Four ships all with "three" attack dice, all Init 4.
Just a plain, respectable squad. Decent initiative. Decent attack dice. Decent passive mods. Decent mobility. Decent health.
Edited by theBitterFig
To piggyback off of the theme "Plain, respectable squad"
X4 Tie S/F Omega Squadron Expert:
-Spec Forces Gunner
-Fanatical
-Advanced Optics
Comes in at 200, All you need to do is fly and focus on your average 3 dice roll of Hit, Focus, and Blank. Omega has all the tools it needs after performing just a focus action no need for rerolls.
1 hour ago, theBitterFig said:Four ships all with "three" attack dice, all Init 4.
- Scorch (Fanatical) 36
- Backdraft (Fanatical, Fire Control System) 43
- First Order Test Pilot (Fanatical) 60
- First Order Test Pilot (Fanatical) 60
Just a plain, respectable squad. Decent initiative. Decent attack dice. Decent passive mods. Decent mobility.
This just made it to my hanger bay, I dig the diversity of ships.
Played a game with Longshot instead of Scroch. Was fun.
Backdraft was baiting, the Silencers were flanking. Longshot did not make any impact (because of my flying).
Along the lines plain squads: Black Omega:
On 6/28/2019 at 11:59 PM, theBitterFig said:Four ships all with "three" attack dice, all Init 4.
- Scorch (Fanatical) 36
- Backdraft (Fanatical, Fire Control System) 43
- First Order Test Pilot (Fanatical) 60
- First Order Test Pilot (Fanatical) 60
Just a plain, respectable squad. Decent initiative. Decent attack dice. Decent passive mods. Decent mobility. Decent health.
I flew this list before the price changes, just without FCS. Strong list, a quiet sleeper waiting for an unsuspecting opponent to misjudge it.
If you want to add an extra named pilot, Fanatical/First Order Test Pilot is a free swap for Predator/Recoil, and the same initiative.
I'm not sure if you have the points to include anyone else, since the only other initiative 4s are Captain Cardinal (whose ability is irrelevant with a common initiative), Major Stridan (who's 64 points) and Static (who's..... rubbish )
Predator Recoil vs Fanatical FOTP seems like an interesting choice that's well worth exploring, now that they're on a common price. I can imagine it being one of those things which depends more on the person flying it than the ship itself, some folks having a play style which works better with Recoil's stressed range 1.
Previously, I've thought about Marksmanship Recoil as a wingmate to Kylo Ren's ISYTDS condition, but that's a pretty niche pick.
Nice. Would like to see this battle the Resistance 5s. It would be thematic for sure.
On 6/28/2019 at 8:59 AM, theBitterFig said:Four ships all with "three" attack dice, all Init 4.
- Scorch (Fanatical) 36
- Backdraft (Fanatical, Fire Control System) 43
- First Order Test Pilot (Fanatical) 60
- First Order Test Pilot (Fanatical) 60
Just a plain, respectable squad. Decent initiative. Decent attack dice. Decent passive mods. Decent mobility. Decent health.
Res and FO just traded spots for season 2.
Practically every named pilot could mix randomly mixed and matched with whatever optimal upgrades in season 1.
First Order now has practically everything as competitively priced... so just play whatever you want basically!
Edited by Bucknife6 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:If you want to add an extra named pilot, Fanatical/First Order Test Pilot is a free swap for Predator/Recoil, and the same initiative.
I'm not sure if you have the points to include anyone else, since the only other initiative 4s are Captain Cardinal (whose ability is irrelevant with a common initiative), Major Stridan (who's 64 points) and Static (who's..... rubbish )
Careful....
The ships that look like rubbish are often just a skill-tier away from being OP...
3 hours ago, Bucknife said:Careful....
The ships that look like rubbish are often just a skill-tier away from being OP...
Not so much a skill tier as the supporting options needed.
Static - Omega Ace as was - was one of my favourite pilots in later 1st edition. Included the initial Force Awakens core set, Omega Ace saw no effective use for a long, long time, because of the harsh prerequisites to trigger the ability and the comparatively minimal benefit of doing so.
A 2-dice attack with a focus-and-target-lock, even without any special abilities, is already as near to garanteed maximum hits as makes no odds. What you're getting is the garuanteed criticals not hits......but, in practice, at least one hit ususally splashes on a shield token, or a reinforce token, or an evade result, or delivers a damage card which kills the target. In any of these cases, it doesn't matter whether it was a hit or a critical.
Which means, most of the time, you're not achieving much you couldn't have done with marksmanship on a generic TIE/fo.
What made Omega Ace work?
Your choice of two tech upgrades (Targeting Synchroniser and Advanced Optics) and your choice of two elite upgrades (Opportunist and Swarm Leader).
The former let you get a focus and lock without needing an expensive co-ordinate platform (or potentially even a second ship at all).
The latter let you apply Omega Ace's ability to a 3, 4 or even 5 dice attack - enough to deliver a devastating string of multiple face-up damage cards.
Now targeting synchroniser exists, but has been deliberately worded to avoid allowing you to spend your wingman's lock.
Advanced optics is old weapons guidance, and the 'retain a token' abilities are unlikely to resurface - even without juke omega leader, people are justifiably wary of allowing the First Order to generate token stacks easily, especially now TIE/sf can evade and Kylo Ren has his Hate-fuelled force token stack.
The game is really, really hesitant to introduce bonus attack die abilities, too.
If either does pop up, then Static will benefit, and might become awesome again.
I can imagine her being okay in with a shuttle with Hux, because she benefits from bonus actions more than most (Hux/Kylo/Tavson, Static, Midnight & Null might work) and Kylo Ren's I'll show you the dark side might work too just because automatic criticals trigger it.
But ultimately I feel like you're tying her to a support system that a 34 point TIE fighter doesn't justify.
On 6/28/2019 at 2:59 PM, theBitterFig said:First Order Test Pilot (Fanatical) 60
Looking at the price drop, one thought I had was
The fact that the things are actually harder to hit in a talon roll than normally is just ridiculous... They might not have the punch to pull their weight though.
3 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:Looking at the price drop, one thought I had was
- First Order Test Pilot x 3
- Elusive
- Pattern Analyser
The fact that the things are actually harder to hit in a talon roll than normally is just ridiculous... They might not have the punch to pull their weight though.
Elusive Kad Solus is lowkey really fun. This way to kit out a FOTP looks kind of similar. Awkward thing is that, if planning to pull red moves, you'll often have a hard time leveraging Autothrusters.
3 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:Looking at the price drop, one thought I had was
- First Order Test Pilot x 3
- Elusive
- Pattern Analyser
The fact that the things are actually harder to hit in a talon roll than normally is just ridiculous... They might not have the punch to pull their weight though.
I’ve had the same thought process but instead running this instead:
(58) First Order Test Pilot [TIE/vn Silencer]
(3) Elusive
(5) Pattern Analyzer
Points: 66
(58) First Order Test Pilot [TIE/vn Silencer]
(2) Fanatical
(4) Advanced Optics
Points: 64
(45) "Quickdraw" [TIE/sf Fighter]
(10) Special Forces Gunner
(2) Fire-Control System
(2) Fanatical
(5) Pattern Analyzer
(6) Afterburners
Points: 70
Total points: 200
you have QuickDraw as the threat and depending on which silencer they bite on its either going to be really hard to hit or hit really hard. It’s all great in theory but gotta get it on the table and see
Got to fly two of these lists today. Enjoyed them.
First game was Black Omega (Blackout, 2x Omega Ace FO, 2x Omega Expert SF). Finished against Ketsu/Talonbane/4-LOM with an FO dead and Blackout dying that round (still getting the Simultaneous Fire kill on Ketsu despite 2x Weapons Failures!). SFs are just so solid. All the time-on-target you could imagine. The list as a whole is a lot of chip damage from simply having lots of guns on stuff.
Second game was nearly the list I wrote up in the initial post (Scorch, Backdraft, 2x FOTP), but in order to give Predator Recoil a try, I switched one of the FOTP to Quickdraw (just Gunner, Fanatical, FCS). Again, felt pretty solid. Flew against Rey/Nien/L'ulo. I went down the exchange early when QD got traded early on for pretty much just L'ulo and a bit of chip damage, including an initially unassuming Disabled Power Regulator on Rey. Recoil took a fairly heavy beating from Nien, as well. Rey was kind of stuck taking the long way around to get back into the fight (having double-stressed by way of a Contraband Cybernetics S-Loop), and my non-Quickdraw TIEs managed to chip away (well... mostly Backdraft). However, Nien eventually went down, and on the transition turn, Recoil was in a perfect position to first 5-straight and Focus-Boost into Range 1, out-of-arc of where Rey had to land on her Ion turn. Then Recoil set up a bit of a block train over the next two turns, preventing Rey from turning her arc (by movement or rotate), and the other TIEs did their job.
I'm not completely sold on Predator Recoil over Fanatical FOTP, but I also flew them in a game against higher-init ships. Against lower-init opposing ships, I think they'd be a total monster. Seems like it'd be real easy to dodge arcs and end up at Range 1 while stressed. I think I'll probably need to put another game forward with PREcoil.
Big Picture:
FO seems like it's in a really fun place right now. Having lots of stuff go down 1 or 2 points can really add up in a list. Probably not the *best* faction, but everything fun about them got better, IMHO.