Hi!

I’m trying to find interesting and competitive Empire lists for an Extended tourney this weekend. I found this as one possibility. I like it because the defender is paired with two other threatening ships. But I recognize it might help Rex and Maarek to have a coordinator of some sort. So, I’m looking for pretty much any suggestions: additions (these are the base loadouts I’m aware of for these ships), improvements, alternatives, replacement ships, pointing out weaknesses, etc. I’m wanting to find a 3- or 4- ship list that could perhaps go toe to toe with, say, Resistance 5s.

TIE/in Interceptor - •Soontir Fel - 54
•Soontir Fel - Ace of Legend (52)
Predator (2)

TIE Advanced x1 - •Maarek Stele - 48
•Maarek Stele - Servant of the Empire (46)
Fire-Control System (2)

TIE/D Defender - •Rexler Brath - 87
•Rexler Brath - Onyx Leader (82)
Juke (5)

Total: 189/200

View in the X-Wing Squad Builder

Thank you!

I would definitely get FCS/Advanced Sensors on the Defender for what suits your playstyle.

I played a custom game with Rexlar + FCS, against a decked out Dutch and Garven (X wing). He roasted both of them and took no damage (albeit due to lucky dice), but I think even without said insane dice, he can do some INSANE work even without Juke. If you have the points Advanced Sensors can make the Defender insanely squirrely and unpredictable (namely your white 4K becomes way harder to block, which is quite good).

Soontir is Soontir (though I would make sure to avoid getting killboxed and nuked), and Maarek is Maarek (would also avoid getting killboxed).

Small note, while the other two provide threats, Rexlar is still likely to be the main target your opponent will go after because he has the most health/evade dice, so removing him before you start losing your own ships is a good option as an opponent. Not saying it's impossible to play, just that if your plan is to keep the defender alive by using other ships as more juicy targets, you're gonna need something like Vader who scares the heck out of everybody.

Looks awesome!

Thanks, @Cow-of-Doom! I’ve always wanted to try AS on a Defender but never got back around to flying them before now. I think I’ll give it a shot. I like the critical damage tricks Rexler and Maarek can feast on, seen that hurt me as the receiver. I’m interested in fitting Vader in, but it’s hard to find a decent 3rd ship that can hold its own.

Yeah thats been my challenge. You don't necessarily need that many upgrades on either ship (again: you strictly only REALLY need FCS on Rexlar to make him a beast, but anything else makes him more of a beast), but when those two ships with one upgrade cost most of your list then....... (grumbles about the Defender costing so much and then remembers they would be absolutely murderous if they cost any less).

Vader and Rexlar both with FCS is 151. Swapping to Maarek with FCS is 132 That bumps you up to being able to take a 68 point ship with two fives (plus whatever your third ship is), which is pretty respectable. Thats also exactly enough to take two naked Planetary Sentinel strikers which could be good.

I would be inclined to run more ships than less, but as usual with the Imperials 2 Ace + anything more than one ship is really hard to make work. Really it comes down to your playstyle and what you want to run.

Hm! Whisper’s not a bad fit for that amount of points!

This has me tempted to try Rex with Juke, Vader with FCS and Seventh Sister. 200pt exactly.

All 3 have been really excellent for us but never in this combination.

Comes from a couple different lists we've had, both of which have been very winning. Vader, Echo and Whisper. Rex, Echo and Seventh Sister. (Can highly recommend either).

Imo, they can all be run effectively very cheaply. The only essentials for us have been Juke with the free evades and FCS for Vader. They can clearly be even better with other upgrades but if you're comfortable with the value you're already getting from them, there's room for stronger friends in the squad and maybe better value overall.

The good thing in those 2 3 Imp ace lists of ours is that there is room to tart them up a bit.

4 ship Imps can be strong as well. Our starting point is a Reaper and a TIE Adv. They can run cheap or expensive and serve as the anvil for a variety of hammers.

For Extended, this is one form of the list we're currently looking to crash test-

Feroph- Tac Officer, Vader. Maarek- FCS, Marksmanship. Echo- Juke. A lowly 33pt Baron of the Empire. 200pt

Echo can make room for a beefier Baron and another 40-50pt ship. Such as another x1. Lt Kestal in the Aggressor is a favourite when it comes to dealing with Jedi. APT Rhymer is fierce with coord support. Our Striker is on the way, to enable the Hyperspace version.

You could even jiggle things about and fit Soontir in.

Vader coming out of the crew slot and into the Adv is another strong option.

It takes some planning on the table, they don't beef like Rebels, but toolbox Imperial lists are a very good, yet fairly underexplored archetype.

39 minutes ago, Cuz05 said:

Comes from a couple different lists we've had, both of which have been very winning. Vader, Echo and Whisper. Rex, Echo and Seventh Sister. (Can highly recommend either).

How is Seventh Sister built out in this? I’ve never flown her.

27 minutes ago, Synel said:

How is Seventh Sister built out in this? I’ve never flown her.

With absolutely nothing added! 46pt of pure efficiency.

We've had really good results with Rex and Echo, both with Juke. 5th Brother on Echo makes him a real threat now. Tried them both quite a bit, in several squads and they almost always star.

Together, they can solo lists, if they have room. So we've put a few different cheap things alongside. Seventh Sister has been the best so far. Just naturally hard to kill, squirrelly and her ability can be a game changer.

Being so cheap, she's just pure aggression,. Get to R1 and buy room for Echo to circle and Rex to zoom and boom through.

The hard bit is not leaving 1 of them high and dry. Still working on that

I played the following list this week against Maul and Dooku. I really enjoyed it and it felt so good to be flying a defender again! I was able to swivel Whisper out and around the main fight, dodging arcs as she went. Maarek took a blow from behind due to poor maneuvering choices on my end that led to him bumping Maul. But he survived and eventually fired the decisive kill shot on Dooku. Rexler did a good job chasing and doing little damage when evade dice didn’t completely cover what he dealt. It would’ve been nice if he could have pushed a bit more damage out sooner. Only Maarek took damage out of all of them. I’m still thinking through how to set up this squad. Does anyone have any advice on opening strategies?

TIE/ph Phantom - •“Whisper” - 59
•“Whisper” - Soft-Spoken Slayer (54)
Juke (5)

TIE Advanced x1 - •Maarek Stele - 49
•Maarek Stele - Servant of the Empire (46)
Marksmanship (1)
Fire-Control System (2)

TIE/D Defender - •Rexler Brath - 89
•Rexler Brath - Onyx Leader (82)
Juke (5)
Fire-Control System (2)

Total: 197/200

View in the X-Wing Squad Builder

I was flying a decent amount of Rexler/Whisper before the points update (usually with Redline). Both at I5 with Juke lets them work really well together. I've been looking at options for a third ship and I think Soontir, Duchess (adding Fifth Brother on Whisper), and Palp shuttle are all good options, but that version with Maarek looks really solid.

On 5/3/2019 at 1:16 PM, Synel said:

I played the following list this week against Maul and Dooku. I really enjoyed it and it felt so good to be flying a defender again! I was able to swivel Whisper out and around the main fight, dodging arcs as she went. Maarek took a blow from behind due to poor maneuvering choices on my end that led to him bumping Maul. But he survived and eventually fired the decisive kill shot on Dooku. Rexler did a good job chasing and doing little damage when evade dice didn’t completely cover what he dealt. It would’ve been nice if he could have pushed a bit more damage out sooner. Only Maarek took damage out of all of them. I’m still thinking through how to set up this squad. Does anyone have any advice on opening strategies?

TIE/ph Phantom - •“Whisper” - 59
•“Whisper” - Soft-Spoken Slayer (54)
Juke (5)

TIE Advanced x1 - •Maarek Stele - 49
•Maarek Stele - Servant of the Empire (46)
Marksmanship (1)
Fire-Control System (2)

TIE/D Defender - •Rexler Brath - 89
•Rexler Brath - Onyx Leader (82)
Juke (5)
Fire-Control System (2)

Total: 197/200

View in the X-Wing Squad Builder

These three ships are very solid: I placed 36th out of the 250+ at Adepticon with them (but I lost my bubble game, and thus ended at 4-2 and missed the cut!). My Rex didn't have FCS and my Maarek had Composure and Afterburners. That way, if my Maarek reallly wanted a focus on the opening engagement, he could fail a boost, trigger composure, and then take the normal action to lock.

Setup? Rexlar flanks, whisper hides back for area denial, and Maarek meanders until its time to zoom to the engagement. Considering how tanky all of these ships are, you're not trying to arc dodge things (especially considering each ship has typically speaking, single reposition only), but you're going to leverage your superior offense to alpha something off the board. The reason you want to approach from different directions is so that it becomes difficult for the opponent to choose a target to focus down on and so that you have them hemmed in for future rounds. The endgame is any endgame with Rex: if you can't kill them, simply be careful (and hence, basically immortal) and outpoint them.

Firing order strats:

• Bunker busting:
  • Whisper to strip shields
  • Rex to assign damage/faceup card
  • Maarek to go hog wild on hull
• Whisper really needs an evade this round
  • Rex to strip shields
  • Maarek to threaten them to spend defensive mods/weaken the target
  • Whisper has an easy target to hit
• Plowing through reinforce
  • Rex uses his jamming beam for probably the only time in the entire tourney (don't forget his ability even works here! just only on old damage cards since you're not dealing new ones)
  • Whisper jumps in to do stuff
  • Maarek totals the ship with a crit chain
• A gunboat is scaring me! What I do? halp.
  • Rex jams it.
  • Fire at it some more or ignore it, doesn't matter anymore.
• Alternatively to the gunboat....
  • Whisper tests the water, seeing how much damage is done
  • If Whisper did a significant amount of damage, Rex jumps in. If not, he just jams to ignore
  • After Rex has deshielded/scarred the boat, Maarek pulls out crits such as "Weapons failure" (the more the better) or "Blinded Pilot." If the crit chain opportunity presents itself, do the normal Maarek thing and select a fuel leak/ hull breach/ direct to trigger off your next crit and try to insta-gib it.
  • I've never played against the Hatchetman so take my gunboat strats with a dash of salt. But I've faced enough non-Palp gunboats to know that they typically do not like being jammed, especially if you get to choose them to lose the lock. It's essentially the same as losing a shot in order to arc-dodge, which is typically a good thing.
• Firing at low-agi deshielded stuff
  • With your double mods (twice a game) or just a good primary (typically always on), Maarek can fire first and reliably get a crit in. Try to make it either bonus damage or something that makes the juker's jobs easier.
  • Fire with Rex, as he has a higher chance of busting it. If he does, then Whisper can now focus on another target.
• Bear in mind that a lot of firing order strats are highly situational and cannot be made textbook.

6 hours ago, player3010587 said:

These three ships are very solid: I placed 36th out of the 250+ at Adepticon with them (but I lost my bubble game, and thus ended at 4-2 and missed the cut!). My Rex didn't have FCS and my Maarek had Composure and Afterburners. That way, if my Maarek reallly wanted a focus on the opening engagement, he could fail a boost, trigger composure, and then take the normal action to lock.

I've been playing with Maarek in other lists and have seen lots of times where double mods would have made a huge difference, so I like the idea of Afterburners + Composure. For this list, though, it looks like it adds up to 1 point over:

Rexler + Juke (87)
Whisper + Juke (59)
Maarek + FCS + Afterburners + Composure (55)
Total: 201 points

What was different about your list?

3 hours ago, kerbarian said:

I've been playing with Maarek in other lists and have seen lots of times where double mods would have made a huge difference, so I like the idea of Afterburners + Composure. For this list, though, it looks like it adds up to 1 point over:

Rexler + Juke (87)
Whisper + Juke (59)
Maarek + FCS + Afterburners + Composure (55)
Total: 201 points

What was different about your list?

No fcs

Ah, got it. No FCS on Maarek, either. So you can get double mods a couple times during the game but may have to spend more actions on refreshing target locks later. I guess it makes you more flexible in choosing targets over multiple rounds.