I'm clearly doing something wrong with Fang Fighter Fenn. Across two games he's gotten off a total of two shots before getting PS-killed or focused down.

He's just...I don't know. Unimpressive? He can't both arc-dodge and modify his shots unless he has PTL, which means he's PS 9 and not arc-dodging anyway with 10 and 11 so common right now. He can't turtle up even with PTL since he can't Evade. (Mindlink maybe?) Trying to flank with him is foiled if the enemy just advances in a wall or steers everything toward him, forcing him either to joust through or to run and never shoot. And, sure, he does have Autothrusters and the title, but only 4 total damage has to get past them to wipe out a third of your list.

On top of all that, Nym is only 2 more points. ?

Do people have more luck flying him with other aces or groups of generics?

Fenn is a glass cannon. He hits hard but melted really quick if caught in a bad spot. Even worse with bombs around.

Bad spots are typically range 2 and lots of arcs.

Using such a glass cannon can be difficult. He is a huge threat, since once he gets into range 1 and has mods, it hurts. So be has a huge "kill me plz" painted on his forehead, which means your opponent will try to put him into bad spots and take him down quickly.

You could try to tank him up, which is difficult since Attanni is now only 2/squad.

You could try to block the higher PS ships, so that they don't get the position they want or at least deny the actions.

You could try to generate a bigger threat so that Fenn had the chance to survive longer.

Haven't flown him myself for a while, so I haven't a proven squad at the ready to present. Asajj is a strong threat herself, and was successfully paired up with Fenn in the paratanni list type. Maybe go for something like that?

I'll bet my last blaster you've been rushing him into the fight. Fenn, despite his outward appearances, is almost universally garbage in the early-game . Fenn shines when he's running PTL, Autothrusters and his title, and is the highest PS ship on the board.

Now, it's hard to just rely on match ups to take the day (like how a properly flown Fenn can solo 3 Defender lists, given a tiny bit of luck), so you have to build the rest of your list to negate PS and other advantages of your opponent. A full health Fenn will win in the endgame against just about anything lower PS than him (or equal PS with an initiative bid), so you've got to either kill everything higher PS with the rest of you list, or overcome them in other ways.

You mention that Nym is only 2 points more than Fenn, so I'd encourage you to run both together. You can get a fully loaded Nym and Fenn and a little filler in 100 points, and Nym's bombs, harpoons and PS should really help deal with anything PS10 or 11 except Poe. Another amazing way to deal with aces is area-denial ships like Asajj or Quadjumpers which have hugely disruptive effects that Fenn can capitalise on. Finally, you can provide a much bigger, much ore durable threat than Fenn to see him through to the endgame.

Here are a few lists that might help you out with getting the most out of Fenn:

Dengar (50)
Attanni
Maul
Burnout SLAM
Punishing One

Fenn Rau (34)
PTL
Autothrusters
Title

Inaldra (14)
Attanni
Light Scyk

Totalling 98 points to get the edge over PS 9s (specifically Kylo).

Essentially, Dengar is an undisputed enormous threat, so he's got to got first in every possible scenario. This puts Fenn in the excellent position of being nearly entirely ignored, allowing him to be a very aggressive flanker. Inaldra and Burnout SLAM pump up Dengar's defence and mobility to the point where he's just about impossible to pin down, which getting modded shots with Maul. I despise the JM5K, but if you want a strong, easy to fly list, this is it.

Fenn Rau (34)
PTL
Autos
Title

Asajj (45)
Predator
Shadowcaster title
Latts

Unkar Plutt (21)
Cloaking Device
STA
Cikatro

Totalling 10 points.

Asajj is the best ship in the scum faction, and will be until the end of 1.0 unless something really radical is released. Predator makes her a hyper-accurate, hard to avoid, control-dishing tank with more durability than Dengar. If there are aces on the field, they'll fear her. Unkar is death incarnate to all aces of all small base ships, especially if flown well. The ability to double-tractor, say, Poe, before combat occurs is outstanding, and nobody expects it because under normal circumstances quadjumpers suck.

That second list is the one I've had the most success with across all my time playing X-wing, with maybe an 80% win ratio. Typically, Fenn is some serious Bait (I'll even fly him into the edge of an asteroid cluster if necessary), and Asajj is the actually aggressive. I know that if I can trade Asajj for anything over PS 10, I'll come out on top with Fenn and Unkar in the endgame.

12 hours ago, Astech said:

I'll bet my last blaster you've been rushing him into the fight.

I'm not rushing. My opponent is, and Fenn can't get out of the way fast enough. Even setting up on opposite corners, my opponent can do a hard turn in on round 2-3 and deny me the flank while maintaining the threat of not turning and engaging the rest of my ships with all of theirs if I try to close the pincer from the other direction.

Quote

You can get a fully loaded Nym and Fenn and a little filler in 100 points, and Nym's bombs, harpoons and PS should really help deal with anything PS10 or 11 except Poe.

I haven't been able to get Harpoons to work either. Too many opponents arc-dodge or rush to range 1 and hit my Focus-token-less ship with 4 red dice.

Quote

Fenn Rau (34)

PTL
Autos
Title

Asajj (45)
Predator
Shadowcaster title
Latts

Unkar Plutt (21)
Cloaking Device
STA
Cikatro

Q1: Why the title on Asajj? You have other ways of tractoring before her and only one weak ship shooting after her (and not even that, if it's cloaked). Is it just to help move things that Plutt couldn't reach?

Q2: is Cikatro just there so Plutt gets one single cloak per game, albeit with no chance of randomly ending early?

3 minutes ago, Quarrel said:

Q1: Why the title on Asajj? You have other ways of tractoring before her and only one weak ship shooting after her (and not even that, if it's cloaked). Is it just to help move things that Plutt couldn't reach?

Even if you can only reposition once with a tractor beam, they still stack to reduce agility. If you’re taking Ketsu or Asajj you should pretty much always make room for the title. Besides, Plutt could easily be one-shotted.

Manaroo with score to settle, boba fett, and emp device.

Ptl,title,AT Fenn

Youve got 36pts left.

I run thweek with fcs and glitter and toss jammers or ion projector on manny. Love this list. Once that emp goes off, youve get fenn and thweek range 1 fully modded.

But talonbane is another heavy hitter at range 1 you could do. Guri is nice also.

Basically manaroo provides double mods to fenn, protects him with jammers. If enemys get close manny can emp them, then fenn and bane/thweek pounce on them.

Asts/boba draws aggro to manny. She is like a ticking time bomb to ships like miranda, ghost, etc that rely on tlt, so they may waste their big attacks on manny instead of an ace. Plus asts gives her mods when passing tokens.

You could for more defense, put DTF on manaroo to help fenn, and go intel agent so she is a bumpmaster and it helps out against higher ps ships.

4 hours ago, Quarrel said:

I'm not rushing. My opponent is, and Fenn can't get out of the way fast enough. Even setting up on opposite corners, my opponent can do a hard turn in on round 2-3 and deny me the flank while maintaining the threat of not turning and engaging the rest of my ships with all of theirs if I try to close the pincer from the other direction.

I haven't been able to get Harpoons to work either. Too many opponents arc-dodge or rush to range 1 and hit my Focus-token-less ship with 4 red dice.

Q1: Why the title on Asajj? You have other ways of tractoring before her and only one weak ship shooting after her (and not even that, if it's cloaked). Is it just to help move things that Plutt couldn't reach?

Q2: is Cikatro just there so Plutt gets one single cloak per game, albeit with no chance of randomly ending early?

What you've got to encourage is a situation where only one of your opponents ships can turn in without being screwed on the next turn (by overlapping rocks, being pointed the wrong way, etc), so that if they do turn in and you face once again, they're left with absolutely nothing. Thus, they don't turn in (or at least experienced players don't, usually), leaving Fenn in that R3 bubble where he can easily make range 1 on any given turn.

Another alternative is to send in a brick of a ship like Asajj, and equip her with a devastating EMP device. One ship is getting stressed + ionised, and every other ship is getting ionised, allowing Fenn perfect board knowledge. Unkar helps there too, but I'll get to it.

Harpoons are tricky, and in the scum faction only really shine on Nym, since he's just as big a threat at R1, and on the next turn the bomblet he drops wrecks any ships that made R1 of you last turn. If you really wanted, you could have a deadeye Nym and Fenn together, and fly them in a formation that's deadly at all ranges.

1: Shadowcaster on Asajj has been, for my play style, an incredibly important upgrade. I always fly Asajj through the rocks on initial approach, so any small base ship that even attempts to attack her is doing so either at R3 or is getting thrown onto a rock after their one and only good turn of the game. She's very capable of totally evading harpoons (did it last night), and really just hammers smaller ships. For example, in a recent game I tractored Wedge antilles onto a rock (which he would also go over next turn) into R1 of my Quadjumper. Had that Quadjumper not had a BS blank roll, Wedge would have died due to that tractor beam. I've also used Asajj's tractor beam on Miranda, placing her in front of and onto rocks, thus preventing her from slamming away while the rest of my team just hammers her. It's a personal flying style choice though - if you're understandably not brave enough to pilot Asajj through a thick asteroid swarm, extra glitterstim and a bid is better than Shadowcaster on Asajj.

2: Cikatro is a brilliant upgrade, and was essentially the quadjumper fix. A lot of people - everyone I've encountered - have simply permacloaked Unkar on turn 1. That's a mistake, as you have no idea what illicit you want in exchange, and you're giving up onthe potential of decloaking and then recloaking for positional advantage. Eventually I'll permacloak, unless Unkar's in a position where he actually wants to shoot, and at that point Cikatro's real value is that he gives Unkar whatever illicit he needs on the next crucial turn. For instance, I've given him contraband cybernetics and reversed through debris to tractor a totally bewildered ace onto a rock. Given that his only other crew options are the redundant intel agent and Ketsu (who is astoundingly hard to meaningfully trigger), Cikatro is just the best possible choice.

5 hours ago, Astech said:

Shadowcaster on Asajj has been, for my play style , an incredibly important upgrade.

...

It's a personal flying style choice though - if you're understandably not brave enough to pilot Asajj through a thick asteroid swarm, extra glitterstim and a bid is better than Shadowcaster on Asajj.

Important points for any list, not just Fenn.

Get some repetitions with a list, even if it sucks initially, to get a feeling what is possible and where it's weaknesses are. Play against different lists and different opponents.

When you do not change lists often, but stick to them for a while, you will get to a point where you know how it works and you know how to deal with different board states. You will see what your preferred style of play is, and you can adapt your list accordingly.

Just because a ship with a certain loadout is strong per points, doesn't mean it fits your style or you understood how to use it properly.

For comparison: It took me quite a few games to understand the lancer, and I determined that I prefer to fly her without the title or gyro but I like ptl, latts, glitterstim and engine upgrade - I move her quickly around the board, deal stress and play for the endgame. Therefore I pair her with a hard hitter who can also tank the initial engagement, in the Form of fearlessness Kath with Dengar, glitterstim and countermeasures.

Which is completely different from the list @Astech showed.

To make it short - don't let you get discouraged, stick to it and get a feeling. Then it will come naturally