For those of us who do not have the disposable income to allow a mass purchase of the new ships, please share your first impressions and experiences of the new ships on the playmat! Share your list and just what shined (or didn’t), and what epic moments you had.

I flew some silencer palp aces. My list was Omnicron with Palp/collision detector/guidance chips, Blackout with PTL/AS/AO/AT/title, and standard Omega Leader with Juke and comms relay. My take away from the game is using advanced sensors to barrel roll and boost then do a 5 straight with no stress cost is super fun and it catches people by surprise. And when I use that combo I'll still have a focus from AO, it's a lot of fun. Blackouts pilot ability is pretty good, I am able to use it a lot because of ptl and advance sensors and the dial is ridiculous.

Also saw threat tracker being used with fcs on Kylo and IMO it's the most broken combo to ever exist if you are lower ps than Kylo and you have to use your primary arc to fight.

Went 3-0 flying Crimson Specialist, Cobalt Leader, and Ezrabug. Lost my only match of the day flying Major Vynder, Omega Leader, and Lt. Dormitz and that was against a Lothal Rebel with AP5 docked and a dancing Nora. Sheathepede was definitely the clutch ship of the day/night.

EDIT: Sheathepede was on 5 of the 8 lists I saw today.

My first impression is that I have a lot of binder re-organizing to do.

Also, Ezra Stressbug + Auzi with Tactician/Ops Spec + 2 Y-Wings with Ion/BTL-A4/Flight Assist Astromechs is a lot of control. Very fun!

This is even stronger than I imagined.

Flew Crimson Specialist with bomblet. His ability is the pick of the bunch for me. I dont think I dropped a bomb in the conventional way in any of the games I played.

I think I heard a whimper coming from the pocket that usually holds my wallet. Something about "combining waves" and "so cruel" or something. I did not pay too much attention and I still have some unpacking / sorting to do.

Kimogila - flew against Torani Kulda a couple of times. It was completely dreadful. Even when his bullseye arc was on point it didn't actually do anything as I had Target Lock not Focus.

Resistance Bomber - flew with Crimson Specialist in one game. It was a lot of fun, felt clumsy but also took up a position in the centre of the table and just threatened a huge area. Would need a lot more play to understand it.

TIE Silencer - flew with Kylo in two games. He was 45pts of a complete waste of space. Loads of dancing about and repositioning to avoid arcs but virtually no damage output whatsoever. I'd be surprised if he dealt 5 damage over 2 games, he really was that useless. The title was poor, his pilot ability is virtually blank.

Gunboat - flew with Harpoon/Flechette Nu Squadron in two games. A very mixed bag: SLAM and Reload worked a lot better than I expected, but the XG-1 title and associated cannons added nothing at all. I enjoyed whizzing them about the place but, like Kylo, their damage output was almost nil and as soon as they could't SLAM out of trouble they disintegrated.

Sheathipede - people were positive about it but nobody I saw actually flew one, or even seemed to have any idea of what flying one would look like. There's a lot of optimism but not sure anyone knows why they're being optimistic other than 'somebody told me co-ordinate was good'.

Flew against two Silencers: one Kylo with PtL/AdvSen/Primed/AT/AdvOp, one Blackout with...some stuff. Kylo is so, so dirty, in the hands of an extremely experienced Imperial player. Blackout can hit a like a **** truck, but my opponent's load-out was suboptimal, whatever it was. And I flew Crimson Leader with TrajSim/Proton next to Nym with TrajSim/Bomblet. And that, too, is so, so dirty. I saw a Kimogila in someone's hands, but he elected to fly Han/Wulf using none of the new upgrades. Weird.

I ran this last night.

Very fun and when the Gunboats hit they hit like a truck but when they melt they melt like an ice cube in July. Kylo is legit and extremely fun to fly. My thoughts are that with this build you get to be Vader with Soontir's Upgraded Dial and Pre-Nerf Whisper maneuverability. I mean the ability to focus, or TL and do a 4k/3 talon alone is dumb but the ability to do a boost, BR, 5 straight to run away/pounce is stupid fun and I don't care if you are higher PS because the first time you hit you get Damaged Cockpit (ps0) and if I don't roll a crit the double Mangler Cannon Gunboats will.

Just my humble 2 cents.

Gunboats I've tried on Vassal a lot, and having tried various versions of small cannons and missiles, I've come to the conclusion that @Biophysical is dead on. HLC is the way to go, maybe with Linked, maybe with Flechette, maybe without a second cannon at all, maybe with Crack, maybe with Lightning Reflexes, but the small cannons aren't damaging enough on their own, and the actions deficit between firing on ordnance is just too high.

Silencer I've tried a couple of times and mostly been a little unimpressed. I'm super unconvinced by ASPTL; 3 dice with focus and ATs just isn't enough, it will get chipped to death by 3 die attacks, even TLTs, and nuked by 4+. I suspect VI/FCS/some tech will be by far the best build. Yay, PS war (!)

Kimo I've only tried Torani and only twice. The bullseye is nasty when it's on target, but very difficult to get on target against small ships, and it gets basically no mods when you do. It's goign to be part of a mean high PS alpha list though. I don't think it needs Unhinged, and it would be way better to get R4 Agro to keep some action economy going. Enforcer I've yet to have actually trigger.

Not tried the other two yet.

meanwhile im that weirdo that tried out Crimson Leader + Miranda

10 bombs lol. I literally just covered the map in bombs not even trying to land on their head and TLT'd across them.

So many clusters....

3 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Resistance Bomber - flew with Crimson Specialist in one game. It was a lot of fun, felt clumsy but also took up a position in the centre of the table and just threatened a huge area. Would need a lot more play to understand it.

Sheathipede - people were positive about it but nobody I saw actually flew one, or even seemed to have any idea of what flying one would look like. There's a lot of optimism but not sure anyone knows why they're being optimistic other than 'somebody told me co-ordinate was good'.

I don't remember my exact original list composition as I kept saving over it after changing the list between matches. Here is my list after 3 games (and 0 losses):

Crimson Specialist - Ion Bombs, Traj Sim, Ord Silos, and Defective Plating
Cobalt Leader - Cluster Mines, Minefield Mapper, Ord Silos, and Adv Optics
Ezrabug - Sabine, R2-D2, Shield Upgrade, Seismic Bombs, and Elusiveness

Flew against a Rey/Poe, Jess/AP5/A-wing x2, and Omega/Carnor/Kylo(Upsilon)

I haven't picked up any yet, but upon reading @Vineheart01 and @Kilrex , it makes me fear the future (and we know what master Yoda said about fear), and ironically make me momentarily want for the days of triple Torp-boats.

I've used Silencer Kylo so far.

He pretty much solo'd a Chireneau+blackout list while they were killing my Chireaneau.

Dengar (33)
Wired (1)
Maul (3)
Contraband Cybernetics (1)
Punishing One (12)

Fenn Rau (28)
Attanni Mindlink (1)
Autothrusters (2)
Concord Dawn Protector (1)

Inaldra (15)
Attanni Mindlink (1)
"Light Scyk" Interceptor (-2)

Total: 96

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

I’ve been trying this Dengar build a ton the last few weeks. It’s very good. In this build though it allows you to not have to take PTL Fenn which is just not as good as Mindlink Fenn even post nerf. Contraband Cybernetics is also super good with a Dengar that has Maul. I clear the stress in 1 Round usually, or 1.5 rounds and still have mods. I’ve talked about this Dengar set up in a couple other threads in the Squad List section.

12 hours ago, SnooSnarry said:

I flew some silencer palp aces. My list was Omnicron with Palp/collision detector/guidance chips, Blackout with PTL/AS/AO/AT/title, and standard Omega Leader with Juke and comms relay. My take away from the game is using advanced sensors to barrel roll and boost then do a 5 straight with no stress cost is super fun and it catches people by surprise. And when I use that combo I'll still have a focus from AO, it's a lot of fun. Blackouts pilot ability is pretty good, I am able to use it a lot because of ptl and advance sensors and the dial is ridiculous.

Also saw threat tracker being used with fcs on Kylo and IMO it's the most broken combo to ever exist if you are lower ps than Kylo and you have to use your primary arc to fight.

1. You should have the disrespect guidance chips on all of you ships

2. Threat Tracker + FCS on Quickdraw is great

I tried Torani once last night with Thweek and Fenn Rau. VI, LRS, Unhinged. I'll echo what some others have said: the bullseye can be tough to get on small ships. If you are just off a barrel roll won't help. I got it on Ryad in the opening engagement of that match and hurt her pretty good. Torani put in a good amount of damage because my opponent was busy trying to catch Fenn.

The durability concerns me, they are basically Y-Wings and there are a lot of missiles/torps around.

Lots of Gunboats on the table last night, quad and triple lists. Those guys were all smiles but I didn't play any of them.

I saw a Fennbug along side Poe and Wes(with FAA). He was pretty pleased with the list.

Does Vassal games count?
If so here is the list I played a couple of times already on Vassal - all games were victories, with only one loss where only ships left were full health Poe and Kylo and we called time (opponent had more points in Kylo):

Fenn is great little supporting ship, especially in this configuration; he works as swiss army knife - provides debuff and stress and damage protection.

used a vi blackout, steep learning curve, lots of potential, lots of fun

3 games played last night:

1: Dual Mangler/linked battery gunboats + Quackdraw vs 2 named Kimo's and Fenn.

I played very poorly. I lost one gunboat right away but those Kimos' are pretty cool. The second gunboat did a little bit of damage, but evaporates, they are fragile. The Kimo was impressive, I think Dalan maybe the better with the free target locks that happen during start of combat. So could potentially counter the use of counter measures, and for sure bypasses things like expert handling and black one. With reload it was pretty effective on getting missiles off. Contraband really helped with the movement. For me the Kimo was very under-rated until I faced it.

2: Vynder/Echo/Omega Leader vs Dash/Poe

I really, really like Vynder. I need to come up with a better build, and I know cannon's are better, but Vydner feels built for missiles. I went with PTL/Adv.Slam/Cluster Missiles. I really liked having the extra evade dice and it made the ship feel less flimsy. The maneuverability of Vynder was pretty solid too. I liked it a lot, but hated my build. I think VI/Adv.Slam/Harpoons will be better.

3: Jess Pava/Green Squad A/Green Squad A/Rex Seathapied

This is a squad I've been playing with for a while, but usually run Jan Ors. It's a Swarm Leader/Juke/Snap build...that everyone locally has learned to counter! But I was pretty impressed with the Sheath. I ran Rex because of the PS, not because of his ability, and while it gave me more options for activation (which ended up being very good), the ability of AP5 would have been better... but I love being able to throw an evade on an A-Wing before it K-Turns. the shuttle also has Ops. Spec and M9G8 which really helps the offensive output of the A-wings. I will experiment with this a lot more, but I think this is a dead squad in the current meta. The shuttle actually did quite a bit of damage as it was largely ignored. The rear arc is really nice to have too... Stressbugs will be amazing.

56 minutes ago, Embir82 said:

Does Vassal games count?
If so here is the list I played a couple of times already on Vassal - all games were victories, with only one loss where only ships left were full health Poe and Kylo and we called time (opponent had more points in Kylo):

Fenn Rau (Sheathipede) — Sheathipede-class Shuttle	20
Veteran Instincts	1
Inspiring Recruit	1
R2 Astromech	1
Vectored Thrusters	2
Ship Total: 25
Poe Dameron (PS9) — T-70 X-Wing	33
Veteran Instincts	1
R2-D2	4
Advanced Optics	2
Autothrusters	2
Black One	1
Ship Total: 43
Wedge Antilles — X-Wing	29
Veteran Instincts	1
Flight-Assist Astromech	1
Integrated Astromech	0
Ship Total: 31

Fenn is great little supporting ship, especially in this configuration; he works as swiss army knife - provides debuff and stress and damage protection.

I really like this setup. Looks fun.

1 hour ago, Embir82 said:

Does Vassal games count?
If so here is the list I played a couple of times already on Vassal - all games were victories, with only one loss where only ships left were full health Poe and Kylo and we called time (opponent had more points in Kylo):

Fenn Rau (Sheathipede) — Sheathipede-class Shuttle	20
Veteran Instincts	1
Inspiring Recruit	1
R2 Astromech	1
Vectored Thrusters	2
Ship Total: 25
Poe Dameron (PS9) — T-70 X-Wing	33
Veteran Instincts	1
R2-D2	4
Advanced Optics	2
Autothrusters	2
Black One	1
Ship Total: 43
Wedge Antilles — X-Wing	29
Veteran Instincts	1
Flight-Assist Astromech	1
Integrated Astromech	0
Ship Total: 31

Fenn is great little supporting ship, especially in this configuration; he works as swiss army knife - provides debuff and stress and damage protection.

Will have to try this, although I think the VT might work better on Wedge? Not sure.

That table talk at the end of the night on the Bugg was interesting.

FennBugg with VI, Hot-cop, R3-A2 along side Wes with VI, FAA, Integrated and either Norra or Miranda.

Fenn strips tokens at PS11 and stress Expertise carriers to shut it off otherwise he uses his ability to mess with someone's attack. Wes for stripping tokens and the last ship is the real damage dealer.

Ezrabug was also popular: Wired, R3-A2, Gunner

18 minutes ago, Burius1981 said:

That table talk at the end of the night on the Bugg was interesting.

FennBugg with VI, Hot-cop, R3-A2 along side Wes with VI, FAA, Integrated and either Norra or Miranda.

Fenn strips tokens at PS11 and stress Expertise carriers to shut it off otherwise he uses his ability to mess with someone's attack. Wes for stripping tokens and the last ship is the real damage dealer.

Ezrabug was also popular: Wired, R3-A2, Gunner

The Fenn one seems like you'll never get an action after the first engagement? Am I wrong?