Now having 4 hammerheads, I have been experimenting with different types. I really love the Sato ATP's, which I posted earlier, but I wanted to experiment with some other ideas. So I came up with this:

Name: Hammerhead gunline 1.2
Faction: Rebel
Commander: Mon Mothma

Assault: Most Wanted
Defense: Contested Outpost
Navigation: Solar Corona

Pelta Command Ship (60)
• Mon Mothma (30)
• Lando Carissian (4)
• Medical Team (1)
• Intensify Firepower! (6)
• Disposable Capacitors (3)
= 104 Points

Hammerhead Scout Corvette (41)
• Ahsoka Tano (2)
• Gunnery Team (7)
• Quad Battery Turrets (5)
= 55 Points

Hammerhead Scout Corvette (41)
• Gunnery Team (7)
• Quad Battery Turrets (5)
= 53 Points

Hammerhead Scout Corvette (41)
• Gunnery Team (7)
• Quad Battery Turrets (5)
= 53 Points

Hammerhead Scout Corvette (41)
• Gunnery Team (7)
• Quad Battery Turrets (5)
= 53 Points

GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Toryn Farr (7)
• Comms Net (2)
= 27 Points

Squadrons:
• Shara Bey (17)
• Tycho Celchu (16)
• 2 x A-wing Squadron (22)
= 55 Points

Total Points: 400

The idea is each ship will likely get to shoot 4 (or 5 medium range) dice each, and maybe a 3 (or 4) dice secondary shot. All slow rolling in formation. All the red dice will be mitigated by IF! Here's what I don't know:

Toryn Farr? It will be nice for flak, and the A-wings, and flotilla hunting, I suppose she's worth it?

Mon Mothma? She helps the corvettes be a little more survivable, but should I just go with Dodonna instead?

Will IF! be enough?

Are Gunnery Teams worth it?

Thanks for your help!

Give us a little insight on how you intend to play this fleet. Obviously there will be changes on the fly based on what happens in a particular game, but how do you envision everything working together ideally?

Have you thought about Sato to make the QBTs into black dice?

3 hours ago, LeatherPants said:

Give us a little insight on how you intend to play this fleet. Obviously there will be changes on the fly based on what happens in a particular game, but how do you envision everything working together ideally?

The idea is to slow roll in formation, triggering QBTs. Basically anything coming into their cross fire will take a lot of small but significantly hits. With solar corona all my ships will probably be able to use their evades, contested outpost make sure them come into the kill zone, and most wanted is most wanted. Or I guess I am first players and I probably go straight at them in a mass.

3 hours ago, Mad Cat said:

Have you thought about Sato to make the QBTs into black dice?

Sato would be great, but then I might as well take my APT hammerhead fleet if I'm going to black dice.

2 minutes ago, Tiberius the Killer said:

The idea is to slow roll in formation, triggering QBTs. Basically anything coming into their cross fire will take a lot of small but significantly hits. With solar corona all my ships will probably be able to use their evades, contested outpost make sure them come into the kill zone, and most wanted is most wanted. Or I guess I am first players and I probably go straight at them in a mass.

How are you reliably activating Intensify Firepower? Through Comms Net? What is Ahsoka's job exactly? Whose tokens are you thinking to convert typically? I certainly get the slow roll tactic with QBT's, but where are the other pieces and what and how are they contributing?

Ashoka may be unnecessary. Just the idea that I could change things to an engineering token if I was desperate. The little pelta can die pretty fast and 6 engineering can really make a difference, which is also why medical team and lando are there. The flotilla is another activation and comms netting for token to activate IF!

Intensify Firepower is great for any fleet relying on red dice. I have a similar approach with a Home One/QTC/IF Hammerhead list that has had good tournament success. These suggestions are based on that success.

I would drop the Gunnery Teams. Unless you’re in a meta with lots of small ships, you’re unlikely to find them useful in comparison to other upgrades.

Add Disposable Capacitors. You are going to want to be facing the enemy which means the slow speed will get one more die on the first shots, something that’s very useful. You’re pushing to two red plus two blue plus CF command at long range with D Caps.

Ditch Mon Mothma. Since you have to stay pointed at your enemy, you aren’t going to get a lot evasion. The Hammerheads are expendable with that many dice because they can quickly strip a lot of shields. She also doesn’t really make them that survivable against anything like an ISD2, a McLiberty, an MC80 Home One, or an MC75, all quite popular in the early Wave 7 meta. I would suggest Sato and then possibly Ordnance Experts on the Hammerheads. Dodonna is always a good fallback, too.

Drop the Pelta to an Assault and give it External Racks. It has to stay alive at all costs, and so you really just want to keep it cheap and then hit hard if anything gets through the Hammerheads. With some practice, the Pelta is unlikely to ever be threatened unless you put it at risk.

You have one major weakness with this list though. If anything gets behind the Hammerheads, all you can do is pray or run.

In an effort to stay as true to your original fleet concept as possible, consider something like this...

Name: Hammerhead Gunline 1.2.1
Faction: Rebel
Commander: Mon Mothma

Assault: Most Wanted
Defense: Planetary Ion Cannon
Navigation: Solar Corona

Pelta Command Ship (60)

• Mon Mothma (30)
• Phoenix Home (3)
• Lando Calrissian (4)
• Veteran Captain (3)
• Engine Techs (8)
• Intensify Firepower! (6)
• Disposable Capacitors (3)

= 117 Points

Hammerhead Scout Corvette (41)

• Task Force Organa (1)
• Boarding Engineers (2)
• Slaved Turrets (6)

= 50 Points

Hammerhead Scout Corvette (41)

• Task Force Organa (1)
• Boarding Engineers (2)
• Slaved Turrets (6)

= 50 Points

Hammerhead Scout Corvette (41)

• Task Force Organa (1)
• Slaved Turrets (6)

= 48 Points

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36)

• Task Force Organa (1)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• External Racks (3)

= 44 Points

GR-75 Combat Retrofits (24)

• Bright Hope (2)
• Toryn Farr (7)
• Comms Net (2)

= 35 Points

Squadrons:

• Shara Bey (17)
• Tycho Celchu (16)
• Green Squadron (12)
• A-wing Squadron (11)

= 56 Points

Total Points: 400

The idea of this fleet is basically to choose 1-2 high-value enemy ships, smash them in, then disengage.

Mon Mothma is definitely workable. She doesn't add to your punching power, but her buff to your Evade tokens should prove very valuable as you'll likely be engaging the enemy at fairly close range for at least a turn or two, and ALL your ships have Evade.

QBT's were switched out for Slaved Turrets (which I would normally never recommend, but I've found them beneficial on HammerHead scouts), one HammerHead is switched to a Torpedo variant, all of them join Task Force Organa, and a pair of the scouts bring Boarding Engineers. Going with slaved turrets gives you a guaranteed additional red die (in any direction that you can gather dice for an attack), which will likely prove more useful against your intended target(s). Granted, you're giving up a second attack, but it's really only your front arc you need a shot from anyways. That also means you won't be able to add a flak attack, so make sure you use your squadrons wisely to minimize this weakness. Anyways, you'll want your Hammerheads to maintain more flexibility in speed and maneuvering to set up a couple of rounds of pain, and it's likely that your opponent would have simply matched your speed when preparing to engage, wisely realizing that they really don't want to give away so many free dice to an entire GROUP of obviously-coordinated QBT-toting ships! Between IF! and TFO, you should have enough dice modification to make every shot painful. One of your HH's is a torpedo variant with a massive single-round punch (with LOTS of rerolling available). Bring this guy in further back in the HH pack, so his TFO can be tapped first if necessary (he may be out of range to make a meaningful shot anyway). Use the Boarding Teams as your first HH's fly past the target(s) if necessary, and deliver the the torpedo HH hammer blow to whatever survives the wave of scouts.

The Pelta should be good to go for CF tokens, probably banking one early, having the Veteran Captain to give another one if necessary (though probably better to save him for an energency Navigate token!), and of course the Comms Net Flotilla is around. Engine Techs are available, because with this relatively fragile fleet, when it's time to go, it's time to GO (and Pelta does not specialize in GO!).

The flotilla is upgraded to a Combat Refit. I don't usually find this a good use of the 6 extra points, but to get the best mileage out of Toryn you'll probably be fairly close to the action, so being able to toss an extra guaranteed hit or two against enemy ships (assuming IF! is in effect) in addition to pushing tokens, commanding squads, avoiding death, etc. could prove helpful. Plus, you have a longer, if somewhat less reliable, flak attack.

The squadron component remains about the same, switching out one vanilla A-Wing for Green Squadron. This change is mainly psychological, as Green Squadron has "bomber", and opponents can sometimes get a little skittish when they suspect you might be planning some kind of shenanigans. Play them as normal without expecting to get any extra mileage out of Green Squadron, though if your opponent leaves an opening, make a bomber run!

Your original fleet didn't have a bid, so this one doesn't either as I assume you are comfortable allowing your opponent to select who will be first player.

I hope you find this variant of your list interesting or helpful. I'm probably going to try it out myself!

Slow rolling will kill you. Mobility is the name of the game, when you can force your opponent into bad arcs and stay out of it. These little bugs will suffer against the current meta, Im affraid. Also, 53 points vs 51 point TRC90...

9 hours ago, Coldhands said:

Slow rolling will kill you. Mobility is the name of the game, when you can force your opponent into bad arcs and stay out of it. These little bugs will suffer against the current meta, Im affraid. Also, 53 points vs 51 point TRC90...

I'll mostly agree with this statement, though I don't think it has much to do with any particular meta, but rather the HammerHead chassis itself. It isn't intended to "stick around" and slug it out against any targets, but rather a variant on CR90 tactics, sort of hit and run. HammerHeads ideally should also be utilizing their non-unique titles to get the most value out of them, as they truly are mostly "inferior" to the similarly priced CR90.

On 24/03/2018 at 5:32 AM, LeatherPants said:

In an effort to stay as true to your original fleet concept as possible, consider something like this...

Name: Hammerhead Gunline 1.2.1
Faction: Rebel
Commander: Mon Mothma

Assault: Most Wanted
Defense: Planetary Ion Cannon
Navigation: Solar Corona

Pelta Command Ship (60)

• Mon Mothma (30)
• Phoenix Home (3)
• Lando Calrissian (4)
• Veteran Captain (3)
• Engine Techs (8)
• Intensify Firepower! (6)
• Disposable Capacitors (3)

= 117 Points

Hammerhead Scout Corvette (41)

• Task Force Organa (1)
• Boarding Engineers (2)
• Slaved Turrets (6)

= 50 Points

Hammerhead Scout Corvette (41)

• Task Force Organa (1)
• Boarding Engineers (2)
• Slaved Turrets (6)

= 50 Points

Hammerhead Scout Corvette (41)

• Task Force Organa (1)
• Slaved Turrets (6)

= 48 Points

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36)

• Task Force Organa (1)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• External Racks (3)

= 44 Points

GR-75 Combat Retrofits (24)

• Bright Hope (2)
• Toryn Farr (7)
• Comms Net (2)

= 35 Points

Squadrons:

• Shara Bey (17)
• Tycho Celchu (16)
• Green Squadron (12)
• A-wing Squadron (11)

= 56 Points

Total Points: 400

The flotilla is upgraded to a Combat Refit. I don't usually find this a good use of the 6 extra points, but to get the best mileage out of Toryn you'll probably be fairly close to the action, so being able to toss an extra guaranteed hit or two against enemy ships (assuming IF! is in effect) in addition to pushing tokens, commanding squads, avoiding death, etc. could prove helpful. Plus, you have a longer, if somewhat less reliable, flak attack.

Toryn doesn't work on her own ship, so you can save 6 points from the combat flotilla upgrade.

10 minutes ago, ManInTheBox said:

Toryn doesn't work on her own ship, so you can save 6 points from the combat flotilla upgrade.

True, but Toryn isn't there to give the flotilla a reroll (not that she could). It won't need it with IF! active. She is included primarily for squadron support.

Either way, the flotilla could be downgraded to the medium transport, but for this fleet I just liked the little "surprise attack" (plus get more mileage out of taking IF!), since Combat Retrofitted GR75's are almost non-existent in most metas (that I've seen, anyways. LOL).

I would consider a different admiral. Mothma doesn't seem the best for hammerheads. Any enemy shooting at your hammerheads is likely to target your evade first with any accuracies they generate. I guess she'll help out against bombers but I don't really see you getting a lot of mileage out of her with those ships. Same with the pelta. I feel like Mothma is best used with ships that have redundant evades that are less likely to be solo targeted.

I like hammerhead swarms in general, but I don't think you're getting too much out of your commander choice.

56 minutes ago, duck_bird said:

I would consider a different admiral. Mothma doesn't seem the best for hammerheads. Any enemy shooting at your hammerheads is likely to target your evade first with any accuracies they generate. I guess she'll help out against bombers but I don't really see you getting a lot of mileage out of her with those ships. Same with the pelta. I feel like Mothma is best used with ships that have redundant evades that are less likely to be solo targeted.

I like hammerhead swarms in general, but I don't think you're getting too much out of your commander choice.

Yep. Probably Leia.

15 hours ago, LeatherPants said:

True, but Toryn isn't there to give the flotilla a reroll (not that she could). It won't need it with IF! active. She is included primarily for squadron support.

Either way, the flotilla could be downgraded to the medium transport, but for this fleet I just liked the little "surprise attack" (plus get more mileage out of taking IF!), since Combat Retrofitted GR75's are almost non-existent in most metas (that I've seen, anyways. LOL).

That makes sense. I hadn't properly parsed the logic in your post and made the wing conclusion.

I'm definitely available fan of Combat GR-75s in the right list. They really help to steer your opponent away from Opening Salvo as a objective of you have a few of them too.

16 hours ago, duck_bird said:

I would consider a different admiral. Mothma doesn't seem the best for hammerheads. Any enemy shooting at your hammerheads is likely to target your evade first with any accuracies they generate. I guess she'll help out against bombers but I don't really see you getting a lot of mileage out of her with those ships. Same with the pelta. I feel like Mothma is best used with ships that have redundant evades that are less likely to be solo targeted.

I like hammerhead swarms in general, but I don't think you're getting too much out of your commander choice.

Actually Mothma does work with hammerheads because accuracy that is spent on locking down evade is the accuracy that is not spent on locking down redirect, effectively increasing the amount of damage needed to one-shot that hammerhead by 1. Another option is to use Rieekan. I wouldn't go with Leia as she's expensive and doesn't give this fleet much. I would also be conserned about inclusion of Pelta in the fleet as its going to be a weak point here and given the rerolls IF is an overkill.

On 3/26/2018 at 3:14 PM, PT106 said:

Actually Mothma does work with hammerheads because accuracy that is spent on locking down evade is the accuracy that is not spent on locking down redirect, effectively increasing the amount of damage needed to one-shot that hammerhead by 1. Another option is to use Rieekan. I wouldn't go with Leia as she's expensive and doesn't give this fleet much. I would also be conserned about inclusion of Pelta in the fleet as its going to be a weak point here and given the rerolls IF is an overkill.

I very much agree with this sentiment. While I admit Mothma may not be the BEST commander of this fleet, she is who the OP originally wanted to use, and she's not at all a bad choice for the fleet. And yes, it's very nice making the opponent have ANOTHER token to consider locking down with an accuracy , since evade isn't generally considered with any attack that isn't at long range....

On 3/25/2018 at 7:22 PM, duck_bird said:

I would consider a different admiral. Mothma doesn't seem the best for hammerheads. Any enemy shooting at your hammerheads is likely to target your evade first with any accuracies they generate. I guess she'll help out against bombers but I don't really see you getting a lot of mileage out of her with those ships. Same with the pelta. I feel like Mothma is best used with ships that have redundant evades that are less likely to be solo targeted.

I like hammerhead swarms in general, but I don't think you're getting too much out of your commander choice.

10 hours ago, LeatherPants said:

I very much agree with this sentiment. While I admit Mothma may not be the BEST commander of this fleet, she is who the OP originally wanted to use, and she's not at all a bad choice for the fleet. And yes, it's very nice making the opponent have ANOTHER token to consider locking down with an accuracy , since evade isn't generally considered with any attack that isn't at long range....

So my original Hammerhead Swarm is with Sato and the torpedo frigate, and it has been kicking ***! I love it. But I wanted to try and make the scout variant work, so I just have been brainstorming, and Mothma I thought was a solid choice, but as many have said, maybe not the best choice.

Also the pelta is not necessary, but it fits thematically. It has actually been pretty survivable in my Sato fleet with Lando and lots of engineering commands, and Draven helps keep the squads away.

Thanks all for the input though, a lot of good ideas.

If a HH is worth more than 51pts, id want a trc90... but thats my thoughts

Awesome looking build!