1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I know someone at my LGS has been trying a 5-strong N-1 swarm with R2 astromechs. I dread to think how much effort is going to be needed to kill those things.

Not THAT much, honestly. If you focus fire one it's basically just an Xwing (five health + one evade)

1 hour ago, ficklegreendice said:

Not THAT much, honestly. If you focus fire one it's basically just an Xwing (five health + one evade)

Agreed, but if it can survive a turn (not that unlikely if you can avoid mass fire), a recovered shield plus a second evade is essentially up to 8 damage you've had to inflict to kill it. That's not insane by 'normal' standards, but it is very impressive for a small base, 5-ship-squad component.

I've mostly been testing the N-1 and have found Ric to be a real star so far. Outmaneuver, Adv Sens, R2 Astro is great fun at 62 points and can pull all kinds of weird moves. I have seen Cova played a little and she has impressed every game, in a recent match at the FLGS it was my Ric vs opponent's Cova and she just backed up into a corner and then stopped there so I couldn't get behind her. Had to just run Ric in on numerous trench runs to eventually take her out.

Passive Sensors is also interesting and massed missiles on low init SF's is worth keeping an eye on.

I ran a 20 person tournament this past weekend. I think it was a bit too soon for most people to bring new ships(no time to practice.)

Still, a mixed Vulture/Hyena swarm with Grievous and a Poe, Nien, Cova w/Leia made top 4 and the Resistance list won the tournament. It helps that both are competent players though. I didn't play because we had 20 players already, but I watched plenty. Cova w/Leia is stupid good and may be too cheap. You can go forwards, backwards, left, right, or stop, still get an action and roll extra dice on offense and defense. Super hard to predict that ship and with Poe and Nien tooling around you can't just focus it down without repercussion unless the player is bad and lets you.

I bought 4 N1s and played 7 games with them since Friday in various list combinations and with other republic ships. So far they have been underwhelming. Their dial, upgrade slots and ship ability are not meshing well for me. Their ship ability wants them to go fast, but if you put Torps on them then you want to go slow to keep the opponent at a distance. They want to rush in and knife fight but they don't have a 1 hard, a k-turn, or any speed 1 blue maneuvers to keep opponents in-arc. They want to reap the benefits of full throttle and Juke but unlike Defenders and Phantoms it's way harder for them to actually have that Evade more often than not, either because they have to Talon Roll, slow down or get blocked. I will say that at this point I am stapling either R2 or R4 to these ships no matter what.

The best surprise has been Anakin. His ability to supernatural barrel roll, even while he's stressed, makes him much harder to block and deny his full-throttle, and it feels like he's paying very little in points for that ability and his force token compared to a lot of other force cards.

Ric has been as good as everyone says, and his ability actually meshes well with the rest of what the ship is doing, leading to hit-and-run game play where he lines up speed 4 and 5 strafing runs and then bails out to regen.

The biggest disappointment has been Padme. After running her in 3 games with 3 copies of Juke, her ability only triggered once each game. Part of it was bad luck with my opponent rolling natties on defense and only one focus on offense, part of it was how difficult it is for the N1 to keep enemy ships in arc when it only had a Talon Roll and has to go fast to maintain its durability:cost ratio. She just did not feel like she was worth more points than Anakin and Ric based on what she actually accomplished during the game. The 2nd most disappointing pilot was the Handmaiden, for the reason above relating to how difficult it is to always have an Evade token every turn, especially since the ship doesn't have a native Evade action, on top of smart opponents being able to take their arc off of the I1 Handmaiden when she did have an Evade to help with. There were just too many times she was literally a generic I1 for 2 points more than Ric Olie.

I'm liking Padme so far, but she needs proper wingmates and upgrades to work. Juke har natural synergy with her ability, although it's expensive and at I4, sometimes less likely to work. Personally I think her best wingmate is Luminara, as their abilities work together and make both much tougher. Doesn't hurt that she flies at the same initiative as well. Tried a list with Obi-Wan (CLT), Lumi (CLT), Ric (Juke, FCS) and Padme (Juke), and it worked very well. Comes out to 200 exactly, so be prepared to move first, but bids are for sissies anyway. Weak primaries, but with so many tricks you should be able to handle both trip aces, swarms and beef reasonably well. I guess this might qualify as Republic beef?

I'm unsure about Juke on Padme, might replace it with an R2 for Ric, Crack/Marksmanship for her and an R4 for Obi-Wan, but Juke is nice in multiples, and again, triggers her ability more often. Going to give it a couple of games.

Transport pod swarm!!!

Passive sensors and what??

Also what is that weird backward move on the Transport?

Okay, gonna get to play Wave4 soon, anything I gotta try?

2 Naboos, 2 Hyenas, 4 Bwings

1 hour ago, Blail Blerg said:

Passive sensors and what??

Also what is that weird backward move on the Transport?

And nothing, Passive Sensors are bad

Actually, let's full dump on Passive because the idea isn't bad, but right now, there's not much reason to use it.

Unless you're using lock-based ordinance on low initiative pilots, there's not much advantage to this upgrade. There's a weird corner case with Vader and other I6's, but that's super situational and any table without I6s it does nothing. There are 2 inherent issues with Passive and both stem from not getting the action until you engage 1) you have no action to defend yourself with, so you can functionally be alphaed without ever taking a real action 2) because it requires you to take an action, anything that prevents that will turn off the sensors before they activate i.e. taking a Damaged Sensor Array or Panicked Pilot critical both basically mean you didn't take any action. These aren't too bad for a throw away generic, but it doesn't mean using passive sensors can result in you actually being worse off than just focusing.

The other problem is that target lock-based ordinance is constantly being re costed with the assumption of exceptional value. Like, they're assuming that everybody firing a torp is focus-locked and has good initiative. This makes them usuable for those pilots, but means anyone else using it is paying a tax. A Gold squadron bomber gets less out of a proton torpedo than Luke, Redline or Kylo. Paying an additional 3pts to get a lock off at an appropriate time is paying a tax for something that is already being taxed. A 13pt Proton Torpedo is useful for high initiative, multi-mod pilots, but a 16pt single mod Proton Torpedo is utter garbage.

Passive sensors could be really useful later if this pricing scheme is revisited, but right now, it's just bad.

16 hours ago, Okapi said:

I'm liking Padme so far, but she needs proper wingmates and upgrades to work. Juke har natural synergy with her ability, although it's expensive and at I4, sometimes less likely to work. Personally I think her best wingmate is Luminara, as their abilities work together and make both much tougher. Doesn't hurt that she flies at the same initiative as well. Tried a list with Obi-Wan (CLT), Lumi (CLT), Ric (Juke, FCS) and Padme (Juke), and it worked very well. Comes out to 200 exactly, so be prepared to move first, but bids are for sissies anyway. Weak primaries, but with so many tricks you should be able to handle both trip aces, swarms and beef reasonably well. I guess this might qualify as Republic beef?

I'm unsure about Juke on Padme, might replace it with an R2 for Ric, Crack/Marksmanship for her and an R4 for Obi-Wan, but Juke is nice in multiples, and again, triggers her ability more often. Going to give it a couple of games.

Funny, i flew that exact same list at my FLGS last time, and went 3-0 with it. One game my opponent conceeded after two rounds as i had erased both his RZ-2 and one of his T-70’s. Turns out if yoi can line all four ships and shoot, it does have enough punch.

4 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

And nothing, Passive Sensors are bad

Vader doesn’t seem horrible. Does Vader things in the combat round, making a 200 point zero bid Vader list still a bugger.

Not immediately in on the Whisper and Redline talk with passives...

Two games in with Nodin/Sella/Larma/R4. Fun jank, but even given my limited experience, her wingmates are in a tough place. I flew them with two stripped down Bombers, and there was no help: Bombers still just burn. Also flew with two A's and Pava, and they were all just too **** fast, so hardly ever coordinated.

I reckon the next test is with a Falcon. Or maybe a single Bomber-as-gunship. Or just use the Transport as a gunship. Dunno.

But the Transport is a FUN little pile o' jank.

1 hour ago, LagJanson said:

Not immediately in on the Whisper and Redline talk with passives...

I agree that it doesn't seem to make much sense on Redline, as he shouldn't really need it save for exactly shooting at an enemy at i6, and not having AdvS against i5 and below hurts a lot.

But it does give Whisper the ability to actually get Target Locks, and she can get away with waiting for the defensive action thanks to Fifth Brother and/or Palpatine.

Have people actually tried on Whisper yet?

I keep meaning to, but I can only play so much X-wing and there's a lot of stuff to fly at the moment. I like the sound of it in theory.

4 hours ago, millertime059 said:

Funny, i flew that exact same list at my FLGS last time, and went 3-0 with it. One game my opponent conceeded after two rounds as i had erased both his RZ-2 and one of his T-70’s. Turns out if yoi can line all four ships and shoot, it does have enough punch.

Yeah, I had completely underestimated CLT, and at its current cost I can barely ever see myself running a naked Aethersprite. I'm going to try a more aggressive version of this list today, swapping out the juking aces and the defensive shenanigans for two PS/Ion Bravos.

Obi-Wan (CLT)
Plo Koon (CLT)
Bravo Flight Officer (Passive Sensors, Ion Torpedoes)
Bravo Flight Officer (Passive Sensors, Ion Torpedoes)

Also comes out to 200 exactly. Slighty lower initiative, but with a control element to help line up the lasers. Probably slightly worse against large targets such as Falcons, but better against small ship aces. With Plo and Passive Sensors you can smack Vader or Wedge with a fully modded ion torp on the first pass (plus a single modded one if need be), and point everything at him next turn.

If I get my N1s tonight I'll be trying out a nice simple list.

Ric with Juke

Bravo Flight Officer

104th

Obi-Wan with 7B and R2

Not played in a little while so I'm just going to slap this down and have a go.

Cova Nell + Heroic + Pattern Analyzer + R4 Astromech

Finn + Heroic

Jessika Pava + M9-G8 + Integrated S-Foils

Nien Nunb + Heroic + Integrated S-Foils + Pattern Analyzer + Black One

197 points

Played this yesterday, went 3-0, although with some luck. Mods all around.

Cova is a bit tricky to use - I actually wanted an Electronic Baffle on her to have the ability to trigger her multiple rounds in a row, but forgot the card, so it's coming in for next tests. Having a 3/2/5/3 statline ship on turns she does a red is bonkers, though.

Finn was easily MVP - a few lucky rolls and the fact that he seems a low-level threat compared to the others made him pump out a few great shots; he easily punches / survives a lot more than his 30 points price suggests. Still waiting for that double blank, add blank with Finn, heroic roll though

Anakin's not-really-barrel-roll-but-barrel-roll is really neat, but he has trouble doing damage.

I'm still interested in testing out Passive Sensor Nu's and a fully moded Whisper.

7 hours ago, DR4CO said:

But it does give Whisper the ability to actually get Target Locks, and she can get away with waiting for the defensive action thanks to Fifth Brother and/or Palpatine.

Only reason I mention good ol' Whisper is because passive certain does have advantages on her. It might indeed be a good place for passives. To make it sing, yeah you'd need Fifth Brother and/or Palpatine indeed. Rest of the list suffers when Whisper starts getting super pricey... but Imperials have plenty of list building options so... I dunno!

45 minutes ago, LagJanson said:

Only reason I mention good ol' Whisper is because passive certain does have advantages on her. It might indeed be a good place for passives. To make it sing, yeah you'd need Fifth Brother and/or Palpatine indeed. Rest of the list suffers when Whisper starts getting super pricey... but Imperials have plenty of list building options so... I dunno!

“Whisper” — TIE/ph Phantom	57
Juke	7
Passive Sensors	3
Fifth Brother	9
Ship Total: 76
Half Points: 38 Threshold: 3

This seems super worth the 76 points. She'll engage high enough that she's not gonna be arc dodged and if she is having force + calculate + evade is solid.

I also like using them on the SNR generic Inquisitors, gunboats with torps, and TIE/SF's with missiles. The former is cagey enough to either have a focus or force for defense while the latter can soak up damage and still get their shots off.

39 minutes ago, impspy said:

“Whisper” — TIE/ph Phantom	57
Juke	7
Passive Sensors	3
Fifth Brother	9
Ship Total: 76
Half Points: 38 Threshold: 3

This seems super worth the 76 points.

I like using them on the SNR generic Inquisitors, gunboats with torps, and TIE/SF's with missiles. The former is cagey enough to either have a focus or force for defense while the latter can soak up damage and still get their shots off.

Oh, I super get it. Could be my own personal bias that makes me more leery. All I'm saying is I don't know. It might become a terror, it might become a paper tiger, and at this stage not betting on an answer when it comes to Whisper.

My real point was there are some places where passive sensors may not actually be bad, in response to @MasterShake2's remark that they were totally bad and don't belong on any ship. I'm leaning against certain new cards in Wave IV, but not dismissing anything quite yet... particularly since my exposure on table has been so limited... still waiting for my store to get the orders...

Okay, I need list ideas.

2 hyenas, 2 naboos.

Imp , Reb or Seps

Uh...I made a pun?

Nodin' a good mood

(36) Nodin Chavdri [Resistance Transport]
(2) R4 Astromech
(6) Tactical Officer
(5) Chewbacca
(2) Autoblasters
Points: 51

(48) Lieutenant Bastian [T-70 X-wing]
(0) Integrated S-foils
Points: 48

(55) Nien Nunb [T-70 X-wing]
(0) Integrated S-foils
(1) Heroic
Points: 56

(43) L'ulo L'ampar [RZ-2 A-wing]
(1) Crack Shot
(1) Heroic
Points: 45

Total points: 200

On 7/18/2019 at 9:21 AM, SDCC said:

If I get my N1s tonight I'll be trying out a nice simple list.

Ric with Juke

Bravo Flight Officer

104th

Obi-Wan with 7B and R2

Not played in a little while so I'm just going to slap this down and have a go.

Had two games with this last night, and really enjoyed them.

N1s are great little things! Lovely model for a start. But I liked flying them too. Zoom zoom. Learning how to better leverage the talon roll will help a lot. But they're promising, and cool, and pretty, and I'll be using them a lot more for sure.