I have used this core list before, but downgraded from Rho’s to Nu’s to add more missiles. I know the Upsilon has its challenges, but spending its lock while maintaining the original LRS lock goes a long way. And the different missiles are there to add variety. Today I hit a well-times ion missile on Asajj and walked her right off the board.

(99)

Nu Squadron Veteran (29) - Alpha-class Star Wing
Harpoon Missiles (4), OS-1 Arsenal Loadout (2), Long-Range Scanners (0), Homing Missiles (5)

Nu Squadron Veteran (27) - Alpha-class Star Wing
Harpoon Missiles (4), OS-1 Arsenal Loadout (2), Long-Range Scanners (0), Ion Pulse Missiles (3)

•Major Stridan (43) - Upsilon-class Shuttle
Fire Control System (2), •Kylo Ren (3), Weapons Engineer (3), Targeting Synchronizer (3)

Hmm.

• Homing Missiles - unless you regularly encounter opponents with evade tokens, Homing Missiles don't really give you much benefit over Harpoons.
• Kylo gives you the I'll Show You The Dark Side condition, but it needs an action to activate, and you don't have a reliable means to generate criticals to trigger it.
• Major Stridan is good, but probably best used with support crew. Systems Officer is great with his ability, but I get that long range scanners will mean you can't use the ability so easily.
  • Targeting Synchroniser, FCS and Weapons Engineer is a good pairing, essentially spawning an action-free target lock for one of the gunboats to use each time the shuttle fires.
  • For 3 points, I'm kind of wondering if some focus-spawning crew - fleet officer? might do you more good. Getting focused missile fire would add extra punch and/or significantly up the survivability of the gunboats whilst they lay down missile fire.

Maybe instead of Stridan, Kylo Ren Shuttle? Grab A Score To Settle for some dice mods, keep the TL package. That'd be 42 points. I'd drop Homing to Ion Pulse, on Nu 1. That'd leave 4 points to play with. That could be the title and Weapons Guidance on Kylo, or it could be Extra Munitions on each of the Nus.

5 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Hmm.

• Homing Missiles - unless you regularly encounter opponents with evade tokens, Homing Missiles don't really give you much benefit over Harpoons.
• Kylo gives you the I'll Show You The Dark Side condition, but it needs an action to activate, and you don't have a reliable means to generate criticals to trigger it.
• Major Stridan is good, but probably best used with support crew. Systems Officer is great with his ability, but I get that long range scanners will mean you can't use the ability so easily.
  • Targeting Synchroniser, FCS and Weapons Engineer is a good pairing, essentially spawning an action-free target lock for one of the gunboats to use each time the shuttle fires.
  • For 3 points, I'm kind of wondering if some focus-spawning crew - fleet officer? might do you more good. Getting focused missile fire would add extra punch and/or significantly up the survivability of the gunboats whilst they lay down missile fire.

• Homing missiles - I do run into Inquisitor quite often lately. It just gives me some flexibility in case I do face high agility ships with evade. Also not having to spend the lock to fire it is key. All the missiles I chose don't require the lock to be spent, which is intentional.
• Kylo - You're right. That is the one part of this list I have trouble with. Between target locking and corrdinating a reload to the gunboats, I don't have a lot of extra room for actions. Fleet officer might be a good alternative.

1 hour ago, theBitterFig said:

Maybe instead of Stridan, Kylo Ren Shuttle? Grab A Score To Settle for some dice mods, keep the TL package. That'd be 42 points. I'd drop Homing to Ion Pulse, on Nu 1. That'd leave 4 points to play with. That could be the title and Weapons Guidance on Kylo, or it could be Extra Munitions on each of the Nus.

Interesting thought. I've not thought about using Kylo because of Stridan's ability goes really nicely with all the upgrades, not being confined to range 1-2. I may play around with this idea though.

1 hour ago, jwilliamson12 said:

• Homing missiles - I do run into Inquisitor quite often lately. It just gives me some flexibility in case I do face high agility ships with evade. Also not having to spend the lock to fire it is key. All the missiles I chose don't require the lock to be spent, which is intentional.
• Kylo - You're right. That is the one part of this list I have trouble with. Between target locking and corrdinating a reload to the gunboats, I don't have a lot of extra room for actions. Fleet officer might be a good alternative.

Interesting thought. I've not thought about using Kylo because of Stridan's ability goes really nicely with all the upgrades, not being confined to range 1-2. I may play around with this idea though.

That's fair enough - it's entirely a "who you face regularly" question. I know people who've taken to fielding concussion missiles a lot, for example, because they face Fenn Rau a lot and aren't able to use tokens to boost their attack. If you're trying to engage an evade token/autothruster-ed up inquisitor, homing missiles will be a big help.

If you're using the shuttle's action to co-ordinate reloads, you're probably not going to get much mileage out of fleet officer either. Something passive might be good - Agent Kallus or Rebel Captive are both nice tools for a ship which doesn't want to spend its actions on itself.

I wouldn't have thought range 1-2 was too bad a limit, if you wanted to try kylo, though. Range 1 upgrades like the Systems Officer or Death Troopers really, really, like Stridan's ability, but opening from range 2 to range 3 is less earth-shattering.

50 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I wouldn't have thought range 1-2 was too bad a limit, if you wanted to try kylo, though. Range 1 upgrades like the Systems Officer or Death Troopers really, really, like Stridan's ability, but opening from range 2 to range 3 is less earth-shattering.

3

It's really for SLAMing away from the action - Stridan can get the gunboat to reload on the run, so when they turn back into the fight, the missiles are ready to go. I suppose it really only comes in handy about once or twice per game. It's helpful for the just in case.

I also usually spread my gunboats out. Put them on the edges and the Upsilon in the middle. The way they can SLAM after a 3-Bank makes them able to get ready for the first engagement.

I can usually send one straightforward, then the other can bank and SLAM (depending on where my opponent is set up) and Stridan's first action is to give the SLAMed gunboat the LRS Target Lock. So on the second turn, I usually have both gunboats in a position to fire off a missile.

I know this isn't a tournament winning list but it's so enjoyable to get these ships engaging with each other to set up attacks.

I faced a rather savage list which was more or less the same a few weeks ago.

2x Rhos

Lightning Reflexes on one, ASTS on the other

Harpoons

EM

GC

Stridan

Targeting Synchronizer

Weapons Engineer

FCS

Rebel Captive

Title

Rhos can shoot a couple times before having to worry about reloading, Stridan provides their TLs long after Black One or Countermeasures can strip them and offers a bit of stress control, ASTS procs Harpoons, LR helps with arc issues.