“Backdraft” (39)
Crack Shot (1)
Advanced Optics (4)

Omega Squadron Expert (34)
Crack Shot (1)
Advanced Optics (4)

Omega Squadron Expert (34)
Crack Shot (1)
Advanced Optics (4)

Omega Squadron Expert (34)
Crack Shot (1)
Advanced Optics (4)

Omega Squadron Expert (34)
Crack Shot (1)
Advanced Optics (4)
Total: 200

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0

Why no Fanatical? A few reasons.

1) Players try and kill one ship at a time if they can. When fanatical triggers a low ps ship may only get a single use, because next round, it may not get another shot. Not only that, but if I have a hurt low ps ship, he usually becomes a blocker for my squad to prevent him from dying. I feel fanatical is better on more mobile, higher ps ships.

2) Crackshot is extra damage, and if this 30HP list can erase an opponents ship and take an early lead, its a HUGE advantage, because they have to chase Tie SFs with 1 straights and rear arcs. It makes the game much easier when the opponent comes to you. Having a ship like Wedge live on 1 hull and getting an extra attack could mean winning or losing the game. I want to take an early lead.

3) Backdraft. He is in the back of the squad, forcing flankers to be cautious. 3 Dice, even at range 3, does damage. Those aces like soontir and Ric Olie that come around will have an extra red die to worry about.

64 player hypserspace trial.

Match 1 vs Super Kylo with PA, proton torps and Lone Wolf Quickdraw loaded out.

I brought 5 S/F cause I knew I was going to be dealing with a lot of squirrely jedi and fast naboo fighters and 10 arcs is hard to dodge. This is also true for supernatty kylo. My thoughts going into the match, is to scare kylo and keep him guessing and hopefully less aggressive, while focusing on killing Quickdraw. If I lose two S/Fs while killing quickdraw, then I will have to half kylo. That will be hard with only three ships. Im hoping to plink kylo to half while trying to get shots on quickdraw thanks to all my arcs.

So, I quickly take the middle of the battle field. My SFs are pointing towards kylo, but I can turn them toward quickdraw in a single round. Kylo plays it safe and just hard 1s, while my swarm turns to quickdraw. Quickdraw plinks a couple shields, and I get nothing. Quickdraw 5 straights and burns away, kylo comes around and plinks a shield from backdraft. I still do no damage, but Im getting quickdraw into a corner. Kylo is trying to stay away from backdrafts range, and its keeping him out of the fight for the most part.

I get some good shots on quickdraw in a corner and crakshot his shields away. Backdraft plinks a shield from kylo and says "Be cautious son." I think I take quickdraw down to 1 hull while kylo hurts an SF bringin it to 1 hull, while quickdraw hurts another one taking it to 1 hull. Kylo torps a 1 hull SF off the board.

Last round, and I turn my hurt SF away from quickdraw. I theatren kylo with backdraft and another S/F and he super nattys away. Quickdraw lands in three arcs, and barrels out of one of them. He cant kill my hurt SF. All I need is one damage on quickdraw to kill him. I have a range 3 bullseye shot. I get two hits. The gets two evades with lone wolf reroll. Crackshot!

Win! 1-0. Phew, that was close!

Match 2 vs Sense 7b Obi, 7b plo, Ric Olie, all with regen bot

Plo flanks left, Obi and ric come down right. I take the middle quickly, angling my SFs toward Ric Olie. I 5 straight one and block Ric 3 banking away, trying to run, and I 4 straight another that has a range 1 bullseye and push three damage into Ric. Backdraft turned into Obi, to threaten him, and setup a rear shot for next round, since Ric is gonna run for the hills. Obi boosts into range 1 of backdraft (and in bullseye of BD), and plo boosts into range 1 of backdraft. Two single mod range 1 attacks and he gets all paint. I get all blanks. Backdraft is gone before he can fire. Ugh. And things were going so well. One Omega takes two of Plo's shields.

Plo runs and regen, but I get a damage card onto him. Ric evades three range 3 shots and runs and regens. I get Obi and take two of his shields. My S/Fs are lined up to continue attacking Obi, but I know he is running and regening, and I see Ric lining up a shot on a hurt SF. I turn the hurt S/F into Ric and barrel roll to block a 4 or 5 straight. And I 3 turn another SF to get a range 1 bullseye on Ric if I do block him. I get Ric trying to do a 4 straight and crackshot him off the board.

Im down to 3 SFs and he is out of regen. I need to stay alive and get 1 dmg on Plo to half him and take the lead. He runs behind a gas cloud and I cant damage him. Last round, and I have to fly over a gas cloud to maybe get a shot at ric, or turn into Obi and maybe catch him by surprise. I turn into Obi with my 3 SFs but he plays smart and banks Obi away and boosts barrel roll. Plo comes around and kills an SF.

Loss. 1-1. That backdraft one rounder did it. I think I have this game if backdraft gets that range 1 on Obi. Could have been all three of Obi's shields right there, and forced him to run.

Match 3 vs Two Hynena bombers and 4 vultures and Sear.

I look at his list and see probe droids. He set his vulture up sideways. I know he is gonna slow roll on his edge setting up locks and I cant have him do that. He kturns the hyneas and vultures and sends the probe droid. I 5 straight all my ships. He stressed and cant turn into me and goes straight and clears stress and takes locks. I straight all my ships and get range on a vulture with three SFs and take it out. Next round I 3 and 4 straight and he turns them all into me. Backdraft is range 1 and gets three hits and I crakshot a vulture to death. Another SF gets hit crit and I crakshot a vulture and its a direct hit and its dead. Two more SFs attack a hyena bomber and one SF crakshots it and it has 1 hull remaining. Lovely, lovely round.

From here its mostly cleanup. I kill the 1 hull bomber easily, and begin on Sear. Sear takes a awhile cuz opponent double natty evades about three times in a row. I eventually get them all.

Win. 2-1 Crackshot baby!

Match 4 vs Regen 7b anakin, regen Ric Olie, Sense r2a6 CLT Obi

Obi and Ric come down right side. I move up left side and bank towards middle to threaten Ric Olie who is primed to 3 bank into range. However Anakin is facing a corner and either has to turn toward my swarm, or away from it and be facing a corner where I can pounce on him the following round. I 3 bank the front omegas toward Anakin, and 3 straight Backdraft and Omega still threaning Ric Olie, who only does a 1 bank, playing it safe. Anakin does turn toward my swarm. Three shots and 1 crackshot later and he is down 2 shields.

Anakin is in trouble. He has three ways to exit. a 3bank toward the board edge if my left most SF goes fast, so I just 1 straight to block it. Anakin could do a 1 or 2 turn towards middle of map. This is kind of the obvious route, but I 3 bank my right most SF to block them, and the rear arc can still get a shot on Anakin if I block him going another way. The third way Anakin can excape is a 4 or 5 straight over the SF in front him. So I two turn Backdraft into that space, along with the other Omega.

Ric flies 5 straight over a cloud and lands range 1 rear arc of an Omega. Obi flanks around, and Anakin tried the 5 straight, and bumps the SF in front of him. I have three range 1 shots and a range 2 bullseye. Anakin does not live. His red dice did not help him this round either. Anakin rolled eyeball,eyeball,blank and could not use force here. Then Ric without any mods, range 1 rolled eye blank blank blank. Meanwhile my SF put two hits and crit into Ric who ate a panic pilot.

Good round for me. From here my opponent tried to make magic happy with Obi, but its just too many arcs plinking away. I kill ric and eventually block Obi and destroy him.

Win. 3-1

Match 5 vs Inferno Wampa Tie Swarm

I place tight rock cluster in the middle with the intention of flying my SFs through there and hoping for that engagement, making his ties unable to kturn, while I SFs can go anyway and shoot behind them.

We both 5 straight. Then we both 2 bank towards middle. Its happening! We meet in the middle between a gas cloud, but Gideon is in two bullseyes. He plinks a two shields from an SF, and I take two damage from gideon. Next round, he goes for a block on backdraft with Wampa, but I 5 straight over Wampa. Two SFs turn up the board, and another 3 banks down with backdraft, all arcs pointing towards middle of board. Backdraft takes some damage from range 1 howl. Backdraft range 1 rear arc into wampa forces Iden to spend her ability. I take out gideon and lose an Omega.

Next round, Iden kturns behind Backdraft, and Backdraft one shots her. Howl hurts backdraft, taking him to 1 hull.

My two Omegas that turned upward are out of the fight, and turning around. Backdraft and a single Omega are dealing with 4 ties. Backdraft dies, and my Omega gets hurt, down to 2 hull. I 5 straight him towards my other two Omegas who are playing trumpets and coming in to save the day. They take out Wampa, then 3 bank towards Howlrunner. Howlrunner lands in both bullseyes and has to b-roll away (thank you craskhot!) instead of focus. I get two damage into Howl.

Time is running out and we do the math. He is winning by two points! I sloop my SFs I try to get my hurt one behind a gas cloud. Del, Seyn are full health and Howl is on 1 hull. They catch my hurt SF and take it out. Last round and Howl again lands in bullseye arc as does Del, but just takes a focus. If they can half an SF, they win even if I kill Howl. But my SFs survive! Last shot of game. I get roll two hits on Howlrunner, but he rolls evade eyeball, blank and spends his focus for a second evade. UGH! Not....CRACKSHOT!!!

Win. 4-1

What a close game! Nailbiter. Crackshot ftw.

Match 6 vs Sinker Ric Swarm

I take middle and turn towards his swarm while Ric flanks behind me. I take a v19 early, and his Ric is rolling all paint, while my backdraft aint, and backdraft is dead in two rounds. I go after sinker next and hurt him bad. I fly over his v19s and take Sinker out with butt shots. He turns his v19s into an Omega while Ric kills a hurt SF. The v19s injure another SF (cold green dice), and Ric is on fire. He only has single mods and has not rolled a blank yet and range 1 on an SF and lights it up. I lose another SF and I call the game. I killed sinker fast, and things were looking up, but I couldnt match the dice output, and split one SF off on its own, which I shouldnt have done, but needed the shot on Sinker. Hrrm.

Loss. 4-2.

Conclusion:

This list good. I felt good vs Aces with all my arcs. Other swarms I knew would all be close games, but the consistency of mods, and early crackshot damage really does give some punch vs swarm matchups. Backdraft was golden in quite a few games. He protects that rear and gives aces something to think about. I didnt fly him like I am protecting an ace, he was just another SF to me, but he just flew in the back.

I ended up 18th overall. I feel like I could take this to 5-1 again. Its beefy and not many ships can survive the consistency of two hits after two hits after two hits.

Wow. What am interesting swarm choice. Very entertaining to read about.

It sounds like a lot of close games, I wonder if you'd have been better off with low level generics without upgrades. Then take QD and BD. Possibly also drop down to 3 FOs

(Or something else slightly better as a 4 ship list)

Also was SF Gunner not worth it?

6 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

Also was SF Gunner not worth it?

That's always a debate, isn't it? 4 ships with more stuff, or 5 ships. And it's not always more stuff... Gunner = 10 points, so 4 gunners is 40 points, so it'll often be 4x gunner or 5x without gunner, with no difference in upgrades...

With Advanced Optics, generic SFs hit pretty hard for 2-red dice, and I think they're pretty solid as a 5-ship list. Lots of firing arcs and consistent dice means the weight of fire adds up pretty well.

3x Gunner Optics Zetas + Crack Shot Gunner Optics Quickdraw is going to hit some stuff harder, but be easier to avoid.

6 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

Wow. What am interesting swarm choice. Very entertaining to read about.

It sounds like a lot of close games, I wonder if you'd have been better off with low level generics without upgrades. Then take QD and BD. Possibly also drop down to 3 FOs

(Or something else slightly better as a 4 ship list)

Also was SF Gunner not worth it?

5th ship with 2 extra arcs is better I feel. With Gunner, your arc needs to be pointed forward, and then you have to worry about bumping, flying over obstacles, etc. to turn your arc to the rear. With just optics, you have a consistent two dice from both arcs, all the time. For instance, in super kylo matchup. If all my turrets are facing forward with gunner and pointing towards quickdraw, kylo could freely just zoom in from the flank and fire off proton torpedoes. But with both my front and rear arcs active, I could choose to shoot Kylo five times if he happens to get a little aggressive. I would do Passive Sensors with concussions/cluster missiles before I would do SF Gunner. Same 3 dice, but with passive sensors, you can choose to lock and then rotate when you engage.

30 minutes ago, wurms said:

5th ship with 2 extra arcs is better I feel. With Gunner, your arc needs to be pointed forward, and then you have to worry about bumping, flying over obstacles, etc. to turn your arc to the rear. With just optics, you have a consistent two dice from both arcs, all the time. For instance, in super kylo matchup. If all my turrets are facing forward with gunner and pointing towards quickdraw, kylo could freely just zoom in from the flank and fire off proton torpedoes. But with both my front and rear arcs active, I could choose to shoot Kylo five times if he happens to get a little aggressive. I would do Passive Sensors with concussions/cluster missiles before I would do SF Gunner. Same 3 dice, but with passive sensors, you can choose to lock and then rotate when you engage.

I’m currently 0-2 vs 4 Sf with concussions and passive sensors and Scorch. It was really tough. I was playing Han Poe, so it was a hard matchup for me, but still...

Which obstacles did you use? What pluses and minuses do you see to the different options? What are you trying to accomplish with turn zero?

On 9/15/2019 at 1:45 PM, Clutterbuck said:

Which obstacles did you use? What pluses and minuses do you see to the different options? What are you trying to accomplish with turn zero?

Didnt see your reply until now! Sorry.

I used medium rocks. I used rocks because SFs didnt really have to worry too much, as you can go either way around them and get shots. However, with the recent Nantex, I would probably go with debris, so you can still get shots if tractored, and nantex cant tractor onto them like they could with gas clouds. I played a vulture swarm that brought debris and I just 5 straighted over it and got range 1 shots on the vultures. No problem clearing stress with that back arc and 1 and 2 blues. The problem with gas clouds is you only have 2 dice attacking, and the opponent will be getting an evade on all 5 of your attacks. No bueno.

I want to take over the middle of the battlefield with my ten arcs. And have lanes filtering into them. So I place rocks about range 3 from opponents edge, and range 2 from each side edge. This prevents them banking in early and then going fast with straights to meet me in the middle. When I engage, ideally, I like the opponent to turn into me. The distance travelled from something like a 1-3 turn is easier to control range than like a 2-5 straight.

I think Debris is a good call. It's not likely to cause damage, it doesn't prevent you shooting, and with two arcs to play with you can usually line up a shot with a gentle blue move.

Rocks stop you shooting and hurt a lot more (bad) whilst gas clouds can render a ship functionally immune to 2-dice attacks in any quantity (probably worse).