If you want to learn how to maneuver a Phantom or something like a Striker, I recommend spending and hour or two on the Squadron Benchmark just practicing it. No, it's not as same as table time, but amount of experience you'll get in a short period of time will more than make up for it. But only for a couple hours, then put it on the table and try it.

I don't have any ships/pilots that I avoid because of difficulty; in truth I'm drawn to ships that are supposed to be difficult.

I've been playing Fenn Rau since he was released; took a little while to get decent with him. Recently I was told that I'm pretty good with him now. ::shrugs:: Who am I to argue?

Corran Horn is a pilot that I've wanted to git gud with but I mostly play Scum and I haven't been prepared to put the time in. I know I'm going to have to take a fair bit of lumps before I work him out so I've put off playing him.

I am kind of the opposite.

When I see a ship or build "dominating the meta" I will see if there is some aspect of it that I can use on a different ship or a different way to build the pilot but I try not to fly ships that are "easy."

For example, I've ever flown Jumpmasters, K-Wing, Palpatine, Whisper or scourge.

Honestly, really agile ships and I don't mesh. I prefer sluggish, tanky vessels with turrets or wide arcs. I know that makes me the antichrist, but I just do, y'know?

17 hours ago, tsondaboy said:

I don't usually avoid playing ships because they look difficult but mostly because they look mighty ugly!

Take the Attack Shuttle, Alpha-class star wing or G-1A for example, clearly ugly M******.

I agree with the sentiment... just not your list. For me, it is...

That Wookiiee Gunship monstrosity,

and the Dumb..s Upsilon Shuttle.

But others may find the attractive. To each their own, I supposed. I must admit that it took me a looonnnggg time to come around to the K-wing. Now I don't fly it because it seems everyone who is more interested in winning than being original seems to be using it.

5 hours ago, Burius1981 said:

I don't have any ships/pilots that I avoid because of difficulty; in truth I'm drawn to ships that are supposed to be difficult.

I've been playing Fenn Rau since he was released; took a little while to get decent with him. Recently I was told that I'm pretty good with him now. ::shrugs:: Who am I to argue?

Corran Horn is a pilot that I've wanted to git gud with but I mostly play Scum and I haven't been prepared to put the time in. I know I'm going to have to take a fair bit of lumps before I work him out so I've put off playing him.

I guess I argue that Fenn Rau is not hard to fly in how I define hard to fly.

Run a formation of 5x cartel marauders... that is hard to fly. Limited maneuvers with lots of ship bumping potential. When you can get everyone to have a shot and all have focuses in a fleet like that you flew well. When you did one of Fen';s bazzilion good maneuvers then used an action to reposition you took nowhere near the skill it took to fly a ship with a worse dial and no repositioning.

The best pilots are the ones that can take a ship with a crappy dial, low pilot skill, and no repositioning and end up sitting in an advantageous position multiple rounds in a row. When you can have your Cartel marauder sitting at range 2 of a fenn rau then you flew a hard ship, in a hard situation well.

Yes to Phantom and Striker. Er, not avoid, but when I put them down I know it's going to get ... interesting.

Those Ailerons on the Striker are finicky, but powerful. Personally for me its the TIE Phantom though, as I just can't seem to get the positioning right and they evaporate.

Synergy. Multi-ship interactions. Things like Attani mindlink, swarm leader, saturation salvo and condition cards.

Corran Horn, he's just so squishy. Make 1 wrong move and blammo! he's gone.

On 30/01/2018 at 1:50 PM, Boom Owl said:

I am going to phrase the question in the title a couple different ways in the hopes that people are willing to reply to a thread that isn't about a nerf or the next expansion or a podcast:

• Are there any ships or lists or upgrades that other players have had success with that you have hesitated to use because you think they would need practice to be consistent?
• If you are a Jedi Master and have been playing a very long time ( multiple years ) are there any ships or lists you had to practice with over the long haul before they really started to get the job done?
• Are there any ships or upgrades you know have a high floor and high ceiling that you have specifically dropped from a list because they appear to "risky" or "unforgiving" in a tournament setting?

Stuff that people generally seem impressed with when it wins that very few people then turn around pick up and play because I assume they think its difficult?

I tend to do the opposite and avoid things that are easy to fly. I get bored if I don't.

I've found that (personally) Carnor Jax is the absolute hardest ship to fly, especially without Palp. He wants to stay at range 3 because he's an Interceptor,, but he wants to be at range 1 because of how incredibly effective he is there. He's a third of a list yet does perhaps 2 damage a turn at best. He has three hull meaning that a single mistake almost guarantees his death. Played well, he destroys an opponent's action economy, but otherwise the game is almost an auto-loss.

HLC Dash is probably the second worst. Sure, against some things he's nearly an auto-win, but against, say, kylo with PTL and advanced sensors, he's nearly an auto-loss. Knowing when to block with him and when to get out of dodge is crucial, as is targeting priority.

I'm hopeless at flying phantoms, but that has more to do with my play style.

12 hours ago, Chris Maes said:

Now I don't fly it because it seems everyone who is more interested in winning than being original seems to be using it.

I absolutely love this statement. So many people trying to be the next Bruce Lee instead of being the first (Insert your own name here).

Anyway, for me it's Defenders. The only Imperial ship that never made my buy list. I never liked there look, and have always felt they were a little too by the numbers. I'll take a Tie s/f over them any day of the week.

" The dark side is strong in me, for I am Sith. "

16 hours ago, Icelom said:

I guess I argue that Fenn Rau is not hard to fly in how I define hard to fly.

Run a formation of 5x cartel marauders... that is hard to fly. Limited maneuvers with lots of ship bumping potential. When you can get everyone to have a shot and all have focuses in a fleet like that you flew well. When you did one of Fen';s bazzilion good maneuvers then used an action to reposition you took nowhere near the skill it took to fly a ship with a worse dial and no repositioning.

The best pilots are the ones that can take a ship with a crappy dial, low pilot skill, and no repositioning and end up sitting in an advantageous position multiple rounds in a row. When you can have your Cartel marauder sitting at range 2 of a fenn rau then you flew a hard ship, in a hard situation well.

Ouch man. Ouch . I am 100% sure I didn't kick any puppies this week so I don't know why you've targeted me.

I'd argue that there is a fairly high skill ceiling for Fenn, at least at tournament level. In a casual game he can let you chuck a lot of dice and look amazing or he goes pop in the first round of combat because your positioning was bad. Usually Fenn has one or two really good options for any given round, the others are too risky or just bad. PtL vs Mindlink complicates it. PtL lets you Boost+Barrel roll but Protectorates have 6 green maneuvers and if the enemy ship on the left you have already eliminated two of them unless you like getting shot at range two where Fenn dies. Mindlink opens up the dial but you lose the safety net of Boost+Barrel Roll, he's not Soontir he can't just hang out at range 2-3 with double focus, evade, and palp to be nigh invincible for a round of fire, so while you have the whole dial open a lot of those options are bad if not for the immediate round, then for the follow up round.

Good players are going to try and set up blocks and range 2 shots against him. It's also no walk in the park to deal with PS10s and 11s like Nym, Vader, Quickdraw, or Poe. I can and do go for the block with Fenn on higher PS ships at times, but if I guess wrong he is as good as dead.

And Kihraxz aren't bad ships. I like their dial and I like their stat line, but the whole line of them cost too much for what they do and Graz should have had a damned EPT. For four more points you can have a pair of Z95s over a single Kihraxz, they really should have had 4 hull 2 shields for that cost or been two or three points cheaper.

4 hours ago, Burius1981 said:

Ouch man. Ouch . I am 100% sure I didn't kick any puppies this week so I don't know why you've targeted me.

I'd argue that there is a fairly high skill ceiling for Fenn, at least at tournament level. In a casual game he can let you chuck a lot of dice and look amazing or he goes pop in the first round of combat because your positioning was bad. Usually Fenn has one or two really good options for any given round, the others are too risky or just bad. PtL vs Mindlink complicates it. PtL lets you Boost+Barrel roll but Protectorates have 6 green maneuvers and if the enemy ship on the left you have already eliminated two of them unless you like getting shot at range two where Fenn dies. Mindlink opens up the dial but you lose the safety net of Boost+Barrel Roll, he's not Soontir he can't just hang out at range 2-3 with double focus, evade, and palp to be nigh invincible for a round of fire, so while you have the whole dial open a lot of those options are bad if not for the immediate round, then for the follow up round.

Good players are going to try and set up blocks and range 2 shots against him. It's also no walk in the park to deal with PS10s and 11s like Nym, Vader, Quickdraw, or Poe. I can and do go for the block with Fenn on higher PS ships at times, but if I guess wrong he is as good as dead.

And Kihraxz aren't bad ships. I like their dial and I like their stat line, but the whole line of them cost too much for what they do and Graz should have had a damned EPT. For four more points you can have a pair of Z95s over a single Kihraxz, they really should have had 4 hull 2 shields for that cost or been two or three points cheaper.

Its not personal i just disagree with your sentiment that's all.

My argument is in the same situation everything that makes fen hard to fly makes ships with worse dials and no re positioning even harder to fly all things being equal. I am also not saying that fen does not take skill to fly, all ships take skill to fly and will preform better with a skilled player controlling them.

I Also I dont think Kihraxz fighters are bad, i used to fly 5x cartel maruaders quite regularly but switched over to 5x mangler M3a's for the same sort of feel but just better.

Personally i just find fen alot easier to fly because he is more forgiving for past turns decisions with his wide open movement dial and repositioning. (his 5 straight has saved my bacon for making a judgement error on previous moves that ships without that option would have been screwed over for example). So basically its not that he is "easy" to fly its that he is easier to fly then a lot of ships that just dont have the dial options.

I did not mean for that to come off as an insult to you, and more just my musings on the definition of "hard to fly".

I would love to be a solid Palp Aces player, and man have I played aces a LOT, but that shuttle is just too much of a brick for me. I get it to shoot maybe two or three times a game and the rest of the time it's just trying to turn around. Vader, because of his somewhat awkward dial, also gives me a bit of trouble, but I think that's because I hug rocks too closely and need to change that up with him. Strikers are super awesome and fun, but they tire me out quickly. The first time I saw one being played was at a kit tourney and the guy was running triple strikers with howlrunner and it just looked so awesome on the table that I had to try it. Jesus christ was that list hard to fly.. but it has potential.

Everything else is pretty easy as long as it has white turns, can k-turn, or has 1 speed maneuvers. I do have a ton of trouble flying AGAINST lancers though, there are just too many arcs and ranges to worry about that it gives me a headache. In the last tournament I was at I had to play against Asajj twice and while I won the first game, I played the second game all wrong, terrified of tractor beams until the next day I remembered that he wasn't running the title and could have flown a lot more casually against his list.

Stuff that people think requires practice:

• Tie Phantom
• Tie Striker
• Tie Interceptor
• Double Fat Falcons
• Corran Horn
• Omega Leader
• Palp Shuttle
• Gunboat
• Jake Farrell
• Vader
• Quickdraw
• Inquisitor
• BTL Y-Wing
• Echo
• Kylo Silencer
• Snap Shot A-Wing
• Scum Aggressor
• Duchess
• Protectorate Starfighter
• Relationships
• Palp Aces

Interesting results...

More than half imperial.

It' not that they take practice...most of them just auto lose.

There's no specific ships I avoid, at least because of difficulty anyways. Personal preference though factors in of course.

I do tend to avoid using bombs though because of my difficulty with them,. I'm too aggressive with them and usually end up doing just as much damage to my own ships if not more, than my opponents.

Star Viper is still scaring me with that new MKII upgrade... The barrelroll seems really risky for someone who is the most comfortable in a YV-666.

I am still not really comfortable when I equip Greedo. He seems so risky and with my luck he is pretty much a traitor... same with the revenge droid R4-P8... Everything that has a small chance to damage myself is not-done...

is this normal or should I consult a doctor?

My style of play doesn't go well for arc dodgers. I like to engage in combat, instead of flying around the board peppering shots when possible. So i don't fly phantoms, soontir...etc.

I like swarms and focus firing down a ship.

On 1/30/2018 at 5:44 PM, Icelom said:

I guess I argue that Fenn Rau is not hard to fly in how I define hard to fly.

Run a formation of 5x cartel marauders... that is hard to fly. Limited maneuvers with lots of ship bumping potential. When you can get everyone to have a shot and all have focuses in a fleet like that you flew well. When you did one of Fen';s bazzilion good maneuvers then used an action to reposition you took nowhere near the skill it took to fly a ship with a worse dial and no repositioning.

The best pilots are the ones that can take a ship with a crappy dial, low pilot skill, and no repositioning and end up sitting in an advantageous position multiple rounds in a row. When you can have your Cartel marauder sitting at range 2 of a fenn rau then you flew a hard ship, in a hard situation well.

I used to run 5 cartel marauders. Gave me 15 red dice at a target. Then moved to 4x and serissu. Lose a red die, but essentially same dial and people hate serissu's ability. Called them my 4 turtles and master splinter.

On 1/30/2018 at 7:21 AM, Kieransi said:

Probably Palpatine. I just never figured out how to make him useful for me. Not sure why. I fly a lot of bad stuff (my two most-flown ships at tournaments are A-Wings and non-shuttle TIE Bombers). And I've been able to make all of it work at least reasonably well. But I've never figured out why Palp is useful. Important to note that I got frequently destroyed by pre-nerf Palp Aces. But I could never figure out how to fly it.

You see, I feel exactly the same way about Omega Leader. She destroys me all the time, but when I fly her, she just gets blown out of the sky. Granted, now that I fly more than 3 ships, she's not such a problem for me to face any more, but I still can't figure out how to use her effectively.

On 1/30/2018 at 9:11 AM, Boba Rick said:

If you want to learn how to maneuver a Phantom or something like a Striker, I recommend spending and hour or two on the Squadron Benchmark just practicing it. No, it's not as same as table time, but amount of experience you'll get in a short period of time will more than make up for it. But only for a couple hours, then put it on the table and try it.

I bought two TIE strikers, and played a couple of games with them. I liked them enough that the next week on Vassal I played about three games with five TIE strikers. I was sold. Being able to play multiples in a squad really helps you understand your mistakes, because the ships that are in a bad position end up dead, and the ships that are in a good position win the day. It's easy to for me to learn ships that way. Now I own four TIE strikers, but I'm pretty sure I need four more for EPIC games!

22 hours ago, MrRip said:

I would love to be a solid Palp Aces player, and man have I played aces a LOT, but that shuttle is just too much of a brick for me. I get it to shoot maybe two or three times a game and the rest of the time it's just trying to turn around.

The Lambda-class shuttle was one I had to practice with a lot before I got the hang of it. A whole lot of losses were earned before I started experiencing victory. There are two main ways to fly the shuttle: get in their way, or come from an angle to pursue the enemy as they fly past. Either way, I always make sure my shuttle has some way to contribute even if it isn't firing. That may be Captain Yorr's ability, or Palpatine, or many other cards. I've been using Vader crew, which is harder because the shuttle does NOTHING once it has passed the engagement, so I do a lot of self-bumping with the shuttle to keep it engaged. Like I said, it took me a long time to learn to fly the thing, but now I totally love it!

How about for looks and theme? I don't play the TIE Striker does that count?