Just a goofy, non-competitive list...

• 40 - Major Striden (Upsilon Shuttle), Systems Officer, Fleet Officer, Experimental Interface, Collision Detector
• 20 - Scarif Defender (TIE Striker), Adaptive Ailerons, Lightweight Frame
• 20 - Scarif Defender (TIE Striker), Adaptive Ailerons, Lightweight Frame
• 20 - Scarif Defender (TIE Striker), Adaptive Ailerons, Lightweight Frame

The Strikers fly out in loose formation, more or less offering themselves as viable targets for an attack, while Striden rolls up slowly from behind. His green maneuvers offer the Strikers target locks they wouldn't otherwise be able to acquire, then he uses Fleet Officer to give extra focus tokens to whoever needs them. Using those tokens on defense isn't a concern, since any misses on my attacks turn into even more free focus results for the next guy in line. Next round, the Strikers go for further damage, while Striden uses a green maneuver to clear his stress and start the whole thing over again.

Your thoughts?

That is a great list. I love the flavor. Sadly, it will immediately lose to Nym bombs and alpha strikes...the two most prevalent lists at the moment.

But if you are going for something that could take the opponent of guard, and something that is fun to fly, I think it is a great list.

3 hours ago, emeraldbeacon said:

Just a goofy, non-competitive list...

• 40 - Major Striden (Upsilon Shuttle), Systems Officer, Fleet Officer, Experimental Interface, Collision Detector
• 20 - Scarif Defender (TIE Striker), Adaptive Ailerons, Lightweight Frame
• 20 - Scarif Defender (TIE Striker), Adaptive Ailerons, Lightweight Frame
• 20 - Scarif Defender (TIE Striker), Adaptive Ailerons, Lightweight Frame

The Strikers fly out in loose formation, more or less offering themselves as viable targets for an attack, while Striden rolls up slowly from behind. His green maneuvers offer the Strikers target locks they wouldn't otherwise be able to acquire, then he uses Fleet Officer to give extra focus tokens to whoever needs them. Using those tokens on defense isn't a concern, since any misses on my attacks turn into even more free focus results for the next guy in line. Next round, the Strikers go for further damage, while Striden uses a green maneuver to clear his stress and start the whole thing over again.

Your thoughts?

• Do you want PS3 for a specific reason? Because if not, you could drop to Imperial Trainees and save 3 points.
  • A fire control system for the shuttle, or upgrading the fleet officer to the much more capable General Hux would be a good use of these points
• Using experimental interface and fleet officer together will double-stress the shuttle.
  • Since taking hux instead of the fleet officer gives you an extra focus token to work with, it's about as good for a point less with no double-stress
  • Taking pattern analyser or advanced sensors means you don't even end a move stressed, and advanced sensors specifically lets you ignore being blocked and bumped.
• Given the statement "any misses on my attacks turn into even more free focus results" I think you may think you have an Operations Specialist, which you can't take along with a Fleet Officer and a Systems Officer.

1 hour ago, Fozzyman said:

That is a great list. I love the flavor. Sadly, it will immediately lose to Nym bombs and alpha strikes...the two most prevalent lists at the moment.

But if you are going for something that could take the opponent of guard, and something that is fun to fly, I think it is a great list.

Massed TIE strikers can definitely eat Nym alive, trust me (with 13 attack dice with at least a focus token each, you have more than enough firepower to kill him in one round) once you get used to how to fly against him.

Missile Alpha strikes will take a bit of finesse, though. It's doable, but you need to figure out your approach carefully. There might be an argument for replacing experimental interface with countermeasures instead of anything else - that will give you agility 2 (respectable) and let you dump off a target lock, meaning 3-harpoon alpha strike from Vader/Quickdraw/etc isn't going to be able to one-round you if they go for the shuttle first.

Flying 5 strikers, which is not a million miles from this squad, my least favourite thing to see is probably Miranda Doni, and her biggest weakness is some sort of control element - her stupidly open move+SLAM dial is much less impressive if she has to deal with stress or ion tokens.

The Kylo Ren's Shuttle title might be worth a look for that reason if you find you have the same problem.

42 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

• Do you want PS3 for a specific reason? Because if not, you could drop to Imperial Trainees and save 3 points.
  • A fire control system for the shuttle, or upgrading the fleet officer to the much more capable General Hux would be a good use of these points
• Using experimental interface and fleet officer together will double-stress the shuttle.
  • Since taking hux instead of the fleet officer gives you an extra focus token to work with, it's about as good for a point less with no double-stress
  • Taking pattern analyser or advanced sensors means you don't even end a move stressed, and advanced sensors specifically lets you ignore being blocked and bumped.
• Given the statement "any misses on my attacks turn into even more free focus results" I think you may think you have an Operations Specialist, which you can't take along with a Fleet Officer and a Systems Officer.

Massed TIE strikers can definitely eat Nym alive, trust me (with 13 attack dice with at least a focus token each, you have more than enough firepower to kill him in one round) once you get used to how to fly against him.

Missile Alpha strikes will take a bit of finesse, though. It's doable, but you need to figure out your approach carefully. There might be an argument for replacing experimental interface with countermeasures instead of anything else - that will give you agility 2 (respectable) and let you dump off a target lock, meaning 3-harpoon alpha strike from Vader/Quickdraw/etc isn't going to be able to one-round you if they go for the shuttle first.

Flying 5 strikers, which is not a million miles from this squad, my least favourite thing to see is probably Miranda Doni, and her biggest weakness is some sort of control element - her stupidly open move+SLAM dial is much less impressive if she has to deal with stress or ion tokens.

The Kylo Ren's Shuttle title might be worth a look for that reason if you find you have the same problem.

My main reason for PS3 was to give me a very minor buffer over very low PS swarms like Quad TLT Y-Wings (there's a local player who's actually VERY skilled with that build), and some small protection against Predator. As for EI + Fleet Officer, I know there's a danger there, but it gives me an option to get three tokens out to my squad if needed. I certainly looked at Hux instead, but I wasn't totally comfortable dropping my Strikers to PS1... though in retrospect, it probably would be a good idea.

In some incarnations of the squad concept, I was considering Ops Specialist. I was probably still thinking about that when writing this up... good catch, it's yet another choice I'd have to make.

To that end...

• 43 - Major Striden (Upsilon Shuttle), Collision Detector, Systems Officer, General Hux, Sensor Cluster, Kylo Ren's Shuttle
• 19 - Imperial Trainee (TIE Striker), Adaptive Ailerons, Lightweight Frame
• 19 - Imperial Trainee (TIE Striker), Adaptive Ailerons, Lightweight Frame
• 19 - Imperial Trainee (TIE Striker), Adaptive Ailerons, Lightweight Frame

My Strikers are a little less skilled, but now they can also act as blockers, if necessary. Striden loses the double-stress issue, and gains the Evil Ginger for more focus shenanigans (at up to Range 3). Kylo Ren's Shuttle can assign extra stress to nearby ships, and Sensor Cluster gives me 1 virtually guaranteed evade per turn if I'm not Fanatically Devoted. Plus, still free target locks for the flappy boyz.

14 minutes ago, emeraldbeacon said:

My main reason for PS3 was to give me a very minor buffer over very low PS swarms like Quad TLT Y-Wings (there's a local player who's actually VERY skilled with that build), and some small protection against Predator.

I actually use 5 strikers in a squad, as I said, and I do use scarif defenders - largely because there's bugger all to spend 5 extra points on instead, other than swapping to a unique pilot I don't really want to field.

Not being PS1-2 for predator is nice in theory, but to be honest I rarely see it - most people seem to have swapped for expertise.

Quad Twin Laser Turrets is a fair comment - if you expect to face them, then Stridan and the Strikers all firing first have pretty good odds of taking one out before it fires, which should massively tilt the fight your way. I'll warn you that trying to engage twin laser turrets en masse is likely to be awkward - one of the biggest weaknesses of a TIE striker is its high minimum speed, so staying in a blind spot is hard. Having focus/evade on the strikers should help a lot, though, and Twin Laser Turrets aren't too bad - it needs two turrets firing, hitting both times, to take out a striker (that 4th hit point is a godsend) and there's no risk of inopportune criticals causing face-up damage.

22 minutes ago, emeraldbeacon said:

• 43 - Major Striden (Upsilon Shuttle), Collision Detector, Systems Officer, General Hux, Sensor Cluster, Kylo Ren's Shuttle
• 19 - Imperial Trainee (TIE Striker), Adaptive Ailerons, Lightweight Frame
• 19 - Imperial Trainee (TIE Striker), Adaptive Ailerons, Lightweight Frame
• 19 - Imperial Trainee (TIE Striker), Adaptive Ailerons, Lightweight Frame

My Strikers are a little less skilled, but now they can also act as blockers, if necessary. Striden loses the double-stress issue, and gains the Evil Ginger for more focus shenanigans (at up to Range 3). Kylo Ren's Shuttle can assign extra stress to nearby ships, and Sensor Cluster gives me 1 virtually guaranteed evade per turn if I'm not Fanatically Devoted. Plus, still free target locks for the flappy boyz.

Looks good. Sensor Cluster is another good option for the shuttle (it's a wierd one that the fewer green dice you have, the better value it is). It'll do naff all against twin laser turrets, but against everything else it's a decent bunk of toughness. Hand Fanatical devotion to whoever you think won't be shot at (or just evade for their action and stick with that...it's far from bad!).

To keep messing with options, there's also now Advanced Optics - if you can keep a focus from a previous turn, it make stridan pretty capable even if using his action to boost the squad.

I think it'll depend whether - in practice - you get much use out of stridan as a combat unit rather than just a token buddy. His dial is okay, and his primary weapon awesome. It'll be a matter of experience, I guess.

Oh yes, I like that last suggestion. You say you don't think its competitive? I say it could be. That's a lot of very adaptable dice.

However, I don't think Sensor Cluster is really worth it on Stridan. Like Magnus said, Adv. Optics could do the trick, but I like the idea of Targeting Synchronizer - gives the opportunity to share 2 TLs.

53 minutes ago, Greebwahn said:

Oh yes, I like that last suggestion. You say you don't think its competitive? I say it could be. That's a lot of very adaptable dice.

However, I don't think Sensor Cluster is really worth it on Stridan. Like Magnus said, Adv. Optics could do the trick, but I like the idea of Targeting Synchronizer - gives the opportunity to share 2 TLs.

I'd like Targeting Sync, if I could also afford Fire Control... as it stands, Striden is likely to be spending his action on Hux, instead of gaining locks, so you'd need an alternate method of locking on... especially because these target locks are for spending (unlike simply needing to have a lock for Synced Turret, Harpoon Missiles, etc.).