Fun builds?

Concepts?

200pt, 400pt, and even extra info about 600-800 would be great. Considering its been a long time since I've played, intermediate ruleset, activation tricks and meta combos of the game are missing from my training. Care to fill me in?

Edit: for the large ships probably need 400pts

(If possible, please do start with Task Force 200pt recommendations, as those would be immediately highly useful as I get back to remembering how the game works. 200pt TF stuff to try and relearn is great though, with other random ships/squads is a huge help.)

I still do not like seeing max squads blowing up everything. If you can point me to some serious fun not getting blown up by squads, that would be excellent. Preferably big dice pools or some easily set up long range Yavaris blow ups with an Onager super weapon. If I must use max squads and combo squads to survive high-meta, I will do so (albeit extremely unhappily).

Small MSU is completely competitively dead?

1 starhawk can 1v1 an SSD?

MMJ?

Superactivations still a thing?

Which objectives should I get very familiar with?

--

What upgrades are stellar?

It is too early to give any proper list building for the new ships. SSD has Ravager, JJ, Quad Turbolaser Cannons, H9s.

Starhawk is gonna be Krysta for the Admiral to make it a beefy boi. The Onager seems pretty straightforward to use, but hard to fully master.

Starhawk shenanigans I enjoyed so far:

• Testing Boarding teams, especially Boarding Troopers xD
  Leading shots and those arcs make gunnery teams optional. So there is room to try 'em out for once.

• Parking in people's front arcs and setting up shop.

Played a mock game against myself last night; put TLRC on Amity and she did good work. Combined with Sensor team and I felt she has good dice control.

I'm not liking Gunnery Team on Starhawk: the side arc is 5 dice which is pretty beefy and the front arc is a much narrower angle than, for example, the ISD. In my opinion those 2 things combined make Gunnery Team a little sub-optimal particularly when there are so many other good Weapons Team upgrades to pick from. I'm personally liking Sensor Team. Between 4 reds and 2 blacks, I'm likely to get at least 1 blank in there to be pitched for an accuracy. TLRC takes care of the other "who knows?" red die result.

That bleeds into the preferred Ion upgrade for Starhawk; I've never liked Leading Shots as a form of "red die" control. HIE is always great (though expensive) and I can also see a case for High Capacity Ion Turbines (and it doesn't rely on crits which is good as the Starhawk only throws 2 blues out of any given arc). The couple test games I played, though, I just disregarded the Ion Cannon upgrade slot.

Amity's title pretty much REQUIRES hardened bulkheads in the Offensive Retro slot. I've thought about Tractor Beams + the Magnite for max speed control but it's not a concept I'm sold on yet. Most of the other ones turn Starhawk into a carrier role, which, though she can do, I don't think that's the best usage for Starhawk. She wants nav token turn 1 engineering token turn 2, conc fire turns 3-5 and engineering turn 6. (or something similar to that I'd say).

As for her two officers; wow. So many good options, I really don't know how to go about advising a "best" option. Walex seems like the obvious choice, especially if you're going to be running Starhawk with Kyrsta. Strategic Officer is probably a #2 since Starhawk will run you around 200 pts fully kitted which means low activation count. But I can also see Ray Antilles, DCO, Expert Shield Tech (again, when running Agate), Intel Officer, and Veteran Captain.

EDIT.

Also wanted to talk about Commanders really quick.

Ackbar: No. Can't imagine wanting to give up that beefy front arc to boost side arcs. Then again, the hull lines of the Starhawk are such that you could take Ackbar for maximum options.

Raddus: Yes, though probably not going to pick the Starhawk as your ambush ship. I suppose you could but the Starhawk is tanky enough that she doesn't really need to worry about that kind of positioning, but it would be big LULZ to get a Starhawk behind something like an Onager, ISD or SSD .

Sato: Yes. Can definitely see Sato working with Starhawk, as you can still take enoug squadrons to make Sato work, and you can swap out some of those pesky red dice for blues/blacks. I could particularly see Sato working with a strong Ion Cannon build that relies on crits, perhaps.

Garm: Yes, Garm loves big ships that can take lots of tokens.

Cracken: Obviously no.

Dodonna: Eh. Dodonna seems to prefer an MSU fleet (particularly one that capitalizes on APT and LUke) and you ain't gonna get that with Starhawk. I'd say no, here.

Madine: Probably not. Yawing ain't what Starhawk is worried about.

Rieekan: Probably not. Although Rieekan works with just about every kind of list, Starhawk is very hard to kill and I don't think the threat of it firing back after destroyed is really what opponents will be concerned with since its likely to happen so late in the game anyway. I don't know...I'd have to think about this more.

Agate: Yes, of course, the default choice for Starhawk.

Leia: At first glance I would say no. Leia also likes MSU fleets that don't hoard a lot of tokens. Then again I don't think I've ever played Leia as she is very expensive.

Mothma: No. Evade tokens aren't the main form of Starhawk's damage mitigation, even with Amity (which, in my opinion, is more there either for TLRC or to discard and take a Salvo token via Local Fire Control).

53 minutes ago, Rocmistro said:

Raddus: Yes, though probably not going to pick the Starhawk as your ambush ship.

You can't pick it as the drop ship--it's command four.

I ran this the other day and had a hoot. It tore up his bomber screen, bombed the **** out of his ships, and provided much needed double hits on Salvo and rear shots near the end of the game.

His fleet was Screed, Kuat double crit combo, harrow, and demolisher with a gozzer pushing a small cadre of bombers as a screen on his ISD.

The ChonkHook destroyed all three tabling him and flyng away with 4 hull.

Name: ChonkHook
Faction: Rebel
Commander: Commander Sato

Assault: Precision Strike
Defense: Fighter Ambush
Navigation: Superior Positions

Starhawk Battleship Mark I (140)
• Commander Sato (32)
• Strategic Adviser (4)
• Kyrsta Agate (5)
• Gunnery Team (7)
• Leading Shots (4)
• XI7 Turbolasers (6)
= 198 Points

GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Ray Antilles (7)
• Bomber Command Center (8)
• Boosted Comms (4)
= 37 Points

GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Leia Organa (3)
• Comms Net (2)
• Boosted Comms (4)
= 27 Points

Squadrons:
• Malee Hurra (26)
• Tycho Celchu (16)
• Jan Ors (19)
• 3 x Y-wing Squadron (30)
• Norra Wexley (17)
= 108 Points

Total Points: 370

40 minutes ago, Formynder4 said:

You can't pick it as the drop ship--it's command four.

Thanks. Wasn't aware of (or maybe I forgot about?) that constraint.

33 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

I ran this the other day and had a hoot. It tore up his bomber screen, bombed the **** out of his ships, and provided much needed double hits on Salvo and rear shots near the end of the game.

His fleet was Screed, Kuat double crit combo, harrow, and demolisher with a gozzer pushing a small cadre of bombers as a screen on his ISD.

The ChonkHook destroyed all three tabling him and flyng away with 4 hull.

Name: ChonkHook
Faction: Rebel
Commander: Commander Sato

Assault: Precision Strike
Defense: Fighter Ambush
Navigation: Superior Positions

Starhawk Battleship Mark I (140)
• Commander Sato (32)
• Strategic Adviser (4)
• Kyrsta Agate (5)
• Gunnery Team (7)
• Leading Shots (4)
• XI7 Turbolasers (6)
= 198 Points

<snip>

Total Points: 370

How did you find Gunnery Teams and Leading Shot to work on it?
Also, how many times per turn did you find Kyrsta was proccing her ability? And what defense token did you I would assume the Salvo to keep being able to return fire with Salvo?

2 minutes ago, Rocmistro said:

How did you find Gunnery Teams and Leading Shot to work on it?
Also, how many times per turn did you find Kyrsta was proccing her ability? And what defense token did you I would assume the Salvo to keep being able to return fire with Salvo?

Gunnery teams wasn't all that necessary after the first engagement at long range. I was fortunate, with my bombers clearing shields and landing a crit on his ISD he was unable to fire at me at long range. Leading shots was essential, red dice sucked throughout the game. Kystra was used every round to refresh my brace. It was a 3 to 1 slug fest I needed to reduce as much incoming damage as possible.

I would say that the attack ability is a little lame on the ChonkHook. It doesn't have the punch of a specialized attack ship. (ISDs, Liberty, Demo, Mc30s, Mc75) But it can weather a TONNE of damage. Even without Ecms it withstood quite a bit.

I do feel that his ship needs fighter support more than most ships. I don' think I'd have won without some of the crippling crit effects and shield mitigation my squad ball brought.

I agree that the little bit of playing around I've done with it, the attack power seems lacking for a 200 pt. ship.

Starhawk Battleship Mark II (150)
• Kyrsta Agate (20)
• Strategic Adviser (4)
• Major Derlin (7)
• Caitken and Shollan (6)
• High-Capacity Ion Turbines (8)
• H9 Turbolasers (8)
• Unity (10)

Fun? Slinging red dice at double-long range! I've only had a chance to play with the Onager once so far, but my first impression is one of pure love. 😋

2 hours ago, Rocmistro said:

I agree that the little bit of playing around I've done with it, the attack power seems lacking for a 200 pt. ship.

I think Salvo makes up for the lack luster damage output. With the right upgrades you can be throwing around 12 Salvo shots a game. I think I threw 5 Salvos, with Sato and Malee each Salvo hit at least 3-4 damage. It adds up.

Not to mention, with how survivable it is, it likely gets more shots out.

So I guess the Chonkhook feels like it's doing DoT instead of DPS.

yep, pretty fun to snipe with onager.

Talk to me about the new sniping!

57 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Talk to me about the new sniping!

Equip Orbital Bombardment Particle Cannons . Set your ignition token waaaaay at the end of your range ruler. On your next turn, place your range ruler so that it touches the token, and then proceed to shoot with four red dice from halfway across the table. It's probably not the most out-and-out effective way to kill an opponent's ship, but boy, is it fun. It feels like cheating, to be honest!

35 minutes ago, Rmcarrier1 said:

Equip Orbital Bombardment Particle Cannons . Set your ignition token waaaaay at the end of your range ruler. On your next turn, place your range ruler so that it touches the token, and then proceed to shoot with four red dice from halfway across the table. It's probably not the most out-and-out effective way to kill an opponent's ship, but boy, is it fun. It feels like cheating, to be honest!

"Feels like cheating" would probably be using Hondo and Cataclysm to drop your targeting beacon at the start of the first turn, then open up on turn 1 with a concentrate firepower command backed up by a Vader reroll

12 minutes ago, namdoolb said:

"Feels like cheating" would probably be using Hondo and Cataclysm to drop your targeting beacon at the start of the first turn, then open up on turn 1 with a concentrate firepower command backed up by a Vader reroll

I like the sound of this.

Good for targeting flotillas too? if the enemy team is pretty much just larges or huge?

6 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

I like the sound of this.

Good for targeting flotillas too? if the enemy team is pretty much just larges or huge?

Haven't tried it out yet; it's all theorycraft at the moment. That said though:

Just done some double checking on ranges; if you deploy opposite them you should pretty much be guaranteed the shot. (small base ships could deploy on their table edge & be out of range until they activate, but I feel like if you've already backed them up to their table edge then you've won an important moral victory)

Don't know if you're killing anything without the black dice though. The buff on evade tokens at extreme range means you pretty much need to be doing two accuracies, and even with the confire command you've only got 5 dice to start with...
You'll probably get one accuracy which you'll need to block their scatter, they'll cancel your two best remaining dice; you'll just scratch their hull if you're lucky. It is possible to nuke a flotilla at that range (two accuracies, at least one double, no blanks), just singularly unlikely.
If they bring the flotilla forward with a speed 2 or 3 move before you activate then they may get caught in black dice range, which gives you a decent enough chance of killing them as long as you can fish up that first accuracy.

I think the biggest upside here is the effect it will have on your opponent's deployment, since you can target one of his bigger ships & be very likely to get a crit: which will probably splash damage to a lot of other stuff. (unless the opponent takes that into account when deploying).
Damage off the opening shot is likely to be psychological at best, but from turn two onwards you should have easy black dice on your ignition attacks.

7 minutes ago, namdoolb said:

(unless the opponent takes that into account when deploying).

I foresee a lot of people forgetting this once and then never again.

The key to an Onager is an Interdictor with G-7s and something that makes them deploy in one spot, like Surprise Attack. That way, unless they have Corvus, their flagship is getting pounded round 1, while at speed 0.

They will probably try to use the station to obstruct your attack, so bring Remodi as your commander.

55 minutes ago, ianediger said:

The key to an Onager is an Interdictor with G-7s and something that makes them deploy in one spot, like Surprise Attack. That way, unless they have Corvus, their flagship is getting pounded round 1, while at speed 0.

what if i DONT pick Surprise Attack?

1 hour ago, geek19 said:

what if i DONT pick Surprise Attack?

Rift Ambush for the yellow. Blue is a bit harder, either Whale watching Hyperspace Migration or Doomed Station.

1 hour ago, geek19 said:

what if i DONT pick Surprise Attack?

Fleet Ambush, then a blue of your choice. I like infested fields.