Lack of many things, a new paint brush not the least, (it's on the way), makes me bored. So here I present various ship builds that I've settled on, enjoy greatly and like to plug into various holes. The interesting thing with the following, is that I feel I can put these things together in almost any combination that fits, and both give and get a good game.
Feel free to share any plugs-ins you've also become attached to.
We'll start simple.
Old Teroch- Fearless- 59pt. Easily my favourite Scum ace, a proper murder machine, if he wants to be.
Sits in a very widely useful point bracket. Draws lots of attention against those who know what he's capable of, which can be a good thing. Can be really effective on a cagey or aggressive approach, depending on the squad. Much more than just a bullet, his ability helps others too. Whatever part of him the enemy is looking at. Beware force users with Init and locks. That's why you bring other things.
Sunny Bounder- Autoblasters - 30pt. A ridiculously handy price for a pocket 'ace'.
Randomly throwing in a 30pt filler is often not great for balance, but Scum have a few decent solo options, naked Seevor and Unkar are the other stand outs ofc. I'm putting Sunny on top because those other 2 kind of prefer to be part of a blend. Sunny can literally be thrown alone on a flank to do whatever and will help a squad no matter what. There's very few 30 pt pieces like this in the game. The dial is good, 3ag is good, the shield is really nice. 2 hits come up a fair amount... And rolling 2 natty crits with her is the sort of thing that gets people addicted to gambling.
The one, the only, Boba Fett - PerCo, Slave 1, Probombs- 99pt . Notsomuch plug, but a good, cheapish build that lets you throw something more than Koshka or Fenn in with him and still be effective.
Not much that needs to be said here, really, there is much discussion already and lots of options. This is just how I like to run him. Note that this is not a build where you can Yolo joust and expect to come out with both thumbs up and not a care. He's an ace, with ace choices. And a bomb.
Zealous Recruit x2- nothing - 82pt+. Obvious good thing.
Can add a 3rd or turn them into Skulls, if you're being serious about them.
Cartel Spacer x2- nothing/Blasters/Ion- 50pt+ . See above.
But instead of Skulls, get a 4th.
Let there be jank.
Latts Razzi- Trick Shot, Jabba, Han Gunner, Contraband Cybernetics- 79pt. This thing is godly. To be feared. Eat them before they nibble you to death.
Take 2 large debris and place centrally, since she can pretty much ignore them and badly wants the obstructed dice, at any angle. 1 small rock to protect her rear, about the only time it's definitely worth using her ability to tractor. Double modded, 4/5 dice from a 180 arc that can go where it pleases, or just stay where it is, is nigh impossible to avoid.
3 bank to engage, 3 hard, 2 hard and stop, are most common, with intermittent 1 banks to adjust the angle.
Clearly, there is a clock here, 5 turns is more than enough, but once you're into the Jabba, you're committed, so overall set up is key and everything from then on needs to count. She's not great at living long enough to re-engage :D
She's going to be traded, ideally, for a lot. STOMP. So if she runs out of charges, it generally means one of two things. You're totally winning. Or. Everything else you have is dead, or near enough, and you're frantically 3 harding everywhere, trying desperately to manage the points. Something has gone wrong.
Two things she doesnt massively like. 1. Crit chains. 2. Being caught in 3 x4 die attacks Or 4 x3 die attacks. Or obviously more, like even huge ships fear this. She could throw one out of the way, but she'll weigh up reinforce and focus more heavily. Probably won't die in one turn, but now you're not trading well at all for her and the rest of the list has to work hard to take advantage over those 2 turns. Sometimes its just a heavy price you have to pay, but you can make that work both ways. Which returns us to how important the overall set up is.
Most other things, she'll just take on and be happy.
One thing she absolutely loves. Kaiboshing aces. All the nope she sees.
Assaj Ventress- 0-0-0, Hate, Electronic Baffle, Contraband Cybernetics, Shadow Caster- 91pt. Desperate and Enraged Assaj is best Assaj. This is Assaj force choking both Obi-Wan and Anakin at the same time.
Action economy is the real deal here. Evade or Lock as necessary. Aim to pounce on something at R1 in the mobile arc, very preferably forward, but occasionally, needs must. Then you can 0-0-0, which dovetails very neatly with her ability, either double stressing, (curtains for them), or replacing the force cost with a calc, to maintain the double mods. If not at R1, then R3 or obstructed, with an evade and regenning force makes her one of the tankiest things there is, and end game Assaj is very, very good. With all the passive mods going on, she can rotate relatively freely to maintain pressure with her ability, making it hard for ships opting into stress, or less tokens to outfight her. She has comfortably taken care of Vader, Nien, Old Teroch, Obi Wan, and more in end times. Enemy tanks and very heavy guns are her challenge.
Given the importance of her action, since she will get shot, will need to shoot back, and will need to be incisive to make the most of her control mechanics, Contraband is essential. The 5k is inevitable and will always come at a crucial time.
Being locked into those fast blue moves makes her predictable on the following turn, so it's similarly crucial to pick a good follow up vector, hence Baffle. Regen a force and take your pick from that great dial. It's obviously not a trick you want to use a lot, but dropping it once, maybe twice in tighter situations, can be really clutch and worth the damage. She wants to be quick about her work, in and out.
Unless things are really bad, you've still got 45pt on the table, with all the tools to bite off more from the opponent. 4-LOM crew can give you the one straight, but all the freedom is always better. It has also come in extremely handy when opting into double stress, from Sloane, Debris etc.
Like everything, she doesnt cope brilliantly with close range focus fire and being so big and costly, will clearly attract it. Especially if the squad you run her in makes it the obvious good choice to sell out for. Again, set up is really important.
Unlike Latts, she'll definitely screw ships over who buy into the trade and as long as she doesn't get roadblocked, she can survive and escape. But losing too much, too early, taking a bad crit or two, makes the positive end game a real long shot.
And then there's the title. Tractoring someone onto debris, after you've hit them with 0-0-0 and her ability, is quite cruel and mostly fatal.
Focussing her ire on one ship at a time, or spreading the effects around, you can really leave multiple ships in tatters. She can ably deal with numbers, especially flimsy ones, if you can steer their early attention aside.
Zuckuss- Trick Shot, Electronic Baffle, Advanced Sensors, Mist Hunter - 62pt. This thing.
Now then. All of the above ships can be genuinely competitive, flown well... including the large ones, I believe, to a certain level, after which point, match up variance will probably sting before you get too far.
Zuckuss however, maybe notsomuch. BUT, I do think this is way better than you probably think it is.
What we have here is Latts lite. The clock this time, is the self inflicted damage. Unlike Assaj, he wants to do it a whole bunch more than is at all sensible. Also unlike Latts, he's not that fast, and he doesn't have that huge arc to smash things with, so catching things with the Trick Shot is much more work.
Advantages he does have. He is so much more unpredictable with AS, the roll and k-turns. Red moves do not slow him down, Baffle and AS keeps him rolling and dropping 3 and 4 speed moves, or tight turns when needing to switch position. He's a notably smaller target. Much easier to move around, to hide and keep out of clear danger zones. He is far more likely to be ignored in favour of apparently better choices. Which means you have to well on top of which obstacle you need to head for, and when. Which I am often not. But it's doable.
More dice. For EVERYONE. Which is obviously the thing. The joy and laughter as handfuls of dice are shared around and jiggled admirably.
Until natural variance probabilities, good mod control and fire order management kick in and the conversion rates prepare to hit the table.
You can see the moment during the dice jiggle where this all finishes computing. Sometimes, it's not even the 1st rolls.
Big downside. Zuck is action hungry. In order to continue pcking up these fiistfuls of dice, turn after turn, a chunk of his own have to be naturally rolled. Barrel Rolling stoppimg, k-turning, he can keep things in arc, and even dodge them, but locks are always spent and he needs to roll regularly to maintain obstructed coverage on laterally moving ships. Following on from that, he also has to be not focus fired, because he just dies way too fast.
Soooo, it's tricky. But even rolling naturally, the odds over that many dice start to stack up. With some good variance, and nice lock returns, that happens very quickly.
You can't really add a lot that helps with this, without making him far too expensive, (Maul), he's already costly. I am aiming to experiment with a coord..... But there needs to be more ships who will benefit. All he really needs, to be a total quick firing monster, is the odd focus drop. Or roll, into a lock, for 6 dice maybe. (Relax, Soontir! You have 5! ho ho ho, ah ha ha :D)........ (unmodded.)
The Exploding InvisiBafflyser. Unkar Plutt- Proton Bombs, Cloaking Device. Electronic Baffle, Pattern Analyser. 46pt.
And this is when you put Cikatro Vizago and a Deadman Switch on something else, just to be ridiculous. (Zuckuss). Otherwise, ditch the cloak, drop 2pt off it for DMS and be scarcely less ridiculous.
Anyone can see what's happening here. That doesn't mean it's easily possible just avoid all of its trouble.
It's not good. But it's the right kind of bad.
Finally, honourable mention to something that one doesn't simply plug in.
2x Bounty Hunter- Perceptive Copilot, Contraband Cybernetics- 144pt. The other best way to run 2 Sprays.
So not much from the above list really slots in here ofc. I settled on an Outmanouevre Skull as the best of all worlds and the closest thing I have to one of my beloved. (That was HS legal). It was good.
Sprays are just superlative brawlers ofc. 10hp behind a 3/2 statline with an almost permanent focus for each, plus one white turnaround, that can also block and still shoot other things, is undeniably awesome. It'll just keep shooting for ages, and it is so much better with 2. They tag in and out, because it's just that easy for them, with a 3rd gun herding sheep.
2 with 3 Spacers, no upgrades, was really fun, but you gotta love whatever it is that dice do.
One BH doesn't hugely appeal to me, feels like a waste of the ships potential.
Other ships in my collection: that I either haven't really settled on, find a bit boring, think are bad or just don't get time to use, because there can never be enough games. Not including Unkar and Seevor-
3x Starvipers. Needz moar Epic Dalanwing. I've done decent Guri. Love/feelsbad.
1× Scurrg. Sorta slightly boring and slightly bad? Emon is the bomb daddy.
Jump. Nom looks good/boring. Dengar is.... almost doable. Sorta fun.
2x Kihraxz. Bit boring, or a bit too difficult and expensive doing their special biz. Become great in Aces High.
1x Y. Kavil is decent. Bit squishy. Bit fun. Bit feelsbad. Like a bad Broadside paying for pointless initiative. Can be built up but is not as good as other things that price. The othersssszzźzz.....
And that's it. Just a ramble on stuff. Because if there's not enough stuff for me to read, (or paint, or play), in these breaks, I write stuff instead, so I can read it later.