1 hour ago, Djaskim609 said:

It lost the in the first round of the top 8. I'm pretty sure he was playing against rebel beef. I was playing in the casual tourney for people who didn't make the top 8. I finished 21 (out of 36)

Nice. I finished 20th. would have loved to stick around for the casual tourney but had a long drive home.

Yeah, Saturday was a long day--where did you come from?

Cost dependent, Baktoids could be solid Energy Shell carrier. Can't tell you how many times I've rolled 2 blanks on an ESC shot. Rerolls on droids might be worth a few points. Have to wait and see.

17 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

Cost dependent, Baktoids could be solid Energy Shell carrier. Can't tell you how many times I've rolled 2 blanks on an ESC shot. Rerolls on droids might be worth a few points. Have to wait and see.

How do Baktoids help with that?

4 minutes ago, Pink_Viking said:

How do Baktoids help with that?

Baktoids with Passive Sensor & ESC can use the lock it gains from Passive Sensors as the requirement for shooting the ESC off while using the networked calculations for eyeball mods. Although I assume the point cost of all that combined won't be as good as just investing in DRK Probes on 1 Hyena to get locks for your whole list before engagement.

3 hours ago, RStan said:

Baktoids with Passive Sensor & ESC can use the lock it gains from Passive Sensors as the requirement for shooting the ESC off while using the networked calculations for eyeball mods. Although I assume the point cost of all that combined won't be as good as just investing in DRK Probes on 1 Hyena to get locks for your whole list before engagement.

I see and hope people don't fall into these list building traps.

10 hours ago, Djaskim609 said:

It lost the in the first round of the top 8. I'm pretty sure he was playing against rebel beef. I was playing in the casual tourney for people who didn't make the top 8. I finished 21 (out of 36) with a seven ship droid swarm: 4x Trade federation drones with shells (24 points each) and 2x Haor Chall Prototypes with shells (27 points each) and a feethan outtraw autopilot with Kraken (47 points).

I went 2-3 and was fairly happy. I only made a few mistakes. I lost one match by 2 points which was disappointing, but it was a fun match. My best game was against a two infiltrator list; I shredded Maul (aided by a "reduce your agility" crit when I still had 3 or 4 more attacks to make).

The list is solid, but it's not really a super-competitive list. The vultures just melt too fast. Sharing the calculates can be powerful, but calculate tokens are just weaker, lamer focus tokens.

Oh hey! I was there too. We played first round - I had myself hyped for Hyenas, that delay and some burnout with maul/wat/droids left me wanting. I took the 2 Jedi 2 Torrent list with less triggers and less packing space, for better or worse.

8 hours ago, PanchoX1 said:

Nice. I finished 20th. would have loved to stick around for the casual tourney but had a long drive home.

Same, long drive home the next morning so I didn't play.

Yeah, that was a good game. My big mistake in that match was separating my forces to deal with anakin. I should have just stayed bulked up against your other three ships. In the casual, i played a loaded up maul (palp, grievous, hate, kraken, shield upgrade) and four generic vultures with energy shells. It was pretty fun to fly. And my dice were on fire.

Is everyone in this thread as sad as I am about the new points? Hyenas seem overpriced especially 32-C and Sith have been murdered. So much for the most interesting faction smh

40 minutes ago, Caduceus01 said:

Is everyone in this thread as sad as I am about the new points? Hyenas seem overpriced especially 32-C and Sith have been murdered. So much for the most interesting faction smh

I'm with you on those ships, but my ongoing list became better (B-22 and lots of Vultures)

41 minutes ago, Caduceus01 said:

Is everyone in this thread as sad as I am about the new points? Hyenas seem overpriced especially 32-C and Sith have been murdered. So much for the most interesting faction smh

I mean I'm not giving up, but... Hate isn't worth 9 points on anything.

Hyenas are a touch disappointing, but I'm sure something degenerate will rear its head eventually. I'm just sad bc I want to fly Hyena/Vulture Only lists, and the Tac Relay Hyena costs more than half of the Bellbulabs, which. Maybe that's reasonable. But it doesn't seem quite right.

18 minutes ago, Vector Strike said:

I'm with you on those ships, but my ongoing list became better (B-22 and lots of Vultures)

Oh Grievous is gonna be a beast for 54 with title and impervium. Add outmaneuver for an even 60 but he needs something scary enough to divert attention away from him.

Alright, so, what's the damage?

• Grievous got a lot cheaper. Which is good, because he really struggled to earn his points back before and was best naked.
• Maul builds got a lot more expensive. Hate is effectively dead, now, for large base ships, and Maul went up 2 himself.
• Buzz Droids and Struts are way more aggressively priced. These were gimmick items before... they might still be gimmick items now? Or the price might be low enough to be good, remains to be seen.
• Vultures didn't get the buffs we were expecting. One point off, but that gets absorbed by ESC - they haven't shifted at all in total. But...
• Beef got pistol whipped. That helps a lot. Throwing an entire swarms shells into a B-Wing that doesn't die and then goes on to one-shot a vulture at range one from a higher initiative was... not my favorite. Is that enough?
• TA-175 is cheap.

And then, there's Hyenas.

• Jesus 32C is expensive. Like 10 points more than we were hoping for. Yikes.
• The baseline 26 is about where we expected... although that was before 19 point Vultures. But...
• Wow, are the slots a bigger mess than we bargained for.
• None of the variants can take Passive Sensors with Torpedoes!
• 404 and the generics don't get Sensor slots at all!
• Baktoids (ignore locks) can't take Torpedoes at all, and Bombardment (launch devices) can't take Missiles at all.
• 32C loses all its ordnance for Sensor+Tac Relay.

All of that makes the listbuilding way harder than anticipated. You can't stack upgrades in ways that fill multiple purposes - like putting Energy Shells on a Bombardment Drone with a device - so the Hyenas have turned out to be far more specialized that at least I was expecting.

47 minutes ago, Caduceus01 said:

Oh Grievous is gonna be a beast for 54 with title and impervium. Add outmaneuver for an even 60 but he needs something scary enough to divert attention away from him.

I've found that 5x Separatist Drones with Energy Shell Charges tends to be scary enough to divert some attention away from Outmaneuver Grievous.

With the point changes, I can now run that same list, but with Grappling Struts on the Vulture Droids and one of the 5-point Tactical Relay upgrades on Grievous.

I honestly don't think losing Hate is going to shaft Sith as badly as people think. You just won't be able to utterly crutch on it anymore...the horror!

Just gotta go slim with like just Grevious (crew), or maybe try running the droid they finally saw fit to buff

Anyway, the BIG takeaways for me are 1.) Struts went down to ONE point and 2.) Discords are now cheaper than ESC 3.) new relay dude is a measly 5 points

So there's probably where you're gonna start looking for shenanigans, especially since Discords like Trade Fed Vultures contribute before they pop (hint: 32c AND Discords are both at the start of engagement...HINTHINTHINT)

DBS-32C (42)
TA-175 (5)
Landing Struts (1)

Ship total: 48 Half Points: 24 Threshold: 3

Trade Federation Drone (19)
Discord Missiles (4)

Ship total: 23 Half Points: 12 Threshold: 2

Trade Federation Drone (19)
Discord Missiles (4)

Ship total: 23 Half Points: 12 Threshold: 2

Trade Federation Drone (19)
Discord Missiles (4)

Ship total: 23 Half Points: 12 Threshold: 2

Trade Federation Drone (19)
Energy-Shell Charges (5)

Ship total: 24 Half Points: 12 Threshold: 2

Trade Federation Drone (19)
Energy-Shell Charges (5)

Ship total: 24 Half Points: 12 Threshold: 2

DBS-404 (30)
Energy-Shell Charges (5)

Ship total: 35 Half Points: 18 Threshold: 3


Total: 200

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0: https://raithos.github.io/?f=Separatist Alliance&d=v7!s=200!328:,239,,237:;279:224,,:;279:224,,:;279:224,,:;279:209,,:;279:209,,:;326:,209,,,:&sn=New Squadron&obs=

I am disappointed mostly in that far fewer Hyenas got sensors than I thought would, but then again FFG probably didn't want them steamrolling **** with alpha torps

The only problem I have is 9 point hate. There was one ship in the game using it effectively, and it was only doing ok - and they nuked it so hard. 8 point increase on Maul builds is insanity.

I never ran 8x Vultures.

It still fits, but they can all have struts now if they're i1. Alternately, you can have 3 TFDs with Discords and Struts, 1 TFD with Energy Shells and Struts, and 5 Separatists with Energy Shells.

Worth?

@ficklegreendice I had something similar, but I prefer to use the Hyenas to make sure the Droids can have DRK Probes available to them so I went with this:

DBS-32C (42)
TA-175 (5)

Techno Union Bomber (26)
Energy-Shell Charges (5)
DRK-1 Probe Droids (5)

Trade Federation Drone (19)
Discord Missiles (4)

Trade Federation Drone (19)
Discord Missiles (4)

Trade Federation Drone (19)
Discord Missiles (4)

Trade Federation Drone (19)
Energy-Shell Charges (5)

Trade Federation Drone (19)
Energy-Shell Charges (5)

Total: 200

This is the best Passive Sensors build I can come up with:

Wat w/ Kraken, 2x Passive Concussion Struts Baktoids, 3x ESC Vultures.

For comparison, this fits too:

Wat w/ Kraken, 4x ESC Hyenas, 1x ESC (or Discord+Struts) Vulture.

The second list seems way better, at least to me? Thoughts? Without the ability to add torps I'm just not seeing the value.

I mean, that's the problem with the baktoid in a nutshell

no torps

only missile I can see myself giving a **** about are Borons

honestly, more ready to try a Techno with ESC and adv. torps (only really works with 32-c in tow)

Just now, ficklegreendice said:

I mean, that's the problem with the baktoid in a nutshell

no torps

only missile I can see myself giving a **** about are Borons

But just Lock+Kraken/Network calcs on ESC?

I can't tell if that extra offensive efficiency offsets the lower HP or not.

I doubt ESC bombers will match the efficiency of Vulture ESCs

but I don't math gud

1 hour ago, ficklegreendice said:

I doubt ESC bombers will match the efficiency of Vulture ESCs

but I don't math gud

I think plasma torp bombers are going to fit that not too expensive, but with some punch niche that is needed. A great way to open up shooting for the Vultures as well.

Is delayed fuse worth taking for Mining Bombardment Drones, likely? 1 point safety net for when you want to launch it, but you’re confident you’ll be the next to fly over it.

Just now, SpiderMana said:

Is delayed fuse worth taking for Mining Bombardment Drones, likely? 1 point safety net for when you want to launch it, but you’re confident you’ll be the next to fly over it.

If you want to squeeze mines in, absolutely. Gives you the ability to drop one in front of you and move over it first before the opponent does.