I'm sort of a new player here, so maybe some veterans can enlighten me. . .

Can somebody please tell me what is so great about Soontir Fel? Every time I see someone fly him at the local shops where I play, he usually goes down hard and fast. I've shot him down myself several times. But then when I look at Imperial Lists online for ideas, almost every one of them has Soontir Fel in it. Is his I6 really that big of an advantage against his paper-thin armor? In order to make him able to take more than 1 good shot, you have to build him up to 68 points minimum. I want to be competitive, but I can't reconcile what I've seen on the table as a weak ship being part of almost every competitive Imperial list. What am I missing here?

Don't. Get. Shot.

Soontir Fel can boost and barrel roll nearly every turn if necessary to stay out of firing arcs. If they point their guns at you, be somewhere else. With his free focus (assuming you are good enough to line up the bullseye) Soontir can (usually) tank a single shot here and there but if the is taking multiple modified shots in a round, you have erred badly.

Soontir is the classic high ceiling, low floor pilot. Those that fly him well get probably the best 53 point ship in X-wing. Seriously, he is such a bargain at 53 points. Those that fly him poorly get nothing. (Insert Willy Wonka meme here.)

As a new player, try something beefier that can weather a few shots.

That’s the problem, honestly. You’re a newer player. That’s not a bad thing, but it means you will struggle with Soontir.

Soontir is a scalpel. Cuts deep when used correctly, but very fragile when not used correctly.

Don’t let him get shot. If you must get shot, make it only a single shot and make sure he has mods.

1 hour ago, stootchmaster said:

In order to make him able to take more than 1 good shot, you have to build him up to 68 points minimum.

Shield and Hull, or similar?

I would avoid giving him too much stuff like that. Try him with just Predator, to keep him cheap. He is, ultimately, expendable, but at a low cost he's not dramatically worse to lose than a 2nd-tier X-wing pilot, and getting a focus/reroll 3 dice attack is not bad, especially for cheap TIE fighters like the /ln, /sk and interceptor who can't normally reroll red dice.

He's very much dependent on outflying opponents using boost/barrel roll/free focus. The problem is what else you put in the list; if an opponent commits to killing Soontir, they generally can, but the key is that in doing that they let someone else scary onto their tail (such as Vader).

Yeah I have some guys at my shop that can fly him well and have watched him absolutely wreck me. He is very high skill and in the hands of someone that knows how to fly he is a nightmare to deal with. As stated Soontir generally is not strong enough to anchor a list by himself as he is too fragile, but he is one of the BEST wingmen in the game. You will notice most lists that are doing well with him in higher level play are Imperial Ace type lists and there are other Aces such as Vader and Whisper in the list. Its important for there to be a BIGGER threat like Vader around so people will tend to go after that threat instead of Soontir and let him get some work done, or vice versa where you just concentrate on Arc Dodging and keeping him alive and he plays bait for the other Aces in the list to get work done if they decide to go after him instead.

I have seen and played in several games where it was turn 5 or 6 before Soontir even took a shot as all he did was scramble to not allow any shots on him or absolutely minimize the shots on him. Then after the other Aces have been taken out he goes into offensive mode and becomes an end game ace where he mops up what ever was left over.

Triple aces can be a tough list to master, but you could try a hammer & anvil sort of setup. You'll need some inexpensive or tough ships to fly straight at your opponent, while Soontir Fel and maybe another ace heads up a flank. He's a very simple list using him as a flanker:

• Soontir Fel (Predator) - 55
• Patrol Leader (Agent Kallus, Hull Upgrade) - 75
• Academy Pilot - 23
• Academy Pilot - 23
• Academy Pilot - 23

Stick the "Hunted" condition on a dangerous ship that isn't too mobile, such as Wedge, Grievous or Boba Fett. Go straight towards your opponent with the TIE Fighters, either following with the Decimator or holding a flank with the gun turned sideways. Don't engage with Soontir until you have a pretty good idea of where your opponent is heading, and then try to hit them in the flank or rear. Don't be afraid to use the Decimator's red coordinate to roll or boost him out of the way if your opponent sets up a block, and use your own low initiative ships to block his aces .

If your opponent decides to go after Soontir, run. Don't worry about getting a shot, focus on keeping him alive, while you go in hard with the TIE Fighters. If your opponent focuses on the TIE Fighters or Decimator, good! Three greens and a focus or evade can randomly evade a couple of shots, and if you lose one, it's only 23 points. The Decimator has no defense, but 17 HP takes a while to chew through as well, all the while Soontir is free to shoot them in the back.

The main weakness with a list such as this is that only Soontir can really go toe to toe with another ace in the lategame, so if he dies too early, you could be in trouble. Try to engage with the entire list at the same time, but if Soontir's shot is at R3 out of bullseye, don't worry about it. Just keep attacking.

Piggy-backing on the excellent post from @Okapi , another hammer+anvil list featuring Soontir is the Flying Circus by @Eruletho , who flies it to great effect:

Soontir Fel (53)
Predator (2)

Ship total: 55 Half Points: 28 Threshold: 2

Scimitar Squadron Pilot (29)
Barrage Rockets (8)

Ship total: 37 Half Points: 19 Threshold: 3

Scimitar Squadron Pilot (29)
Barrage Rockets (8)

Ship total: 37 Half Points: 19 Threshold: 3

Academy Pilot (23)
Ship total: 23 Half Points: 12 Threshold: 2

Academy Pilot (23)
Ship total: 23 Half Points: 12 Threshold: 2

Academy Pilot (23)
Ship total: 23 Half Points: 12 Threshold: 2

Total: 198

IIRC, he flies it as 3 distinct elements (Soontir, the bombers, and the fighters) that spreads out to flank then converge on the enemy. No matter which element you focus on, the other two can punish. And all 3 elements are either hard to catch or takes time to chew through. Truly a pick-your-poison kind of list.

Edit: as a bonus, Flying Circus battle reports can be found at the excellent blog by @Eruletho , https://eruletho.wordpress.com/

I6 double reposition with mods for 53pts. It doesnt get much better. If you can fly aces, Soontir is your boy.

Ten Soontirs made cut at worlds vs 4 Wedges, 9 Vaders, 5 Fenn Raus, 5 Quickdraws, 3 Sun Facs, and 1 Anakin 7b aethersprite.

Good players make those 53pts go a long way.

I had started writing a whole thing, but i had a realization while doing so. Soontir is almost a singular entity in 2.0. A fragile, hard hitting, high initiative, double reposition ace on an amazing dial. There aren’t many ships that hit all those points.

RZ-2’s don’t have an I6 and are consistent damage dealers, but not as dangerous as Soontir.

X-Wing dials (both of them) don’t lend themselves too well to dancing around, and only a handful of pilots that pull off true double repositions.

Aethersprites are a whole different animal, and between the force and their different configurations can either be brutal jousters or flankers who can also arc dodge.

Vader is a jouster/bully more than an arc-dodger.

Fangs are better suited to YOLO into someone’s face.

Soontir, thanks to the elimination of certain 1.0 upgrades, sits as the apex predator of the arc-dodging game. He moves last, so dial in your 2 hard turn, clear stress, and boost + barrel roll to your heart’s content.

The thing to remember is that Soontir is NOT Fenn Rau. He is not supposed to be nose to nose with an enemy at range 1. Fenn can survive that kind of scenario, Soontir generally cannot.

Soontir survives by not being shot. He can survive a pot shot, but combined firepower will blow him into space dust. He has to use his maneuverability and moving last to get out of arc. Get out of arc first, even if it means you miss a shot. Once you do that, hard 2 turns, boost and barrel roll makes it very hard for enemies to get you off their tail unless they do a full disengage.

You need to be very good at judging firing arcs, final position after maneuvers, and being patient. Only then will Soontir really shine. The only way to get really good is to practice.

Set up Soontir and some rocks on a mat, determine what maneuver you want to use, place an empty base where you think he will end up, and then execute the maneuver and see how close you were. Then keep practicing until you are really close with almost all maneuvers, but definitely the blue maneuvers. Practice from different angles, during gameplay you can’t always get a perfect birds eye view or even a good look from whatever your preferred angle is. Get used to judging distance from different angles.

Then do the same for boosts, barrel rolls, boosts into barrel rolls and barrel rolls into boosts.

Never liked Soontir

Can't place my finger on why...

Soontir Fel: High Floor, High Ceiling.

Just don't get him bumped or on a rock.

Soontiir Fel is like an italian sports car. Very fast, very good and temperamental.

There are some excellent posts in this thread.

To distill it all down, possibly another way to look at Soontir is this:

If he's getting shot at once per turn, you probably could be flying him a little better.

If he's getting shot at more than once per turn, you're flying him horribly.

If he's not getting shot at and you're getting shots with him, yes...

1 hour ago, Flyingbrick said:

Soontiir Fel is like an italian sports car. Very fast, very good and temperamental.

And prone to falling apart after hitting one small rock.

The TIE Interceptor: brought to you by Alfa Romeo

To be fair, his reputation mainly comes from 1.0 Push The Limit BS pilot ability combo. 2 Focuses and an evade was had to get through, that's if you could shoot him. 2.0 Soontir is an Opportunist, dont be where the arcs are, or only where there is one. I have killed many Soontirs at Rng 3, just from focus fire, 3 ships doing 1 damage each is a dead Soontir. I will reiterate, he is a High ceiling pilot.

I’m a Soontir flyer— NAY! A Soontir LOVER! But he’s a very temperamental lover. He’ll natty out range one on his green with no modifications AND TAKE A CRIT RANGE 3 THROUGH A GAS CLOUD FROM A 2 DIE ATTACK!!!!

I’m a decent pilot with him just due to reps, both 1.0 and 2.0., No national acclaim here tho. 😜

Soontir is WAY better IMHO now than he was in 1.0. With all the nerfs to turrets and double modded attack dice his own nerfs to his D is a net gain.

Also it was absolute death if you bumped before. Now I often intentionally bump, it takes one shot away, I still get a focus, and often a good shot. Obviously this is after your range 3 sniping and when you enter the scrum. Timing is everything.

The keys to Soontir is (1) fly something else with him that’s more important (2) don’t be shy. If they’re shooting at your Soontir they’re going after your cheapest, squirrelliest ship (3) Get Your Shots!!! I often fly Soontir as a semi-jouster with just a light flank and no bid. He’s I6 and 55 points (Pred). Often when I have the choice of running and MAYBE survival or a range 1 focus Pred shot and death, I just take the shot. It wins me games. He CANNOT be ps killed.

My current build I love. Again the correct 1st target is absolutely the 100 point defender. But people bait on my easily offered Soontir. They will finally kill Soontir sometimes as early as 2-3 round of combat. But by then they normally just don’t have the remaining firepower to even touch the defender. And he’s sitting on a 100 points.

Precision Execution

(53) Soontir Fel [TIE Interceptor]
(2) Predator
Points: 55

(81) Rexler Brath [TIE/D Defender]
(4) Heavy Laser Cannon
(2) Fire-Control System
(7) Juke
Points: 94

(47) Lieutenant Sai [Lambda-class T-4a Shuttle]
(4) ST-321
Points: 51

Total points: 200

@JBFancourt This is what I have been toying with, not on the tournament table yet, nothing expensive all squirrely hard to pin ships

Rexler Brath (81)
Predator (2)

Ship total: 83

"Whisper" (57)
Predator (2)

Ship total: 59

Soontir Fel (53)
Predator (2)
Targeting Computer (3)

Ship total: 58 Half


Total: 200

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0: https://raithos.github.io/?f=Galactic Empire&d=v8ZsZ200Z196X127WWWY199X127WWWY179X127W249W&sn=Unsaved Squadron&obs=

Soontir is cheaper than Whisper.... if you can believe that. I put TL on Fel for when he isnt getting shot at, but mostly it's evade and boost/BR to get into bullseye.

I’ll make a brief point I haven’t seen yet because it’s very important to newer players. It’s very important to avoid over-committing to a lane early when you’re playing a fragile double reposition ace. Always try to make sure that you have a ‘safe’ exit so that you can bail out when you start seeing too many ships looking at you. Don’t be afraid to 5-straight out.

On 10/23/2019 at 1:40 PM, PaulRuddSays said:

Don’t be afraid to 5-straight out

To adopt a more colourful phrase:

"5-straight this lane I'm out!"

On 10/23/2019 at 8:40 AM, PaulRuddSays said:

I’ll make a brief point I haven’t seen yet because it’s very important to newer players. It’s very important to avoid over-committing to a lane early when you’re playing a fragile double reposition ace. Always try to make sure that you have a ‘safe’ exit so that you can bail out when you start seeing too many ships looking at you. Don’t be afraid to 5-straight out.

Also, be unpredictable. Sure, the good old “2-turn to Victory” is the way everyone expects you to fly Soontir, but that dial has plenty of other options. A Soontir that blasts away and doesn’t get blocked is a Soontir that survives another turn, and you can always cut back in. You don’t have to shed stress every turn, and you don’t always need the second action if it means you can get away cleanly.

Coming from someone who is deeply in love with flying RZ-2’s, who have a similar (but admittedly better) dial, people get used to the blue moves and are really unprepared for a sudden white maneuver. The key difference is that RZ-2’s have a lot of blue on their dial, and have more options to clear stress and be unpredictable, but keep your opponents guessing. After a few turns doing the same thing, you are going to get blocked, and a blocked Soontir is a dead Soontir.