw. If you ask for help on a matchup, it is very helpful to provide your own list. There are many ways to build dash/poe, and we can't theorycraft very well without the list.

The Setup

You won't get the blind spot, especially not with Engine Upgrade on the Deci. Be prepared to get PS 0 on Poe immediately after 2 Blinded pilots on Dash, and he will get them, as with Gunner/Rebel Captive he can make it to R 1-2 every turn without fail, or boost out of range. The Defender can freely stay out of the fight until these three turns have gone down, and then it's simple for a token stacking Defender to beat a damaged Dash and a PS 0 Poe.

I once played against RAC with a Ghost and Dash. I killed his Colzet and Wampa escort in the first combat round (1-shot a TIE advanced with a HLC, just insane!), then ended up losing the game due to a combination of poor dice and the fact that RAC could guarantee that crit every turn, ignoring Dash's shields.

The Plan:

You're going to lose the game if you play to win, so you have to adjust your tactics. First, realise that half points on RAC is worth more than half points on Dash. Therefore your goal is to play the game out and have it end with both Dash and RAC on half health, and neither wingman damaged. Your MoV will suck, but that's what happens with a bad matchup like that. Poe is probably the best wingman here, since he just doesn't die unless he wants to.

I'd set up both ships to run along your starting board edge, from left to right corners or some such thing. Try to give the impression that you're going to turn in at any moment; hopefully this will slow him down a bit. Ideally you want a huge central cluster of rocks to dissuade RAC from risking it. Try to run the clock down for 5-10 turns (which if you're flying Rey on Dash is perfect for you anyway). Once you pass the 45 minute mark swing in with Poe and Dash on the same turn, hopefully keeping RAC's wingman out of range of Dash. All you should need is three shots on RAC, at any range, and you should do the requisite 8 points of damage to him. After that, run like a crazy man with Dash, threatening shots from Poe to keep RAC from pushing into R1.

You should, ideally, be able to run for 30 minutes (5-8 game rounds) without Dash dying. If he does, it's pretty much up to Poe to do the remaining damage to RAC before time is called. Unless you have no other shots, just ignore the wingman, you won't kill an X7 defender with a single shot per turn, and you can't get half points on it.

Alternatives:

You can focus on the wingman if you want, and killing an X7 wingman is worth more than half points on Dash. The trouble with that is it doesn't threaten RAC, and he can act with impunity, dealing out the more vicious crits and saving the Blinded Pilots for the late game when they're most brutal.

1 hour ago, ModernPenguin said:

Don't be afraid of ryad ' I wont hit her anyway'. That is bullcrap, your opponent won't have palpatine, so 4 hits is probably damage.

Indeed. I wasn't meaning to imply that Ryad couldn't be killed, but more that the effort required to kill her through focus-evade-and-agility-4 could have crippled Chiraneau in short order and impact the game faster.

1 hour ago, Astech said:

You won't get the blind spot, especially not with Engine Upgrade on the Deci.

True. But:

For Chiraneau/Kylo Ren to really matter he needs to land a critical whilst you have the I'll Show You The Dark Side condition attached - which takes an action to place and can only be placed from range 1-2 itself. So if he finishes his move at range 3, he cannot boost into range 2 and place the condition. A Gunner/Chiraneau shot is no picnic, but it could be worse.

The goal of sticking at range 3 of a high PS, boost-capable large ship is the (unlikely) dream, but 'force him to use up his actions to get range 2 shots rather than sticking the condition on you' is an acceptable (and much more realistic) substitute.

1 hour ago, Astech said:

You're going to lose the game if you play to win, so you have to adjust your tactics. First, realise that half points on RAC is worth more than half points on Dash. Therefore your goal is to play the game out and have it end with both Dash and RAC on half health, and neither wingman damaged. Your MoV will suck, but that's what happens with a bad matchup like that. Poe is probably the best wingman here, since he just doesn't die unless he wants to.

I'd set up both ships to run along your starting board edge, from left to right corners or some such thing. Try to give the impression that you're going to turn in at any moment; hopefully this will slow him down a bit. Ideally you want a huge central cluster of rocks to dissuade RAC from risking it. Try to run the clock down for 5-10 turns (which if you're flying Rey on Dash is perfect for you anyway). Once you pass the 45 minute mark swing in with Poe and Dash on the same turn, hopefully keeping RAC's wingman out of range of Dash. All you should need is three shots on RAC, at any range, and you should do the requisite 8 points of damage to him. After that, run like a crazy man with Dash, threatening shots from Poe to keep RAC from pushing into R1.

Pretty much. I dislike a plan of "avoid fighting the enemy" but this may be something you can't avoid here; you simply don't have the firepower to trade blows with Chiraneau without coming off worse for wear. Even with focus-and-autothrusters , Chiraneau has something like a 50/50 chance of hitting Poe with an uncancelled critical whenever he fires. Lacking the bulk firepower of a heavy swarm, you cannot cut through him before your expensive ace gets badly junked.

Of course, if you get lucky and Dash's heavy laser lands a Blinded Pilot in return, then by all means turn in and hammer the smug bugger early.

Also:

A shot with Chiraneau has about a 75% chance of getting one or more criticals at range 2. Which is a lot, but not guaranteed. Plus the standard gunner trick of "let one hit through to avoid another full-bore shot" is worth bearing in mind if said shot doesn't include a critical!

With focus evade and ATs it takes hotshot gunner for chiraneau to hit poe, and intense poe shouldn't ever be shot at by him without all 3.

Soo...is it a bad idea for Dash to attempt blocks on RAC? If they're bumped, RAC can't shoot Dash and Dash can take pot shots at Ryad.

Probably very bad, yes. If you end up missing, then he donuts you and that's the last thing you want.

You're better off trading fire even at range 2, than taking range 1 fire without response.

If the block is cast-iron guaranteed, then just maybe, but you should almosty never be in a position where blocking is even possible.

This is where you break out the tie punisher. No seriously. Decimators hate cluster missiles and Ryad almost always K turns, meaning bombs can lock that fantastic ability down.

lol.

Decimator blinds punisher, blinds punisher, kills punisher, punisher is dead.

Good job bringing a nerf bat to a blaster fight.

23 hours ago, Estarriol said:

I figured as much. The only other list I’m sufficiently practiced with is Rey/Poe which has her own problems. Bleh.

What are you two lists?...Dash/Poe, Rey/Poe? Determination Rey can do some work.

I found that when fighting RAC its best to build a dense little asteroid field he can not enter. He always tries the bank and boost to get you range one - if you can stay in the asteroids and trade range three shots you should be ok. Just make sure he cannot get range 1-2 that way RAC focus won't work as well.

Not flying r2d2 Poe would be a mistake

39 minutes ago, NoShieldsAllGuts said:

Not flying r2d2 Poe would be a mistake

The conflict between your username and this comment is delicious.