19 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

You have no idea how happy you make me @Church14 declaring Pryce Avenger as OP.

Nevertheless it is countered by bombers, trc's, swarms, Bail, Lando, goddamn Admo fecking nition, decent play, stalling, or plain old outdeploying a 4 deployment list...

Except most heavy bomber lists put out around 10 damage to a ship per turn (8 TIE Bombers with BCC or 3 double tapped Bwings off Yavaris). The crazy ones can get a bit higher. So you need 2-3 turns before AvengerBT dies. So ABT goes off.

TRCs to counter ABT? So MSU.

Bail let’s you go first, but a half awake ABT can block in most large ships from fleeing. So Bail lets you hurt ABT, but not stop it.

Admo? How is that a counter? A reasonably expensive ship that still dies to ABT isn’t a counter.

Decent play and out-deploying? So “git good” is the advice.

Pryce means stalling is impossible.

But it let me summarize what you said:

1) Bring your own activation manipulation mechanics. Outbid then, bring Bail, bring Pryce, bring SAd. If the solution is “if you can’t beat them, join them” means imbalance

2) Run MSU and accept that ABT kills your expensive ship, but make it so nothing is expensive

3) No, there wasn’t a three.

1 minute ago, Church14 said:

Bail let’s you go first, but a half awake ABT can block in most large ships from fleeing. So Bail lets you hurt ABT, but not stop it.

Assuming the BTA is the generic ISD I with LS as the only dice mod, Aspiration can take the hit. On average, BTA does like 9 damage, so Aspiration allows you to absorb 6, and take 3 hull. So long as you have ECM, you can Brace or Redirect as needed. Eng to move and repair shields.

And the Ord 75 is much better at blocking large ships because of the double arc is has.

I actually really like BTVenger, from a game-health perspective. I almost never use it, but I think it's fantastic that the ISD finally got an option that makes it actually scary as **** for anything to go toe-to-toe with its front arc. That's how ISDs should be.

It definitely beatable though. In fact, I don't think I've ever lost to it. At least, not with an actual competitive list. There are just so many ways to counter it, even with the Pryce addition--which, again, I really like because it means I'm probably facing 2-3 ships instead of an ISD + 5 Gozantis.

2 hours ago, Church14 said:

TRCs to counter ABT? So MSU.

Yes, MSUs continue to counter BTVenger.

2 hours ago, Church14 said:

Admo? How is that a counter? A reasonably expensive ship that still dies to ABT isn’t a counter.

Agree on just Admo. Landonition, though, is unlikely to die to a single BTVenger shot in most scenarios.

2 hours ago, Church14 said:

Pryce means stalling is impossible.

Stalling is impossible if you don't start it until the Pryce turn. Gink is talking about delaying engagement by a whole turn, which mitigates the strength of Pryce by preventing her from hitting during the turn immediately prior to engagement, which is when she is by far the strongest. Not all fleets can do this, but many can.

2 hours ago, Church14 said:

But it let me summarize what you said:

1) Outbid them,

2) bring Bail,

3) bring Pryce,

4) bring SAd.

5) Run MSU and accept that ABT kills your expensive ship, but make it so nothing is expensive

6) Farm Strategic objectives

7) Win bid edit: whoops... OUTBID THEM TWICE!

8) Flotilla blockers

9) Rieekan

10) Rogues

11) Relay

12) Stacked non-token defenses (Brunson, Targeting Scramblers, Lando, Admonition, Derlin, EWS, etc)

13) Trade something smaller for a retributive kill

14) Git gud

FTFY. Did I miss any?

Inb4 " but #X doesn't automatically beat BTVenger every time! " Of course not, there's not a silver bullet that kills anything, and that's good.

4 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

FTFY. Did I miss any?

Fecking Ackbar. Even with Pryce you generally have to take some red dice on the approach. Generally just a shrug.... against Ackbar its not

1 minute ago, Ginkapo said:

Fecking Ackbar. Even with Pryce you generally have to take some red dice on the approach. Generally just a shrug.... against Ackbar its not

Ooo, Sato Hammerheads would be super nasty against it too.

5 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

Ooo, Sato Hammerheads would be super nasty against it too.

Sato-heads generally laugh at BTvenger. In my couple of matchups the Avenger player generally found no use for the Boarding Teams. Oh and the Hammerheads in return just slaughter ISDs if they have ACMs.

Just now, shmitty said:

Sato-heads generally laugh at BTvenger. In my couple of matchups the Avenger player generally found no use for the Boarding Teams. Oh and the Hammerheads in return just slaughter ISDs if they have ACMs.

I can believe this. Though was this before of after early warning system?

Just now, shmitty said:

Sato-heads generally laugh at BTvenger. In my couple of matchups the Avenger player generally found no use for the Boarding Teams. Oh and the Hammerheads in return just slaughter ISDs if they have ACMs.

Yeah, that's kind of what I'm thinking.

This is why I shake my head when people just clump all of these builds as "MSU". It's such a useless nomenclature. Cracken TRC90s, Mothma MC30s, DeMSU, Sato Hammerheads, Rieekan CR90Bs, Vader/Ozzel Raiders, etc--tey all fly very, very differently. They have some of the same strengths, but there are also lots of major differences.

1 minute ago, Ginkapo said:

I can believe this. Though was this before of after early warning system?

Worth noting that the more popular version, ISD1 Pryce BTVenger, can't take EWS.

3 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

I can believe this. Though was this before of after early warning system?

EWS would be an issue for those Sato-heads for sure. It would slow the barrage by a turn, but with Avenger not having Gunnery Teams it would really only delay the inevitable.

1 minute ago, Ardaedhel said:

Worth noting that the more popular version, ISD1 Pryce BTVenger, can't take EWS.

Give it time, they will realise their error

Just now, Ginkapo said:

Give it time, they will realise their error

Agreed. ISD2 Avenger >>>>>> ISD1, BT or not.

1 minute ago, Ardaedhel said:

Agreed. ISD2 Avenger >>>>>> ISD1, BT or not.

Kuat Avenger till I die

50 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Kuat Avenger till I die

Guessing that the 2 extra dice + being able to use Leading Shots on the side arc shot outweighs the downside of opponent being able to use a redirect?

21 minutes ago, Valca said:

Guessing that the 2 extra dice + being able to use Leading Shots outweighs the downside of opponent being able to use a redirect?

Only if you roll like Gink does.

22 minutes ago, Valca said:

Guessing that the 2 extra dice + being able to use Leading Shots outweighs the downside of opponent being able to use a redirect?

Given most ships won't have more than 3 shields to redirect to, so long as the Kuat Avenger can consistently produce 3 or more damage out of a double-arc compared to its ISD-I counterpart, they're at the very least even when it comes to the power turn and the Kuat is more effective overall on other turns (because they'll get the one redirect and then it's spent and now they can't do anything against the follow-up attack).

56 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

Inb4 " but #X doesn't automatically beat BTVenger every time! " Of course not, there's not a silver bullet that kills anything, and that's good.

I’m not looking for a silver bullet, I’m looking for something with even a 30-40% success rate that doesn’t feel like I’m teching against one build.

I’ve tried blocking, but when you suggest that I Zapp Branni gan the front arc of an ISD, I’m not thrilled. On top of that, you need a really large number of blockers to do it. At least 3. Any less and ISDs with a Nav Command will get around them.

I’ve tried killing it before it triggers, but 23-29HP of ship coming at me at speed 3 is a lot of damage to do when they have also delayed that activation and kept it out of threat range as long as possible.

I’m down to embracing all of the activation manipulation I dislike so much because FFG decided that this is the direction Armada must take OR running Ackbar and kiting it. I’m not thrilled, but I will get over it.

6 minutes ago, Valca said:

Guessing that the 2 extra dice + being able to use Leading Shots outweighs the downside of opponent being able to use a redirect?

it sure does wonders when MC75s are the new hotness and they only have two relevant defense tokens. Sort of a counter meta choice.

4 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

Assuming the BTA is the generic ISD I with LS as the only dice mod, Aspiration can take the hit. On average, BTA does like 9 damage, so Aspiration allows you to absorb 6, and take 3 hull. So long as you have ECM, you can Brace or Redirect as needed. Eng to move and repair shields.

And the Ord 75 is much better at blocking large ships because of the double arc is has.

You generally dont get to use defense tokens against btvenger. Its sort of the point.

25 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

You generally dont get to use defense tokens against btvenger. Its sort of the point.

My bad. I was implying you can ECM the following rounds if you jam your 75 in the front arc of BTA. Once you tank the first shot, BTA will go down easy.

1 hour ago, Church14 said:

I’ve tried blocking, but when you suggest that I Zapp Branni gan the front arc of an ISD, I’m not thrilled. On top of that, you need a really large number of blockers to do it. At least 3. Any less and ISDs with a Nav Command will get around them.

I don't mean to insult your intelligence here by spelling this out in detail, so please don't take it that way. But what you said doesn't jive with what I'm picturing. It does not take 3 blockers to do this. If your goal were to hold the ISD in place, yes, it takes multiple blockers; if your goal is to keep it out of Close range from a kiting/avoiding target, one is plenty.

So, just so we're talking about the same thing, this is what I mean when I say to block it:

Rebel interposes a sacrificial ship (flotilla, corvette, whatever) between Avenger and its quarry during the Pryce turn such that the blocker is far enough away that Avenger is unlikely to pop it from range. He keeps the quarry far enough back that Avenger isn't going to get into range without overlapping the blocker. This is what I'm talking about when I say you can counter the "guaranteed" Pryce last/first with a blocker.

edit: obviously this is just a fundamental example. A real game will have lots more complicating factors in play, but analyzing a whole game isn't my goal here.

1 minute ago, Ardaedhel said:

I don't mean to insult your intelligence here by spelling this out in detail, so please don't take it that way. But what you said doesn't jive with what I'm picturing. It does not take 3 blockers to do this. If your goal were to hold the ISD in place, yes, it takes multiple blockers; if your goal is to keep it out of Close range from a kiting/avoiding target, one is plenty.

So, just so we're talking about the same thing, this is what I mean when I say to block it:

Rebel interposes a sacrificial ship (flotilla, corvette, whatever) between Avenger and its quarry during the Pryce turn such that the blocker is far enough away that Avenger is unlikely to pop it from range. He keeps the quarry far enough back that Avenger isn't going to get into range without overlapping the blocker. This is what I'm talking about when I say you can counter the "guaranteed" Pryce last/first with a blocker.

Tried this the other day with slicers flotilla and he ended up just in midrange “this is fine, I just need him to not roll any accuracies”- blue dice first- 2 accuracies

”well, flagships ****** next turn” hahahaha.

shoulda tossed a corvette in the way for good measure. But yes, there is plenty of counterplay for Pryce BTAvenger. What I’m more scared of is Pryce EHB quasar with 4 bombers, maarek and Jendon with a bid... you can block Avenger, but there is no blocking speed 4+ squadrons that are tied to a movement stick rather than an actual template in a certain direction

Just now, MandalorianMoose said:

What I’m more scared of is Pryce EHB quasar with 4 bombers, maarek and Jendon with a bid... you can block Avenger, but there is no blocking speed 4+ squadrons that are tied to a movement stick rather than an actual template in a certain direction

I definitely agree that Pryce is way scarier on a Sloane QF than on BTVenger . I think Rogues is the answer to that particular build, but that's just a theory--I'm not getting nearly enough game time right now to have tried that out yet.

I actually think we're well due for a Rogue resurgence, between Raddus and the Pryce QF last/first. But that's just an informed opinion, I don't have any data or even strong anecdotes to back that up.

1 minute ago, Ardaedhel said:

I definitely agree that Pryce is way scarier on a Sloane QF than on BTVenger . I think Rogues is the answer to that particular build, but that's just a theory--I'm not getting nearly enough game time right now to have tried that out yet.

I actually think we're well due for a Rogue resurgence, between Raddus and the Pryce QF last/first. But that's just an informed opinion, I don't have any data or even strong anecdotes to back that up.

The return of YT-2400 spam

18 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

I definitely agree that Pryce is way scarier on a Sloane QF than on BTVenger . I think Rogues is the answer to that particular build, but that's just a theory--I'm not getting nearly enough game time right now to have tried that out yet.

I actually think we're well due for a Rogue resurgence, between Raddus and the Pryce QF last/first. But that's just an informed opinion, I don't have any data or even strong anecdotes to back that up.

Yeah but where is the data to support this?

23 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

I definitely agree that Pryce is way scarier on a Sloane QF than on BTVenger . I think Rogues is the answer to that particular build, but that's just a theory--I'm not getting nearly enough game time right now to have tried that out yet.

I actually think we're well due for a Rogue resurgence, between Raddus and the Pryce QF last/first. But that's just an informed opinion, I don't have any data or even strong anecdotes to back that up.

I have Hera plans for this. I think. Just gotta get table time and all....