attempting to kryptonite Kanaan/Fenn

By Mightybeard13, in X-Wing Battle Reports

so last night I played a couple of matches with my buddy to help him practice his squad for regionals. He told me he was planning on taking scum aces and I had planned on bringing a PS 11 rebels list to counter it. When I got to his place he had changed his mind to this...

100 pts

PILOTS

Fenn Rau (28)
Sheathipede-class Shuttle (20), Adaptability (0), Kyle Katarn (3), M9-G8 (3), Vectored Thrusters (2)

“Zeb” Orrelios (18)
Attack Shuttle (18), Phantom (0)

Kanan Jarrus (54)
VCX-100 (38), Ghost (0), Advanced Sensors (3), Twin Laser Turret (6), Rey (2), Recon Specialist (3), Anti-Pursuit Lasers (2)

Since he only has one Sheathipede, and i was using his stuff, I was left to throw something together quickly. My first attempt was Chewie (PTL, EU, Kyle, Kanaan, Evade Title)/Poe (Intensity, bb-8, Black One. AT).

My list was heavily dependent on tokens, the first bad choice against his list. He shut me down on almost every attack between Kanaan and Fenn reducing my attacks and not allowing me to use my tokens. Chewie had 2x focus/evade/TL for almost the whole match and didn't get to use anything for offence the whole game. managed to hit Fenn for two damage and got the ghost to half even with a couple R1's from poe. Ghost had evades plus tons of focus so at best Poe was putting two hits into the ghost per round. The game didn't last long and ended with the Ghost at half value Fenn alive and kicking and chewie and poe feeling pretty bad about themselves.

The second match we played I decided to try to build a squad specifically designed to give him some trouble. I came up with this,

100 points

PILOTS

Palob Godalhi (27)
HWK-290 (20), Adaptability (0), Twin Laser Turret (6), Black Market Slicer Tools (1)

Inaldra (24)
M3-A “Scyk” Interceptor (15), Trick Shot (0), “Heavy Scyk” Interceptor (2), Heavy Laser Cannon (7)

Kaa’to Leeachos (17)
Z-95 Headhunter (15), EMP Device (2), Adaptability (0)

Old Teroch (32)
Protectorate Starfighter (26), Push the Limit (3), Concord Dawn Protector (1), Autothrusters (2)

I had hoped this list would be able to shut down Kanaan's ability and Palob would be able to steal from Fenn or Kanaan when Old Teroch wasn't in range to pull his tricks. This match was much closer than the first. I'm not sure I would ever take this to a tournament but it sure gave him a run for his money. I managed to set up a row of 4 rocks along the right side of the map to help Inaldra make the most of trick shot (didn't really work out that way). During the first round of combat he did a 5 k0turn with his ghost hoping to bump kaa' and Palob but I managed to just miss with both of them giving kaa' range one out of arc and palob at range one (both out of arc) but range two on Fenn for a tlt shot and stealing a focus. OT had range one on the ghost in arc and shut him down stripping 3 focus tokens from the ghost! Inaldra also out of ghost arc had range two on Fenn for an unmodded HLC shot. I decided to focus fire on Fenn since he had no tokens, took him down to 1hp left, the hlc shot was a bust with one hit and 3 blanks! Ghost hit OT for one and Fenn did no damage on his shot. Second round I made a wrong move with Palob and took him out of the fight for three rounds (this ended up costing me the match) OT managed to finish of Fenn this round while also stripping another three focus and an Evade from Kanaan (at this point he had also used his last Rey) Kaa started in on the Ghost after OT killed off Fenn. Kanaan shot at a tokenless Inaldra at range 3, rolled one evade, focus, two blanks, so I used her ability to reroll three dice and blanked on all three which in turn killed her, if I hadn't rerolled I would have lived to shoot the hlc at least one more time! OT and Kaa got a few more damage into the Ghost while Palob tried to get back into it, but not quite yet. The next turn he took out OT after getting a few more damage in and Palob got a little closer, Kaa got one more hit in. Palob finally got back into the fight and sunk two with the tlt but died. Kaa got another 1 in leaving the ghost with 2hp and then died. I had turned palob the other way after that first engagement I'm sure I would have won, he would have been getting those two damage a turn on the ghost a lot sooner, alas it was not to be. A good match none the less.

The EMP device was wasted points and never got used since I didn't want to ionize my own ships, BMST never got used either because I forgot it was there (last minute lists and what not). If I ran it again I think I'd just put moldy crow on palob.

On ‎08‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 8:03 PM, Mightybeard13 said:

My list was heavily dependent on tokens, the first bad choice against his list. He shut me down on almost every attack between Kanaan and Fenn reducing my attacks and not allowing me to use my tokens. Chewie had 2x focus/evade/TL for almost the whole match and didn't get to use anything for offence the whole game. managed to hit Fenn for two damage and got the ghost to half even with a couple R1's from poe. Ghost had evades plus tons of focus so at best Poe was putting two hits into the ghost per round. The game didn't last long and ended with the Ghost at half value Fenn alive and kicking and chewie and poe feeling pretty bad about themselves.

It's a nasty, nasty combination.

  • Kanan reduces your attack dice from 4 to 3, or more likely from 3 to 2
  • M9-G8 rerolls one of them that's come up 'hit' or critical'
  • Fenn Rau stops you spending focus or target lock tokens to change them back

Added to the fact that the Ghost can have a stockpile of focus tokens and evade every turn with co-ordinate from Fenn if needed, and essentially the ghost is the next best thing to invulnerable whilst Fenn is still active.

It could have been worse - one version I've seen trades out Fenn's Vectored Thrusters to put a Sensor Jammer on Kanan instead. Because what you want is even more reduction of your ability to shoot things....

I'm not sure how to attack this per se. It, or some variation on it, is something we can expect to see quite a bit.

My thoughts:

  • More ships are one possible answer. M9-G8, Fenn Rau, Sensor Jammer and Kanan Jarrus' abilities are all good, but they become ridiculous when stacked onto the same attacker.
    • With two attackers, you can essentially shut one attack down completely and rob a squad of 50% of its firepower.
    • With a TIE swarm.....not so much. This is an extreme example, I agree. But the point still holds - a 5-ship 'heavy swarm' can lose an attack, or lose 50% effectiveness on 2 attacks (essentially the same thing) and still have enough red dice to rip uncomfortable chunks out of a VCX in one shooting phase.
  • Fenn Rau's ability only matters if you were planning to spend tokens to modify your dice results.
    • Expertise is still fine. So are Guidance Chips, or any 'innate' rerolls.
  • Kanan Jarrus' ability only works at range 1-2
    • That means range 3 is fine. Which pairs well with the range you probably want to be pegging missiles at.
  • I'm not sure trying to kill Fenn Rau first makes much difference. Both pilots abilities affect the attacker, regardless of their target, and the Sheathipede is just as tough as a HWK-260, so is unlikely to go down that quickly.
  • Stress is an issue, but the problem with a control list is that you've got that dratted twin laser turret firing four times a turn. If he wants he can lock M9-G8 on the Ghost instead and get pretty respectably modified turret fire without blowing his token stacks, and whilst (for example) 4 flechette XG-1s can reliably keep the Ghost and Fenn stressed out and unable to use their abilities, they'll probably lose the damage race in the long run.
  • Of course, that might be a nice trick generally regardless - damage mitigation lists built around 0-1 agility ships tend to be great at reducing damage to the point that you don't lose the ship, but they're historically very bad at avoiding damage entirely. Which makes "if you hit, cancel results and X" weapons rather nice. 2 OS-1s with Ion pulse missiles could stand a decent chance of walking the ghost off the board, even if it's on mostly full health when it does.

I think you're right about Old Teroch. His ability (or maybe Torani Kulda's) are tailor-made for brutalising this sort of shenanigans. Palob's nice but he only takes tokens one at a time, and you need to be eliminating them in job lots to matter. Carnor Jax also shuts the tokens down but doesn't get rid of them.

Edited by Magnus Grendel

Aaron Bonar very successfully ran a similar list with Airen Cracken in for Fenn a while back. I nearly beat it with an "extra dice" TIE swarm. (Backstabber, Scourge, Mauler, I think I had Youngster with expose and a scimitar with fleet officer and systems officer trying for the 5 dice focus and target lock shot from a TIE.) i killed cracken and the ghost, but lost to zeb because I forgot that i had a Blinded on Mauler after setting up a range 1 shot on Zeb.

Tldr- many shots with 3+ dice guns were the key. Right now a striker swarm or range 3 harpoons might do you well.

Ugh, yeah, that list makes for grim reading for 2-3 ship builds. Five Cartel Marauders it is, then.

Other than heavy swarms/massed ordnance, would a Kylo (crew) build offer a good match up for it? Obviously it would depend on the support, but if you can prevent the Ghost from firing for a turn or two then there's not going to be much damage output there...

if we play again my opponent wants to run up against a harpoon missile list. I havn't run one yet and don't have a lot of practice with slamming lists so I was thinking of some thing with Blount (Calculation/GC/HM) and Jake (VI/PTL/AT/HM), WOokie Liberator (Tactician/Lightning Reflexes) Captain Rex.

I think 4+ ships is key to beating this list, I pity anyone who comes up against him at regionals not ready to face this

On ‎10‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 3:17 PM, FTS Gecko said:

Five Cartel Marauders it is, then.

It'd be rude not to. Especially with Vaksai/XX-23 S-Thread Tracers/Black Market Slicer Tools/Guidance Chips/Munitions Failsafe a.k.a. All The Free Stuff We Stole

In fact, that loadout is even better than normal against this squad.

  • With 5 ships, you can easily still generate massive attack power despite losing 1-2 attacks to assorted token and dice-denial tricks, especially since you can easily generate 4 Target Locked/Focused attacks against the Ghost by pegging a thread tracer from outside Kanan's defensive range 1-2.
  • They have to trigger Fenn Rau's ability when you become the active ship, before you say what you're actually doing. So you can calmly respond to him using his ability by triggering Black Market Slicer Tools instead of shooting, wasting his ability and potentially damaging him through his shields into the bargain.
23 hours ago, Mightybeard13 said:

if we play again my opponent wants to run up against a harpoon missile list. I havn't run one yet and don't have a lot of practice with slamming lists so I was thinking of some thing with Blount (Calculation/GC/HM) and Jake (VI/PTL/AT/HM), WOokie Liberator (Tactician/Lightning Reflexes) Captain Rex.

I think 4+ ships is key to beating this list, I pity anyone who comes up against him at regionals not ready to face this

If you really want to be unpleasant, consider 5 Scimitar Squadron TIE bombers with Concussion Missiles and Long Range Scanners. In this one specific case, concussions may be better than harpoon missiles, because Fenn Rau can stop you spending the target lock for rerolls but can't affect the innate blank-to-hit ability of concussion missiles.

Alternatively, an old favourite I've always dearly loved against the agility zero wonks out there: 4 x Tempest Squadron Pilot, TIE/x1, Accuracy Corrector, Cluster Missiles, Guidance Chips.

Against a 16-hit, agility 0 target, 4 corrected cluster missiles is theoretically an automatic kill without technically needing to roll dice, and Kanan's ability to reduce red dice rolled and Fenn Rau's ability to lock your tokens for dice modification does nothing whatsoever. Yes, there's an evade token but that just requires you to roll 2+ hits on 3 dice naturally, once , during 8 rolls, to be able to trigger guidance chips, add a 3rd hit and blow the Ghost away anyway.

Edited by Magnus Grendel

i kinda hope this list pops up and makes a splash in regionals for a while, it might bring swarm lists back for a spell, as a hard counter