I know I'm kinda late here, but I was wondering if using gavin as a "swarm leader" for the rebel faction. When used with multiple friendly ships, you should be able to handily cripple a ship on turn 2 or even 1, depending on how many shields your enemy has.

Combine that ability with arvel's intimidation, and every ship in the squad has a good chance of pushing damage, and therefore crits, onto enemy's. and blout's missiles help set up the bumps I need

RZ-1 A-wing - Green Squadron Pilot - 34
Green Squadron Pilot - (32)
Predator (2)

Sheathipede -class Shuttle - •AP-5 - 34
•AP-5 - Escaped Analyst Droid (32)
•Leia Organa (2)

Z-95-AF4 Headhunter - •Lieutenant Blount - 34
•Lieutenant Blount - Team Player (30)
Ion Missiles (4)

E-wing - •Gavin Darklighter - 61
•Gavin Darklighter - Bold Wingman (61)

RZ-1 A-wing - •Arvel Crynyd - 37
•Arvel Crynyd - Green Leader (34)
Intimidation (3)

Total: 200/200

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I had been looking at Gavin with 2 Xs and 2 Zs, but after the points drop I changed to 3 double tapping Turret Veteran Gunner Y's. Going to finally get to fly it this week. I have a couple variants I am going to try, so not quite sure of the exact load out yet

Double e-wing and biggs sounds interesting.

1 hour ago, MegaSilver said:

Double e-wing and biggs sounds interesting.

I've been looking at double Ewing and hotshot gunner Miranda, or double ewing double warden with proton bombs.

I've had some fun this week with:

Corran

R3 astromech, Fire Control System, Marksmanship.

Gavin

R3 astromech, Fire Control System, Marksmanship.

Wedge

Trick shot, S-Foils, R2-D2

Gavin wants big attacks to push those crits through defense dice, not lots of weak attackers that give the opponent extra defense dice to dodge those crits. Most successful Gavin lists pair him with 2 other 3+ dice attackers.

I flew Gavin with 5 naked Z’s and it was NASTY! It was a casual game, and I could see that it would be taxing mentally to fly 6 ships all day at a tournament.

I flew a list with Arvyl and AP-5 with Leia crew (with two y-wings and a U-wing) at a local store event last week. There were some definite good points, but it didn't work out the way I had hoped. Arvyl is in a weird spot being I3 - it's hard for him to run into anything that moves after him and I found he was constantly chasing his targets. Ion missiles may help you out, but from my experience, the next list I put Arvyl in will likely have Ion weapons sprinkled throughout. However, Arvyl can hunt down generics fairly well. If you take him, I would suggest sending him off to hunt a generic to start, and avoid any higher initiative ships' arcs on the first pass. Then maybe try and swing him around to flank and use your ion missiles to allow him to bump the real target.

AP-5 was also not what I was expecting. The Sheathipede has a weird dial and it's very likely I just didn't fly it very well, but I found he was either in my other ships way or too far away to help. Leia is one of my favourite cards since the points adjustment, but I think the Sheathipede may be too fragile to run her on. It doesn't take much to take it out so you'll be lucky if you get to use her ability more than once.

Don't get me wrong, I like both pilots and I want to be able to use them, I just found the 5 ship mini-swarm I flew them in didn't work the way I had hoped.

For Gavin, I'd suggest trying Daredevil and R4. Daredevil lets him use the hard 1 to boost, which should help you keep the targets for your other ships in his arc to give them the bonus. R4 helps clear the stress from daredevil. Makes him really mobile and able to ensure he's passing his benefit on to who you want it on.

I tried a few things out in YASB. Couldn't fit Blount in, but tried to keep Arvyl and Gavin in there as that seemed to be the core of your list. If you drop the Z-95 entirely, you can put ion missiles on Arvyl so he can try and line his own bump up, Ion torps on Gavin and Vet turret gunner on both Y-wings for double tapping, plus a 3 point bid. May want to throw Marksmanship onto Arvyl too? Not sure if that's something you're interested in, but I think Arvyl + Ion weapons can be potent.

E-wing - Rogue Squadron Escort - 63
Rogue Squadron Escort - (56)
Trick Shot (2)
Fire-Control System (2)
R3 Astromech (3)

E-wing - •Gavin Darklighter - 68
•Gavin Darklighter - Bold Wingman (61)
Trick Shot (2)
Fire-Control System (2)
R3 Astromech (3)

HWK-290 Light Freighter - •Jan Ors - 69
•Jan Ors - Espionage Expert (44)
Trick Shot (2)
•Nien Nunb (5)
• Moldy Crow (18)

Total: 200/200

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7 hours ago, Tvboy said:

Gavin wants big attacks to push those crits through defense dice, not lots of weak attackers that give the opponent extra defense dice to dodge those crits. Most successful Gavin lists pair him with 2 other 3+ dice attackers.

4 hours ago, jblum23 said:

I flew Gavin with 5 naked Z’s and it was NASTY! It was a casual game, and I could see that it would be taxing mentally to fly 6 ships all day at a tournament.

I’m more likely to agree with jblum here, I think.

I mean I’m personally flying two E’s and a third 3-die ship, don’t get me wrong, but enough red dice are gonna punch through shields eventually, regardless of how spread out they are.

21 hours ago, MegaSilver said:

Double e-wing and biggs sounds interesting.

21 hours ago, pickirk01 said:

I had been looking at Gavin with 2 Xs and 2 Zs, but after the points drop I changed to 3 double tapping Turret Veteran Gunner Y's. Going to finally get to fly it this week. I have a couple variants I am going to try, so not quite sure of the exact load out yet

I’ve flown against two Rogues with Biggs, it can be very effective.

Ive also flown Gavin with a pair of double tap Y’s and Norra with Leia. It is very nasty when it works.

In fact I flew my list against the two E’sand Biggs. I wound up winning, with Gavin being by far the MVP (the Y’s rolled terrible, doing a single damage all game due to the fact that all blanks or a single hit against an E-wing doesn’t cut it. So many range one blank outs!). Norra was nice, but her main contribution was to be a tangy distraction and to allow Gavin to S-loop behind everything on the second round of the engagement with mods.

It was beautiful. Turn one engage at round 3, avoiding the protorps due to moving second, then S-loop behind them as they turned in towards Gavin.

Which is good, because even naked dice at range 3 had managed to strip Gavin’s shields.

I've been thinking about the gavin list, I took some advice and came up with this:

E-wing - •Gavin Darklighter - 67
•Gavin Darklighter - Bold Wingman (61)
Ion Torpedoes (6)

Attack Shuttle - •“Zeb” Orrelios - 36
•“Zeb” Orrelios - Spectre-4 (34)
•Leia Organa (2)

RZ-1 A-wing - •Arvel Crynyd - 37
•Arvel Crynyd - Green Leader (34)
Intimidation (3)

Z-95-AF4 Headhunter - •Lieutenant Blount - 30
•Lieutenant Blount - Team Player (30)

TIE/ln Fighter - •Sabine Wren - 30
•Sabine Wren - Spectre-5 (30)

Total: 200/200

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I bumped up the offensive power, swapping AP-5 for zeb. Giving me 4 potential 3-dice attacks (Arvel with range one, blout if Arvel is bumping the target, and gavin/zeb's primary.

I swapped blout's ion missiles for torpedoes on gavin, so I can get locks early and possibly scare a ship out of the opening engagement, and downgraded the green to sabine in a tie. I could also use a bandit with Ion missiles for more Ion shenanigans, or a Phoenix squadron pilot instead.

Last night i flew Gavin, FCS, R3 with two each Grey Y, Dorsal, VTG and Bandit Z with Clusters.

First match vs Lambda, Gunboat, Defender. I didnt control ran ge as well as I could have the first couple rounds but crazy dice swings meant in the first volley I took 11 damage and dealt 1 losing a Y before it shot. I made a game of it but even during two rounds where I was shooting 5 shots to his 2, he was evading everything while rolling 3-4 natural hits towards me. He apollegized after the match.

Games 2 and 3 vs a Lambda/Gunboat/Bomber and then a 4 Ship mixed Scum list went about the same: I lost a Z in the opening volley and then made great block after great block dismanteling the enemy without losing another ship for 50-70 point wins.

4th match, vs super fat Upsilon and fat Silencer. Made another range mistake early costing me a Y before it could shoot. Played fairly even from there but could never quite get ahead. We called it at about 50 min cause FLGS was closing.

my take:

I had a ton of unmodified shots and continually had only 1 hit that was dodged. Need to take away the 5th ship and get modifiers in the list to get those 2 and 3 hit rolls. Maybe Garvin, Salm, Dutch or Saw.

8 hours ago, pickirk01 said:

Last night i flew Gavin, FCS, R3 with two each Grey Y, Dorsal, VTG and Bandit Z with Clusters.

First match vs Lambda, Gunboat, Defender. I didnt control ran ge as well as I could have the first couple rounds but crazy dice swings meant in the first volley I took 11 damage and dealt 1 losing a Y before it shot. I made a game of it but even during two rounds where I was shooting 5 shots to his 2, he was evading everything while rolling 3-4 natural hits towards me. He apollegized after the match.

Games 2 and 3 vs a Lambda/Gunboat/Bomber and then a 4 Ship mixed Scum list went about the same: I lost a Z in the opening volley and then made great block after great block dismanteling the enemy without losing another ship for 50-70 point wins.

4th match, vs super fat Upsilon and fat Silencer. Made another range mistake early costing me a Y before it could shoot. Played fairly even from there but could never quite get ahead. We called it at about 50 min cause FLGS was closing.

my take:

I had a ton of unmodified shots and continually had only 1 hit that was dodged. Need to take away the 5th ship and get modifiers in the list to get those 2 and 3 hit rolls. Maybe Garvin, Salm, Dutch or Saw.

I don't think taking away a fifth ship is the problem there, I think it's because you were probably jousting from what you wrote and unmodded Zs go down fast. The unmodified shots are because you had so many attacks coming with one mod between them.

I think swarm lists need to stick with single or double mod attacks over more attacks. That's why other reroll swarms are good. The gavin lists are different though, he's no drea or howl, so try to get as many cheap, high dice attacks with one or more mods over dice spam.

1 hour ago, Roller of blanks said:

I don't think taking away a fifth ship is the problem there, I think it's because you were probably jousting from what you wrote and unmodded Zs go down fast. The unmodified shots are because you had so many attacks coming with one mod between them.

I think swarm lists need to stick with single or double mod attacks over more attacks. That's why other reroll swarms are good. The gavin lists are different though, he's no drea or howl, so try to get as many cheap, high dice attacks with one or more mods over dice spam.

Well, not quite a straight up joust. I set up first with the I1 and I2 pilots so I set them wide apart, covering about 1/2 my side of the mat to where ever the most open asteroid lanes were and then put Gavin in the towards the middle of the group depending on where the enemy had placed. I Came up fast with the Z's on the outside and slower in the middle forming an umbrella (with banks also involved where my opponent set up to one side). I set up a fairly nice kill box in each case with Gavin hanging at range 3 and the other ships closing the trap. To be honest, the missiles on the Z's were to make them more attractive bait, and in the 2 games that worked, I won handily. The two I lost were where they ignored the Z's and took out the Y's first. The main goal of my Z's was blocking and they did a fair job for the most part.

I plan to run several versions of Gavin swarms just to see what they can do. I was going to run X's with him at first, but when they dropped the Y and Vet Turret Gunner prices, I had to try a double tapping list.

My final edit to the squad and probably what I bring to the next tournament I go to.

RZ-1 A-wing - •Arvel Crynyd - 37
•Arvel Crynyd - Green Leader (34)
Intimidation (3)

Z-95-AF4 Headhunter - •Lieutenant Blount - 30
•Lieutenant Blount - Team Player (30)

Z-95-AF4 Headhunter - Bandit Squadron Pilot - 29
Bandit Squadron Pilot - (23)
Cluster Missiles (5)
Munitions Failsafe (1)

E-wing - •Gavin Darklighter - 67
•Gavin Darklighter - Bold Wingman (61)
Ion Torpedoes (6)

Attack Shuttle - •“Zeb” Orrelios - 36
•“Zeb” Orrelios - Spectre-4 (34)
•Leia Organa (2)

Total: 199/200

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