Hi all! I've been trying out a few variations of a list involving Scum Ace + a mini-swarm powered by Drea Renthal. Drea looks like a pretty good option for Scum. One nice thing about her is that unlike Howlrunner we are not beholden to a tight formation, since Drea’s ability extends 180 degrees out to range 3 and has no range requirement to friendlies. We begin with Drea + an Ace:

(40) Drea Renthal + (4) Dorsal Turret = 44 points

(68) Fenn Rau + (3) Fearless = 71 points

Total so far: 115. That leaves 85 points of swarminess. Her ability only applies to non-limited ships so it makes sense to limit ourselves to generics. The question is how to best utilize the 2.0 Scum arsenal. Here are the options I’ve thought of:

3x (28) Jakku Gunrunner = 84 points = 199 points total. This option leverages the power of the Quadjumper in 2.0. At 199 points Fenn is likely to lose the bid against other I6 pilots.

2x (28) Jakku Gunrunner, (22) L3-37 + (2) Tac Officer = 80 points = 195 total. L3-37 provides cheap action efficiency, likely for Fenn, though my understanding of coordinate is that at I2 L3-37 is also able to coordinate a tractor action on the Quadjumpers. The downside here is that Drea’s ability does not work for the Escape Craft, bringing Drea’s efficiency down. At 195 it is possible to switch out Dorsal for Ion Turret to add another splash of control, bringing the list to 197. With lots of tractors and now ion the list is especially good at setting up strafing runs for Fenn. This is my favorite option but it pains me to reduce Drea’s efficiency.

3x (24) Binayre Pirate + (3) Homing Missiles = 81 points = 196 total. Pretty self-explanatory. Improve the jousting ability of the list. Some people are swearing by the new Z-95’s, but this is my least favorite option. Imperial lists simply get much better value out of munitions with Jendon lists, so I’d rather spend the points otherwise.

Other variations: 2x Cartel Marauder if you like K-fighters. It’s possible to drop Fearless off Fenn and fit 2x Zealous Recruits if you like Fangs, 2x Gand Findsman if you like G1-As, 2x Cartel Executioners if you like Kimos, or 3x Cartel Spacers if you like M3-As. Fenn can be switched out for a ~71-72 point Guri in all these options, that would be Guri + Outmanuever + FCS or Guri + Pred + AS depending on taste. 2x Black Sun Enforcers unfortunately won’t fit unless you want to go for a very lean Guri.

It’s also possible to abandon the Ace and go for a full Scum swarm archetype. Serissu could be thrown in to provide defensive rerolls, but this would necessitate pulling the swarm back into a tight formation.

Discuss! What variation do you think makes the best use out of the 2.0 Scum options?

Drea with Dorsal, 2x Jakku Gunrunner, 4x Binayre Pirates = probably the best squad in 2.0

A strictly inferior TIE swarm is hardly the best at anything

anyway, if you're flying a bunch of crappy ships you really oughta try Mux (moldy crow in general is ridiculously good)

alternatively, cloaking device really helps the Y survive...basically anything? the maneuverability of decloak helps you get around obstacles, and Drea has literally ZERO need to fly in formation because she just needs enemies in arc

just drop a Quad to a z-95 to afford cloak

Or you could capitalize on Mux by throwing as many dice as possible (4 Zs)

18 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

A strictly inferior TIE swarm is hardly the best at anything

Strictly superior by a very significant margin.

• Same firepower as a TIE Swarm
• 90% more health
• No requirement to fly in formation
• Shields vs Proton Bombs
• Howlrunner has 8 hull
• Tractor beam shenanigans

It's very probably the best squad in 2.0.

"Howlrunner" doesn't affect herself, also has to be in range of enemy to trigger

No defensive synergies from potent named pilots

Far inferior manueverability

Inferior initiative values

Quads don't have shields

Bring more guns so losing a reroll is net-nil

Isn't required (see 90% more hull)

Slightly worse maneuvering considering don't have to fly as a block

"Inferior initiative" is an advantage a lot of the time

5/7 ships do

I know this squad is being talked about by some big teams. It's serious.

1 hour ago, SOTL said:

Drea with Dorsal, 2x Jakku Gunrunner, 4x Binayre Pirates = probably the best squad in 2.0

This is fairly convincing. At least in my headsim it has a near 50/50 MU with TIE Swarms and, with shields, tractors, less of a formation requirement, handles TIE Swarm counters a bit better!

I recognize that trying to fit in an Ace makes everything in the list less efficient. It can be compared to the Vader + Mini-swarm, where the virtue of including an ace is that it forces the opponent to make the hard choice and deal with the ace or deal with the mini-swarm, at the expense of making list's individual elements less efficient.

I'll be looking to leverage the illicit slots of the Z-95s as well. For 4 points you can get either a feedback array (for guaranteed damage after a block) or a deadman's switch plus electronic baffle (to barrel roll an injured Z and detonate yourself). No idea how it will compare to the missile at this point, I'll try a mix of all three options in my first swarm squad.

9 hours ago, Covered in Weasels said:

I'll be looking to leverage the illicit slots of the Z-95s as well. For 4 points you can get either a feedback array (for guaranteed damage after a block) or a deadman's switch plus electronic baffle (to barrel roll an injured Z and detonate yourself). No idea how it will compare to the missile at this point, I'll try a mix of all three options in my first swarm squad.

Some thoughts. If Howl/Iden TIE Swarm comes in at 195 anyway you will lose the bid at 196. Should we just use the remaining 4 points? 4x Inert damps? 2x deadman's? 1x feedback? I quite like the idea of R4 Astro on Drea to open up the Y-wing dial + Tobias Beckett to create a favorable open battlefield!

1 hour ago, Rocket_Cat said:

Some thoughts. If Howl/Iden TIE Swarm comes in at 195 anyway you will lose the bid at 196. Should we just use the remaining 4 points? 4x Inert damps? 2x deadman's? 1x feedback? I quite like the idea of R4 Astro on Drea to open up the Y-wing dial + Tobias Beckett to create a favorable open battlefield!

Here's the starting point I plan to use to test this sort of list. It has a bunch of tricky choices, some of which will work out and some of which likely won't. It may turn out that homing missiles are a stronger choice for z's or that quadjumpers are a better option entirely, but I want to give these options a test at least.

Fenn Rau (68)

Drea Renthal (40)
Dorsal Turret (4)
R4 Astromech (2)

Binayre Pirate (24)
Feedback Array (4)

Binayre Pirate (24)
Deadman's Switch (2)
Electronic Baffle (2)

Jakku Gunrunner (28)
Tobias Beckett (2)

Total: 200

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0

15 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

A strictly inferior TIE swarm is hardly the best at anything

anyway, if you're flying a bunch of crappy ships you really oughta try Mux (moldy crow in general is ridiculously good)

(200)

Torkil Mux — HWK-290	36
Perceptive Copilot	10
Moldy Crow	12
Ship Total: 58
Drea Renthal — Y-Wing	40
Expert Handling	*
Dorsal Turret	4
Ship Total: 46
Jakku Gunrunner — Quadjumper	28
Ship Total: 28
Jakku Gunrunner — Quadjumper	28
Ship Total: 28
Cartel Marauder — Kihraxz Fighter	40
Ship Total: 40

Torkil + a mess is a joy to fly. The key is to master its double edged sword; you need to remember to be very aggressive against your zeroed target whilst being wary to not put yourself in compromised positions to the enemy ships with likely higher initiative overall.

I'm wondering if perceptive is worth it, going all in on a HWK's focus engine. Two one straights and you have the motor running, then for seven points less, you can get 0-0-0's calculate/control and build back up to a cloaking device or bombs for funsies.

6 hours ago, Rocket_Cat said:

Some thoughts. If Howl/Iden TIE Swarm comes in at 195 anyway you will lose the bid at 196. Should we just use the remaining 4 points? 4x Inert damps? 2x deadman's? 1x feedback? I quite like the idea of R4 Astro on Drea to open up the Y-wing dial + Tobias Beckett to create a favorable open battlefield!

A lot of them are Elusive Howlrunner.

OP: Consider dropping fearless on fenn if you need to save points. It's nice insurance on him but not necessary. I'd try 2 gunrunners and a Z-95 for your miniswarm with Drea. Similar to your L3 option but getting in more rerolls (I don't think you need to coordinate Fenn, he'll be fine on his own, just use your action to focus up and shoot).

Regarding scum swarms: I'm with sotl, the scum swarm is great. Similar jousting power to the TIE swarm, but it's got greater options for movement (and, importantly, can dodge/ignore proton bombs) and it's also got the quadjumpers which can really screw with almost any enemy squad.

If you love HWKs enough to bring a slightly less competitive list, my Torkil variant is:

Torkil Mux: Moldy Crow (48)
Drea Renthal: Dorsal Turret (44)
Jakku Gunrunner (28)
Binayre Pirate (24)
Binayre Pirate (24)
Binayre Pirate (24)

This leaves you 8pts spare for toys. Consider: Expert handling on Drea, Dead man's switch, upgrading pirates to gunrunners, or bombs.

I flew a silly version of the scum swarm composed of Drea, 3x Quads, and 2x Z-95's with homing missiles. All six of them had deadman's switch which was probably overkill in retrospect, but it made for some entertaining games. I like the deadman's/baffle option and may have to try that. The quad's could pull the same self-destruction via their evade or backups. A quadjumper reversing and exploding sounds hilarious.

Edit to that, didn't realize baffle happened in the end phase now. So I guess that would turn a 1-hull quad with stress into more of a remote detonator.

Torkil or Drea with cloak can be nice since the extra 2 def die work well to keep either alive while cloaked and they do not have to be uncloaked for them to use their abilities or keep the opponent in arc (being cloaked only locks out attacks and the cloak action). If you can find the room it would be a nice addition. If you use Torkil though you'll need a bit of a bid to ensure being second player. Force aces with heightened perception are a hard counter if they're second player. Turn order affects order in which abilities are done with the second player's taking effect after the first player's are applied. In this example a second player Torkil can drop an Init 7 Height Percep ace to init 0 in the engagement phase. If the player order is switched the ace gets to boost to init 7 after Torkil is applied. Hope that helps.

Cool idea, it would be interesting if a Scum swarm is viable competitively. I see a lot of Perceptive Copilot on Moldy Crows, and that is good synergy, but you can save 6 points by going with IG-88D crew and get a similar effect. Bank your Focus for two turns and then use Calculate to have tokens to spend on those individual eyeball results. It works better with Palob than the other HWKs because of his ability.

Palob: Moldy Crow, IG-88D

Drea Renthal: Dorsal Turret, Expert Handling(had 2 points left over)

Jakku Gunrunner

3x Banana Pirates

200 Points

Shoot at Drea the swarm enabler or Palob who is much more than the nuisance he was in 1.0.

37 minutes ago, Burius1981 said:

3x Banana Pirates

Thank you, I needed the chuckle that produced.

I played 2 games with Drea last night based on comments in this thread. I can confirm she's very good. Using Dorsal to give a 180-degree reroll arc for 3 Kihraxz dished out a lot of hits.

Scum swarm centered around Mux and Drea looking really solid, it won our launch tournament here and was beating the imperial stuff handily to our surprise

I tried this yesterday and it showed promise:

Fenn Rau: Predator

Drea: Dorsal Turret

Black Sun Ace(Khiraxz): Crackshot

Black Sun Ace(Khiraxz): Crackshot

200 points.

Fenn Rau has been my favorite pilot since he was released. Since generics are stronger now I thought I'd try a variation on Ace+Swarm. Khiraxz with 6 total hits, the improved dial, and barrel roll are much more fun and effective than 1.0. My opponent went for Fenn, which I expected and I held him back. Drea and the Suns came in from the left where he didn't have arcs on them and he ended up eating a lot of accurate fire for two rounds. He lost two of his three ships, I only lost Drea and took three damage on one Khiraxz. He conceded.

I also thought about dropping predator on Fenn and going with two Fang fighters. Same attack, more maneuverable, and a better action bar. The downsides being that Fenn loses Predator(or any Talent), no Crackshot, lower Initiative, and the Fangs have two less health so when my dice fail they are going down faster.