I got guns for hire for Christmas, I'm off to play tonight and I'd like to try this:

Reading around it sounds like the tracer missiles are capable of triggering the harpooned condition. That gives me hope for having Jostero set up his own extra attack, landing a crit using tracer missiles on a ship that Emon has just harpooned. I flew the list last night with those two as wing mates, never managed to shoot harpoon missiles due to range. I did line up an additional attack from a proximity mine, but the enemy ship died so I didn't need it. I need to play it a few more times to get a feel for how easy it is to set up the attacks.

So, I like combining Jostero and Emon. N'Dru doesn't fit as well, as he doesn't proc Jostero's ability. Here's my thoughts

Emon is a bomber, first and foremost. You can get more out of him by using Cad Bane, and then throwing on more Proxs or Clusters/Conners. You could easily ditch the harpoons for that.

I like Expertise more than Predator on Jostero, but that's just me. However, I don't think Thread Tracers are particularly important for you here. Harpoons are more up J's alley. BMST is neat, but Scavenger Crane would allow you to pull Harpoons again.

That leaves you room for a lighter N'Dru, or (my suggestion) a Spacetug with Ketsu. They are brutal little accesories.

Thanks for the thoughts! I'm loathe to give up my N'Dru build as landing the super accurate 4 dice cluster missiles (glitterstim, lone wolf and guidance chips) is such a joyous moment each time it happens. But maybe I do need to branch out

I do agree that if I can get harpoons + scavenger crane on Jostero that would be awesome.

p.s. I'm still interested on the ruling to see what triggers the harpooned condition. The point of the tracer missiles is that with guidance chips and a primary weapon value of 3 I'm guaranteed a crit if I fire them. So if I attack a harpooned ship, with predator and the focus token, I have good chance of triggering harpooned, if the ruling goes in favor of attacks where you subsequently cancel dice.

I flew this list again last night. It's been successful in that I keep winning with it but Jostero's ability is proving hard (for me) to proc. Over the course of the three games I got the extra shot twice and one of those times did no damage. This wasn't helped by proximity mines doing no damage twice in a game when I had Jostero lined up perfectly

Even the legendary harpoons have been a mixed blessing, I've managed to damage my own ships twice now.

I guess the plus side is there's lots of room to get better at flying the list!

A little while ago, my friend and I had a thought exercise to make a list that featured Unkar Plutt. We succeeded but Jostero is a key piece in the list as well:

Unkar Plutt

Proximity Mines

Spacetug Tractor Array

Cikatro Vizago

Cloaking Device

Pattern Analyzer

Sol Sixxa

Deadeye

Extra Munitions

Harpoon Missile

Autoblaster

Bomblet Generator

Long Range Scanners

Cad Bane

Proximity Mines

Jostero

Deadeye

Harpoon Missiles

Guidance Chips

Munitions Failsafe

Vectored Thrusters

Vaksai

Scavenger Crane

You can set up some truly devastating Jostero shots.

Unkar typically uses cikatro to switche cloaking device out for scavenger crane after cloaking - thus making him a 4 agility, tractor beaming, bomber. Pattern Analyzer gives him the ability to sloop and bombers drop or reverse and bombers drop. You could even decloak, sloop, drop a bomb if you think it will trigger a Jostero shot.

Scavenger cranes allow both Jostero and Unkar to reload their missiles and bombs respectively.

Cad Bane helps the proxies do damage and trigger jostero.

My friend also dropped vectored thrusters from Jostero to upgrade proxy mines on sixxa to Conner nets (a lot of reach with Sixxa's ability and works really nice with his autoblaster turret) that give guaranteed Jostero triggers and slow a ship down allowing you to turn in behind them or bomb/tractor with unkar. He said once he got the hang of piloting the list, the thrusters were unnecessary and the Conner nets added another dimension.

He also said he tried expertise Jostero and preferred the spike damage from Harpoon/chips.

I haven't flown the list but I've watched Unkar be an utter terror to the small base missile carriers that are everywhere right now. Spending multiple missiles to shoot him down gives Sixxa and Jostero space/time to flank and ignoring Unkar tends to be a death sentence as your ships get tractored onto rocks or into the wrong position, then subsequently bombed.

I don't think this list is too different from yours but it has a greater focus on triggering Jostero. Sixxa is very similar to Emon in bombing capability but provides a small base (better to fit into bombing spots) and a turret to punish those who slip past your bombs. Deadeye, harpoon, and Long range scanners (could be chips if you want) also provides a more powerful in arc shot than Emon.

Love it! That looks like a ton of fun

I may have to eek out some lunch money this week and set it aside for a Quad Jumper!

On 1/10/2018 at 9:12 AM, Greebwahn said:

I like Expertise more than Predator on Jostero, but that's just me. However, I don't think Thread Tracers are particularly important for you here. Harpoons are more up J's alley. BMST is neat, but Scavenger Crane would allow you to pull Harpoons again.

Something important to note about Jostero and BMST: in the game of X-Wing, suffering damage and being dealt damage cards are not the same thing .

• Captain Jostero triggers when a ship that is not defending from an attack suffers damage . That can be from effects ranging from Harpoon explosions, to (certain types of) bomb damage, to obstacle collisions.
• Black Market Slicer Tools , on the other hand, deals a damage card (face down) when it goes off successfully. The same effect happens with cards like Proton Bombs (face up damage).

Due to this distinction, Jostero's ability will NOT trigger through the use of the BMST action.

I flew the original list a couple of times again last night against a couple of better opponents and lost both times. I went down to palp + quick draw and the inquisitor and also to a poe / dash list.

Further thoughts from the experience:

- Essentially it's an alpha strike list without the high PS, things get tough if I don't get to fire my missiles

- Flying N'Dru out of range 2 of the other ships but making sure he doesn't get too isolated is tough. Glitterstim + Lone Wolf for a round does make him reasonably resilient but there's still a significant risk that he goes down before firing

- Target lock shedding abilities spell trouble for this list

- Keeping Emon and Jostero close together normally presents me with one or two opportunities to proc Jostero's ability and it's fun when it happens

- The proximity mines have been way more reliable for creating opportunities for Jostero, especially against higher PS

- I still enjoyed it! Dropping bombs, firing cluster missiles, proc'ing a second attack. I don't know, I find it fun so I think I'll probably stick with it

I've never tried Emon and that list looks like a lot of fun! I have to say 25p N'Dru hits like a ton of bricks. But I agree, I also have difficulties keeping him out of range 1-2 of the others.

I too have theorycrafted with Jostero lately. Here's my take on a fun list with him. Using a dedicated damage causing blocker (two ways to trigger Jostero), which also reduces the targets agility, to set up a potential double shot of Harpoons+primary. Guri dances around arcs and into r1 too, helped by knowledge from the Intelligence agent. But could be substituted according to taste.

http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/796767/intensity-gurijosteroblocker

Captain Jostero

I like the feedback array idea. The scout would be a lethal blocker, causing 2 damage and reducing agility could be enough to kill off an ace. One thing to consider on Jostero is expertise or predator or something that allows both of his attacks to have bite. I've had a few instances where I've got my extra attack in only for it to do zero or one damage.

Harpoons are really appealing but if you're planning on getting the block, firing the harpoons and then firing with the primary weapon you're quite possibly causing splash damage to the scout as well (on top of the damage he's potentially already taken with feedback array).

One other thought. I like the fact that bombs + Jostero triggers his attack before the target has had a chance to take an action. This can help against ships with lots of dice when they don't have a focus to spend.

8 hours ago, eljms said:

I like the feedback array idea. The scout would be a lethal blocker, causing 2 damage and reducing agility could be enough to kill off an ace. One thing to consider on Jostero is expertise or predator or something that allows both of his attacks to have bite. I've had a few instances where I've got my extra attack in only for it to do zero or one damage.

Harpoons are really appealing but if you're planning on getting the block, firing the harpoons and then firing with the primary weapon you're quite possibly causing splash damage to the scout as well (on top of the damage he's potentially already taken with feedback array).

One other thought. I like the fact that bombs + Jostero triggers his attack before the target has had a chance to take an action. This can help against ships with lots of dice when they don't have a focus to spend.

Yeah, I am aware of the weakness with his extra attack being unmodified. I figured the reduced agility will help, but Expertise/Glitterstim might be worth it!

I could either drop Hull upgrade from my list to afford Expertise and sit at 100, or exchange Guri for Thweek with Glitter (32p) which frees up enough points for Expertise and leaves the list sitting at 98p.

Good points about the bombs. Though I have to add that Anti-pursuit lasers also triggers before the target has taken an action. Or rather, it doesn't matter because blocking will deny them an action altogether in most cases. So the target should be tokenless and with reduced Agility from Intimidation. Suffering 1-2 damage from the Bumpmaster and then 2 attacks from Jostero (and one from the Viper).

On 2018. 01. 21. at 8:29 PM, westiebestie said:

I've never tried Emon and that list looks like a lot of fun! I have to say 25p N'Dru hits like a ton of bricks. But I agree, I also have difficulties keeping him out of range 1-2 of the others.

I too have theorycrafted with Jostero lately. Here's my take on a fun list with him. Using a dedicated damage causing blocker (two ways to trigger Jostero), which also reduces the targets agility, to set up a potential double shot of Harpoons+primary. Guri dances around arcs and into r1 too, helped by knowledge from the Intelligence agent. But could be substituted according to taste.

http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/796767/intensity-gurijosteroblocker

Captain Jostero

Vaksai (0)

Deadeye (0)

Harpoon Missiles (3)

Scavenger Crane (1)

Guidance Chips (0)

Pulsed Ray Shield (1)

Hull Upgrade (2)

31

Contracted Scout

Intelligence Agent (1)

Feedback Array (2)

Intimidation (2)

Anti-Pursuit Lasers (2)

32

Guri

Intensity (2)

StarViper Mk. II (-3)

Autothrusters (2)

Virago (1)

Fire-Control System (2)

Glitterstim (2)

36

Total 99

I'm yet to try it but will try to get an opportunity soon!

I played almost the same list with some nice success, and hilarious games, here is mine:
http://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Scum and Villainy&d=v4!s!174:101,40,112:-1:4:;265:193:55:15:T.16,U.43,U.-1;263:220,243,215:54:32:M.6,M.25&sn=One more time&obs=coreasteroid5

The bumpmaster is the same, I played Jostero with Expertise, and chose Thweek over Guri.

The Seismic Torpedo on Thweek with Advanced Sensor can surprise the enemy - it killed a Poe with a lucky crit from harpoon being Direct Hit.

Give it a try

I've been thinking of this. Predator so that you'll get mods on all attacks, PRS/Dischargers for sustain, and the free Tracers package. Nym seems reasonable, and you can ignore all the bombs you toss before you move, which is a good way to protect the TLT donut hole. PTL Guri is just impossibly fun.

//

Captain Nym (40) Scurrg H-6 Bomber (30), Trick Shot (0), Twin Laser Turret (6), Bomblet Generator (3), Havoc (0), Trajectory Simulator (1), R5-TK (0)

Captain Jostero (28) Kihraxz Fighter (24), Vaksai (0), Predator (2), XX-23 S-thread Tracers, Ion Discharger (1), Pulsed Ray Shield (1), G. Chips, Mun. Failsafe

Guri (32) StarViper (30), Push the Limit (3), StarViper Mk. II (-3), Autothrusters (2)

8 hours ago, Saeris said:

I played almost the same list with some nice success, and hilarious games, here is mine:
http://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Scum and Villainy&d=v4!s!174:101,40,112:-1:4:;265:193:55:15:T.16,U.43,U.-1;263:220,243,215:54:32:M.6,M.25&sn=One more time&obs=coreasteroid5

The bumpmaster is the same, I played Jostero with Expertise, and chose Thweek over Guri.

The Seismic Torpedo on Thweek with Advanced Sensor can surprise the enemy - it killed a Poe with a lucky crit from harpoon being Direct Hit.

Give it a try

Nice to see similar thoughts and hear about fun and successfulness! I will give my list a few tries this Sunday, and either tweak it or try your version depending on how it plays.

Did you have issues with either the Harpoon splashing damage onto the Jumpmaster/Thweek? Did you have issues getting a TL for Jostero without Deadeye? The latter is my main issue with Expertise/Predator, but it is yet a desktop product so we'll see how it fares IRL.

great ideas all around, needs fine tunning but will try this soon

Captain Jostero (24)
Deadeye (1)
Harpoon Missiles (4)
Scavenger Crane (2)
Guidance Chips (0)
Pulsed Ray Shield (2)
Vectored Thrusters (2)
Vaksai (0)

Contracted Scout (25)
Adaptability (0)
Intelligence Agent (1)
Feedback Array (2)
Anti-Pursuit Lasers (2)

Captain Nym (Scum) (30)
Veteran Instincts (1)
Bomblet Generator (3)
Advanced Sensors (3)
R5-P8 (3)
Guidance Chips (0)
Havoc (0)

Total: 100

Played 3 games with my list and it's fun! Swapped Harpoons to Concussion missiles to avoid damaging myself. Got off Jostero's ability 1-2 times in the first two matches (vs Dash+ 2x FCS B-wings), won both by totalling the enemy. Then self-bumped Jostero into Guri on the wrong turn in the third game (vs arc dodging Tie Interceptors), a game which ended with Guri alone vs Soontir+Turr. Somehow I managed to dance Guri around for 25minutes, but only got a shot off into Soontir once. Soontir had 1 hull left when Guri exploded.

Lessons learned: The bumpmaster build is great. Didn't miss deadeye on Jostero all too much, would have helped in the third but not mandatory. Expertise isn't great on a ship that needs to pull red K-turns and wants the focus for defence anyway. The kihraxz gets arc dodged very easily, and two greens isn't great either. So I'm hesitant to sink more points into it (hull upgrade).

Here's V2 of the list. Predator instead of Expertise. Hot shot blaster instead of Glitterstim on Guri (didn't use it once in 3 games due to Intensity+Guri's ability focus). Hot shot blaster can help vs arc dodgers, especially if Guri already has a TL from FCS and gets the r1 focus. It's either that or Hull upgrade for Jostero.

http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/800622/38-intensity-gurijosteroblocker-v2#view=cards

Thanks for the update. I've been thinking about expertise v. predator on Jostero and also whether to add the hull upgrade. Would Ion Discharger have been useful on Jostero? Also, you mentioned he's easy to arc dodge, I've been using vectored thrusters to help get him in position, mostly for his additional attack after I bomb someone. Have you tried that?

23 hours ago, eljms said:

Thanks for the update. I've been thinking about expertise v. predator on Jostero and also whether to add the hull upgrade. Would Ion Discharger have been useful on Jostero? Also, you mentioned he's easy to arc dodge, I've been using vectored thrusters to help get him in position, mostly for his additional attack after I bomb someone. Have you tried that?

No problem, interesting one to get working this is.

Regarding Hull upgrade I'm now down to swapping between Predator/Munitions failsafe & Deadeye/Hull upgrade. (Same total cost of 2p). I will keep trying to tune this.

If I end up running Jostero with a cheaper squadmate than Guri I'll probably swap munitions failsafe for Vectored Thrusters or Hull upgrade. Badass Talonbane at 36p, Jostero at 31+1 & Bumpmaster at 32 would fit nicely there.

Ion dischargers wouldn't have helped in this case (maybe once vs Turr phennir) but in any case the Scavenger crane is worth so much more when you are a missile packing ship. If I was to build Jostero without missiles I would probably rather have Glitterstim than Ion Dischargers too. And the "problem" with vectored thrusters is that I most often want to take TL/Focus(if deadeye) to shoot missiles. So I could rarely afford to spend my action on a barrel roll. And at PS4 I would be a little less predictable but still would be arc dodged by most agile dual reposition fighters anyway. Better to focus on what the K does good, brute force!

I'm going to try this next:

On 1/28/2018 at 9:22 PM, westiebestie said:

Played 3 games with my list and it's fun! Swapped Harpoons to Concussion missiles to avoid damaging myself. Got off Jostero's ability 1-2 times in the first two matches (vs Dash+ 2x FCS B-wings), won both by totalling the enemy. Then self-bumped Jostero into Guri on the wrong turn in the third game (vs arc dodging Tie Interceptors), a game which ended with Guri alone vs Soontir+Turr. Somehow I managed to dance Guri around for 25minutes, but only got a shot off into Soontir once. Soontir had 1 hull left when Guri exploded.

Lessons learned: The bumpmaster build is great. Didn't miss deadeye on Jostero all too much, would have helped in the third but not mandatory. Expertise isn't great on a ship that needs to pull red K-turns and wants the focus for defence anyway. The kihraxz gets arc dodged very easily, and two greens isn't great either. So I'm hesitant to sink more points into it (hull upgrade).

Here's V2 of the list. Predator instead of Expertise. Hot shot blaster instead of Glitterstim on Guri (didn't use it once in 3 games due to Intensity+Guri's ability focus). Hot shot blaster can help vs arc dodgers, especially if Guri already has a TL from FCS and gets the r1 focus. It's either that or Hull upgrade for Jostero.

http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/800622/38-intensity-gurijosteroblocker-v2#view=cards

Played with this today, and won vs 3 t70s (PtL Poe, Expertise Hello Nasty & VI PS4 generic).

Predatoris definitely better than Expertise for Jostero/ the Kihraxz! Annoyingly, when I triggered Josteros ability I rolled badly even with Predator, and forgot Intimidation. So no damage done,which should have been 1. And at least 2 on an average roll.

Intensity Guri is fun and pretty good vs arc ships. That hot shot blaster was fun too.

On 1/30/2018 at 11:06 AM, eljms said:

•Emon Azzameen (46) - Firespray-31

Proximity Mines (3), •Cad Bane (2), •Slave I (0), Long-Range Scanners (0), Extra Munitions (2), Proximity Mines (3)

•Captain Jostero (28) - Kihraxz

Predator (2), XX-23 S-Thread Tracers (0), Ion Dischargers (1), Vaksai (0), Guidance Chips (0), Pulsed Ray Shield (1)

•Unkar Plutt (26) - Quadjumper

•Cikatro Vizago (0), Proximity Mines (3), Pattern Analyzer (2), Scavenger Crane (2), Spacetug Tractor Array (2)

I finally got to fly this a couple of times last night. I had a tight win against a Bossk / Asajj list. Asajj piled stress onto Unkar limiting his effectiveness (and tractor beam was already a bit muted against the large based ships.) Emon hung in there for a while despite being hit by a 5 hit harpoon shot from Bossk. It came down to Jostero and Asajj and I needed one more hit to edge ahead on points with about five minutes left when my opponent obligingly flew off the board.

The second game was an easier win against Corron / Horton / Green Squadron Pilot. Unkar was a star barrel rolling ships onto rocks and landing a prox mine. Emon landed three of his prox mines as well (Cad Bane was definitely worth his points in this game).

Across the two games I think I only triggered Jostero once, maybe twice. It's slightly tricky having Unkar move before Jostero as there's no opportunity to move him so that he's ready for the extra shot so you have to be thinking a move ahead.

Overall it was a lot of fun and I'm sure I'll fly it again sometime

Sounds like fun, I will have to try those Emon/Sol Sixxa + Unkar + Jostero lists!

On 1/13/2018 at 8:47 PM, Ohnoeszz said:

A little while ago, my friend and I had a thought exercise to make a list that featured Unkar Plutt. We succeeded but Jostero is a key piece in the list as well:

Unkar Plutt

Proximity Mines

Spacetug Tractor Array

Cikatro Vizago

Cloaking Device

Pattern Analyzer

Sol Sixxa

Deadeye

Extra Munitions

Harpoon Missile

Autoblaster

Bomblet Generator

Long Range Scanners

Cad Bane

Proximity Mines

Jostero

Deadeye

Harpoon Missiles

Guidance Chips

Munitions Failsafe

Vectored Thrusters

Vaksai

Scavenger Crane

I flew this list yesterday (just swapped Vectored Thrusters for PRS on Jostero, as I think the 1 straight is crucial in ligning him up sometimes).

It is fun! I faced a pretty bad matchup for Unkar in a Pure Sabbac+maxed out Admiral Chiraneau list, the the sense that the decimator does not care about Tractor tokens. But Unkar shone anyway, by Proxy mining first Sabbac, killing his last hull after Sixxa had harpooned 3 damage into him. Unfortunately, the harpooned condition meant he did damage to both Jostero and Unkar. Even more unfortunately, this was the trigger of Jostero, leaving him with a dead target to (not) shoot at. And even most unfortunate, admiral C had double critted away Jostero's harpoons AND action bar actions the turn before, leaving Jostero with an unmodified Primary (double) shot. Which he never got off, as the Harpooned Tie Striker killed his last hull in the explosion. Drama.

Also, Sol Sixxa managed to damage himself with a bomblet after narrowly bumping after using a 1-turn bomb. So he actually damaged all my 3 ships in consecutive turns.

After that however, It was Sol and Unkar vs double stress dealing (Mara Jade+Rebel Captive), Gunner Chiraneau. I reckoned I had to decloak Unkar to help with doing damage as the stress meant I could pretty much only attack every other turn with effectiveness. Unkar did a couple of damage and then managed to drop a scavenged Prox Mine in front of him too, doing 2+2 damage before dying. Sixxa managed to get the Deci down to half before trying to stay away.

The game ended with a narrow win, I had only 2 hull left on Sol Sixxa.

Conclusions:

-Jostero is gimmicky, cool but focusing too much on triggering an ability which half of the time does no damage anyway is not always game winning.

-Cad Bane assisted mines are n-a-s-t-y!

-Sol Sixxa is both good and fun.

-This list will be better vs other matchups

Next, and this is slightly off topic in this Jostero thread, I will combine Sol Sixxa with Emon for total bombing madness! And Unkar will probably find his way into my Kihraxz lists as sub for Serissu as my"4th Vaksai":