Hi,

I've been playing a new deck and was hoping for some feedback.

The idea is to swarm the LS with ships to kill objectives quickly and at the same time try to control the number of enemy units and the ability of LS units to block.

Swarm:

Mostly cheap fighters that can be unfocused with "Tallon Roll" and if Black Squadron with "Black Squadron Assault".

"Death from Above" for added blast damage especially when able to hit twice once it gets through.

Control:

The "Rancor" is deadly against ground units. I try to pick off the cheap ones with "Defense Protocol" and let the "Rancor" eat the rest (up to cost 4).

"I'm on the Leader" and "A Disturbance in the Force" can help to clear opposition to attacks against objectives.

"Nightsister" is good for force control and can run away from the "Rancor" for a bit with a high cost of 3.

It's been fun to play. Any advice would be most appreciated.

Affiliation: Sith

Objectives:

Sith:

Black Squadron Assault x2

Shadows of Dathomir x2

Imperial Navy:

Defense Protocol x2

Death and Despayre x2

Kuat Reinforcements x2

Units:

Tie Fighter x4

Backstabber x2

Tie Bomber x2

Tie Attack Squadron x2

Tie Advanced x2

Vader's Tie Advanced x2

Nightsister x4

Imperial Officer x2

Black Squadron Pilot x2

Rancor x2

Enhancements:

Control Room x2

Defense Upgrade x2

The Hand's Blessing x2

Events:

Tallon Roll x4

Death from Above x4

A Disturbance in the Force x2

I'm on the Leader x2

Fate:

Heat of Battle x2

Target of Opportunity x2

Twist of Fate x2

Quick addition…

Is a Tie Fighter with an attached Black Squadron Pilot considered a Black Squadron unit? That would make the card much more useful.

Cosmid said:

Nope. For that to be true, Black Squadron Pilot would have to explicitly grant the Black Squadron trait to the fighter it was enhancing. Sorry.

If I play Black Squadron Pilot onto a Vehicle unit and you have rancor in play would I have to discard the pilot if it is the lowest cost non vehicle unit in play?

TGO said:

Nope. It's an enhancement, not a unit.

I figured that would be the case.

The only use I can see for the "Black Squadron Pilot" as an attachment (at this point) would be to protect it from the Rancor if it's out. Anyone else use it as an attachment?

Cosmid said:

There is some benefit to having all of your icons in one place: since you take turns back and forth striking, that allows you to use both the icons from the fighter and the added icons from BSP with one strike (and BSP might not have lived to your next turn with only 1 damage capacity). Also, as an enhancement he adds non-edge-enabled icons while as a unit the icons are edge enabled.

Cosmid said:

Yes. If you use Black Squadron Assault to remove a focus token from your ship (with a Black Squadron Pilot attached) you're essentially readying two cards.

Cosmid, how have your results been with your dark side? As it appears on the surface that it lacks resources and you may get hand clog due to not being able to play many cards.

I really think that decks like this can get eaten up by the mains decks. While this deck definitely can have some very aggressive starts, I think it really relies on getting the big guys (Vader's tie or Devastator) out early but that it often needs to get at least 3 objectives destroyed. Overall, I think a midrange aggro troopers deck like double sets of 19, 20, 23, 26, 32 is much better. That allows you some big surprise damage while still giving you all of the advantages of playing Sith and far less reliance on big guy damage. If you want you can sub out a set of 20 for the espo troopers.

Cosmid said:

Hi

I am using almost the same deck, but have 2x Endor Gambit instead of Dathomir's Shadows. AT-ST are great first turn blockers also commited to the force - compare them to Sisters - 3hp, card draw and vehicle trait, what means works with death from above and Kuat Objective, also 4 shielding cards and 2 more Targets of Opportunity helps a lot - it is my favourite deck on core set ;-)

Teokrata said:

I, too, am using a similar deck, but with Imperial Command instead of Shadows of Dathomir. As others have mentioned, the deck as posted does not quite have the resources you need to get a successful swarm out, and Imperial Command really helps with those resources. That's why I ditched the AT-STs. I felt like I was adding a three-cost unit that didn't synergize well without adding any resources to an already resource-starved deck. To be sure, AT-STs are nice in that they are hardy, can battle for the Force, and are useful in edge battles, so they do have their merits.

Also, limiting yourself to one Sith objective set and the Sith affiliation card decreases your chances of getting stuck with the wrong resources, since Black Squadron Assault doesn't have very many Sith cards, so you don't need that many Sith resources.

The problem with my deck, however, is that it's very hard to win edge battles. Because you have fewer strong cards, you need to play more cards to the table, and that means weaker cards in hand for the edge battles. As such, I feel this sort of fighter deck (with the current card pool at least) relies heavily on initiating engagements where there are no defenders so you can get the automatic edge. (Maybe I need those AT-STs for edge battles after all.)

Budgernaut said:

You need them ;-) first turn You have to defend against LS and AT-ST with shielding armor and cards in hand are quite nice, then can also be dropped for 2 resources with Kuat Reinforcments, what means 2 solid 1 turn blockers. Also Endor Gambit Objective is very helpfull against Jedi with many tactic units. Kuat Reinforcments are the key card for that deck and when You don't have it Death and Despayre or 2 Control Rooms should make the deck working. If You still feel a luck of resources You can try The Ultimate Power sets instead of Black Squadron Assaults for 2 additional Control Rooms, Tarkin and super lasers. I hope that will help ;-)

Teokrata said:

I played a couple more games and found that more often than not, I'm swimming in resources -- I have way more than I need. I'm gonna try throwing The Endor Gambit in to see how things go.

I also found that the only way my deck worked was if the opponent overcommitted and left me wide open for unopposed attacks. With a TIE Bomber and Tallon Roll, you can take an objective unopposed with ease. As long as the LS player is more careful than that, I really need stronger edge cards.

Cosmid said:

He's already pretty darn useful. Remember that the icons he has built-in are edge dependent, whereas those he grants to a vehicle he's enhancing are not. So strap him in and watch the ship and its pilot become a lot stronger than the sum of their parts.

MarthWMaster said:

So if I attach BSP as an enhancement to, for example, Vader's Tie Advanced (1 normal unit damage and 1 normal blast damage), and I use it in an engagement, and win the edge battle , I get to use the Edge-enabled icons on the BSP card itself, as well as the non-edge icons the text grants if used as an enhancement, for a total of three unit Damage and three Blast Damage?

ziggy2000 said:

No if attached only counts as the enhancements and uses its icons. Not the unit icons he would have if played as a separate unit.

ziggy2000 said:

False. When being used as an enhancement the BSP is not functioning as a unit and does not add its edge dependent icons. The statement above was talking about how the icons he adds as an enhancement are not edge-dependant while the icons he would have if instead played as a unit are.

dbmeboy said:

Okay, that's what I thought, but one of the posts above implied that it might work. I looked around in the rules, and didn't see anything that addressed this issue directly - the closest thing was the rule that says you can't use an enhancement's Force Icons in the Force Struggle if it is attached to a unit that is committed to the force.

ziggy2000 said:

The trick is that it's played as an enhancement, not a unit. In that case, the edge-dependant icons printed on the card don't matter because only units can strike, not enhancements. I will admit that the rules don't really clearly address this specific card in some ways (as no other cards have a function remotely similar). However, on this one I would be nonplused if they ruled differently than I'm interpreting it (and a bonus commonly-misused vocab word of the day).