In4no Squadron

(49) Major Vermeil [TIE Reaper]
(14) Darth Vader
(6) Tactical Officer
Points: 69

(41) Iden Versio [TIE/ln Fighter]
Points: 41

(30) Gideon Hask [TIE/ln Fighter]
Points: 30

(30) Del Meeko [TIE/ln Fighter]
Points: 30

(30) Seyn Marana [TIE/ln Fighter]
Points: 30

Total points: 200

Flew something similar to this recently, and liked it a lot. One of my favorite aspects of this is that everyone is i4; these sort of mid-initiative open activation orders have worked very well for me in Resistance and Rebel lists so far, so I figured I’d try it in a more swarmy setup.

Vermeil/Vader to punch a damage through and take advantage of it has been great, and with Seyn Marana in the mix (replacing the TIE Interceptor I had in her spot previously), I figured getting Del and Gideon to work would be pretty easy.

I’m betting the Tactical Officer is going to draw criticism, and he’s also an untested card for me, but I like the idea of coordinating anyone I want at i4, before or after they move.

Looking for comments/suggestions!

I get tactical officer, but you could have 4 crackshots and marksmanship on seyn.

This ☝️

2 hours ago, wurms said:

I get tactical officer, but you could have 4 crackshots and marksmanship on seyn.

Might try that if the Tac Officer proves underwhelming. But my experience with anything that requires a Bullseye arc (so far) is that it’s essentially blank cardboard unless it’s on Guri, Vader, Holo, Fenn Rau or some other highly agile guy with i5 or i6!

I’m hoping this won’t always be the case, but I’ve been pretty unimpressed by such cards so far, except Predator on Holo and that sort of thing.

1 hour ago, Cpt ObVus said:

Might try that if the Tac Officer proves underwhelming. But my experience with anything that requires a Bullseye arc (so far) is that it’s essentially blank cardboard unless it’s on Guri, Vader, Holo, Fenn Rau or some other highly agile guy with i5 or i6!

I’m hoping this won’t always be the case, but I’ve been pretty unimpressed by such cards so far, except Predator on Holo and that sort of thing.

Vader is a 73pt ship with 5 health. With 5 crackshots, just one has to work for 14.6pts worth of damage.

14 minutes ago, wurms said:

Vader is a 73pt ship with 5 health. With 5 crackshots, just one has to work for 14.6pts worth of damage.

I’m sorry, I’m sure I’m missing something.

I assume you’re talking about Vader (the TIE/ad pilot), not Vader (the crew upgrade I have in this list)? What does Vader (Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-List) have to do with anything?

As far as Crack Shot working once and being worth 14.6 points of damage... I guess I’m just lost. Crack Shot working once cancels one Evade result. That’s 1 point of damage, right? What’s this 14.6 stuff? Because that sounds great! 😄

Vader was an example. Any ace, crackshot just has to work once to get value from it. Each hit on a 73pt Vader is basically worth 14.6pts from the enemys total squad value.

Soontir is 53pts naked. With 3 hull. You roll 2 hits, he rolls 2 evades, you crackshot one. That crackshot did 17.3pts of damage basically. With 4 or 5 ships all with crackshot. That is a lot of bullseye arcs that enemy ships have to dodge. Its one of the best upgrades in the game. Super cheap and when it works, the value of it is sky high.

The alternative should you be adamant that you don’t want bullseye abilities is Death Troopers on Vermeil. Great for shutting down certain ships in the meta, such as RZ2s, Poe, Soontir, Cassian...

6 hours ago, wurms said:

Vader was an example. Any ace, crackshot just has to work once to get value from it. Each hit on a 73pt Vader is basically worth 14.6pts from the enemys total squad value.

Soontir is 53pts naked. With 3 hull. You roll 2 hits, he rolls 2 evades, you crackshot one. That crackshot did 17.3pts of damage basically. With 4 or 5 ships all with crackshot. That is a lot of bullseye arcs that enemy ships have to dodge. Its one of the best upgrades in the game. Super cheap and when it works, the value of it is sky high.

I guess I can see the value in bullseye arc upgrades in a swarmy list of 5+ ships like mine. And I can definitely see how good bullseye arc upgrades are when I use guys like Holo and Luke. I think I’ve had some really frustrating experiences with Heavy Laser Cannons on guys with middling initiative, is the problem.

The more I thought about it, the more I decided I liked Marksmanship on Marana, and Crack Shot on everyone else just made that better, too. So I dropped the Tac Officer. I can still coordinate every turn anyway, I just have to manage the stress, which seems doable. The previous iteration of this list saw Vermeil/Vader do pretty gross stuff (without Tac Officer) and they would typically die anyway because of the fire they drew, so stacking yet another expensive crew member on the Reaper doesn’t seem great.

5 hours ago, RelativeShoe said:

The alternative should you be adamant that you don’t want bullseye abilities is Death Troopers on Vermeil. Great for shutting down certain ships in the meta, such as RZ2s, Poe, Soontir, Cassian...

Yeah... Vader/Vermeil is a unit I really want to keep in this particular list. I’m fooling around with a different list that uses Death Troopers, but that’s for another day!

I'm with @wurms (and ultimately @Cpt ObVus ) in that I'd rather have Crack Shots/Marksmanship over Tactical Officer.

Part of the reason: Tactical Officer Vermiel is a 69 point ship with 3 attack dice. The rest are 30-ish point TIEs with 2 attack dice (who can't double-stack red dice mods). It'll be quite rare that the best use of Vermiel's action will be to give an action to a TIE. The list on the whole will probably get a lot more value out of Vermiel using his action selfishly to Focus or Jam. For that one time when you really need to get an action on the TIE, having a red coordinate is probably sufficient.

Most of the time, the coordinating ship is cheaper or less important than the ship receiving the extra action. Depends on how well that other ship can leverage the action. Sometimes an expensive ship has to coordinate an ace to keep it alive, and that's a great use of the action. Maybe you want to get someone off of a rock so they can attack. It'll work out great in a lot of situations, but it's usually not an every-turn thing. Tactical Officer is for every-turn coordinating.

5 hours ago, RelativeShoe said:

The alternative should you be adamant that you don’t want bullseye abilities is Death Troopers on Vermeil. Great for shutting down certain ships in the meta, such as RZ2s, Poe, Soontir, Cassian...

Crack Shot isn't that hard, though. All these bullseye abilities are ones which are pretty easy to actually use, and you only need to use them once.

Plus, after cutting Vader for Death Troopers, there's kind of nothing to do with the rest of the points in the squad.

Don't get me wrong: I think DT Vermiel is surely a strong piece in the right list. Sometimes, a great ship just isn't a great fit .

11 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

I'm with @wurms (and ultimately @Cpt ObVus ) in that I'd rather have Crack Shots/Marksmanship over Tactical Officer.

Part of the reason: Tactical Officer Vermiel is a 69 point ship with 3 attack dice. The rest are 30-ish point TIEs with 2 attack dice (who can't double-stack red dice mods). It'll be quite rare that the best use of Vermiel's action will be to give an action to a TIE. The list on the whole will probably get a lot more value out of Vermiel using his action selfishly to Focus or Jam. For that one time when you really need to get an action on the TIE, having a red coordinate is probably sufficient.

Most of the time, the coordinating ship is cheaper or less important than the ship receiving the extra action. Depends on how well that other ship can leverage the action. Sometimes an expensive ship has to coordinate an ace to keep it alive, and that's a great use of the action. Maybe you want to get someone off of a rock so they can attack. It'll work out great in a lot of situations, but it's usually not an every-turn thing. Tactical Officer is for every-turn coordinating.

Crack Shot isn't that hard, though. All these bullseye abilities are ones which are pretty easy to actually use, and you only need to use them once.

Plus, after cutting Vader for Death Troopers, there's kind of nothing to do with the rest of the points in the squad.

Don't get me wrong: I think DT Vermiel is surely a strong piece in the right list. Sometimes, a great ship just isn't a great fit .

Great. These are all the same conclusions I came to, for mostly the same reasons. Good advice, everyone, and I may even be learning something. 😉

The non-negotiable bit was Vader on Vermeil; I know a combo when I see one, and they’ve done some good work for me already! Unavoidable damage is good, and all the better when Inferno Squad can smell blood in the water and capitalize on it!

I’m sure Death Troopers are excellent as well, but they can wait for a different list. This one belongs to Darth Vader.