Ignoring delivery issues, isn’t a flechette Raider an option to shut them down on a critical turn OR get them to focus on a raider instead of your hammer?

My friend has had amazing success against Reikeen (and other fleets that use multiple flotillas) using a VSD-2 with GT, DC and H9s.

He one shots 2 flotillas at long range with this build, every time.

I’ve read most of the thread (~70%), and had some thoughts that I think could contribute. Most of what I would say has already been said, so I’ll try limiting it to stuff I haven’t seen.

Major points I’ve seen so far about Rieekan/Aces: formation dependent, neuters alphas, very forgiving

Major points I’ve seen for the Imps in countering Rieekan/Aces: everything but ISDs die too easily to disrupt formation, heavily alpha dependent, not very forgiving

“Rieekan is not the crutch of the skilled players, it’s squad play“ -Brikhause, on a good day

And the rebels happen to have the most survivable squad-combos in the game. I’m another one of those “Rieekan Aces” players, but Rieekan isn’t necessarily my crutch. It’s squad play. Very precise, intricate movement and juxtaposition. I’ve been told that I absolutely rock the squad play, “but could you please hurry the f* up?” So given enough time to make decisions, I can keep up with the skilled players like Brik, but I’m not as fast thinking as those consistently winning players are. I also experiment a lot with many different list types, even going about 30-40% Imperial in casual settings.

“Understanding how your opponent’s list works is just as important as understanding your own” -Sun Tsu, <9000

The secret to my success is just being really keen on Squadron play with both imperials and rebels, no matter what archetype I’m flying. I know it well enough to use it effectively and to see what my opponent is trying to do with their squadrons (or to counter mine). If my opponent knows the squad game better than me, they will win. If they don’t, they will lose. Which is why I keep losing against Squall Defenders. Still haven’t figured that one out.

“To defeat the enemy, find their strength and don’t let them use it” -Sun Tsu, —>9000

To beat the squad game without relying on the squad game, you have to find a way to take away their ability to capitalize on squad game. Currently, there are only 2 real options for actively engaging your opponent in order to accomplish this, and the imperials have the most reliable platforms for both. Flechette torpedoes and Instigator. Flechette torpedoes are hit and miss, but so far I just think there haven’t been enough people using them long enough to be proficient enough to offer it as a reliable solution.

“Take away their choice in the matter” -a politician, probably >9000

Instigator, however, throws up a much more reliable, albeit fragile, way to interfere with the squad game. If squad play is the crutch of Acehole players, intel is the crutch of most squad play. Instigator takes that away for at least 1 turn and keeps those squads locked down. It throws off the formation, it doesn’t let them move to target the ships they want to target, and it is a light trade-off. It dictates what their next move has to be. That is all you need to set up a Salvo of destruction against their mostly fragile ships without giving the acehole player a chance to retaliate at full strength. Gun for whichever ship has Rieekan and a flotilla in the same round. That is my thought process behind the above-posted list idea.

“Don’t hate the game, hate the player” -everyone Brikhause ever wrecked with his list, —>SSGSS

To conclude, you might be wondering what the point was. Most everyone with whom I’ve frequently played have the same thing thing to say—it’s about the player and how familiar they are with their list. @Vergilius is always posting about the evolution of his list. @Brikhause has never made such posts, but he will gladly talk your ears off about the evolution of his list and then try to give you pointers for yours. I guarantee that most others high up in the competitive bracket will have the same sort of story to tell about “their list.” They’ve stuck with one serious archetype pretty much the whole time, and that’s what they are comfortable with.

The way to combat Rieekan Aces is to know how to play it, and how to play your own list better than they know theirs. If you know what move your opponent is going to make before they make it, you’ve already won. Thus, Thrawn will be the counter to Rieekan. Thematically, anyways.

26 minutes ago, Church14 said:

Ignoring delivery issues, isn’t a flechette Raider an option to shut them down on a critical turn OR get them to focus on a raider instead of your hammer?

It absolutely is. However, Flechettes are hit and miss, and require the raider to actually activate (you referenced delivery problems ?)

instigator doesn’t have to activate. It is always working, and takes away their choice in the matter. When you do that, you are dictating what has to happen next. If the locked squadrons are engaged with some of your squadrons, they have to attack those. If not, they have to attack the raider without being able to change position.

But I think that Flechettes on a Kuat ISD might be a feasible option. A very survivable platform, but seems like a waste.

20 minutes ago, Parkdaddy said:

It absolutely is. However, Flechettes are hit and miss, and require the raider to actually activate (you referenced delivery problems ?)

instigator doesn’t have to activate. It is always working, and takes away their choice in the matter. When you do that, you are dictating what has to happen next. If the locked squadrons are engaged with some of your squadrons, they have to attack those. If not, they have to attack the raider without being able to change position.

But I think that Flechettes on a Kuat ISD might be a feasible option. A very survivable platform, but seems like a waste.

Kallus + Kuat + Flechettes seems semi-decent. Maybe toss on GT + QLT to enable universal anti-squad.

1 minute ago, Green Knight said:

Kallus + Kuat + Flechettes seems semi-decent. Maybe toss on GT + QLT to enable universal anti-squad.

Expensive platform to counter one list though.....

1 minute ago, ripper998 said:

Expensive platform to counter one list though.....

That is the topic at hand... however, I'd like to add that this isn't a bad build otherwise. It could function well in a low-squad list than wants to counter any number of squad-heavy builds, not just this one.

Not entirely sold, but it's not a bad idea.

Just now, Green Knight said:

That is the topic at hand... however, I'd like to add that this isn't a bad build otherwise. It could function well in a low-squad list than wants to counter any number of squad-heavy builds, not just this one.

Not entirely sold, but it's not a bad idea.

I agree, and nothing that some tabletime couldnt hash out. I think flechettes are a good option maybe coupled with Screed to guarantee a crit when needed or even vader for extra rerolls. Lots of options.

6 hours ago, Tirion said:

The lack of slicers in the meta is a giant question mark to me. Wanna shut down yavaris? Done easy peazy that's all it takes.

Your meta doesnt have this list with leia? Must be nice.

1 minute ago, ripper998 said:

I agree, and nothing that some tabletime couldnt hash out. I think flechettes are a good option maybe coupled with Screed to guarantee a crit when needed or even vader for extra rerolls. Lots of options.

Toss on Avenger and LS on top, plus a defensive retro to taste, and you've go a very solid ship. Costly, but solid.

Taking flechettes over some other ordnance is a drawback oc, but you have to prioritize I guess. And with Avenger + a good supporting build, the ISD itself will hit very hard.

Yeah the more I think about it, the Kuat can be a very good AA ship. Flechette/ Agent kallus you can add a black at medium range to hit the aces, OE and leading shots for Rerolls. That could lock them down good. Hmmmmmmmmmm

3 hours ago, Parkdaddy said:

Double ISD with Instigator, strong Bomber Squadron compliment, and bid for first.

It might be important to know how (or if!) the Valen-Bomber-Instigator question was resolved to evaluate how well this might work.

11 minutes ago, bleachorange said:

Your meta doesnt have this list with leia? Must be nice.

A lot of metas don't have this list at all.

Of the 69 lists brought to one of the three regionals so far, only 5 have been this archetype.

Has anyone tried RS-QuasarII?

Just asking.

25 minutes ago, svelok said:

A lot of metas don't have this list at all.

Of the 69 lists brought to one of the three regionals so far, only 5 have been this archetype.

I cant really call myself a top player so the lack of this repping is surprising. I would argue that so many avenger/bt lists show how much imperial player meta dislikes playing against gh/aceholes in general beyond it being a good combo. Personally I havent seen many rebel squadron heavy lists without leia, least of all this particular archetype. I have seen the archetype occasionally but what happens is people really only bring it to tournament events for the most part in my area because flown right its so strong it shuts out the less competitive players and really can hurt group attendance because there isnt anything you can say to them such as 'run this against it and you'll have a good match'. Hence this thread i think.

9 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

Has anyone tried RS-QuasarII?

Just asking.

It can get damage in, but not fast enough. The squad ball can do very high damage to ships and shuffle around their damage they take. Plus you have to win a hull point fight with your squads against a list designed to kill them while you are damaging yourself. I havent seen it work against GH aceholes but maybe someone else has.

1 hour ago, Church14 said:

Ignoring delivery issues, isn’t a flechette Raider an option to shut them down on a critical turn OR get them to focus on a raider instead of your hammer?

Back in wave 5, I found Flechette Raiders were quite potent against even old-school aceholes but it relied on your usual Raider shtick of outactivating and preferably being first player as well. Being able to activate a squadron about 60%(or more depending on how aggressively you're fishing for that hit+crit with Ordnance Experts) of the time shuts off a good portion of the enemy fleet's damage-dealing for the turn. Giving up the hit+crit doesn't really matter against aces, either, as the 2 damage would've been braced to 1 or scattered anyways. Another fun part of Flechettes is they make Intel difficult to utilize - if the Intel squad is put to sleep, then the bubble is going nowhere for the round and it's easy to pin down squadrons who are currently outside of it, safe in the knowledge that the bubble is staying put (so you don't need to stress over trying to ensure your current engagement and also later-in-the-turn engagement keep at least some squadrons pinned down in both cases if possible). If the Intel squad avoided your sleep beams, you're still going to be putting a few of the workhorse squads to sleep and then the Intel squad needs to decide if it's worth leaving them behind to keep going after decent targets or if it wants to stay put to keep the blob together: there are downsides either way.

The main issue with Flechettes nowadays is you're giving up External Racks to make them happen.

1 minute ago, Snipafist said:

The main issue with Flechettes nowadays is you're giving up External Racks to make them happen.

Is there a ratio you’ve found to work? (e.g. 2 with FTs, 4 with ERs?)

1 minute ago, The Jabbawookie said:

Is there a ratio you’ve found to work? (e.g. 2 with FTs, 4 with ERs?)

In my current silly-but-still-seems-to-keep-winning-for-some-reason 4 Raiders and friends (I'd call it the Magnificent Seven, but that name's already taken, and The Seven Samurai seems a bit arrogant), they're all running External Racks because the fleet's heavy hitter is Demolisher but I need enough available burst damage to handle threats elsewhere if I need to crunch through a lot of hull quickly.

If I was running a 6 Raider fleet*, I'd probably go with the 2 FTs and 4 ERs, as you said. Likely with the FTs on Instigator and Impetuous (and Impetuous with the Kallus setup as well because sure why not).

If you're running only 1 or 2 Raiders and you're confident your fleet's damage output is sufficient and you're in a meta where heavy squadrons are a regular thing, then I could definitely see the value in using Flechettes on them. The issue for me even in those circumstances is that External Racks are always useful; Flechettes can be game-changingly good in the right matchups but when you're not in one of those matchups you sometimes don't use them all game. Back in the day I didn't mind that possibility because they were only 3 points, but with External Racks competing with them for the same points cost it becomes a much harder inclusion to justify.

*Damnit, now I kind of want to do that...

1 hour ago, RobertK said:

It might be important to know how (or if!) the Valen-Bomber-Instigator question was resolved to evaluate how well this might work.

This is an answered question.

46 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

Has anyone tried RS-QuasarII?

Just asking.

Yes, but! My group of players is all new (we all started playing at the same time and haven't had much contact with the established playerbase as Armada seems to have died down in DC/MD)

Anyway yeah I ran a list with Ruthless and Kallus on a Quasar II with 6 bombers and Valen/Dengar/2 Lambdas. It felt really dirty. I kept the ships slow rolling and pointing a little bit ahead of GH. It was tricky because while the Ruthless damage is unavoidable and REALLY starts to add up, your flak itself is still pretty much neutered by Jan/GH. Unless you manage to roll 3 damage on your flat dice, Jan just braces it down to 1 and then GH ignores it.

I ended up just Zapp Brannigan style throwing my entire squadron ball on a suicide mission to take out GH. His fighters had to decide whether to go for my ships or defend GH. Once GH died the whole squad ball vanished from unavoidable damage. 9 point bombers with 5 hull trading for rebel aces felt pretty gross.

Again though we are both newbies so it's very likely a better player would have whooped either fleet.

1 hour ago, Green Knight said:

Kallus + Kuat + Flechettes seems semi-decent. Maybe toss on GT + QLT to enable universal anti-squad.

1 hour ago, Green Knight said:

Toss on Avenger and LS on top, plus a defensive retro to taste, and you've go a very solid ship. Costly, but solid.

Taking flechettes over some other ordnance is a drawback oc, but you have to prioritize I guess. And with Avenger + a good supporting build, the ISD itself will hit very hard.

I've been experimenting with an ISD2 with the combo of Kallus/QLT/GT/Avenger/LS and it makes for some seriously potent antisquad. This was a list that @Vergilius suggested (credit where its due) and I've refined after we had a discussion about dealing with @Brikhause's Rieekan Aceholes. I've seen it flak down a lot of nasty squadrons. One of the list's problems I've run into is opponents who ignore the ISD with their squads and just go after the rest of the fleet (an arquitens, raider 2, and 2 gozantis at the moment). It also won't work against GH unless you pop Gallant Haven and then are able to get far enough away (as he'll Rieekan it for that one turn). I've been looking to try out a version of the list with the Kuat in there and I think it has potential. I think that Flechettes might be overkill, but it might well be worth it in that specific matchup.

What kind of bids do you guys normally see for this list in your metas, if any? I really dont normally see one because rieekan.

42 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

In my current silly-but-still-seems-to-keep-winning-for-some-reason 4 Raiders and friends (I'd call it the Magnificent Seven, but that name's already taken, and The Seven Samurai seems a bit arrogant), they're all running External Racks because the fleet's heavy hitter is Demolisher but I need enough available burst damage to handle threats elsewhere if I need to crunch through a lot of hull quickly.

It's all small ships, right?

Seven Dwarves?

5 minutes ago, bleachorange said:

What kind of bids do you guys normally see for this list in your metas, if any? I really dont normally see one because rieekan.

Usually no bid or a very small one. Rieekan is not even a necessary component of the list. The power comes from the combination of Yarvaris, Gallent Haven, Adlar Tallon, Toran Far and FCTs. This allows an extra 3 or 4 squadron shots, sort of artificially expanding your squadron points beyond 134.