5 alpha/sentinels + wampa is already basically the same. It’s good but not busted.

15 hours ago, TasteTheRainbow said:

It’s good but not busted.

Is it even good? I’ve heard it’s decent, but it’s very inconsistent. Sometimes you get a massive victory, other times you can’t roll paint to save your life.

I’ve heard about a player in the STL area who does great with it, but certainly nowhere near what one incredibly talented person does with Starvipers...

All ion tokens after the target is ionized are worthless, potentially wasting a lot of hits if you focus fire.

I've never tried ion turret spam but I have tried ion cannon gunboat spam at a tournament, and it's worse than it looks on paper.

The red dice variance is the issue because you're throwing single-modified (at best) dice. With normal damage dealing attacks, massed fire can make up for weak mods because you can randomly get some big hits in and the extra damage typically makes up for the bad rolls where you whiff. That doesn't work with ions.

Even when the ions do take, it can be tough to use it to get ahead in the damage race. Unless the target is low on hull, you end up putting on enough ions and then either switching to primary - dropping to a 2-red attack increasing the risk of whiffing completely - or sticking with the ion weapon for that extra die to roll and keeping the damage slow.

I remember a game vs T70s where that was what happened - I ioned one of them, and while I spent 2 more rounds beating on the thing to actually score the kill, the other ones were getting free hits on my gunboats and I lost more than I gained. In another game vs Imperial Aces, I got an ion onto Soontir but I didn't get more than 1 uncancelled hit next turn and he got away. Vader with Focus + Force likewise managed to resist being ioned a second time.

20 hours ago, TasteTheRainbow said:

5 alpha/sentinels + wampa is already basically the same. It’s good but not busted.

I've tried 5 Alphas plus Wampa. It's not as good as 5 Sabres.

The higher Initiative makes a bigger difference in enough matchups than including an extra, less mobile, arc, does.

And it's great fun, just really dependant on dice rolls. I've used 5 Sabres in 3 smallish events (12, 8, and 20ish players), winning around 60% of my games.

If you can cope with losing games to dice, it's a very liberating list to fly - you can charge the enemy, you can zoom around the mat, pincering them, you can be everywhere at once or make really good kill-boxes - and you can explode miserably!

I'd be more inclined to trade in the 5th Alpha and Wampa for an OGP Lambda with Sloane+Seventh+Hull. It's still 5x 3-attack ships, weaponises the fragility of the Alphas and gives rerolls.

I faced 4 ion agressors and 2 alpha interceptors awhile ago (it went 3-1 at a 20ish persom event).

Its a list that is kinda tricky to approach, and while its attacks aren't always modded, it only takes 1 ion token to ruin a small ship