I've been having fun, and good results, with a very simple list that doesn't require any gimmicks or many upgrades.

Lieutenant tavson with Captain Phasma

3x PS2 generic TIE/SF with special forces gunner.

Does it have the best Dice Modification? No, a simple focus is fine. If you're lucky, they'll shoot tavson to get some extra actions.

You can fly it in formation or not, though I often fly my SF's in formation at least until the first engagement.

Just get as many shots as possible, use that back arc when needed, try to keep the Upsilon relevant. Whether that's taking shots, or keeping his action for coordinates and such, Jam is pretty handy.

5-0 with it so far. I'll probably rotate it out so my play group doesn't get sick of me, but i'll keep it in mind for bigger tourneys.

Haven't lost with it yet.

Requires great knowledge of opponents' lists, target selection, and how they want to approach an engagement.

Been trying to keep it under the radar since FO released, but sooooomeone wanted to make a thread about it... hah.

That being said, mass VTG lists are an absolute nightmare slugfest, it'll be interesting to see what shakes out this tournament season.

I hardly think anyone is going to pay attention to this, because it is mostly generics, and it seems a lot of people only have initiave 5-6 pilots in their collection. can't do too much harm, right?

-reason I made this list is that I bought a 3rd SF, and had to justify buying it.

-I'm also curious about the VTG matchup. I've only come across a couple individual ships sprinkled into lists that had that setup. I think my knee-jerk reaction would be to ram Tavson in their face to break up the formation

14 minutes ago, Hobbyist said:

I hardly think anyone is going to pay attention to this, because it is mostly generics, and it seems a lot of people only have initiave 5-6 pilots in their collection. can't do too much harm, right?

To be honest, I primarily fly generic swarms.

Tavson is a beast - tough, and with the action economy to use those big guns, and TIE/sf are very nice medium-to-heavy fighters, comparable to a T-70 X-wing.

The only question I'd ask is if it's worth looking at trying them with missiles & fire control rather than Specfor Gunners - both options have things to recommend them; Gunners can't run out of charges, get 4 dice at range 1 and allow flexible focus in the opening engagement, missiles give you reroll/lock for subsequent rounds, give you 3 dice out the rear arc, and disallow your opponent's green die bonus at range 3. Plus they're slightly cheaper, which is nice when replicated across multiple ships.

You can even play a slight dirty trick by giving Tavson a targeting synchroniser.

• Lieutenant Tavson
  • Perceptive Copilot
  • Advanced Optics
  • Targeting Synchroniser
  • Hull Upgrade
• Zeta Squadron Survivor x 3
  • Homing Missiles

Shoot Tavson and let him reactively lock you and you upgrade the incoming /sf laser shots to homing missiles. , don't shoot him and you're ignoring the Upsilon's trademark 4-dice double-focus-modified shot of pain.

I was making a joke

You do need to get into the fray, but it's tough to play the range game with an Upsilon that reaaaally wants to avoid red maneuvers. Reinforce is obviously your friend, and Phasma helps.

There's a fine line between narrow enough lanes to break up the VTG swarm and just large enough to lure them through and force lots of bumps with Tavson.

You need to joust them without actually jousting and allowing everything to doubletap its target. Honestly, if the VTG list gets guns all on, unless it's an Upsilon with an active reinforce, it's got a good chance to pop.

Have you tried Hux? I really like Tavson too, but in this squad, a PS2 with Hux might be better.

1 hour ago, Yearfire said:

Have you tried Hux? I really like Tavson too, but in this squad, a PS2 with Hux might be better.

Yes, and honestly not a big fan. I've had more success with Dormitz and HTD, which is to say, so-so.

Tavson with Phasma affects the game too strongly to pass up, which is unfortunate in the sense that there's no one else to choose, but also kind of the entire reason FO even has legs at the moment.

"Do whatever you want during combat" is kind of auto-include right now.

I've used hux on stridan with 4 fo's, and he's ok. I think tavson is a better fit for the sf's, as stress from hux will keep the upsilon from being useful, and the SF's don't shed the stress as easily as their Tie/FO counterparts.

the list started as trying to be a replacement for a 1st edition list-

stridan w/ ops spec, title, rebel captive

3x tie fo w/snapshot.

the stridan/hux resembles it more on paper, where tavson/phasma plays more like it,(and better than the original) and also has doubletaps (or more firepower when you don't) like the original.

Ive been looking alot at those PS2 latley, great to see that they are making ground. Mostly 4-5ship lists of diffrent sorts.

Captain Cardinal would be an interesting option

Hux, Tavsson, Baffle might have some merit.

you'll have to sell me on cardinal

1 hour ago, Hobbyist said:

you'll have to sell me on cardinal

Just thinking its passive mods, but with FCS on the ties. Its 2 pts short from a gunner on all three ships. On the other hand, cardinal would need collision detector to keep up with the ties. In addition it will fall short in its own mods compared to Tavsson. So the only thing that would make sense is clusters (or other suiteble pewpew) to get some points loose. On the other hand you get to reroll your focuses both defensivly and offesivly, wich gives a larger variety with actionschoices. Tavsson is just First Orders prime beast imo, hard to compete with.