Not hyperspace legal, but a slightly scary counterpart to the Republic Delta-7 is how cheap the TIE/v1 Advanced has recently got. Boost/Link/Focus and Barrel Roll/Link/Focus gives it 'free' repositioning not far short of Fine-Tuned Controls, and its dial is so flexible, with innate blue turns and the speed 1 straight being literally the only basic manoeuvre it doesn't have.

Despite the joy of the force, I was looking at the Advanced Prototype when talking to a friend about the TIE/fo, and realised the TIE/v1 is pretty much on a par now.

• Baron of the Empire x6
  • Ruthless

That's quite scary - you've got enough hits to soak the odd ruthless shot (in fact you've got as many hits as an 8-ship TIE/ln swarm), the dial and action bar to lurk at range 1 where you get 3-dice attacks, and a pretty acceptable initiative 3 which is shared across all pilots (meaning if you are prepared to have a given heavily damaged TIE/v1 take one for the team, all five of his buddies can use ruthless and overkill him by some margin to inflict maximum damage on a given enemy)

As an alternative:

• Inquisitor x 4
  • Supernatural Reflexes
  • Fire Control System
  • Cluster Missiles

No awesome pilot abilities like the Jedi get, but supernatural reflexes plus a blue move allows you to roll/focus/manoeuvre and then lock or evade as needed, and cluster missiles gives you 4 turns of fire with 3-dice attacks at range 2 unless you go nuts with bonus attacks.

I've pondered this and even given it a go on Fly Casual,, but I remain very unconvinced.

Ruthless is possibly a nice addition I hadn't considered though.

The problem for the 6, as I see it, is that outside R1, you are massively variance prone. There's no extra shenanigans, like you have with the standard 6 TIEs. The extra 2 bodies make a world of difference if you go for a shenanigan-less 8. So firepower is hugely lacking unless you're allowed to mass R1 your target on the 1st engage. Or simply have enormously lucky dice.

The 2nd weak point applies to the 4 Inqs as well. You are guaranteed to blank on some defence rolls with that many of the little b*ggers and as soon as you lose a quarter or a third of them, you're pretty much done. That can easily happen before you even shoot.

5 naked Barons will fit with Howlrunner though, so there is that....

4 would fit with a loaded Feroph, among many other things, which appeals somewhat- Sloane/Vader/7th Sis crew... Enemies making haste to kill the Reaper will give you the R1 shots you need. Then you'll never go away.

For 4 force powered v1s, the build I feel might be worth trying is with Sense 7th Sis as the 4th. Inqs can be loaded a gazillion ways but SNR and Prockets may make the most of that short Sense window.

Its an incredibly tidy little ship and I absolutely love it atm. Preferring to keep it as a 100pt or below component for now, but I think it will be fun en masse and is certainly worth a shot.

21 minutes ago, Cuz05 said:

Inqs can be loaded a gazillion ways but SNR and Prockets may make the most of that short Sense window.

Especially with the linked reposition.

Fire Control/Cluster Missiles give you several turns of reliable fire, whilst proton rockets give you a one use boresight oh-dear-god-not-the-face shot. Actually getting the shot off is harder, but you get the advantage of being able to focus/evade on the turn you close to take it. Plus if you can't use supernatural reflexes because your starting position is boxed in, you can still roll/focus/proton rockets whilst you can't roll/lock/cluster missiles.

I agree that 4 hits is very fragile, and even if you don't get your proton rockets off reliably, the focus/evade to keep them alive might be a more sensible starting plan.

27 minutes ago, Cuz05 said:

the build I feel might be worth trying is with Sense 7th Sis as the 4th

A sense-capable force user is a good call in a swarm of lower-initiative ships with lots of repositioning ability. It needn't necessarily be 7th Sister herself; if you're not using supernatural reflexes, then in theory you don't really need the second force charge that much if you're focusing as your action. A generic Inquisitor with Sense can still pack some ordnance - either a fourth proton rocket or something more stand-off (passive sensors & either homing or ion missiles?)

23 minutes ago, Cuz05 said:

The problem for the 6, as I see it, is that outside R1, you are massively variance prone. There's no extra shenanigans, like you have with the standard 6 TIEs. The extra 2 bodies make a world of difference if you go for a shenanigan-less 8. So firepower is hugely lacking unless you're allowed to mass R1 your target on the 1st engage. Or simply have enormously lucky dice.

It's more a case of being able to 'stick with' an opponent for several turns.

Much like Pattern Analyser TIE/fo, there's no way you can compete with a swarm of academy pilots and Howlrunner on the initial engagement for dakka. You could pack Crack Shot instead but frankly lining up multiple bullseye shots on the same target is a lot harder than people like to claim. What you can do, though, is pull turn/roll/focus or turn/boost/focus to stick with your opponent without losing your action, and have ruthless to modify your shots, without being locked into an unwieldy two-by-four of TIE fighters with no end-around manoeuvre aside from a straight-line koiogran turn.

Alternatively, you can take Passive Sensors and Homing Missiles; it's not ideal because it leaves you with unmodified green dice, but 5 homing missiles volley-fired from range 3 in quick succession is nothing to sneeze at.

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Alternatively, you can take Passive Sensors and Homing Missiles; it's not ideal because it leaves you with unmodified green dice, but 5 homing missiles volley-fired from range 3 in quick succession is nothing to sneeze at.

This is a good call I think. The approach is the tricky bit. With SNR Inqs, it's not as much of an issue, due to the unpredictable movement and ability to token stack. But with Barons, you're either going to dodge a superior lower init joust and threaten from weird angles, or severely frighten a lower ship count/higher init squad at that R2/3 band, with massed Passive Homers.

And then, like you say, at R1 they don't really need any help, it's their natural territory. In fact, with the SuperInqs, I do find myself with a 'spare' action reasonably often, when they're in full glue mode. A basically free evade is always nice to just lob on though

Flying the SuperInqs. FCS, Cluster is my go to. Focus/evade until that key turn when you know you can risk the focus/lock. Alternatively, they flank amazingly with boost/roll into 3-5 speed move, then they can lock almost at will. This would be my approach with Prockets also, btw, 5 dice attacks require both focus and lock to maximise the investment.

R3 is a band where they generally don't do a lot other than spot, with Clusters, but Homing is insufficient a threat on only 2. Conc is a viable alternative, but at that point, it all comes down to the squad and what is required.

Using them as spotters for Vessery, they've been nigh on impossible to pin before they're safe and locked on target. Taking 1 damage through a token stack at R3 on the way in is generally ok. If the opponent then wants to chase and try to capitalise on that, good luck to them

8 minutes ago, Cuz05 said:

And then, like you say, at R1 they don't really need any help, it's their natural territory. In fact, with the SuperInqs, I do find myself with a 'spare' action reasonably often, when they're in full glue mode. 

indeed. The inquisitor's 'party piece' of roll one way, focus, speed 1 turn back, and then boost, lock or evade to taste is ridiculously good in a knife fight.

9 minutes ago, Cuz05 said:

Flying the SuperInqs. FCS, Cluster is my go to. Focus/evade until that key turn when you know you can risk the focus/lock.

I think that's something I'd have to teach myself. Even with clusters, your first choice remains evade, not lock, because they're just ace-ey enough for the first commandment to be "try not to die", where a set of six barons can afford to treat an individual ship more like an expendable asset. That may be an argument in favour of proton rockets for them instead when I'm using them as a primary combatant instead of a support ship.

25 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I think that's something I'd have to teach myself. Even with clusters, your first choice remains evade, not lock, because they're just ace-ey enough for the first commandment to be "try not to die", where a set of six barons can afford to treat an individual ship more like an expendable asset. That may be an argument in favour of proton rockets for them instead when I'm using them as a primary combatant instead of a support ship.

True, although (re. one of several afterthought edits above) any 4/5 dice munition requires both focus and lock to me. The investment is high enough that you need that guaranteed threat/return. If I have decent damage mitigation, I'm happy to risk a single modded attack from almost anything in order to revenge with worse.

The Baron will maybe struggle to set up the double mods before getting burned down asap, whereas a SuperInq will not. However, if you've got 5 of them.....

3 minutes ago, Cuz05 said:

True, although (re. one of several afterthought edits above) any 4/5 dice munition requires both focus and lock to me.

I dunno.

It's a nice-to-have, obviously, and an inquisitor with supernatural reflexes can achieve it in one turn, but a focused 5-dice attack is just as lethal as a double-modified 4-dice attack.

I read the title as Bacon Swarm, which got my hopes up. Then I read it was v1s and was sad.

21 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I dunno.

It's a nice-to-have, obviously, and an inquisitor with supernatural reflexes can achieve it in one turn, but a focused 5-dice attack is just as lethal as a double-modified 4-dice attack.

Can be

I just like the guarantee. This really comes from me running APT Rhymer for a little while. Too many times, I've rolled the 5 dice with lock and had damage return in accordance with his basic focussed primary. The whiff feels bad when you've invested points and manoeuvres into the shot.

Biggest feelsbad was when I faced Attack Shuttle Sabine backed by Jan. While Rhymer worked so hard for his 1 big shot, there was Sabine just routinely spewing them out, lol.

I paired him with coord towards the end of that run and the difference was night and day.

That's just one ship though. With 5 Procket Barons, the variance is gonna swing in your favour on the shot if you can fire it enough times.

The latter being the big if , ofc.

Incidentally, I faced Procket Tallie the other day. With focuslock from a friendly transport, 3 hits and a crit into one of my SuperInqs. Lost a shield 😎

I guess ultimately there's always the 2 ways to go. Variance is obviously the enemy on many dice. You either overcome it with quantity or quality. 5 Procket Barons sounds like a pile of fun. Whether it's actually fully optimal or not is likely irrelevant

I don't hate the Ruthless Baron Swarm. Seems nice when they can get into close range, and they move really well.

Passive Sensors Barons don't really appeal to me. Same price as TIE/sf, but not as durable, and they can't really take advantage of their strength with their strong dial and linked actions. Passive Sensor, Supernatural Reflexes, Ion Missiles Inquisitors seem like fun, but probably not enough oomph. At least, they'd be able to take advantage of their own strengths. Sigh. If only most missiles were one point cheaper.

Relatedly, I did try some Instinctive Aim/Concussion Missile Inquisitors two weeks ago. They weren't too impressive. I was facing off against Vader Crew, so I couldn't take Locks, and they aren't very impressive ships if you're using the force to fire off the missiles with just a Focus. Maybe it mostly wasn't a great match-up. My opponent also had 0-0-0 and Seventh Sister on Sai, so I couldn't really take too much advantage of my linked actions, either.

Incidentally, I had some thoughts on Passive Cluster Super Inqs. Being able to choose your targets as and when you fire would be quite nice. The key point being that you've put yourself in a position where you were going to lock anyway, so you're not leaving yourself too open.

Not entirely sure there's a squad or set up where you can really get that nailed down and take best advantage though. Particularly since it puts them at 51pt. Another of those squad building moments where you feel FFG already thought of that....

1 hour ago, theBitterFig said:

Passive Sensors Barons don't really appeal to me. Same price as TIE/sf, but not as durable, and they can't really take advantage of their strength with their strong dial and linked actions.

Agreed. It feels like a "you can also do this" option rather than the TIE/sf, which without a SpecFor Gunner feels like a heavily upgraded TIE/sa.

I also wondered about predictive shot inquisitors, but frankly it feels like you don't gain that much over crack shot barons, and you lose a ship to pay for it.

34 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Agreed. It feels like a "you can also do this" option rather than the TIE/sf, which without a SpecFor Gunner feels like a heavily upgraded TIE/sa.

I also wondered about predictive shot inquisitors, but frankly it feels like you don't gain that much over crack shot barons, and you lose a ship to pay for it.

I just always hate Predictive Shot, and think it's the most trash upgrade in the entire game.

I suppose the appeal on a TIE/v1 is that you often won't be taking locks, out of a preference for focus-linked movement actions, so a force charge is redundant to the focus token. But without a Focus token, if it's just Force or Lock-Force, Predictive Shot is worse damage against anything less than 3 dice, and it's also dead useless against any target with an Evade token, so it'll still be trash for grinding down stuff with a token stack like TIE Defenders or N-1.

Really though, if you aren't running SNR on your Inqs, why the h*ll aren't you running SNR on your Inqs?!!

No, I understand, room for other things. But still.

As an alternative to Barons, keeping the force slot free might be the better choice. 3pt for a force token is bonkers. If in trouble, taking an evade action rather than the link makes for a 35pt ship that generally needs some focus fire to finish off.

5 of them with 5pt missiles of choice is a nice round 200 too. May even be a case for throwing some Ion Missiles in the mix..... although probably not

4 with Ion, 1 with Prockets, on the off chance you actually manage to Ion something?

Or 1 with Sense....

I'm going to try a modified version of the above today and see how it goes.

Vader w/ FCS (69)

Inquisitor w/ SNR, Clusters (48)

Inquisitor w/ SNR, Clusters (48)

TIE Alpha Interceptor (34)

Total (199)

My thinking is this gives three legit threats other than Vader, so opponents can't really afford to focus solely on him.

The Inquisitors are pretty good for the points anyway, but with clusters they can pack some punch.

And if you ignore the Alpha, four dice at range one can be... problematic.

On 7/26/2019 at 6:48 PM, underling said:

Vader w/ FCS (69)

Inquisitor w/ SNR, Clusters (48)

Inquisitor w/ SNR, Clusters (48)

TIE Alpha Interceptor (34)

Total (199)

Well this certainly got me thinking.

X-Ray Spex

(35) Inquisitor [TIE Advanced v1]
(8) Supernatural Reflexes
(6) Concussion Missiles
Points: 49

(35) Inquisitor [TIE Advanced v1]
(8) Supernatural Reflexes
(6) Concussion Missiles
Points: 49

(67) Darth Vader [TIE Advanced x1]
(2) Fire-Control System
Points: 69

(30) Seyn Marana [TIE/ln Fighter]
(1) Marksmanship
Points: 31

Total points: 198

1 hour ago, Cuz05 said:

Well this certainly got me thinking.

X-Ray Spex

(35) Inquisitor [TIE Advanced v1]
(8) Supernatural Reflexes
(6) Concussion Missiles
Points: 49

(35) Inquisitor [TIE Advanced v1]
(8) Supernatural Reflexes
(6) Concussion Missiles
Points: 49

(67) Darth Vader [TIE Advanced x1]
(2) Fire-Control System
Points: 69

(30) Seyn Marana [TIE/ln Fighter]
(1) Marksmanship
Points: 31

Total points: 198

LOL

Today I used a variant of the Inkys.

Stele w/ Marksmanship, FCS

Fel w/ Predator

Inquisitor w/ SNR, Clusters

Inquisitor w/ SNR, Clusters,

200 pts

I think it can work with better flying than I gave it today.