Hello. I was playing around with exotic list concepts to find something not generally played but at least good enough. For scum all big ships are not top notch, but JM5000 and Lancer are especially badly viewed now. I’ve put a list with both ships piloted by unpopular pilots:

(56) Manaroo
(9) Proton Torpedoes
(2) Composure
Points 67

(68) Sabine Wren
(10) Perceptive Copilot
(1) Trick Shot
Points 79

(38) Palob Godalhi
(12) Moldy Crow
(3) Seismic Charges
(1) Trick Shot
Points 54

Total points: 200

my conclusion is that adding Palob with Moldy Crow raises playability by a significant margin. Pros of th list are:

1. Sam initiative

2. Flexibility as ships can fulfill many roles

3. A bit of punch

4. Board control

cons:

1. 2 big ships

2. small ship is the focal point

One thing to change is to include Shadowcaster title on Sabine in place of few upgrades as bombs, talents. Can be interesting to leverage same initiatives.

Yeah, Palob is really strong. Feels like a fun list.

I'm not sure I love Composure on Manaroo. I guess it's good if your barrel rolls fail, but that's a case of "don't fail your barrel rolls." I might skip the bombs. Here's how I'd tweak it, mostly just for personal taste.

• Manaroo (Trick Shot, 0-0-0, Proton Torpedoes) 69
  • 0-0-0 seems really neat on Manaroo. You can use him first, maybe have a calculate token to pass along with a focus token. Alternately, you could pass your focus token, then attempt to use 0-0-0, and maybe still have a Calculate token, after having passed your Focus away.
• Sabine Wren (Trick Shot, Perceptive Copilot) 79
• Palob Godalhi (Trick Shot, Moldy Crow) 51

Does Palob make almost any other squad better?

Yes.

You know what else would make your squad better? Changing the other two ships to good ships as well.

34 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

Yeah, Palob is really strong. Feels like a fun list.

I'm not sure I love Composure on Manaroo. I guess it's good if your barrel rolls fail, but that's a case of "don't fail your barrel rolls." I might skip the bombs. Here's how I'd tweak it, mostly just for personal taste.

• Manaroo (Trick Shot, 0-0-0, Proton Torpedoes) 69
  • 0-0-0 seems really neat on Manaroo. You can use him first, maybe have a calculate token to pass along with a focus token. Alternately, you could pass your focus token, then attempt to use 0-0-0, and maybe still have a Calculate token, after having passed your Focus away.
• Sabine Wren (Trick Shot, Perceptive Copilot) 79
• Palob Godalhi (Trick Shot, Moldy Crow) 51

I like this alot:) never thought about 0-0-0 with Manaroo. Neat trick. Composure was put for safety netting target lock for Torpedoes. This list better illustrate what I wanted to achieve. Consider it stolen. The concept of this Manaroo I will use with other list.

29 minutes ago, SOTL said:

Does Palob make almost any other squad better?

Yes.

You know what else would make your squad better? Changing the other two ships to good ships as well.

That is not the point of the exercise. I like to challenge myself when building a list. If the aim was to build a list to top a tournament I wouldn't build it as I've initially put it.

I'm not xwing expert by any stretch, but my experience with wargames thought me is that it is a player that wins or loses not the list. Sometimes very bizarre armies win because of the skill of a player and unpredictability of their list

There's no particular synergies into anything else in the squad though. All that Palob's bringing is 'being a good ship'.

Arguably there's actually some counter-synergies in here because you're doubling down on some of the weaknesses of these ships. The new Shadowcaster really wants to be jousting/k-turning because it's only got 3 dice out front arc, but it's still got the dial of a AC-130. Manaroo's biggest drawback now is her awful lopsided dial so she's got to orbit around while you're trying to joust with Proton Torpedoes, and the HWK's got the same issue of having the 3 dice front gun and no k-turn.

Potentially your squad rolls up, has 1 good turn of throwing 10 red dice, then switches to throwing 6 red dice for most of the rest of the game as all your front arcs turn off and you can't turn around or break that narrative with any of your ships.

That is good criticism. Thank You. I was banking on a possible synergy between the two big ships. Maybe the shortcomings can be overcame by flying smart? Maybe Palob is not the fit here at all? Maybe turret ed arcs can sufficent? Trick shots can provide additional red dice but certainly that is not a gimme. Good input for thought on my side.