I really think people are underestimating how nasty Rebel Rau is going to be. I said the following in another thread:

Fenn's natural ability is extremely detrimental to the opponent's ship that gets nerfed. For example:

3 red dice with TL + Focus against 2 green dice with Wired is an expected damage of 1.87.

4 red dice with TL + Focus against 2 green dice with Wired is an expected damage of 2.81.

Now, let's say Fenn just nerfed that same ship and he can't use TL + Focus against Fenn's completely unmodified 2 green dice (no Wired):

3 unmodified red dice against 2 unmodified green dice is .89 damage.

4 unmodified red dice against 2 unmodified green dice is 1.33 damage.

What this means is unless your entire squad is moding its offence WITHOUT tokens, you are going to want to kill Fenn first or stress him out to where he can't do anything. Even if you drop a bunch of stress on him, he can put Inspiring Recruit and R2 on for 2 points and make a day of it. How many squads rely entirely on predator/expertise?

As a Rebel player, I think this is great because now I don't need Biggs. I have Fenn and he costs less. In the opening engagement if you kill Fenn (which is not guaranteed because he gutted the offense of one of your ships) then my other ships just enjoyed a Biggs cover. If you don't, well then Fenn is going to nerf you all day.

One of the best things about him is that he could care less about range 1. He will nerf you all the way out to range 3 as long as he has arc - and he's got two arcs, PS9, and an Astromech slot (BB-8, Flight-Assist). If all he did was nerf you he'd be worth his points, but he's also coordinating his buds. Meaning Intensity Poe who hit like a wet noodle before now has a Target Lock, or PS 11 Fenn may give him a boost to shed that enemy TL.

Anyways, the beauty of him for the Rebels is that the opponent isn't FORCED to shoot him, but unless they have a way around him they really should. Unless you have a way around him, there is no clear solution to your problem.

Ways around him? Stress, Expertise, Predator, bombs.... and Guidance Chips ordinance.

Buggs > Biggs?

What if I told you that you didn't need to take Long Range Scanners on Miranda to pick your target?

Just now, RunnerAZ said:

What if I told you that you didn't need to take Long Range Scanners on Miranda to pick your target?

Yeah, that high PS coordinate is maybe even better. I wonder if VI will be a common EPT for this guy?

Just now, Kieransi said:

Yeah, that high PS coordinate is maybe even better. I wonder if VI will be a common EPT for this guy?

It will be stapled to Fenn

this kind of "biggs" im fine with, the Tugboat kinda does this too to a degree.

He doesnt force you to attack him but you miiiiight wanna take him out first because hes going to make your life a living **** if you dont.

If you have multitude of low attack values Rau wont be a problem, but not many lists play that way
If you have a super heavy hitting ship (typically any FCS carrier) then he's going to really mess with you. Lot of lists do this one.

The fact that he's PS9 kinda reels him in a bit. He's going to attack first majority of the time so he cant use stressbot unless he wants to bank on the 2die attack hitting and having Maul on board (with ezra..somewhere). He will also have first dibs for things like kylo's condition if he actually hits kylo and rebel captive (which auto shuts his ability down).

Biggs was a problem because he flatout forced you to attack him and you couldnt do anything about it unless you went the ordnance route. Biggs had no shutoff to his ability, Rau does.

3 minutes ago, RunnerAZ said:

It will be stapled to Fenn

You think?
I'd think you would want to move as early as possible so you avoid bumping the Aces. I would take adaptability on him so at least have a choice.

@Boba Rick what astromech are we thinking? R2? M9-G8? I really don't like the stressbot him because it shuts down his ability.

2 minutes ago, Rinzler in a Tie said:

You think?
I'd think you would want to move as early as possible so you avoid bumping the Aces. I would take adaptability on him so at least have a choice.

@Boba Rick what astromech are we thinking? R2? M9-G8? I really don't like the stressbot him because it shuts down his ability.

My phone changes "him" to Fenn.

3 minutes ago, RunnerAZ said:

It will be stapled to Fenn

Yeah, the more I look at it, the more I think Fenn's ability actually might have very little bearing on why you'd take him. That PS11 coordinate for 21 points is a ridiculously good deal. The fact that he's in a ship with a far better stat line than a TIE Bomber only helps that, and he'll likely have a crew that can do something janky as well. His ability can be fun, and denies one or two critical shots at just the right time, but his true power lies in that ability to see the entire board state and make a wide variety of adjustments based on that. Thematically, he really could've been named Rebel Thrawn.

If we are worried about him getting shot, Chopper and some cheap/free upgrades seems like a decent option.

1 minute ago, gamblertuba said:

If we are worried about him getting shot, Chopper and some cheap/free upgrades seems like a decent option.

Chopper, Phantom II, and Guidance Chips is two shields for zero extra points. That's pretty sweet. The major problem with that is that Chopper sucks up the action and denies Fenn that high-PS coordinate (which as previously discussed, is the main reason for Fenn in my opinion).

3 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

Chopper, Phantom II, and Guidance Chips is two shields for zero extra points. That's pretty sweet. The major problem with that is that Chopper sucks up the action and denies Fenn that high-PS coordinate (which as previously discussed, is the main reason for Fenn in my opinion).

To use either Phantom title, you need a Ghost. I wouldn't exactly call that free.

7 minutes ago, RufusDaMan said:

To use either Phantom title, you need a Ghost. I wouldn't exactly call that free.

Oh, crud. That's right. They purposely worded it so that you can't just put that on there without a ghost (because it has a cost of (-), not (0))

1 hour ago, Rinzler in a Tie said:

You think?
I'd think you would want to move as early as possible so you avoid bumping the Aces. I would take adaptability on him so at least have a choice.

@Boba Rick what astromech are we thinking? R2? M9-G8? I really don't like the stressbot him because it shuts down his ability.

@Rinzler in a Tie, I think that when it comes to these things we have to treat them like Biggs: they are there to die first. Ezra is the only one I think is worth dumping 7+ points on.

I honestly think R3-A2 is not best for Fenn. If you want to stress someone, use Ezra - he'll live a lot longer. I think Fenn wants R2 for greens, or Flight-Assist to reposition and get arc. I see the M9-G8 + Weapons Engineer combo.... but that's six points. Add Wired and you are at a 27 points Biggs with less firepower. You better hope nothing goes wrong because that's a big investment.

I think the tendency in these cases is to start with a ship that provides good defense for the rest of the list, but then you start worrying about protecting that ship, so then you start dumping more and more points on defending the ship that defends the other ships.... and it's a vicious cycle.

Everyone is different, but for me I just try to go cheap and to use Drago's words... "If he dies, he dies."

If you have Ezra in your list and have a good initiative bid, place Maul and Adaptability onto Fenn. Drop him to PS 8. Trigger Fenn when a higher PS ship activates. Fenn gets to take his shot at PS 8 and if it hits (without using Maul to add more stress), remove a stress due to Maul. Then use his ability on another ship that activates after Fenn (a PS 8 if you have initiative). Or you could keep Fenn at PS 9 and hope the enemy brought a PS 9 (or higher) with a lower PS ship.

you can still use the stressbot with fenn but it would be difficult to pull off

You'd practically HAVE to have adapt on him to reduce him to 8 to increase the odds he doesnt shoot before the guy he's looking at

Stressbot doesnt care if he's stressed, so he becomes doublestressed. Inspiring recruit to clear both stresses, rinse repeat.

However if nobody is PS9+ or you are PS8 and Fenn has init, it wouldnt work. Dont think i'd want to risk running into a list where half of my gimick is auto shut down.

In general, wave 12 & 13 just seems to be full off pilots and abilities that makes the game real unfun to play. Powerfull stuff yes, but a real game killer.

1 minute ago, Dwing said:

In general, wave 12 & 13 just seems to be full off pilots and abilities that makes the game real unfun to play. Powerfull stuff yes, but a real game killer.

I'm more excited about this wave than any other since I started playing two years ago.

3 minutes ago, Dwing said:

In general, wave 12 & 13 just seems to be full off pilots and abilities that makes the game real unfun to play. Powerfull stuff yes, but a real game killer.

I actually feel like the selection of new upgrade cards and that 3/5 of the new ships lend themselves to creating a larger variety of lists.

2 minutes ago, Boba Rick said:

I'm more excited about this wave than any other since I started playing two years ago.

I started at Wave 1 and haven't been this excited since Wave 2. Most of the other waves have had good stuff, but like Wave 2, i think Wave 12/13 will change the game more than expected.

Each to his own, I just think there is to much stuff that effs up the opponents lists rather than boosting your own. I don't like it when its a hard counter list that makes me loose rather than being outplayed.

49 minutes ago, Boba Rick said:

I see the M9-G8 + Weapons Engineer combo.... but that's six points. Add Wired and you are at a 27 points Biggs with less firepower. You better hope nothing goes wrong because that's a big investment.

Assuming you go with a 1-point EPT, that's only 1 more point than a typical Biggs. I don't consider that a big investment.

What if Lowhhrick got a focus and both he and Miranda got mini-Predator rerolls (on both her TLT shots)? Or, like @RunnerAZ said, what if Miranda didn't have to telegraph her missile target? What if I get to not only force you to not use tokens for one of your ships, but also made two of them re-roll a hit/crit?

6 minutes ago, Kilrex said:

I started at Wave 1 and haven't been this excited since Wave 2. Most of the other waves have had good stuff, but like Wave 2, i think Wave 12/13 will change the game more than expected.

I feel like this wave is a balancing wave that is bringing back a lot of dogfighting while not killing the other archtypes.

So the outcome of the sheathipede name discussion thread is FennBug?

Back on topic: I proxied Fenn the other games night with Wired, R2 and Pulsed Ray Shield. Played against a Parattani list. Long story short. Fenn Rau (scum) range 1 into FennBug. FennBug triggered his ability, resulting in only taking one damage. End of the story is that FennBug definitely messes a lot with your opponent and that he works pretty well until he gets stressed before he can trigger his ability (in this case from Asaji) or after I regenerated a shield that caused me to move out of arc with the ionized maneuver.

43 minutes ago, warmdown said:

So the outcome of the sheathipede name discussion thread is FennBug?

Back on topic: I proxied Fenn the other games night with Wired, R2 and Pulsed Ray Shield. Played against a Parattani list. Long story short. Fenn Rau (scum) range 1 into FennBug. FennBug triggered his ability, resulting in only taking one damage. End of the story is that FennBug definitely messes a lot with your opponent and that he works pretty well until he gets stressed before he can trigger his ability (in this case from Asaji) or after I regenerated a shield that caused me to move out of arc with the ionized maneuver.

Thanks for sharing.

I really want to hear how Fenn works for people.

I think "bug" as a suffix is perfect. "ApBug", "ZebBug", "EzraBug" (most likely that's just StressBug though), and "FennBug".