My friend’s built an extremely frustrating list that I can’t seem to crack. Haven’t got every detail, but it’s basically Ryad (Advanced Sensors, Shield Upgrade, Juke) and Whisper (Advanced Sendors, Juke, Stealth Device).

First time we battled, I’d brought Soontir, Ryad, and... I want to say Duchess. My dice weren’t good. Soontir melted in one shot, Duchess took two. Ryad made a bit of a fight of it, but couldn’t win.

Second time was ZiZi, Tallie, Ello, Nien, all Heroic, and not much else. Again, middling to poor dice, but despite controlling range, and generally flying carefully, I had barely cracked Ryan’s shields by the time Ello had died (two shots at long had left him on 1 hull, and a third killed him), and Whisper had one-shotted Tallie.

Most of the time, Whisper was carrying around multiple evade tokens and was basically unhittable. Never mind the cloaking; that was basically good for a pre-maneuver reposition, making pinning her down a joke.

I’m kind of losing faith in any ship with two attack dice; this opponent is also the same guy who’s discovered that multiple StarVipers are unbelievable, and that I also can’t seem to hit his Jedi fighters.

Suggestions?

I would say that the real problem seems to be Whisper. I really love to fly her actually, but your friend is missing fifth brother gunner, which is a weakness.

With stealth device, whisper can many times fully avoid 3 or less dice attacks, so my advice would be either to attack her with many ships so she runs out of evade/focus tokens or use proton torpedoes or some kind of 4 dice attack, since it is impossible for her to avoid all 4 hits. Either way, once you destroy the stealth device she should be much easier to take down, and you can focus fire on her being only a 2 ships list.

Also, if you attack her with enough ships she would at least run out of evades so she can't cloack again, making it much easier to follow her.

That's what I would do, based primarily on playing unhittable whisper =).

Hope it helps.

I’d be inclined to try the following;

Use pilots that are able to reduce his defense dice (Wedge/Joy Rekkoff, etc), or;

Use pilots that can token strip (Old T, Torani Kulda, etc), or;

Use pilots that can stress his list and force him to be predictable with blue manoeuvres.

Maybe a swarm list? Or semi-swarm with an ace? If they only have two ships, the numbers game could help. Adv Sensors is great on Ryad but they won’t always be able to a avoid a block and that’s when you can prevent the evade from happening. Hotshot gunner/ion y-wing’s.

Another approach may be like @Sm00thB0r3 mentioned with defense dice reducing. Wedge and a pair of R3 rouge squadron escorts to set up locks early and fire off torpedoes into them.

PS Ryad doesn’t have a mod slot, so she can’t take shield upgrade.

Your friend seems to mostly use dodgy ace lists, so control options that ignore green dice look particularly scary for your opponent. Some Imperial and Scum ideas:

IMPERIAL:

NONE of his ships like double stress, Sloane swarms will be a major thorn in his side if you can protect the Sloane carrier effectively.

Darth Vader can help to strip tokens, or damage ships if they find themselves unable to get tokens (say, if they're double stressed from Sloane?)

Intimidation Captain Oicunn could be fun with Vader, deny your opponent tokens then dish out damage with Vader and shoot at range 0 with your opponent having reduced agility.

Optimized Prototype from Krennic will let you guarantee shield damage, maybe Jendon/w Krennic + Vader + friend? If "the defender loses 1 shield" counts as "suffers 1 damage" it also provides a way to instantly strip Stealth Device off of Whisper.

SCUM:

4-LOM(crew)/Feedback Array + Static Discharge Vanes on either Nom Lumb or a Freighter Captain gives you a large base blocker with a fat Range 1 bubble he must avoid at all costs to avoid taking unblockable ion.

Quadjumpers provide easy undodgeable tractor tokens and can even dump (or throw in Zuvio's case) Proxy Mines on them. Ketsu is another option to tractor with.

Proxy Mine Emon can also just ignore the token stacking issue by dumping mines on them.

Old Teroch straight up hard counters the Defender/Phantom list if you can get his ability to activate, which doesn't seem too difficult.

Palob can siphon their Evade/Focus tokens.

There's also the option of just out-dodgy-acing him, with say Guri+Fenn. Or taking a slightly leaner Ryad/Whisper 😉

1 hour ago, Enigami said:

Optimized Prototype from Krennic will let you guarantee shield damage, maybe Jendon/w Krennic + Vader + friend? If "the defender loses 1 shield" counts as "suffers 1 damage" it also provides a way to instantly strip Stealth Device off of Whisper.

Optimized Prototype spends a shield, which is not suffering damage.

My two cents: I've been playing a similar Whisper for well over a year, and it's always bad when someone rolls more red dice than my green dice. Optimized Prototype is still nasty for those ships though. This list made short work of my Whisper.

Soontir Fel (53)
Crack Shot (1)
Targeting Computer (3)
Shield Upgrade (8)

Ship total: 65 Half Points: 33 Threshold: 2

"Redline" (52)
Advanced Sensors (10)
Proton Torpedoes (13)

Ship total: 75 Half Points: 38 Threshold: 5

Colonel Jendon (48)
Director Krennic (4)
Agent Kallus (5)

Ship total: 57 Half Points: 29 Threshold: 5


Total: 197

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0: https://raithos.github.io/?f=Galactic Empire&d=v8ZsZ200Z179X116W249W165Y191X111W136WWWWWWY167XWW28W15WW&sn=Unnamed Squadron&obs=

Soontir takes the prototype, and he plinks shields while Redline sets up devastating proton torpedo shots (plus he gets to react to Ryad). Also, it's usually worth it to take first player against Whisper. After she decloaks she isn't really arc-dodging, and shooting before her bonus evade hurts the juke synergy and gives your opponent tough decisions.

17 hours ago, xanatos135 said:

I would say that the real problem seems to be Whisper. I really love to fly her actually, but your friend is missing fifth brother gunner, which is a weakness.

With stealth device, whisper can many times fully avoid 3 or less dice attacks, so my advice would be either to attack her with many ships so she runs out of evade/focus tokens or use proton torpedoes or some kind of 4 dice attack, since it is impossible for her to avoid all 4 hits. Either way, once you destroy the stealth device she should be much easier to take down, and you can focus fire on her being only a 2 ships list.

Also, if you attack her with enough ships she would at least run out of evades so she can't cloack again, making it much easier to follow her.

That's what I would do, based primarily on playing unhittable whisper =).

Hope it helps.

No, he has 5Bro. I just forgot to mention him because he was never really a factor in either match; my opponent leisurely stayed cloaked and flawlessly came up with 2-3 Evades against every attack, took locks, and just never needed 5Bro.

It was pretty demoralizing, knowing that he had Force available that he never needed to use, and I STILL couldn’t hit Whisper.

What are the chances they’ll take the Gunner slot off of the Phantom? ‘Cause it really, really does NOT need it.

3 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

No, he has 5Bro. I just forgot to mention him because he was never really a factor in either match; my opponent leisurely stayed cloaked and flawlessly came up with 2-3 Evades against every attack, took locks, and just never needed 5Bro.

It was pretty demoralizing, knowing that he had Force available that he never needed to use, and I STILL couldn’t hit Whisper.

What are the chances they’ll take the Gunner slot off of the Phantom? ‘Cause it really, really does NOT need it.

Well, phantoms used to have a crew slot instead, and Whisper with Vader was just too much XD. I guess it makes sense it has someone else in that large cockpit. Besides, the empire has very few crew/gunner carriers so...

Anyway, the only really powerful gunner is fifth brother, but you are also paying 11 points for it, so I guess it's fair...

Whatever tokens whisper have, she is never going to be able to avoid more than 3 damage, so as other said, either reduce her green dice, attack her with 4+ dice or directly damage her somehow (Krennic, Seyn Marana...) so the stealth device is destroyed, or instead focus fire on her.

Good idea to try and shoot before whisper so she doesn't get the extra evade.

3 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

No, he has 5Bro. I just forgot to mention him because he was never really a factor in either match; my opponent leisurely stayed cloaked and flawlessly came up with 2-3 Evades against every attack, took locks, and just never needed 5Bro.

How is Whisper getting locks? The Phantom doesn't have the lock action, if she's running Stealth Device then she can't have taken Targeting Computer. Did you mean Passive Sensors instead of Advanced Sensors? I'm going to assume so, because Adv Sensors is basically pointless on Whisper anyway as you're already getting a pre movement reposition and there's barely any red on the dial.

As @Synel said, Ryad can't take Shield Upgrade either.

I know you said you don't remember every detail, but to be honest I think we kind of need them to come up with a decent counter.

To be honest, I'm finding it kinda hard to see why this list would be tough to crack, Two ship lists have to be something pretty special to be good, and when half the list is Ryad - who really isn't great - I don't see this being that special.

Why one wouldn't take Rexler for matching Initiative in a two ship list with Whisper is beyond me, given that he's cheaper.

What I don't get is how he's killing your ships before you break through the green dice and evades. There's little damage output from this list, even with Fifth Bro and locks on Whisper.

Ryad has a ton of health, sure. But she's a one trick pony on a one trick pony ship. She will always be going straight and trying to k-turn. With only one other ship to worry about, she should be super easy to block. If she blocks, she gets no actions. Including no free evade. 7 HP behind 3 greens is scary, but those 3 greens will do a **** of a lot less without focus and evade tokens. Whoever blocks Ryad also can't be shot by Ryad, meaning they will only be shot by Whisper. Even if Whisper is at range 1 with lock and Fifth Bro, unless your blocker is a Z-95 the chances are you're surviving it. Use that to your advantage.

If Ryad is consistently blocked, then her attack becomes pretty pathetic. You shouldn't need to worry too much about whatever Ryad is shooting at. Especially if you can bring I5 and I6 ships that can arc dodge her.

Whisper is much, much harder to pin down. But it's not impossible. And she has way less HP and fewer green dice if you can crack that Stealth Device.

I'd be tempted to give something like this a look:

Wedge Antilles (55)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)

Ship total: 55 Half Points: 28 Threshold: 3

Arvel Crynyd (34)
Intimidation (3)

Ship total: 37 Half Points: 19 Threshold: 2

Ten Numb (48)
Fire-Control System (2)
Autoblasters (3)
Stabilized S-Foils (2)
Marksmanship (1)

Ship total: 56 Half Points: 28 Threshold: 4

Braylen Stramm (52)


Ship total: 52 Half Points: 26 Threshold: 4


Total: 200

If you can pull of the Arvel block, then Ryad is dead. No questions. Get Wedge a range 2 shot on her, and she's only rolling one green die. With no tokens to help her out, Wedge alone is putting damage through.

The B-Wings are both capable of a lot of hurt too, especially if they're shooting an Arvel blocked target. Best bit about them being I4, though, is they force your opponent into a tough decision. Ryad wants to shoot first so that she can get the most out of that Juke, but she also wants to move last so that she knows whether to k-turn or not. And if she shoots first, then the B-Wings (who want to barrel roll most of the time anyway) get a chance to arc dodge her. But equally if she shoots first, she's just getting Juke against a single green die ship with a stack of health, your B-Wings probably don't care. You can capitalise either way.

Ten has a small chance to do an unbockable damage too, which is great against either ship.

Whisper is scary, but with this list you can largely ignore her for a time. If she goes for Wedge, you do what you can to arc dodge and keep her busy. If she goes after the B-Wings, there's a slim chance she kills one before it gets to take a second shot, but that's incredibly unlikely and would require amazing flying for Whisper to get two range 1 shots in a row. You can probably bank on two or even three turns of shooting from both B-Wings, and a good five or six with at least one on the table. And if she goes for the B-Wings, then Wedge comes in for the kill on Ryad.

If you range control and focus fire well, this list is potentially putting out five three dice attacks in one turn against a reduced agility target. That's huge. Even a TIE Defender can't hold up against that. Oh, and did I mention that two of those three dice attacks should be fully modded?

Once Ryad is down, you use whatever ships you have left (hopefully all of them) to try and killbox Whisper. But at this point, you should be way up. That Ryad is 99 points. He'd have to kill any two of your non Arvel ships to get back on top without being halved on Whisper. With Wedge on the field, all you need against Whisper is a shot. Wedge will do the rest, trust me.

9 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

How is Whisper getting locks? The Phantom doesn't have the lock action, if she's running Stealth Device then she can't have taken Targeting Computer. Did you mean Passive Sensors instead of Advanced Sensors? I'm going to assume so, because Adv Sensors is basically pointless on Whisper anyway as you're already getting a pre movement reposition and there's barely any red on the dial.

I don't think advanced sensors is pointless with Whisper. I was running her with colission detector but this is only 4 points more and actually I think it allows to avoid rocks more easily and mainly don't care at all for blocks, which can be pretty handy when Whisper represents half your list. It certainly will make her tougher to destroy than passive sensors (although those are great too).

I am currently wanting to try Whisper with stealth device, lone wolf, fifth brother, adv. sensors alongside Chiraneau, and see how much she can resist.

Two can play at that game:

Guri (64)
Outmaneuver (6)
Advanced Sensors (10)
Afterburners (6)
Virago (8)
Shield Upgrade (8)

Fenn Rau (68)
Outmaneuver (6)
Total: 176

This Ryad & Whisper is a super Ace list with high mobility and a decent bid (10pts w/ 5bro & w/o Ryad shield) but it can be out-ace'd because of relatively mediocre initiative 4/5. You can try to out-Ace it with strong i5/6 pilots with a super bid like Boba+Fenn or Guri+Fenn to keep your 5 moving last or take multiple i6 with something like Vader+Soontir+Duchess or Han+Wedge so you aren't worried about winning the bid and still move after and hit them first to take away evades.

Alternatively, control options that are not dependent on hitting with an attack can take away that token advantage which allows for normal attacks to break through. @Enigami Covered some good options for control and auto-damage in their post above. I would add that Republic surprisingly has decent control options in a couple of named Y-wings and Chopper with a Jedi.

Also previously mentioned was overwhelming red dice or removing greens. I think Wedge+Luke+Jan would be a good list in that vein to hit both sides of the equation. Torpedoes are the most broadly accessible way to roll more reds, I'd recommend Ion over Proton in this matchup since it's cheaper if you're expecting low hits to get through anyways and if you do sneak in an extra hit the ion will shut down the token stack and the movement actions. Personally I've had good fun with Commander Cody on a ship with Snapshot and top initiative of the squad and republic can get those extra reds from 7th Fleet Gunner.

I'm not sold on blocking though (and intimidation by association) unless you're running at least a full swarm of 6+ships and you're pretty good at putting guns on target while eliminating pre-maneuver options and landing the block. Ryad in particular has lots of options to bail out with pre-maneuver boost/roll.

In addition to list building the game strategy is important, I'm particularly thinking of obstacle placement. Unless they're extremely good you can cut off a lot of those movement options by doing what you can to place the obstacles in semi-tight clusters where each is around range 1&3/4 from each other. This spacing is just wide enough that you might encourage them in but tight enough to always eliminate a Barrel Roll from at least one side, maybe both. If you're running tractors yourself this spacing also almost guarantees you have an obstacle to toss them on if they come into the rocks.

A simple Rebel list to crack avoiding Whisper.

• Ten Numb: B-Foils
• Braylen Stram: naked
• Garven Dreis: X-Foils
• Dutch Vander: Ion Cannon Turret, Seismic Charges, R3 Astromech

Alternatively...

• Leia Organa: K-2S0
• Luke Skywalker
• Thane Kyrell: R4 Astromech

Each list is capable of double modding each of its shots. You could swap Turret and Charges on Dutch for some Ion Torpedoes. Whisper has a native 2 Agility, with Cloak that's 4. If you Ion her, she is dead next round, because she loses much of her unpredictability. Spread your arcs and just pew pew away.

An imperial list I would suggest, would be...

• "Echo": Passive Sensors
• Fifth Brother: Passive Sensors, Homing Missiles
• Seventh Sister: Passive Sensors
• Major Vynder: Advanced SLAM, Autoblasters, Fire-Control System, XG-1 Assault Configuration,

Yoy can strip Stealth Device from Whisper with Brother. Either he risks taking 4v3 shot and risks eating a critical, or takes a hit and a crit. Sister is just super good at being a nimble knife fighter and getting through those Evades with her ability. Important to note is, she triggers after dice modification and before neutralisation of results, like Crack Shot. "Echo" is just better "Whisper" imho, if one knows how to fly her. While the I5 is nimble, the I4 is outright busted in the way she dodges arcs and direct engagement. And lastly Vynder is a speedy boi.

i would play

vader+passive+afterb+prorokets

+ what you want

vader can quite grant you to half/kill/ wishper or any other ace during the game.

i use to complete this list with seventh sister and 2 bareage bombers

against aces you have to wait with your bombers before to engage and use them to "cover" vader.

hopefully your enemy will try to aim to vader leaving the fragile bombers free

don't trow bombers in face of aces otherwise they will melt too quckly.

is a very flexible list good against different kind of squads

28 minutes ago, Manolox said:

i would play

vader+passive+afterb+prorokets

+ what you want

vader can quite grant you to half/kill/ wishper or any other ace during the game.

i use to complete this list with seventh sister and 2 bareage bombers

against aces you have to wait with your bombers before to engage and use them to "cover" vader.

hopefully your enemy will try to aim to vader leaving the fragile bombers free

don't trow bombers in face of aces otherwise they will melt too quckly.

is a very flexible list good against different kind of squads

About this Vader build, isn't it a bit weird needing both a focus to fire the rockets and a lock for the X1's ability?

Passive sensors also looks like you are prioritizing the lock action,and a locked primary from Vader can be totally avoided by stealth device+fifth brother Whisper. On the other hand it looks difficult to me to try and fire the rockets with both focus and a lock, and if you only have focus it's not that easy to get 4+ hits actually (which is what would put Whisper in trouble).

28 minutes ago, xanatos135 said:

About this Vader build, isn't it a bit weird needing both a focus to fire the rockets and a lock for the X1's ability?

Passive sensors also looks like you are prioritizing the lock action,and a locked primary from Vader can be totally avoided by stealth device+fifth brother Whisper. On the other hand it looks difficult to me to try and fire the rockets with both focus and a lock, and if you only have focus it's not that easy to get 4+ hits actually (which is what would put Whisper in trouble).

the wishper that he has to kill doesen't have fifth brother, only stealth device... so if you are lucky you can half him with double modded proroket.... if not you will probably do with the bombers or the next roud.

if you half wishper in the early game your opponet will have to risk somethig if he want to win the game and can't no more play consevatively.

that is bad with aces

21 hours ago, xanatos135 said:

About this Vader build, isn't it a bit weird needing both a focus to fire the rockets and a lock for the X1's ability?

Passive sensors also looks like you are prioritizing the lock action,and a locked primary from Vader can be totally avoided by stealth device+fifth brother Whisper. On the other hand it looks difficult to me to try and fire the rockets with both focus and a lock, and if you only have focus it's not that easy to get 4+ hits actually (which is what would put Whisper in trouble).

Passive Sensors gives you a Lock Action when you engage. Vader can spend a Force Charge to get himself a Focus out of it. Going after "Whisper" he can move, pop Afterburners, Lock and then do a Focus > Roll for a Force Charge to aim the Bullseye. You get a Five Dice attack with double mods against a Three Dice defense. And then you can just follow up with Three Dice and a guaranteed Crit against now only Two Dice. It's an expensive, but solid build.

1 minute ago, Schanez said:

Passive Sensors gives you a Lock Action when you engage. Vader can spend a Force Charge to get himself a Focus out of it. Going after "Whisper" he can move, pop Afterburners, Lock and then do a Focus > Roll for a Force Charge to aim the Bullseye. You get a Five Dice attack with double mods against a Three Dice defense. And then you can just follow up with Three Dice and a guaranteed Crit against now only Two Dice. It's an expensive, but solid build.

Wow, as much as I like playing imperial I really need to get a TIE advanced at some point. I never fly Vader, so I was totally forgetting he can take multiple actions only by spending force 😅 . Of course, taking that into account it's pretty easier to fire double-modded prockets than I thought.