There are too many free calc/focus shenanigans in the meta for Feroph right now. If you’re focusing someone it’s more reliable.

I feel like Palp or tac officer can’t be the fix because lambda pilot abilities are just too good at buffing for any of the reapers to really compete. The solution has to come from debuffing or efficiency improvements.

Networked calc is the only thing I see that really juggles tokens

Even then, spending someone else's calc means no ESC from them

The thing with Palp for support is he's also a passive mod for the reaper. The reaper is a much better combat ship than the Lambda if you learn to fly it. very useful as they love to sloop!

Feroph also lasts longer due to ability and speed

He has his draws, but nothing in Hyperspace really capitalizes on it

14 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

**********, how did Palp NOT go Hyperspace with the deci!?

Well, that's frustrating. Grand Inqy is NO use on a reaper and 7th sister is just weird (never tried).

Seventh Sister and 0-0-0 wind up working really well together. Either you'll have a force and a calculate or they take the stress, and you can use it to Jam or Tractor with Sev.

13 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

Seventh Sister and 0-0-0 wind up working really well together. Either you'll have a force and a calculate or they take the stress, and you can use it to Jam or Tractor with Sev.

Yeah, it's really not bad. I'm personally curious though if they might do a single-slot "Royal Guard" crew card that requires Palp equipped. Would be an interesting addition to the Decimator for a full-on Throne-Room-On-Wheels ship.

Alright I change my mind after two recents game : Reaper is awesome !

Vermeil carried my two game, constant damage, good maneuvers and his ability can punish if your opponent spend focus. A good brawler !

7 minutes ago, Arkanta974 said:

Alright I change my mind after two recents game : Reaper is awesome !

Vermeil carried my two game, constant damage, good maneuvers and his ability can punish if your opponent spend focus. A good brawler !

Vermeil either does this or goes up in flames immediately. He's a great at pulling aggro though. My buddy flies a defender, Vader and Vermeil. Vermeil basically always dies first because he sticks Vermeil right in his opponent's face, but it lets his other two ships set up beautifully.

I've started practicing with a Vermeil & Feroph list on Fly Casual to get used to how Reapers move and its definitely taking some doing, but there is certainly potential in there. Feroph is hard as nails when things start spending their focus, it is just a bit more complicated working out the best engagement range for these things. Trying not to get bumped out of a necessary aileron or reposition without using reds seems nearly impossible unless you've intentionally disengaged first just due to their size footprint. Certainly interesting though!

List is iterating around the below:

Major Vermeil (49)
Juke (7)
Darth Vader (14)

Captain Feroph (47)
Seventh Sister (9)
0-0-0 (5)

Alpha Squadron Pilot (34)

Alpha Squadron Pilot (34)
Total: 199

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0

3 hours ago, PartridgeKing said:

Trying not to get bumped out of a necessary aileron or reposition without using reds seems nearly impossible unless you've intentionally disengaged first just due to their size footprint. Certainly interesting though!

Your 1st 2-4 turns of movement are really key. Avoiding bumps when you dont want them means you need to be able to choose if/when you go directly at the enemy. That goes hand in hand with picking whether the Ailerons go on or off next turn. Setting up your choice with a stop or a red coord or evade/focus as your action. Bumping it into the back of one of your own ships can also be a strong tool in managing it's engage.

If you don't get the right angle of approach and timing on the Ailerons, as regards their position and surrounding obstacle placement, you'll be pinned.

It's tricky to put my finger on exactly how you do this, but I like to keep it at a 45 degree angle to them and have the Ailerons on when I make the engage. They are incredibly predictable on the blues, so you need to catch your opponent off guard if you want it to live beyond the next turn or 2. If you're engaging after taking stress, they know exactly where you'll be and it's lifespan will shorten dramatically.

When you do engage, a 1 bank Aileron followed by the 1 hard in or sloop away can change your angle plenty enough to give you a good selection of arc placements, wherever they are. For this to work in your favour though, you need them committed a certain way the turn before. This is when I tend to either stress or bump and try to force a decision I can react to next turn.

Obviously this does depend on how quickly they come at you, but you can manage that to a degree with obstacles between you.

The main thing is really trajectory. Keep at least a couple of lanes as options, so you have the choice of going in to block/shoot at R1, away and into space or a slippery sloop to the side, to really fog things up next turn.

Also well worth remembering that you can Ailerons clean through an obstacle and, as long as your actual manoeuvre doesn't cross it, you still get your action.

The thing I like best about all this is that it's even harder for your opponent to judge where its going to end up

1 hour ago, Cuz05 said:

Also well worth remembering that you can Ailerons clean through an obstacle and, as long as your actual manoeuvre doesn't cross it, you still get your action.

Oh, and be careful when you do this. I just remembered the last time I flew it, a couple weeks ago.

Aileroned through a rock on 6 hull, rolled a crit, pulled Hull Breach. Took 2 hits from the one arc it was in, both Console Fire. Engaged, rolled 2 hits for the fires, one was a Fuel Leak. Died

My shot came up 1 hit, which was dodged....

As a mostly-casual player, I've always preferred the reaper both thematically and mechanically. More so now that swarms are a thing: I've found that I can't keep a lambda out of all those arcs and it often just feeds their team with ease, but the reaper can zoom around more freely and cause a lot of mental stress to the swarm by flanking them.

As said above, managing your speed by stressing yourself is a valuable tool. It's challenging to slow-roll with the medium base and tendency to to aileron ahead, but the reaper can also break and run or charge fast in ways a Lambda can't. I like that ability.

I like flying them with TIE Strikers, but I've flown them with an assortment of other ships and had good results.

Vader crew is fantastic. I really like 0-0-0 + seventh sister, that's a clever use for her. I'll have to try that at some point.

When I use a reaper, I'm often happy to plow through an asteroid; the ship rarely cares and it's happy to surprise the foe with its new position. Opponents rarely expect the ship to Galaxy-Quest-scrape its way to a surprise position.

I had a buddy try the ISB Slicer + Jam strategy and it was reasonably effective in casual, but I wouldn't take it to competitive play. Still, it wrecks lock-dependent ships in particular, and since you're often zooming in for a bump, you frequently mess the target up for a couple of rounds.

I think several things contribute to its lower use:

• Lambda is slow and some support-reliant teams tend to prefer a slow approach. The reaper is best supporting mobile allies (like Vader) but doesn't always fit with its points.
• Lambda focuses its pilot abilities on supporting allies, while reaper tends toward helping itself (save for Vizier)
• Certain crew choices like palp are not hyperspace; the lambda has the support built into its pilot while the reaper really would prefer those crew.
• Lambda's white coordinate is appealing; tactical officer jumping in points sure hurt
• As is well-explained above, it's much harder to learn to fly the reaper. The lambda is damningly simple and reliable, while the reaper requires practice and a lot of risk.
• The lambda is a dumb space cow that helps you for a bit and then likely dies after taking hits for you; the reaper is a speedy hawk that is expected to maneuver with the team and try to avoid fire instead of soak it. This is a lot more challenging.

18 hours ago, Cuz05 said:

...

Thank you very much Cuz05, that all sounds really sensible, so I'll have to try to now put it into practice!

12 hours ago, Wazat said:

Lambda's white coordinate is appealing; tactical officer jumping in points sure hurt

This is such a big one for me. As I said above, I like the Ailerons to be on when I engage, the options it gives you are plentiful.

Previously, I was using the Reaper to disrupt and enable someone else to either tank, nuke or pull a clutch pre-manouevre linked action. Dropping the coord on the wingmans engage was vital to those plays.

(E.g. focus plus roll and lock for APT Rhymer, with Vader Vermeil in your face was nasty )

At 6pt now, a TO Vermeil/Feroph just takes up too much room in the list, with price rises elsewhere. And those 2 pilots can get so much mileage from their ability when you use them aggressively.

Vizier can still do the job ofc, but without the abilities of the other 2, he doesn't bring enough punch or durability when you use him that way. But he is pretty cheap, it's a trade off.

So atm, I'm in a bit of a halfway house. I can still play the Reaper aggressively, but it means letting go of that neat coord play or accepting Viziers rubbish dice. It's not really a crippling thing, the Empire have plenty of options for soloing in, it just means that my earlier squads don't really function and I have to approach it differently.

Still, it's a versatile ship, so there's plenty of scope for making it tick without the TO. But if coord and clog is the aim, the Lambda stands out considerably now.