What are your preferred builds, lists and support ships?

No push the limit means Shara Bey has to work for her combo, or does it? Is Saw Gerrera crew worth it?

At this stage Other than Norra the ARC pilots seem difficult to build off, which is a shame as it was one of my favorite ships in 1.0.

Ibtisam looks to only combo with a few upgrades. Either seasoned navigator to make him a bit more unpredictable which would be useless unagainst higher IN enemies, or Hera and Elusive to make him like a tie defender. His ability can shed a stress after a red move and if he fails, Hera can help out of another red move is required. This in turn will keep elusive active too.

Garven, with the nerfed focus spending rule, is difficult. He really wants perceptive copilot to help share the focus but if he isn’t rolling those focus results his ability becomes a huge waste. Not much else really to say here.

Shara only really has Saw to be self sufficient with her pilot ability and can combo with R3 Astro for target options. Either that or you need another ship to help her function correctly which isn’t ideal.

Norra really needs expert handling as a means to trigger her ability due to not being able to equipped afterburners. Damage mitigation also seems more valuable on her since she wants to stay in R1, so crew like Chewbacca or R2-D2 become viable. Astromech to flavor with regen of choice and you have a great tank. Though whatever ARC Norra can do I think Y-Wing Norra can do just as well for cheaper and also having access to afterburners for more options to stay in R1.

As far as general upgrades go, I’m not convinced on veteran Tail Gunner, seems very niche and probably won’t trigger often. If you have the points a guess it’s not bad though. Hull and shield upgrade seem cheap enough to consider if you have the points.

I probably missed a few possible combos but this is what have found through my squad building and games so far.

I'm not soo sure to be honest. They really took away a lot of the ARC's favorite toys in 2.0. No more PTL, BB-8, Broken R2-D2, M9-G8. Astromechs as a whole have been weakened to complete lukewarm. Not to mention that it no longer can fly in formation with some of its favorite friends like Biggs, Lowhhrick, Sheathipede, etc due to the medium base. Also with the loss of Kyle Katarn and C-3PO, the arc is both less efficient and more squishy.

Finally, they didnt really do anything to make me compelled to take the Arc over the much cheaper U-Wing with arguably better stats and better utility. 1 less health for an extra evade dice and no rear, but it doesnt matter when the U-Wing can 180° stop-turn.

If I were to run one in a list, it would probably be Ibtisam or Garven, naked as a 3rd ship with two better aces, or go all out and build a jank, formation jousting list based around Sharra's ability. Add in 67 point Benthic in the U-Wing and Dutch in the Y-Wing, then throw in a Bandit Z and you've got a good little honest joust list that can throw a decent chunk of dice. 29 health is nothing to sneeze at either.

I dont know if that list can beat a bomber swarm though so I guess it's bad.

I too love the Arc's. Looking forward to what they do with them in the Republic faction. I came up with this for a Shara build and it will probably be the first list I may fly:

Shara Bey — ARC-170- 53 Veteran Tail Gunner- 4 R3 Astromech- 3 Ship Total: 60

Garven Dreis (X-Wing) — X-Wing- 47 R4 Astromech - 2 Servomotor S-Foils- 0 Ship Total: 49

Jake Farrell — A-Wing - 40 Daredevil - 3 Cluster Missiles - 5 Ship Total: 48

Airen Cracken — Z-95 Headhunter - 36 Expert Handling * Cluster Missiles - 5 Ship Total: 43

Total - 200. and may trade Airen's expert handling for a tactical scrambler for Shara and Keep Airen or Jake behind her. might be better to keep the Expert handling though to make sure he has a shot.

the main goal was to have shara with every other pilot who can either give extra focus tokens or entire actions to each other. Contemplating a similar Norra build in her Arc-170, with Zeb, intimidation, and tac scrambler on her, I just worry she'll be prime target and get focused fired down too quick.

I LOVE ARCs and have done so ever since the spoilers showed off the single most beautiful model in the game by FAR

Sadly, the rebel faction has about javk **** for them ito support. Every single rebel gunner is turret only. Every. Single. Rebel. Gunner

Even Hotshot!

Had they been given access to scum (gunner Han, gunner Dengar, 0-0-0 or l3-37...), Well they'd've been swanky

In rebels, though? Saw is great, but suicidal on such a fragile chasis. Bigger problem: wedge is a point cheaper than Shara

He gets a similar damage buff from his ability, which doesn't require double mods, is I 6 and far more manueverable

Anything that could support Shara with focus could just as easily support wedge

I like Norra a lot more. Tried running her with r3 + slicers, until I realized jan knocks off target locks!!!

Until crew and ESPECIALLY gunner options expand, I wouldn't bother. **** shame

18 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

I LOVE ARCs and have done so ever since the spoilers showed off the single most beautiful model in the game by FAR

Sadly, the rebel faction has about javk **** for them ito support. Every single rebel gunner is turret only. Every. Single. Rebel. Gunner

Even Hotshot!

Had they been given access to scum (gunner Han, gunner Dengar, 0-0-0 or l3-37...), Well they'd've been swanky

In rebels, though? Saw is great, but suicidal on such a fragile chasis. Bigger problem: wedge is a point cheaper than Shara

He gets a similar damage buff from his ability, which doesn't require double mods, is I 6 and far more manueverable

Anything that could support Shara with focus could just as easily support wedge

I like Norra a lot more. Tried running her with r3 + slicers, until I realized jan knocks off target locks!!!

Until crew and ESPECIALLY gunner options expand, I wouldn't bother. **** shame

Curious what you think of my list above. I tried to address that very issue.

3 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

I LOVE ARCs and have done so ever since the spoilers showed off the single most beautiful model in the game by FAR

Sadly, the rebel faction has about javk **** for them ito support. Every single rebel gunner is turret only. Every. Single. Rebel. Gunner

Even Hotshot!

Had they been given access to scum (gunner Han, gunner Dengar, 0-0-0 or l3-37...), Well they'd've been swanky

In rebels, though? Saw is great, but suicidal on such a fragile chasis. Bigger problem: wedge is a point cheaper than Shara

He gets a similar damage buff from his ability, which doesn't require double mods, is I 6 and far more manueverable

Anything that could support Shara with focus could just as easily support wedge

I like Norra a lot more. Tried running her with r3 + slicers, until I realized jan knocks off target locks!!!

Until crew and ESPECIALLY gunner options expand, I wouldn't bother. **** shame

This ^^

Dont bother with ARCs until more upgrade options come out for them. They arent special without the combos.

...wait. The ARC is in 2.0?

Thoughts on something like this?

Shara: Lone Wolf, Saw Gerrera (65)

Corran: Elusive, FCS, R4 Astro (82)

Warden Sq Pilot (K-Wing): Barrage Rockets, Proton Bombs (51)

(198)

Here Shara wants to just be your flanker why Corran does his usual hit and run and the K Wing throws a few decent shots, drops a bomb or two and predictably gets murdered (the option to SLAM being a great blocking option if they can't quite kill it in 1 round). Corran then swings back in and the longer they leave Shara she just keeps pumping damage out. 9hp herself at init 4 means even when they turn to her she still gets a couple of shots off and let's the K Wing live a lot longer. The ARC is so **** beautiful I just want to get it on the table!

Also had this one

I was playing around with Arc-170 list builds, and noticed I could do a pretty neat all republic build. Might be fun and cluster missiles really makes this viable compared to 1.0 -

20 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

I like Norra a lot more. Tried running her with r3 + slicers, until I realized jan knocks off target locks!!!

Take static discharge vanes! And Norra will often shoot first anyway. I’m not sure that actually sinks the combo, especially with jam tokens being discarded at the end of round.

Also looking forward to running her with Zeb + Intimidation.

It does suck that the Gunner slot is entirely freaking useless so far.

I don't think the gunner slot is useless. I think back to quickdraw in 1.0 getting two shots. I've test played Norra with veteran tail gunner and because she goes fast and dives into close range of one enemy ship, it can be easy to set up enemies in both arcs, especially with zeb and intimidation. With shara it's a bit harder since you want to keep her back and using her ability with out putting her in too much danger.

Forget Rebel ARCs, we can wait for the Republic and play them properly now!

Problem with many Shara builds is that they go over 62pts at which point you should really just be taking Luke, imo

3 minutes ago, wurms said:

Problem with many Shara builds is that they go over 62pts at which point you should really just be taking Luke, imo

Luke isn’t in an ARC-170 - why would you want to fly Luke? ?

7 minutes ago, wurms said:

Problem with many Shara builds is that they go over 62pts at which point you should really just be taking Luke, imo

Not if she could take gunner Han...

On 8/22/2018 at 9:53 PM, ThinkingB said:

I'm not soo sure to be honest. They really took away a lot of the ARC's favorite toys in 2.0. No more PTL, BB-8, Broken R2-D2, M9-G8. Astromechs as a whole have been weakened to complete lukewarm. Not to mention that it no longer can fly in formation with some of its favorite friends like Biggs, Lowhhrick, Sheathipede, etc due to the medium base. Also with the loss of Kyle Katarn and C-3PO, the arc is both less efficient and more squishy.

Finally, they didnt really do anything to make me compelled to take the Arc over the much cheaper U-Wing with arguably better stats and better utility. 1 less health for an extra evade dice and no rear, but it doesnt matter when the U-Wing can 180° stop-turn.

If I were to run one in a list, it would probably be Ibtisam or Garven, naked as a 3rd ship with two better aces, or go all out and build a jank, formation jousting list based around Sharra's ability. Add in 67 point Benthic in the U-Wing and Dutch in the Y-Wing, then throw in a Bandit Z and you've got a good little honest joust list that can throw a decent chunk of dice. 29 health is nothing to sneeze at either.

I dont know if that list can beat a bomber swarm though so I guess it's bad.

Can I just mention how much of a flavour win this is though? The ARC was phased out of rebel use due to better options and low availability, and here we are only looking at the arc for very specific combos.

If flavor dictates that the ARC sucks, then flavor can go **** itself with a broken beer bottle

I want my beautiful albatross back

and it was phased out, that's why there are only four pilots in the whole fleet

Wait for the GAR, I have a feeling it will be cheaper and better flying Republic colours.

My "ARCs go Dutch" list is my favorite 1.0 list and its strength is all that synergy and the synergy isn't all that after one of the team goes down. I am disappointed in what I see in 2.0 for the ARC-170.