5 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

But he couldn't get to range 1 of a stationary target?

He was the one guy that got one R1 shot on. It's not like this is happening in a vacuum. I've usually got a lot of other ships on the board to mess with him. He has to decide which ships to deal with. My buddy has been taking the Jedi ships and he's been busy arc dodging the other ships and trying to get in r1 of them. This leaves my 2 Grappler Vultures free to fire away most of the time. I mean, when you have 8 Vulture Droids in a list, you can do things like this.

There is also skill on my side of the table at how to deal with my opponent and have him focus on other aspects of my list. It's not like "a good player" can just come in and control the table unopposed. I'm not too shabby a player, even if I haven't been to too many tournaments lately. I only won 3 of my 5 games at Krayt. One was a definite lost, but the other I was flustered after coming back from lunch late and I should've won that. Still, I was Richard White's only lose for the day (from Scum & Villainy podcast).

3 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

I mean, when you have 8 Vulture Droids in a list, you can do things like this.

Ah, so you were flying a full swarm. Flying fewer, however, they fall apart; and limiting a faction to a single list and its variants is exactly why I find them so disappointing, especially with the buy-in required for that list.

I like using just a small number of Vultures, as disruptors primarily because you can't rely on them for damage against strong green dice. I ran 5 vultures and Maul against a TIE Swarm and over two games my vultures dealt 1 damage. 1.

I want those native 3 red dice ships. I want those actual focus tokens.

1 minute ago, TheCeilican said:

I want those native 3 red dice ships. I want those actual focus tokens.

Native 3 is nice, but in my experience, even Resistance A-Wings (thanks, Heroic!) and Deltas without configurations (thanks, regenerating Force pool!) do more damage.

Oh of course they do. There's no ship in the game that does as little damage as a Vulture droid.

1 minute ago, TheCeilican said:

Oh of course they do. There's no ship in the game that does as little damage as a Vulture droid.

Does more damage.

2 dice with Focus > 2 dice with Calculate.

Hm...I wonder how the Vultures would fare with Homing Missiles. Sure, they'd need Target Locks, but that could allow Probe Droids to actually be useful.

If they'd not jacked the price up on Homing MIssiles I would definitely have gone there.

The maths on using Concussion/Cluster/Ion isn't awful if you're looking at ESC. An Ion Missile with TL as the mod has a better chance of dealing damage than an ESC with Calculate at the mod, and it has more charges. Getting the TL is the hard part.

I'm aware that some people are testing using the Probe Droid to ensure you get your TLs even at low Initiative and launching a Concussion volley. It's a lot of work though and still worse than the alpha strike from almost any other faction.

8 minutes ago, TheCeilican said:

Does more damage.

2 dice with Focus > 2 dice with Calculate.

Sure, but then the point costs are way different and I'm taking ESC into effect. Also, calc sharing is better than 1 focus.

9 minutes ago, TheCeilican said:

It's a lot of work though and still worse than the alpha strike from almost any other faction.

Yeah, buy I'm not interested in making a competitive list; I just want a list that's fun to fly without having to buy multiples of a ship that I can only ever use in one, particular list.

12 minutes ago, RStan said:

Sure, but then the point costs are way different and I'm taking ESC into effect. Also, calc sharing is better than 1 focus.

Calc sharing is definitely the faction's gimmick, but I'm convinced there's some kind of critical mass that must be achieved. With a full swarm in close formation, you've got numerous Calculates to share, sure. But if you only have 3-4 Vultures, there's definitely not enough Calculates to go around.

48 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Ah, so you were flying a full swarm. Flying fewer, however, they fall apart; and limiting a faction to a single list and its variants is exactly why I find them so disappointing, especially with the buy-in required for that list.

The fewest I've flown have been 5 in a list. I happen to like Vulture Droids. I wouldn't say that there is just one list of "horde of droids" to fly. I think there is still a good variety in there. Even if just Vultures, you can throw in Buzz Droids and Grapplers on some to shake it up. One Buick and a bunch of Vultures is good. I'm even going to try a list with 2 Buicks and 5 Vultures.

32 minutes ago, TheCeilican said:

Oh of course they do. There's no ship in the game that does as little damage as a Vulture droid.

Tie Fighters are actually worse. Vultures can get Energy Shell Casings and other missiles when Tie Fighters can't.

Just now, heychadwick said:

One Buick and a bunch of Vultures is good. I'm even going to try a list with 2 Buicks and 5 Vultures.

What's a Buick? O_o

TIE Fighters with Howlrunner aren't worse. You're adding the worst 3rd red dice in the game when you add ESC as the Vultures can't even effectively mod their 2 dice let alone a 3rd dice on top.

I have a CIS Aces list of Maul, Dooku, and Grievous that is pretty good and fun to fly. Grievous is a beast and is pretty tanky.

10 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Calc sharing is definitely the faction's gimmick, but I'm convinced there's some kind of critical mass that must be achieved. With a full swarm in close formation, you've got numerous Calculates to share, sure. But if you only have 3-4 Vultures, there's definitely not enough Calculates to go around.

I believe part of fully discovering and understanding this faction is when to run you vultures in a mass blob, split up into 2 teams or split up in multiple pairs. Depending on the opposing ships and knowing what's necessary to create positive trades is going to be key. The Vultures will die, but what matters is whether the player can make it worth it by trading correctly. Splitting up into groups, but staying in the range 3 bubble of the tactical relay chosen (or at least once the engagements start) will be key to gaining positional advantages so everything isn't telegraphed by staying in one big formation.

5 minutes ago, RStan said:

I believe part of fully discovering and understanding this faction is when to run you vultures in a mass blob, split up into 2 teams or split up in multiple pairs. Depending on the opposing ships and knowing what's necessary to create positive trades is going to be key. The Vultures will die, but what matters is whether the player can make it worth it by trading correctly. Splitting up into groups, but staying in the range 3 bubble of the tactical relay chosen (or at least once the engagements start) will be key to gaining positional advantages so everything isn't telegraphed by staying in one big formation.

That still assumes you're flying enough of them to be able to break up into smaller groups.

I tend towards 3-4 ship lists. I can fly a swarm, but that just doesn't "grab" me.... So I have been flying:

- Maul: Hate

- Dooku: Hate, Scimitar title

- Grievous: Soulless One title, Impervium Plating

I am 3-1 with the list so far, and could be 4 and 0 with some better dice variance. This list is meant to split apart, make the opponent choose a target, and then close ranks with the others and just chew things apart. in my experience, Maul tends to go first, because his double tap is fearsome, and with hate, he gets those force back very quickly. Grievous is kind of a sleeper almost-ace, and can do some serious work as well. Impervium is so good. Dooku is sneaky good. I often start cloaked, and even though he fires at initiative 3, he usually has enough force to trigger a hit, and then cloak. That is absolutely wonderful against lower initiative ships, and I absolutely tore apart a Yion list. (to be fair, I probably flew the best I ever did, and my opponent chose Maul as the target, and then proceeded to fire through gas clouds). Dooku tends not to do as well against aces 1:1, and if you take that stress and don't use the force to remove it when defending, you limit your options.

I agree with the others that this faction has so many potential options, not just swarms. I want to try 4 Bellbulabs with impervium, or 5 initiatve 1 Bells... or the dual infiltrator list... or a straight swarm, or ......

One of my squad mates made the observation that the CIS faction has quite a bit of potential complexity in how it can be used, and I think I agree with that. I think it may take a bit of time to shake out some really solid lists, and the Hyena bomber should just add to the faction's identity.

23 minutes ago, RStan said:

I believe part of fully discovering and understanding this faction is when to run you vultures in a mass blob, split up into 2 teams or split up in multiple pairs. Depending on the opposing ships and knowing what's necessary to create positive trades is going to be key. The Vultures will die, but what matters is whether the player can make it worth it by trading correctly. Splitting up into groups, but staying in the range 3 bubble of the tactical relay chosen (or at least once the engagements start) will be key to gaining positional advantages so everything isn't telegraphed by staying in one big formation.

I'm not sold on this. Barrel Roll + Calc actually allows a large blob of droids to rapidly flex into a number of different formations while maintaining a useful volume of floating dice mods. I'd also point out, an opponent will think a lot harder about spending mods on an attack when they're only killing 1 of the 8 Droids as opposed to 1 of the 3-4 droids. In this way, I do find there's a "you must have this many vultures to fly" point.

3 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

I'm not sold on this. Barrel Roll + Calc actually allows a large blob of droids to rapidly flex into a number of different formations while maintaining a useful volume of floating dice mods. I'd also point out, an opponent will think a lot harder about spending mods on an attack when they're only killing 1 of the 8 Droids as opposed to 1 of the 3-4 droids. In this way, I do find there's a "you must have this many vultures to fly" point.

I'm not saying to have them go off and each do their own thing and pick separate targets. They still end up converging on the same target providing the mass fire, but you force your opponent to choose which group to point their arcs at since their not coming from the same location all together.

The Seppies are absolutely amazing! As a long time scum player I find that these guys are able to pull out the random toys that I wish the scum had. I can't bring myself to fly the full swarm because the vultures pop too easy, but with a good mix I have had great success against even the best players in my group. My infiltrator zooms forward, decloaks the next round and 5k's behind the enemy line blasting them to bits, while greivous comes around on the flank and eats up the infiltrators left-overs. Butter-bot is my favorite droid. Park him on a rock in the middle and pass out calc tokens to his buddies carrying ESCs. Each piece by itself isn't very good, but with their powers combined!

My trick shot cluster missile RZ-2 As love love love popcorn vulture swarms. 4 dice is neat. It's like one gets an infection, pops, then the other catches it too. Hilarious stuff.

Just when people seemed to be getting bored of them, Rebel Y-Ions double taps unfortunately are going to stay in lists because of the little android buggers. Sigh. I am tired of those for sure.

53 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

What's a Buick? O_o

The Belubalub-22 thing. I think it looks like an old Buick when you look at the mini.

53 minutes ago, TheCeilican said:

TIE Fighters with Howlrunner aren't worse. You're adding the worst 3rd red dice in the game when you add ESC as the Vultures can't even effectively mod their 2 dice let alone a 3rd dice on top.

I'm sorry, but Howlrunner doesn't count. You have to take base ship and compare to base ship. Not every list has Howlrunner nor does Howlrunner often last beyond the first turn of firing. When you are comparing all Vulture Droids, you can't compare "the other ship has a special upgrade attached".

Vultures with ESC are not "the worst 3rd red dice in the game". Any unmodified 3 red dice are worse. Or...a Jam Cannon. Or a Tractor Beam in most instances. First off.....you don't even know if the ESC needs anything more than 1 modification. It's not that crazy luck to get only require one mod. Next, you CAN get more than one mod. There are things like other Vulture Droids in R1. There is also Kraken. Butterbot (DFS-311) can also hand someone an extra Calculate token.

Let's run the numbers.

3 dice attack with just one Calc token: 20% of 1 hit; 46% of 2 hits; and 31% of 3 hits

3 dice attack with just one Focus token: 14% of 1 hit; 42% of 2 hits; and 42% of 3 hits

That's not a huge variance there. Is a Focus better? Yes. Is 3 with Calc "the worst in the game"? Far from it.

Don't forget with ESC you can turn one eyeball into a Crit, which is not something you can do with many other attacks.

The third dice you add is the worst extra dice in the game.