The Elephant in the Room: how do you beat Kanan Fenn?

By GreenDragoon, in X-Wing

2 hours ago, viedit said:

He still only has 2 green dice. Against 4 AC'd shots they will chew through. Plus you setup blocks and work the tacticians to stress him. Also rear arc of ghost won't trigger AutoThruster (unless range 3) so you have 2x the coverage of a traditional turret.

You can only shoot out of rear arc of non-titled vcx with a torpedo. So it would count for out of arc.

Edited by BlodVargarna
12 minutes ago, BlodVargarna said:

You can only shoot out of rear arc of non-titled vcx with a torpedo. So it would count for out of arc.

No, it is still a firing arc, even if you can’t shoot primaries out of it

13 minutes ago, BlodVargarna said:

You can only shoot out of rear arc of non-titled vcx with a torpedo. So it would count for out of arc.

Rear printed arc of Ghost still applies "arc" rules to turrets. So at range 1 & 2 no Autothrusters and and at Range 2 it can proxy Tactician from rear from turret.

The one thing it *doesn't* do is work with tail gunner. Tail gunner specifies auxiliary arc. On the ghost it's a "special" arc. That would be filthy on a ghost if it worked.

Edited by viedit

You learn new things every day.

1 hour ago, BlodVargarna said:

You can only shoot out of rear arc of non-titled vcx with a torpedo. So it would count for out of arc.

Doesn't matter. Arc is arc, the special arc counts as in arc and deactivates autothrusters as well.

Though I am to late I guess ^_^

I hesitate to ask but is there a version of this that has Sabine Wren, Extra Munitions, and a Bomb yet?

Edited by Boom Owl
6 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

I hesitate to ask but is there a version of this that has Sabine Wren, Extra Munitions, and a Bomb yet?

LOL. That would make for a very unhappy Fenn in most situations. He likes to be on a leash behind the Ghost.

10 minutes ago, viedit said:

LOL. That would make for a very unhappy Fenn in most situations. He likes to be on a leash behind the Ghost.

What if the VCX also had Trajectory Simulator and Bombardier?

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Hera Syndulla — VCX-100 40
Trajectory Simulator 1
Twin Laser Turret 6
Extra Munitions 2
Sabine Wren 2
Bombardier 1
Thermal Detonators 3
Engine Upgrade 4
Ghost 0
Ship Total: 59
Fenn Rau (Sheathipede) — Sheathipede-class Shuttle 20
Veteran Instincts 1
Intelligence Agent 1
Flight-Assist Astromech 1
Ship Total: 23
"Zeb" Orrelios — Attack Shuttle 18
Ship Total: 18
Edited by Boom Owl

You really want some way to Coordinate before the Ghost moves, so you can change the direction of your Trajectory Simulator toss, but that means no Fenn.

1 hour ago, Biophysical said:

You really want some way to Coordinate before the Ghost moves, so you can change the direction of your Trajectory Simulator toss, but that means no Fenn.

Stress Bug Ezra can use coordinate before or after Kanan moves. Normally you use him with gunner for double stress, but if you want to use coordinate … I guess you could use something else as crew.

I don't think this would be as effective as the other standard lists, but you could do something like this:

Kanan Jarrus (38)
Trajectory Simulator (1)
Twin Laser Turret (6)
Extra Munitions (2)
Sabine Wren (2)
Maul (3)
Thermal Detonators (3)
Engine Upgrade (4)
Ghost (0)

Ezra Bridger (Sheathipede) (17)
Wired (1)
Nien Nunb (1)
R3-A2 (2)
Pulsed Ray Shield (2)

"Zeb" Orrelios (18)
"Chopper" (0)
Guidance Chips (0)
Phantom (0)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Edited by SEApocalypse

Decoy

Your Fenn is only PS 9 but you can choose at start of combat if you want to coordinate pre move for better TS shots and advanced sensors like shenanigans or post move for high PS arc dodging

Coordinate has to be done before the start of the combat phase, you don't have actions during the combat phase.

Unnerf jumps to have a decent platform for Boba Fett, so the Ghosts, Mirandas and Dashes have some threat of losing their turrets again

On 2/5/2018 at 12:53 PM, BlodVargarna said:

What’s the Dakka list?

Sorry for the delay 2 HLC boats, a TLT Agressor, and the Doom Canoe.

Just now, Kelvan said:

Sorry for the delay 2 HLC boats, a TLT Agressor, and the Doom Canoe.

Love it. That's my kind of jank!

1 minute ago, viedit said:

Love it. That's my kind of jank!

Why try to outsmart the enemy when you can just shoot them really hard and if that doesn't work, pull out a nice force crush?


But really to make it work well you need to be @blairbunke or as good at killboxing/arc control as he is.

I've done really well with it but I'm not confident i'm good enough at those skills to win a regional.

1 hour ago, Kelvan said:

Sorry for the delay 2 HLC boats, a TLT Agressor, and the Doom Canoe.

Doom canoe? Is that Vader on a TIE shuttle?

Just now, DeathstarII said:

Doom canoe? Is that Vader on a TIE shuttle?

Yes. I'm not sure if he invented the term but I can thank @Starslinger72 for that lexicon.

I wanted to make a counter list with Boba and this is what I came up with:

Fett You (100/100)
=========================
Firespray-31: Emon Azzameen (36 + 23)
+ Heavy Laser Cannon (7)
+ Cad Bane (2)
+ Cluster Mines (4)
+ Burnout SLAM (1)
+ Slave I (0)
+ Experimental Interface (3)
+ Cluster Mines (4)
+ Extra Munitions (2)
Scurrg H-6 Bomber: Captain Nym (30 + 11)
+ Veteran Instincts (1)
+ Autoblaster Turret (2)
+ Extra Munitions (2)
+ Homing Missiles (5)
+ Boba Fett (1)
+ Guidance Chips (0)

Emon is meant to drop damage on the enemy. Nym is meant to eliminate the enemies strong point with Boba. You hit titles or TLT off the ghost. You hit the hlc off dash. You hit the Palp off of Palp.

You could lighten Emon to upgrade towards TLT but autoblaster answers a weakness in aces and I like Emon bristling with weaponry.

11 minutes ago, Ohnoeszz said:

I wanted to make a counter list with Boba and this is what I came up with:

Fett You (100/100)
=========================
Firespray-31: Emon Azzameen (36 + 23)
+ Heavy Laser Cannon (7)
+ Cad Bane (2)
+ Cluster Mines (4)
+ Burnout SLAM (1)
+ Slave I (0)
+ Experimental Interface (3)
+ Cluster Mines (4)
+ Extra Munitions (2)
Scurrg H-6 Bomber: Captain Nym (30 + 11)
+ Veteran Instincts (1)
+ Autoblaster Turret (2)
+ Extra Munitions (2)
+ Homing Missiles (5)
+ Boba Fett (1)
+ Guidance Chips (0)

Emon is meant to drop damage on the enemy. Nym is meant to eliminate the enemies strong point with Boba. You hit titles or TLT off the ghost. You hit the hlc off dash. You hit the Palp off of Palp.

You could lighten Emon to upgrade towards TLT but autoblaster answers a weakness in aces and I like Emon bristling with weaponry.

Pretty sure this still gets dumpstered by ghost Fenn. You need stress, a lot of guns, and/or passive mods. Nym will die before the ghost loses shields.

^How? Nym shoots before the ghost. He is going to target lock, fire the homing, and guidance chip a crit to Boba away half of the Ghost's attacks and arc.

Emon can trade adequately with HLC on the opening turn and on the next turn he can slam experimental interface a cluster bomb onto either opponent (likely Fenn).

9 minutes ago, Ohnoeszz said:

^How? Nym shoots before the ghost. He is going to target lock, fire the homing, and guidance chip a crit to Boba away half of the Ghost's attacks and arc.

Emon can trade adequately with HLC on the opening turn and on the next turn he can slam experimental interface a cluster bomb onto either opponent (likely Fenn).

This is not going to go the way you think.

Pssssst the ghost has six shields.

And Boba has to deal a face up card to trigger.

What I think most people fail to realize is that while most lists find it absolutely necessary to kill Fenn (expertise / glitterstim lists being one of the few exceptions), getting rid of him does not mean you have an advantage and have it easy from now on. I've tested the maul+ezra version of the list and (probably due to my lack of experience) in a couple of cases I ended up losing Fenn very early - in the second round of shooting (and the first serious one). I still won very convincingly in both cases, with ghost still having his shields up at the start of the last round. The list's power is a result of several factors the lift it way above anything the old biggs/kanan and lowhrick/kanan ever managed to achieve:

  • The list is way more maneuverable than the classic Kanan. It does have an engine upgrade and isn't afraid of using it because it doesn't depend on actions for survival nearly as much as old Kanan used to. It doesn't need to slow roll because most versions of it do not have Rey and do not rely on token banking. It isn't tethered to R1 of a relatively slow small support ship. Fenn only needs to be in R2 to coordinate and can boost ghost way further than that. On top of that, Fenn doesn't need to coordinate the ghost to be an effective support. Having an enemy ship or two in one of his arcs is quite enough. Ezra/maul variant is also far less reluctant to perform red maneuvers or go through debris as it's quite capable of doing both in the same round and still end the round clear of stress. All of this and the fact that the ghost can move at PS3 and boost either immediately or at PS11 gives incredible flexibility, unpredictability and blocking potential to the ghost player and is probably the single most important advantage over the classic Kanan lists.
  • It's incredibly consistent in it's damage output. Part of it is that maul/ezra combo is simply much better than FCS, especially for modifying TLT shots. But mostly it's because the list is great at denying the opponent their focus tokens. Fenn can take away one at PS11 and then block another one with his ability. If anybody's shooting at Fenn, they lose their focus token too. Add the ghost's blocking potential (go to a blocking spot, let them bump you, then boost away at PS11 and shoot) and you get the full picture. Even if Fenn is dead (yay), if you want to deal any meaningful damage to the ghost, you need to spend those focus tokens or you'll be lucky to push any damage at all through sensor jammer and evade. As a result, by the time ghost gets to shoot, more often than not the enemy is tokenless, meaning that ghost's shots do get through and melt the enemy ships very quickly.
  • It's also really consistent defensively. Unlike Kanan's ability, sensor jammer works on any number of attacks. It's not restricted to any range and does not depend on you being able to perform your actions and use your tokens. If the opponent cannot use his focus results, it's also strictly speaking better than Kanan's ability, except for some fringe cases such as the opponent only rolling crits. As long as Fenn's alive, he also hard counters deadeye harpoon carriers and generally makes ordnance very risky/inconsistent.

To put it bluntly, that's one nightmare of a list and I've no idea how to counter it by a list that wouldn't get eaten by everything else that's in the meta. I'd say expertise Rey and timewalk Assaj might get a fair shot at winning by being able to ignore Fenn altogether and kill the ghost. The problem is that neither of those are in tier 1 lists otherwise and if you don't manage to kill ghost quickly enough and lose that one ship that's resistant to Fenn's shenanigans, the other ship might be unable to do any damage at all. One time I've had ghost left at 2 hp for about 5 rounds with the one surviving enemy ship shooting it every single one of those rounds in order to finish it off. Between Fenn's ability, sensor jammer of evade token it failed to do any damage at all before being eventually destroyed. Not to mention that Fenn and Zeb can still close the game by themselves if they have to.

The other idea would be to use quadruple wookies but that's a tough call. Ghost can control range very well in order to only shoot 1 or 2 wookies at the same time and sensor jammer is quite effective at blunting the wookie attacks. Against a poor ghost player it might work, but a good one might be able to defeat wookies in detail. Honestly, if someone finds a good counter I'd really like to know what it might be, because neither autothrusters, nor regen, nor harpoons, nor bombs seem to work very well.

2 minutes ago, Lightrock said:

What I think most people fail to realize is that while most lists find it absolutely necessary to kill Fenn (expertise / glitterstim lists being one of the few exceptions), getting rid of him does not mean you have an advantage and have it easy from now on. I've tested the maul+ezra version of the list and (probably due to my lack of experience) in a couple of cases I ended up losing Fenn very early - in the second round of shooting (and the first serious one). I still won very convincingly in both cases, with ghost still having his shields up at the start of the last round. The list's power is a result of several factors the lift it way above anything the old biggs/kanan and lowhrick/kanan ever managed to achieve:

  • The list is way more maneuverable than the classic Kanan. It does have an engine upgrade and isn't afraid of using it because it doesn't depend on actions for survival nearly as much as old Kanan used to. It doesn't need to slow roll because most versions of it do not have Rey and do not rely on token banking. It isn't tethered to R1 of a relatively slow small support ship. Fenn only needs to be in R2 to coordinate and can boost ghost way further than that. On top of that, Fenn doesn't need to coordinate the ghost to be an effective support. Having an enemy ship or two in one of his arcs is quite enough. Ezra/maul variant is also far less reluctant to perform red maneuvers or go through debris as it's quite capable of doing both in the same round and still end the round clear of stress. All of this and the fact that the ghost can move at PS3 and boost either immediately or at PS11 gives incredible flexibility, unpredictability and blocking potential to the ghost player and is probably the single most important advantage over the classic Kanan lists.
  • It's incredibly consistent in it's damage output. Part of it is that maul/ezra combo is simply much better than FCS, especially for modifying TLT shots. But mostly it's because the list is great at denying the opponent their focus tokens. Fenn can take away one at PS11 and then block another one with his ability. If anybody's shooting at Fenn, they lose their focus token too. Add the ghost's blocking potential (go to a blocking spot, let them bump you, then boost away at PS11 and shoot) and you get the full picture. Even if Fenn is dead (yay), if you want to deal any meaningful damage to the ghost, you need to spend those focus tokens or you'll be lucky to push any damage at all through sensor jammer and evade. As a result, by the time ghost gets to shoot, more often than not the enemy is tokenless, meaning that ghost's shots do get through and melt the enemy ships very quickly.
  • It's also really consistent defensively. Unlike Kanan's ability, sensor jammer works on any number of attacks. It's not restricted to any range and does not depend on you being able to perform your actions and use your tokens. If the opponent cannot use his focus results, it's also strictly speaking better than Kanan's ability, except for some fringe cases such as the opponent only rolling crits. As long as Fenn's alive, he also hard counters deadeye harpoon carriers and generally makes ordnance very risky/inconsistent.

To put it bluntly, that's one nightmare of a list and I've no idea how to counter it by a list that wouldn't get eaten by everything else that's in the meta. I'd say expertise Rey and timewalk Assaj might get a fair shot at winning by being able to ignore Fenn altogether and kill the ghost. The problem is that neither of those are in tier 1 lists otherwise and if you don't manage to kill ghost quickly enough and lose that one ship that's resistant to Fenn's shenanigans, the other ship might be unable to do any damage at all. One time I've had ghost left at 2 hp for about 5 rounds with the one surviving enemy ship shooting it every single one of those rounds in order to finish it off. Between Fenn's ability, sensor jammer of evade token it failed to do any damage at all before being eventually destroyed. Not to mention that Fenn and Zeb can still close the game by themselves if they have to.

The other idea would be to use quadruple wookies but that's a tough call. Ghost can control range very well in order to only shoot 1 or 2 wookies at the same time and sensor jammer is quite effective at blunting the wookie attacks. Against a poor ghost player it might work, but a good one might be able to defeat wookies in detail. Honestly, if someone finds a good counter I'd really like to know what it might be, because neither autothrusters, nor regen, nor harpoons, nor bombs seem to work very well.

Can you post the exact list?