Nu Squadron Pilot (18)
Extra Munitions (2)
Harpoon Missiles (4)
Guidance Chips (0)
Os-1 Arsenal Loadout (2)

Nu Squadron Pilot (18)
Extra Munitions (2)
Harpoon Missiles (4)
Guidance Chips (0)
Os-1 Arsenal Loadout (2)

Major Stridan (32)
Fire-Control System (2)
Weapons Engineer (3)
Kylo Ren (3)
Targeting Synchronizer (3)
Pattern Analyzer (2)
Kylo Ren's Shuttle (2)

Total: 99

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Despite its issues, I still love the Upsilon shuttle. So I've been working on pairing it with a couple of harpoon gunboats.

I realize that you can't SLAM and use the Shuttle's TLs through Targeting Synchronizer. My goal is double-TL enemy ships so I can always modify dice using the shuttle's target locks, allowing me to always maintain the gunboats' target locks for when I need to reload. I've gone back and forth between PA and AO on the Shuttle. I figure PA at least lets me Kylo action while performing a stop. I also thought about running the generic pilot with Ion Projector thrown on.

Anything you would change on this particular setup?

Thought I'd bump this with a new idea along with it.

Should I look into going with Cruise Missiles or Concussion missiles instead of the Harpoons?

I'm mainly concerned about my Shuttle getting splash damage, but also considering trying out alternatives just in case they bring the hammer down on Harpoons.

I dropped Extra Munitions from the gunboats, pattern analyzer and the title from your shuttle. Gunboats have the reload action, so you don't really need the extra munitions. I added proton torpedoes to them so they can take turns alternating their missiles. First guy shoots harpoon and his buddy shoots proton torpedo. Then on the turns they are moving around the board to re-position they can take the reload action.

Alternate version of your list

Here are the lists that I have made to play around with missiles:

A-Wing List : The idea is to get a harpoon off on a ship, and then the other A-wings can use their focus tokens (Calculation) to trigger the bomb. Repeat until all the bombs have been triggered, and you can still use Calculation for profit on regular attacks.

Interceptor List : The interceptors get the harpoons off, while the party bus should hopefully trigger explosions with the Mangler Cannon.

Rho and Silencer List : Assault Boats alternate between harpoon missiles and proton torpedoes to trigger on the same turn. Silencer is just there because I wanted to try it out.

1 hour ago, Superstrength79 said:

I dropped Extra Munitions from the gunboats, pattern analyzer and the title from your shuttle. Gunboats have the reload action, so you don't really need the extra munitions. I added proton torpedoes to them so they can take turns alternating their missiles. First guy shoots harpoon and his buddy shoots proton torpedo. Then on the turns they are moving around the board to re-position they can take the reload action.

Alternate version of your list

Here are the lists that I have made to play around with missiles:

A-Wing List : The idea is to get a harpoon off on a ship, and then the other A-wings can use their focus tokens (Calculation) to trigger the bomb. Repeat until all the bombs have been triggered, and you can still use Calculation for profit on regular attacks.

Interceptor List : The interceptors get the harpoons off, while the party bus should hopefully trigger explosions with the Mangler Cannon.

Rho and Silencer List : Assault Boats alternate between harpoon missiles and proton torpedoes to trigger on the same turn. Silencer is just there because I wanted to try it out.

5

Thanks, I like the idea of alternating weapons. If I'm going straight missiles, there is value in EM for that first two rounds of engagement. I can SLAM around and fire again without reloading. It's helped me out before. But your idea somewhat accomplishes the same thing.

I hate giving up PA on the Shuttle because of the number of reds it has. I could drop to the base pilot and fly all PS2's but that would come at the risk of the Gunboats getting out of range for TS to work since they would have to stary within R2 of the Shuttle.

So, what do you think is more valuable? Letting the Shuttle have an action before doing a red, or having TS work at Range 3?

I would value your Range 3 target locks higher. That lets the gunboats fly a little further out from you and hopefully box your opponent's ships into maybe trying to fly past them; Right into a 4-5 dice attack from the shuttle (knowing when to full stop on the shuttle is key). With your shuttle having a higher PS than your gunboats, you should be getting free target locks from shooting regardless (thanks to Fire Control System). Pattern Analyzer just seems like it would only come up if you wanted to manually lock before making a red turn (if you were sure you couldn't get someone in arc to make an attack). In that case, you could just use the coordinate to give one of the gunboats a TL or Focus action and the gunboat missiles would be online anyways.

Setting up a field of fire (pictured below) is always a good strategy, that works for me, when flying huge and clunky ships. I play the YT-666, on my best Scum list, and rarely is the case that I don't get to fire with it each turn or at worst keep myself facing the enemy. Keeping your gunboats on the outside of the shuttle will allow them to SLAM and double back, while keeping the shuttle in the center. Low PS on the gunboats means they can even block and take a reload (preparing to get a focused, TL shot the next turn), giving the shuttle and other gunboat shots on an un-modded ship (of course, being mindful of your harpoon status).

I like your list. Lots of damage and rewards for good flying.

10 minutes ago, Superstrength79 said:

I would value your Range 3 target locks higher. That lets the gunboats fly a little further out from you and hopefully box your opponent's ships into maybe trying to fly past them; Right into a 4-5 dice attack from the shuttle (knowing when to full stop on the shuttle is key). With your shuttle having a higher PS than your gunboats, you should be getting free target locks from shooting regardless (thanks to Fire Control System). Pattern Analyzer just seems like it would only come up if you wanted to manually lock before making a red turn (if you were sure you couldn't get someone in arc to make an attack). In that case, you could just use the coordinate to give one of the gunboats a TL or Focus action and the gunboat missiles would be online anyways.

Setting up a field of fire (pictured below) is always a good strategy, that works for me, when flying huge and clunky ships. I play the YT-666, on my best Scum list, and rarely is the case that I don't get to fire with it each turn or at worst keep myself facing the enemy. Keeping your gunboats on the outside of the shuttle will allow them to SLAM and double back, while keeping the shuttle in the center. Low PS on the gunboats means they can even block and take a target lock (preparing to get a focused, TL shot the next turn), giving the shuttle and other gunboat shots on an un-modded ship (of course, being mindful of your harpoon status).

I like your list. Lots of damage and rewards for good flying.

Thanks for the tips! I'm going to try out the missile/torpedo strategy and keep Stridan in the game without PA. Though I wanted PA to trigger Kylo on those red turns and stop maneuvers.

Clunky, large ships fare better keeping at speed 1 or taking their whites in my opinion. I did overlook the Kylo crew needing an action, when considering the Pattern Analyzer, but if you fly correctly (PS 4 should go before most lists) I think you'll be able to shed your stress just fine. Also, you will get so much action economy from the FCS and TS that you'll be able to keep your action open for Kylo.

If the opponent has your shuttle boxed in, and that's why you won't be getting an action, then your gunboats are probably behind them or flanking them anyways. Then you'll be able to take over control of the board again by blocking with the shuttle yourself and taking TL actions and the gunboats can come in and light the enemy up!

I think trying the changes out, like you said, it a good idea. I only recently changed my Scum list with the YT-666 and that's because a new illicit came out that synergized very well. Before that I was toying around with all kinds of tweaks before I settled on something.

Have you actually tried the gunboats on the table? Missile boats tends to not Slam or reload ever. Not enough actions. So Extra Muni is great if you have the points.

5 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Have you actually tried the gunboats on the table? Missile boats tends to not Slam or reload ever. Not enough actions. So Extra Muni is great if you have the points.

With TS, I can always maintain their original TL's and modify dice with the Shuttle's TL's. That's one less action to worry about. Coordinate can give them a focus if needed. SLAM away when I can't position well enough to fire (which is something I've done frequently with them), reload, then come back into the fight.

Ok, fair, i forgot about stridan.

This looks pretty fun actually.

Just now, Blail Blerg said:

This looks pretty fun actually.

I know it's going to take a while to get used to, and the Shuttle's dial is far from great, but I think it can put a hurt on some lists all while being able to withstand at least one round of Harpoons itself.

I wish I got into my local regional because I would have loved to see what it would have done with a month of practice leading up to the tournament.

4 hours ago, Superstrength79 said:

Clunky, large ships fare better keeping at speed 1 or taking their whites in my opinion. I did overlook the Kylo crew needing an action, when considering the Pattern Analyzer, but if you fly correctly (PS 4 should go before most lists) I think you'll be able to shed your stress just fine. Also, you will get so much action economy from the FCS and TS that you'll be able to keep your action open for Kylo.

If the opponent has your shuttle boxed in, and that's why you won't be getting an action, then your gunboats are probably behind them or flanking them anyways. Then you'll be able to take over control of the board again by blocking with the shuttle yourself and taking TL actions and the gunboats can come in and light the enemy up!

I think trying the changes out, like you said, it a good idea. I only recently changed my Scum list with the YT-666 and that's because a new illicit came out that synergized very well. Before that I was toying around with all kinds of tweaks before I settled on something.

One last question for you: Is it worth the extra point for Hyper Wave Comm Scanner to get the Shuttle placed last at 12PS? I'll lose a bid to a 100 point list, but I can only imagine it could hurt me on a mirror Gunboat match. Perhaps setting the Shuttle up last is worth the trade-off.

If you place last at PS 12, then you'll be changing your flight path for the gunboats regardless. Either you move them all together from the start, or the shuttle has optimal placing and the gunboats have to catch up. Not sure which I would prefer. Initiative bid lets you place rocks first and shoot first on ties, so I think that is more beneficial.

I r e a l l y like this. Just keeping the boats' locks for OS-1 and using TS to fire? Brilliant. I like the above idea to get Proton Torps on the Boats, it would make for an elegant 1 2 punch, Sure, you might need to ditch a couple things, but EM and the Kylo Shuttle aren't vital, and PA can be dropped without severe consequences.

16 minutes ago, Greebwahn said:

I r e a l l y like this. Just keeping the boats' locks for OS-1 and using TS to fire? Brilliant. I like the above idea to get Proton Torps on the Boats, it would make for an elegant 1 2 punch, Sure, you might need to ditch a couple things, but EM and the Kylo Shuttle aren't vital, and PA can be dropped without severe consequences.

I've had some struggles with it so far, but it's mostly because I'm learning two ships that are new to me all at the same time. My best success so far is to start slow, and come in at an angle. It's hard to do much if anything gets behind the shuttle.

As for the gunboats, I've had success with Protons + Missiles, but It's hard to shoot them back to back. I've gotten into range to shoot one of them, only to get jammed in Range 1 the next turn.

All in all, I've had fun with it. This is going to be my primary list for a while until I can get success with it.

My struggles with this list have continued. I'm not sure if it's just poor flying or bad matchups, but I think I'm 0-4 on it. Granted, the last matches went much better than the first two. I played against a Ghost/Lohhwrick. I took out the Ghost, and had almost a full health shuttle vs. Loh with 2 HP and Zeb with no upgrades. I couldn't chase down Loh to finish him off and the numbers game took me out.

The biggest issue I've run into is that first engagement missile attack. I've had trouble with setting up the TL's to make it work.

So I've outlined three fixes for that particular issue:

1) Drop Guidance Chips for LRS.

2) Have the Shuttle lead the attack and keep the gunboats behind it, feeding off of its TL's with TS. I've been keeping the Shuttle back in the prior games.

3) Upgrade to Rho's and carry Deadeye for that first round of combat engagement. (this would result in heavily modifying the list I'm currently running to get the points to work)

I like option 3 the most. It could be more challenging to reform, but probably more rewarding. If you are wanting to keep the integrity of the list more, I like option 2 the most. You can use TS TLs first, then pick your own for later.

11 hours ago, Greebwahn said:

I like option 3 the most. It could be more challenging to reform, but probably more rewarding. If you are wanting to keep the integrity of the list more, I like option 2 the most. You can use TS TLs first, then pick your own for later.

Reading other posts on the gunboats has me rethinking a lot of things. It sounds like I also need to split up the gunboats instead of keeping them close together. I think I’m going to try that in addition of flying more aggressively with the Shuttle. If that’s not working, I’ll make necessary adjustments for the Rho’s.