Hello X-wing community! This is my first post on the forums here but I've been a long time reader and follower. I'll preface this by saying that I love Bossk. Well, I love and hate Bossk at the same time. I played the Garbage Collector (YV-666) ship relentlessly in 1.0 and I loved it. So with the point changes at the end of January I started fielding my main man again and I've reignited my love for him. However, I've been fiddling around with companions for Bossk to help him through those dark space nights crushing rebel scum and Imperial - uhh Imperial Imperials!

It started off with the ole wombo combo of Bossk and Dengar (blast back to 1.0 right?) and I just can't get behind Dengar anymore. His dial is just too brutal for me and make work if I really get out of position with Bossk. So I started to experiment with Ventress a small bit and wow. I love it. But I just can't find a solid wingmate for the both of them that I can really get behind and sink my teeth into. So this is what I'm flying currently:

Bossk (66)
Marksmanship (1)
BT-1 (2)
Contraband Cybernetics (5)

Ship total: 74 Half Points: 37 Threshold: 6

Asajj Ventress (76)
Hate (3)
Shadow Caster (6)

Ship total: 85 Half Points: 43 Threshold: 5

Crymorah Goon (31)
Dorsal Turret (2)
Veteran Turret Gunner (6)
R4 Astromech (2)

Ship total: 41 Half Points: 21 Threshold: 4


Total: 200

The short of it: I'm not sold on the Y-wing. I wish there was a better ship that I could even consider to fly with the love of my life and Ventress. I tried fiddling around with points but I always ended up mixing up Bossk and Ventress rather then actually replacing the Y-Wing with something that gives a little more "Umph!".

I know there's room to shave off a few points to really utilize potential wingmates such as the Contraband Cybernetics and the title off Ventress. Free up 11 points. I've also considered dropping Shadowcaster title and R4 for Lando on Bossk I really wanted to fit 4lom in the mix of it but lets be real here No one's going to give me that gem!

I want to keep Bossk and Ventress in the list 100%. I'm wondering if any of you guys and gals have any suggestions on what I can fly with the power couple that could really offer a little more push?

Thanks in advance,

Vid

For all of your Bossk needs, there are also a couple of other threads I saw with the YV-666 if you search for the ship in titles. My personal favorite list includes Bossk and Asajj

2 hours ago, Glattyator said:

For all of your Bossk needs, there are also a couple of other threads I saw with the YV-666 if you search for the ship in titles. My personal favorite list includes Bossk and Asajj

Hmm, I've read the article a little while back and was interested in some of the Bossk builds that I've saw there. It's certainly a very peculiar enigma figuring out the workings of Bossk. However, I am more more caught up in the wingmate for Bossk and Ventress rather than Bossk himself. I feel like I can tweak him here and there but I still boil down to the same issue which is the 3rd ship.

I've played the Y-Wing and I've had what I believe is success with it, but I feel as if its not enough to really cause enough chaos. I've considered a mining tie or the escape craft and made use of the remainder of the points to beef up Bossk and Ventress but I feel like it really opens up a lot more focus on the bad boys (and girl?) of the list with them being at PS4 and all.

So the target of discussion for the squad is the 3rd ship and what could potentially maximize the list's ability to deliver pain.

Getting L3-37 in the Escape Craft, and tacking on a Tac Officer, only runs you 28 points. That will give you a ship that can coordinate and give you more actions for your two big boats. Otherwise, the Y-Wing really does seem like the best bet for a cheap, durable ship to support your other two. You could keep it close to Bossk to help cover his flanks and to buy him time to get turned around on a target. Ahhav is another cheap option for a third ship, since you can get him for 31 points with Crack Shot, and he will give you a nice punch against larger opponents. A generic MG Tie would work for an even cheaper option.

5 minutes ago, Vidias said:

Hmm, I've read the article a little while back and was interested in some of the Bossk builds that I've saw there. It's certainly a very peculiar enigma figuring out the workings of Bossk. However, I am more more caught up in the wingmate for Bossk and Ventress rather than Bossk himself. I feel like I can tweak him here and there but I still boil down to the same issue which is the 3rd ship.

I've played the Y-Wing and I've had what I believe is success with it, but I feel as if its not enough to really cause enough chaos. I've considered a mining tie or the escape craft and made use of the remainder of the points to beef up Bossk and Ventress but I feel like it really opens up a lot more focus on the bad boys (and girl?) of the list with them being at PS4 and all.

So the target of discussion for the squad is the 3rd ship and what could potentially maximize the list's ability to deliver pain.

I was part of that discussion

How about Graz(Kihraxz)

-Fairly easy to proc his ability

-Matches initiative with Bossk and Ventress.

-slightly more durable than a y-wing(extra agility is better than 2 hp right?)

-firepower 3 is better at range 3 and very close to the range 2 double tap.

-Dial lets it knife fight really well, 1 hards and 2 tallon rolls are nice(my opinion)

Unkar Plutt, let bossk hit harder, and Asajj actually hit with her 2 dice, and then tack on another beam to move medium/large bases.

Seevor with swarm tactics. Bring bossk down 1PS to his level so he jams fools, then Bossk hits em hard.

@Wildonion , I think I'm starting to agree with you that the Y-wing might just very well be the biggest bang for my buck in this case. I've tried the Escape craft and I've had minimal success with it. The main thing is that while I am able to get off an extra action for one of my ships but usually I hardly need it rather than to score Target Locks. I'm not saying it's useless, Coords are very powerful IMO. I just notice that I draw a lot more attention to Bossk and Ventress as they are the ships that are doing the punishing. Appreciate the suggestion though and I will consider it again while list tinkering. I do however, love the idea with the MG Tie. Cheap and efficient.

@DakkaDakka12 , I actually never considered Graz. I've read your posts (if i'm not mistaken) recently and noticed the buttering-up of Graz. After you suggested it here I threw him into a squad builder pretty excited to potentially field the Kihraxz again. I did notice however that with my current set-up I'd have to drop either the Title from Ventress (6pts) or both the Cybernetics and Marksmanship off Bossk to field him barebones. Quite admittedly I'm not a super excellent pilot to be able to fly Bossk flawlessly to warrant not having the forgiveness that Cybernetics offers. However, I'm not stubborn to the point that I won't try it. I think I could give this ago. Dropping the Title is hard call with all 3 ships potentially being PS4. The opportunity of having the tractor beam + the denial of an AGI dice is even more delicious.

I'm loving all the feedback. Thanks a bunch, team.

Nice idea leveraging stress in order to put crits for Bossk. I use Greedo so my options are wider, it let me think about stress control.

Bossk Ventress

(66) Bossk
(4) IG-88D
(8) Lando Calrissian
(2) BT-1
Points 80

(76) Asajj Ventress
(3) Hate
Points 79

(31) Crymorah Goon
(4) Ion Cannon Turret
(6) Veteran Turret Gunner
Points 41

Total points: 200

I've taken Your list and rebuild Bossk for my taste:) jokes aside IG-88D and Lando are a potent combo, but expensive. I've removed title from Asajj and Droid from Y-wing. Title is a bit awkward for Ventress as it limits her arc setup. 41 points left over beg for turret ed Y-wing in my opinion it is a good list. Even if Asajj goes down You still have a Bossk built in a way that is dangerous.

10 minutes ago, Vidias said:

@Wildonion , I think I'm starting to agree with you that the Y-wing might just very well be the biggest bang for my buck in this case. I've tried the Escape craft and I've had minimal success with it. The main thing is that while I am able to get off an extra action for one of my ships but usually I hardly need it rather than to score Target Locks. I'm not saying it's useless, Coords are very powerful IMO. I just notice that I draw a lot more attention to Bossk and Ventress as they are the ships that are doing the punishing. Appreciate the suggestion though and I will consider it again while list tinkering. I do however, love the idea with the MG Tie. Cheap and efficient.

@DakkaDakka12 , I actually never considered Graz. I've read your posts (if i'm not mistaken) recently and noticed the buttering-up of Graz. After you suggested it here I threw him into a squad builder pretty excited to potentially field the Kihraxz again. I did notice however that with my current set-up I'd have to drop either the Title from Ventress (6pts) or both the Cybernetics and Marksmanship off Bossk to field him barebones. Quite admittedly I'm not a super excellent pilot to be able to fly Bossk flawlessly to warrant not having the forgiveness that Cybernetics offers. However, I'm not stubborn to the point that I won't try it. I think I could give this ago. Dropping the Title is hard call with all 3 ships potentially being PS4. The opportunity of having the tractor beam + the denial of an AGI dice is even more delicious.

I'm loving all the feedback. Thanks a bunch, team.

I would lean toward the trimming of Bossk to fit Graz rather than dropping the title off Ventress mostly because the title buffs your whole fleet.

Bossk (66)
Jamming Beam (0)
BT-1 (2)

Ship total: 68 Half Points: 34 Threshold: 6

Asajj Ventress (76)
Hate (3)
Shadow Caster (6)

Ship total: 85 Half Points: 43 Threshold: 5

Graz (47)
Ship total: 47 Half Points: 24 Threshold: 3


Total: 200

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0: https://raithos.github.io/?f=Scum and Villainy&d=v5!s!153:-1,12,-1,-1,-1,79,-1,-1,-1:;125:204,-1,-1,-1,-1,160:;120:-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1:&sn=An unlikely pair&obs=

My love for Graz stems from my 1.0 love of the Kihraxz, I have gotten very used to it’s dial and once you get into range 1 I feel like you can maintain close range really well with either a 1 hard or 2 Tallon.

Graz doesnt draw as much aggro from players as Talonbane as most players see Talonbane as a knock off Fenn Rau and they try to kill him early so he rarely gets into range 1 for his ability. Meanwhile Graz is easier to proc without dying early game, to me Graz is a great flanker you flank wide with and bring him into combat from an angle that avoids most of your enemy’s arcs.

Btw a fun Graz build(not worth it in this list) is Graz with outmaneuver...let that sink in your mind.

Since I had a little more time, I threw together a quick version of one of the suggested lists. Asajj is a pretty basic set up, working to try and leverage her ability to put out tractor tokens. Bossk is designed to put the enemy into a fork, since they either take stress and let you activate BT-1 or you get the calculate token and Lando can burn that on the attack. Marksmanship is thrown in as a cheap upgrade for the rare times when Bossk lines up that perfect shot. Finally, a Surveyor with Trick Shot gives you a squirrely little guy to try and get some extra hits in on the enemy. Plus, it is maneuverable and can fight in spaces the bigger ships would fear to tread.

That said, Asajj really makes me want to try and find a way to put in Foreman Proach as another way to get cheap tractor into the list. You would have to trim Bossk, likely by replacing Lando with 4-LOM or Zuckuss, to make that happen and I am not certain if he is really that good. You could also go with Seevor instead, which will give you a fun way to really annoy an opponent.

Asajj Ventress (76)
Hate (3)
Ketsu Onyo (5)
Shadow Caster (6)

Bossk (66)
Marksmanship (1)
Jamming Beam (0)
Lando Calrissian (Scum) (8)
0-0-0 (5)
BT-1 (2)

Mining Guild Surveyor (25)
Trick Shot (2)
Total: 199

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0

As a filler ship, I'm fascinated by Sunny Bounder with Heavy Laser Cannon, and perhaps Afterburners.

19 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

As a filler ship, I'm fascinated by Sunny Bounder with Heavy Laser Cannon, and perhaps Afterburners.

Not a big fan of HLC on initiative 1, Ion cannon feels better on low initiative.(hopefully the rebel transport indeed comes with the re-release of the autoblaster )

28 minutes ago, DakkaDakka12 said:

Not a big fan of HLC on initiative 1, Ion cannon feels better on low initiative.(hopefully the rebel transport indeed comes with the re-release of the autoblaster )

On someone other than Sunny, totally. I love Ion Cartel Spacers. But Sunny has that funky ability to add an extra hit if she rolls double hit (or eye or crit), but it'd take triple hit with an Ion Cannon. As such, she needs a 3-dice attack less than any other Scyk. Given that, I think a Sunny Bounder Highroll plan would be kinda fun.

2 hours ago, DakkaDakka12 said:

Btw a fun Graz build(not worth it in this list) is Graz with outmaneuver...let that sink in your mind.

More fun is fearless. Do I want to get closer to Graz or turn away from him?

So last night I was able to pop in a few games to try and some of the work we've been hammering in with the Bossk/Ventress list. I wanted to try 2 lists in the games we've played but I only ended up playing the same one twice due the outcome of the initial game. Here is what I ended up running and my thoughts on it:

Asajj Ventress (76)
Hate (3)
Shadow Caster (6)

Bossk (66)
Marksmanship (1)
0-0-0 (5)
BT-1 (2)

Crymorah Goon (31)
Dorsal Turret (2)
Veteran Turret Gunner (6)
R4 Astromech (2)

Total: 200

The List (and commentary):

I was inspired by the addition of 0-0-0 that was suggested in a post by Wildonion. I started thinking about stress and how I could potentially deal more depending on the situation. Plus I feel like the calculate token is still really good for Bossk if I reinforce/TL with my main action. I will comment that dropping Cybernetics for 0-0-0 was a bold but very rewarding move. I felt like I got a lot more value out of 0-0-0 than the safety of Cybernetics. It really forces me to think about which moves Bossk will make in the following turns rather than playing in the moment (I'm a warrior at heart, I like to charge in and beat things up with my hammer and worry about what happens next when it happens).

The games:

I play against one of my good friends every week. We don't have a local gaming store where we live. Just two dudes flying spaceships every week. We keep up with what's hot and not and try very hard to be competitive with each other. I've been true Scum since 1.0 and he plays Empire and Rebels. We have very good matches and we're always trying to improve a wide variety of lists.

Game 1: My compadre flew his rebels (He's been working hard to try and find a fun/competitive rebel list...it's working). He flew Lando in the Falcon, Norra Wexley in the ARC and Jake Farrell in the A-Wing. I've faced off variants of this list for the better part of 2 weeks now. He's onto something with Lando and the Falcon. It's meaty. It's really meaty and a pain to try and get through all the shields and hull. More Importantly, he has massive action economy giving out coords to his other ships letting them roll or stack up on tokens. Norra is a big pain in due to the r1 Evades which really hurt my damage output. Nevertheless, the game started and deployed most of my ships on the right side of the board. I have an issue where I always naturally want to deploy there due to 1.0 Dengar and his dial. So I deployed there starting from right to left it went Bossk, Y-Wing and Ventress. He opted to try and joust with Lando and Norra, lining up against Bossk and the Y and he deployed Jake on the far side to try and flank. I slow rolled up thinking his ARC had SLAM (I was mistaken, PTSD from last weeks game where I bumped with Bossk ) But it worked out in my favor in turn 2 my Y-wing was in r2 of Norra with Bossk in r1 and Ventress in r2. It was literally the perfect kill box. I was able to confer stress to Norra via Ventress as he elected not remove his Evade token (we reflected back on this and we agreed that he should have removed the token). He shot at Bossk and I believe only dealt one damage with Lando, and Norra re-rolled 3 eyeballs and a blank into 4 eyeballs IIRC. Then it was like all the bounty hunter gods of the galaxy looked down on this game and said " Bossk, look inside yourself... this is your destiny " Ventress opened up with an attack that scored 3 hits one which was evaded. That allowed the tractor beam to be assigned Norra. It was at this moment Bossk said " This is it...don't get scared now " and rolled 4 dice into Norra. No evades with the exception of her ability. I popped out a whopping 2 damage and 2 crits, one which I popped open for 2 damage. To make matter worse for good ole Norra the crit she took was a direct hit. Needless to say Norra was flattened, I believe it was the Y-Wing that finished her off. I rolled incredibly hot and my counterpart rolled terribly cold. I was able to re-positon Bossk and Ventress around pulling hard lefts to slip into arc of the falcon which popped a few turns after and by the point Jake was only just getting into the fray. The game was over terribly quick. 200-0 for the Lover's Quarrel (Bossk and Ventress)

Game 2:

My friend was absolutely gutted by the way the first round went and he wanted a rematch. Admittedly I was over the moon at this point with the stars aligning in the first game allowing Scum to take a decisive victory over the Rebels. So I happily agreed to the rematch.

Deployment: Deployment happened a little differently then the first game. For the first game I tried to shove most of the asteroids out of the way because I find that they really impact Bossk's ability to navigate. Plus not being able to shoot or being stressed really hinder him. So I planned to shove them all out of the way again but what I ended up noticing is that there was a giant circle of rocks near my opponents side of board in a circle. Right off the hop I knew that I was going to be in a bit of a pickle. No matter where I deployed those rocks are going to be a pain for Bossk. So I deployed exactly where I didn't want to deploy, right in the center. I figured I'd rather have Bossk turn away from the rocks rather than turn into the rocks and off I went.

The game: I didn't fair nearly as well as I did in the first game we played. My friend, a little shaken I think, played Norra defensively and kept her in the back. Jake was off to the side to flank and Lando was on the other. I rolled up the center of the board and I knew I was caught in a pincer. The first engagement flew by and I didn't score nearly as much damage as I hoped and my only target was Lando. After that my plan all went south. Bossk and Ventress both got caught up in the circle of rocks ( yes the same ones that I told myself to watch out for). They got disorientated and my friend shot them all up as I desperately tried to think of a plan to get them out or at least deal some sort of damage to someone. Ventress was the first to fall after being in the rocks. I had Norra behind her chipping away and Lando up front laying on the hurt. She melted and Bossk was caught out with 2 ships behind him. He was dead in the water(space?) and I knew it. My only saving grace was to try and get at least some hurt on the ships to score half points. I was able to take out Jake and half Lando. the game ended 90-200 for my friend. I flew poorly and my buddy flew great. I really messed up on those rocks and I need to fly better and think of a plan for if Ventress falls. Not every game is going to be a star game for scum but I will say that I had loads of fun playing the list.

@Vidias sounds great, you did have a lucky roll with Bossk, but your opponent hoping 1 green die would save him is a mistake.

I can’t remember exacts off the top of my head, but IIRC a green die has slightly LESS than a 50 percent success rate, and a red die has slightly MORE than 50 percent success rate.

Point being while his Norra might have survived Bossk and Ventress, she would still be weak.

Wait a minute when you Bossk attacked the tractored Norra, she should have 0 defense dice because of the tractor, you make it sound like she still had a defense die and failed.

Also you two might be playing Norra’s ability incorrectly.

she adds an evade result, she doesn’t change one of her results to an evade, she simply has 1 free success on all defense rolls if there is a enemy ship at range 0-1

5 minutes ago, DakkaDakka12 said:

Wait a minute when you Bossk attacked the tractored Norra, she should have 0 defense dice because of the tractor, you make it sound like she still had a defense die and failed.

Hmm I think I might have messed up my recall of the game. So you are correct, I did mean that she has no evades, But her ability allowed her have one freebie as I did have a ship in range one of her so I think I automatically factored that in. As I was writing this up I felt like there was one extra damage in there that I never accounted for. I will edit my post accordingly! Thanks for pointing that out, Dakka.