51 minutes ago, Astech said:

Strangely enough, this is where 4 PTL interceptors would really shine

"Muh nostalgiuh!"

Tetran Cowall (24)
Push the Limit (3)
Stealth Device (3)
Autothrusters (2)
Royal Guard TIE (0)

Turr Phennir (25)
Push the Limit (3)
Stealth Device (3)
Autothrusters (2)
Royal Guard TIE (0)

Soontir Fel (27)
Push the Limit (3)
Stealth Device (3)
Autothrusters (2)
Royal Guard TIE (0)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

16 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

"Muh nostalgiuh!"

Tetran Cowall (24)
Push the Limit (3)
Stealth Device (3)
Autothrusters (2)
Royal Guard TIE (0)

Turr Phennir (25)
Push the Limit (3)
Stealth Device (3)
Autothrusters (2)
Royal Guard TIE (0)

Soontir Fel (27)
Push the Limit (3)
Stealth Device (3)
Autothrusters (2)
Royal Guard TIE (0)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Me likes. Personally I've always preferred Carnor over Tetran, but the gist is the same.

The interceptors fail to do enough damage to the Ghost because of the Sensor Jammer and Fenn's Hotshot Copilot, and eventually get killed by the TLTs, autothrusters or no autothrusters, because their reds are just so much more reliable. Eventually Soontir is the only one left and the Ghost wins on points.

2 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

The interceptors fail to do enough damage to the Ghost because of the Sensor Jammer and Fenn's Hotshot Copilot, and eventually get killed by the TLTs, autothrusters or no autothrusters, because their reds are just so much more reliable. Eventually Soontir is the only one left and the Ghost wins on points.

Ah, but all you need to do is kill Fenn, then any given Interceptor can whittle down the Ghost over the 50 or so remaining minutes. TLTs will pretty much never damage an AGI4 focus+evade target outside of arc.

Of course, the list is ridiculously vulnerable to bombs.

7 minutes ago, Astech said:

Me likes. Personally I've always preferred Carnor over Tetran, but the gist is the same.

6 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

The interceptors fail to do enough damage to the Ghost because of the Sensor Jammer and Fenn's Hotshot Copilot, and eventually get killed by the TLTs, autothrusters or no autothrusters, because their reds are just so much more reliable. Eventually Soontir is the only one left and the Ghost wins on points.

This is actually where making room for Carnor could be advantageous. If you can keep him close enough, Kanan can't even spend the focus for his ability.

Yes, the list was a wishful-thinking list. I'd have thought the intro made that clear. But if it can achieve normal variance on reds and greens, it does actually have a chance against Fenn-Ghost. As Astech said, it can kill Fenn, while weathering only one or two rounds of TLT fire, with only a little luck. Without Fenn, the Ghost is in legitimate trouble.

Ironically, though, this illustrates yet another reason this list is so strong: the number of ships that can reasonably expect to get fire on Fenn before taking losses that can be recovered from is tiny. Killing Fenn is definitely the key to beating the list, but despite what people think, getting to Fenn to kill him is hard.

30 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Ironically, though, this illustrates yet another reason this list is so strong: the number of ships that can reasonably expect to get fire on Fenn before taking losses that can be recovered from is tiny. Killing Fenn is definitely the key to beating the list, but despite what people think, getting to Fenn to kill him is hard.

The other option (and the one I suspect will prove more successful in this match-up) is to find a list that can comfortably ignore Fenn and focus down the Ghost.

4 kashyyyk defenders with wookiees, for instance, have no reason to fear Fenn. Hot-cop is useless, his ability is useless, and a PS 11 boost is no scarier than the PS 3, 4, 5, or 7 that the ghost would already have. Fenn is basically just a really expensive AP-5 in this match-up.

It's true, four Wookiees is a pretty decent matchup. (But note that each has its expected damage reduced by 1 (to, I think, 0.87 at R2), due to Sensor Jammer, so it's still not a great matchup. I dunno if it's better or worse than three with Expertise/Tactician.) One will die approximately every 2.25 turns. I think Maul/Ezra Fenn-Ghost still wins that race?

1 hour ago, Jeff Wilder said:

It's true, four Wookiees is a pretty decent matchup. (But note that each has its expected damage reduced by 1 (to, I think, 0.87 at R2), due to Sensor Jammer, so it's still not a great matchup. I dunno if it's better or worse than three with Expertise/Tactician.) One will die approximately every 2.25 turns. I think Maul/Ezra Fenn-Ghost still wins that race?

In a straight up fight the Ghost might actually lose but it has quite a few options of not making it a straight up fight. Thanks to boost it can ensure it will only exchange fire with 1 or 2 wookies at a time, at least in some (if not most) rounds. Obstacle placement and players' skill levels would be decisive i think.

1 hour ago, Jeff Wilder said:

It's true, four Wookiees is a pretty decent matchup. (But note that each has its expected damage reduced by 1 (to, I think, 0.87 at R2), due to Sensor Jammer, so it's still not a great matchup. I dunno if it's better or worse than three with Expertise/Tactician.) One will die approximately every 2.25 turns. I think Maul/Ezra Fenn-Ghost still wins that race?

Not trying to posit that it's the silver bullet but it's the clearest example of how to sidestep Fenn and go straight for the ghost.

Rather than think "how to kill Fenn quickly, and still have enough to take down the ghost?"

Instead, "how to ignore Fenn and kill the ghost before it kills me?"

32 minutes ago, Lightrock said:

In a straight up fight the Ghost might actually lose but it has quite a few options of not making it a straight up fight. Thanks to boost it can ensure it will only exchange fire with 1 or 2 wookies at a time, at least in some (if not most) rounds. Obstacle placement and players' skill levels would be decisive i think.

The Ghost won't lose that fight. Keep in mind that Kanan is at Range 1 of the wookies in the first round, since Fenn can simply guarantee it. One wookie does no damage (Kanan's evade token), leaving Kanan to take 3 damage or so in the first turn. After that, The wookies must either break off as a group (and get pounded by TLT/rear arc) or scatter and hope to get a few arcs on every turn. Either way, Kanan rarely takes damage again.

The lack of 180 maneuvers is what seals the deal. If I were flying the four wookies, I'd take focus instead of reinforce on each ship, just for a few extra damage in the opening salvo.

11 minutes ago, Astech said:

The Ghost won't lose that fight. Keep in mind that Kanan is at Range 1 of the wookies in the first round, since Fenn can simply guarantee it. One wookie does no damage (Kanan's evade token), leaving Kanan to take 3 damage or so in the first turn. After that, The wookies must either break off as a group (and get pounded by TLT/rear arc) or scatter and hope to get a few arcs on every turn. Either way, Kanan rarely takes damage again.

The lack of 180 maneuvers is what seals the deal. If I were flying the four wookies, I'd take focus instead of reinforce on each ship, just for a few extra damage in the opening salvo.

4 wookiees at range 1 with focus does 3 damage total? I know that it's the boogeyman and all, but 16 dice filtered down to 3 hits because of Fenn and evade token? That's really bad rolling.

If all 4 have focus, then 2 can't use it (hot-cop and Fenn). The other 2 can. The average range one roll is 2 hit, 1 focus, 1 blank. So the two with focus land 6 hits on average between them. The other two get their hits dropped (due to sensor jammer) so between them 2 hits and 2 focuses that can be re-rolled. That's 3 more.

So on average the Ghost would take 9 hits from 4 wookiee at range one. He has one evade and one focus we'll assume, so let's drop 2 hits off. That's 7 expected damage at range 1 (not counting crits that can't be sensor jammed). 3 is well below average.

Once the ghost breaks off, box Fenn in and kill him so you can get back to focusing.

Again, not saying this is an easy matchup, but dismissing it because you'll roll poorly and get outflown doesn't really help conceptualize how to beat it.

3 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

The interceptors fail to do enough damage to the Ghost because of the Sensor Jammer and Fenn's Hotshot Copilot, and eventually get killed by the TLTs, autothrusters or no autothrusters, because their reds are just so much more reliable. Eventually Soontir is the only one left and the Ghost wins on points.

I actually just played this match out tonight using the old Howard Aces (Soontir/Inquisitor/Palp) against the Sensor Jammer Ghost plus Fenn build. The token stacked aces tore the list apart. Once Fenn is off the board, the aces can cycle themselves in and out of combat and reliably donut hole the Ghost. Goes down pretty quickly.

I’m rooting pretty hard for lists like this to come back and think they might just have a chance. Action bombs are largely out of the picture, but their low overall offensive output is still a problem.

2 minutes ago, Sekac said:

4 wookiees at range 1 with focus does 3 damage total? I know that it's the boogeyman and all, but 16 dice filtered down to 3 hits because of Fenn and evade token? That's really bad rolling.

If all 4 have focus, then 2 can't use it (hot-cop and Fenn). The other 2 can. The average range one roll is 2 hit, 1 focus, 1 blank. So the two with focus land 6 hits on average between them. The other two get their hits dropped (due to sensor jammer) so between them 2 hits and 2 focuses that can be re-rolled. That's 3 more.

So on average the Ghost would take 9 hits from 4 wookiee at range one. He has one evade and one focus we'll assume, so let's drop 2 hits off. That's 7 expected damage at range 1 (not counting crits that can't be sensor jammed). 3 is well below average.

Once the ghost breaks off, box Fenn in and kill him so you can get back to focusing.

Again, not saying this is an easy matchup, but dismissing it because you'll roll poorly and get outflown doesn't really help conceptualize how to beat it.

I was referring to the case in which the wookies take the evade action in which they do 3 damage. Only later did I suggest the focus action as the appropriate course of action.

Your assessment is definitely correct though - average dice do 7 damage to Kanan, which is less than half points on him. Next turn a Wookie gets PS-killed after taking 5-6 damage the previous turn from Kanan and a maximum of two wookies have arc on Kanan, so 1 more damage tops. Two more turns go by of Kanan trading blows with defenceless wookies and another one drops with Kanan probably around 6-7 health left. At that point it's game over.

The wookies pay for the reinforce action, which is rendered useless by the SJ, so you'd actually be better of with 4BZ in this matchup, or even 4-5 Kihraxz fighters who have access to glitterstim.

I think you're over estimating how much damage the Kanan Ghost build does. He generally has a single focus token to spend either on defense or any one of his 4 TLT shots. It should be rare that the TLT would do 4 damage a turn or that he'd deliver 5 hits at range 1. He'd be doing 2-3 damage a turn realistically. Maybe 5 on a turn where he can range 1 a wookiee and TLT another.

A clever wookiee player would focus with all 4 while he has them. If we're going to assume the Ghost player is flying at a high level, it's fair to imagine the wookiees are too. They'd likely set a looser formation on the joust to limit the Ghost's escape options. When one takes heavy damage, they'd likely break it off and put the others closer to make sure damage can be spread around.

If the wookiees can kill Fenn and take half off Kanan, they win on points unless 3 wookiees are killed. If Kanan drops to within a hit or 2 of half points on the opening engagement, then he's well on his way to losing that match.

30 minutes ago, Sekac said:

I think you're over estimating how much damage the Kanan Ghost build does.

Lack of super-reliable damage is exactly why Kanan-Fenn is only the prototype, and Lothal/Ezra/Maul is the Platonic ideal.

2 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Lack of super-reliable damage is exactly why Kanan-Fenn is only the prototype, and Lothal/Ezra/Maul is the Platonic ideal.

Agreed. Most importantly, it's best in the mirror match because enemy Fenn has nothing to do but wait to die.

10 hours ago, Astech said:

Ah, but all you need to do is kill Fenn, then any given Interceptor can whittle down the Ghost over the 50 or so remaining minutes. TLTs will pretty much never damage an AGI4 focus+evade target outside of arc.

Of course, the list is ridiculously vulnerable to bombs.

Assuming you keep them out of arc. And if they want to do damage, they will have to spend their tokens, because Sensor Jammer, which means they won't have them to defend with, and autothrusters/evade isn't doing to outdo those red dice forever. Assuming that they're not in arc and getting hit with 4 to 5 of them.

It's by no means an unbeatable list, but 3 squints isn't the answer.

3 squints has never been the answer to anything except how to get crapped on by variance.

7 hours ago, Sekac said:

I think you're over estimating how much damage the Kanan Ghost build does. He generally has a single focus token to spend either on defense or any one of his 4 TLT shots. It should be rare that the TLT would do 4 damage a turn or that he'd deliver 5 hits at range 1. He'd be doing 2-3 damage a turn realistically. Maybe 5 on a turn where he can range 1 a wookiee and TLT another.

A clever wookiee player would focus with all 4 while he has them. If we're going to assume the Ghost player is flying at a high level, it's fair to imagine the wookiees are too. They'd likely set a looser formation on the joust to limit the Ghost's escape options. When one takes heavy damage, they'd likely break it off and put the others closer to make sure damage can be spread around.

If the wookiees can kill Fenn and take half off Kanan, they win on points unless 3 wookiees are killed. If Kanan drops to within a hit or 2 of half points on the opening engagement, then he's well on his way to losing that match.

Single focus token means he's got Maul/Ezra as crew, ergo nearly full mods on every attack.

A R1 primary on a tokenless AGI 1 ship does 3.5 damage on average, with 1.66 expected crits. The follow up TLT has a 85% chance of doing 2 damage and a 14% chance of doing 1 damage. In other words average dice yields 5.5 hits and a crit thrown in for good measure.

Kanan/Fenn will pretty much always have the positioning it wants. Keep in mind that a R2 opening engagement works just as well for Kanan, as the damage against him is massively lowered, and he can simply 5K turn the next round, and there's pretty much nothing the wookies can do to stop it.

A loose opening formation means that Kanan simply hangs back and uses his boost action to control range, and only engage 1-2 ships in the opening round, so absolutely no damage there. "Breaking off" a ship with no repostioning actions against a double-tap TLT is incredibly hard, to say the least.

The Wookies killing Fenn is more or less impossible on the opening round, and incredibly difficult in the second combat round since you're a ship down before you can shoot. At that point, killing Fenn won't save you since Kanan's behind the wookies with more than half health remaining. It's probably the best outcome, but it's simply not a good match for 4 wookies.

7 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Lack of super-reliable damage is exactly why Kanan-Fenn is only the prototype, and Lothal/Ezra/Maul is the Platonic ideal.

If you're willing to drop VI down to Adaptability on Fenn, you can fit the full Kanan build with Maul/Ezra/Boost/SJ.

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

Assuming you keep them out of arc. And if they want to do damage, they will have to spend their tokens, because Sensor Jammer, which means they won't have them to defend with, and autothrusters/evade isn't doing to outdo those red dice forever. Assuming that they're not in arc and getting hit with 4 to 5 of them.

It's by no means an unbeatable list, but 3 squints isn't the answer.

3 squints has never been the answer to anything except how to get crapped on by variance.

It's not really about the red dice/green dice mechanic. It's about arc-dodging with your single remaining ship once Fenn's down until Kanan bites the dust. his blind spot might be small, but it's incredibly easy - in any starting positions - for a PTl Interceptor to always be in the blind spots or out of range entirely.

9 hours ago, Jenks0118 said:

I actually just played this match out tonight using the old Howard Aces (Soontir/Inquisitor/Palp) against the Sensor Jammer Ghost plus Fenn build. The token stacked aces tore the list apart. Once Fenn is off the board, the aces can cycle themselves in and out of combat and reliably donut hole the Ghost. Goes down pretty quickly.

I’m rooting pretty hard for lists like this to come back and think they might just have a chance. Action bombs are largely out of the picture, but their low overall offensive output is still a problem.

This guy gets it

After playing against this list again it just absolutely abuses the smallest mistakes made by opponents while being fairly comfortable making many of it's own. It's just a forgiving choo choo train of pain. In my first engagement I misjudged range and one of my ships was outside of firing range. I missed putting damage into the Ghost that turn and I knew I had already lost the damage race. I ended up losing having killed the Lothal Rebel, Fenn had one health left and Zeb had 3 after ejecting from the destroyed ghost.

2 hours ago, Astech said:

Single focus token means he's got Maul/Ezra as crew, ergo nearly full mods on every attack.

No, single focus means you already stated in the scenario that he's boosted and evaded in the hypothetical opening engagement. There's no way to boost, evade, and have more than one focus in a turn.

If he's got maul/Ezra than it's not Kanan. Or he doesn't have sensor Jammer. Or Fenn doesn't have hot-cop. Or something.

In this magical doomsday scenario, how is Kanan firing range 1 into a wookiee and TLTing it in the same turn? If he gets max hits at range 1 he does 5 damage. The next turn he might TLT it for 2 more before it shoots. The chances of him killing a wookiee before it fires a second time are extremely slim. It requires 2 direct hits or a major explosion and a direct hit. Or a stun and a bump. Either way your scenario is very unrealistic.

All of your "nope, it's hopeless" replies require extreme variance and poor piloting. Unblockable 5Ks, inescapable TLTs, Ghosts that can consistently arc-dodge multiple 180 degree arcs, etc. A big ship with boost and a turret is not a new thing. They don't just teleport to wherever you're vulnerable. They can still be predicted, blocked, and planned for.

It's a difficult archetype, certainly, but you're way over-selling its capabilities in every post.

3 hours ago, Astech said:

15 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

"Muh nostalgiuh!"

Personally, muh nostalgia looks something more like this:

Mauler with Snap Shot

Scourge with Snap Shot (or possibly Adapt him down to a 6, spending the points for Optics on Zeta, haven't decided which is better yet)

Backstabber

Zeta Leader with Wired

Pure Sabacc with Determination, title, and LWF.

I go after the Ghost first, whether Kanan or Lothal, and spend focus on offense every time. Sure it hurts defensively to do so, but it gets damage through enough to win the damage race on the Ghost, so that whatever is left over can handle Fenn and the disembarked shuttle.

And the PS is higher than either Kanan or Lothal. Sure, my list is trickier vs ultra high PS lists, but I've found that most lists either engage in the PS race or they don't. My PS6-7 list means either I get to block or I get to shoot first. I'm fine either way.

Got a third game against Ezra maul tlt Ghost. That combo is bonkers, bananas, bazinga!

Once per round change on maul needed I think.