After finally having the cost and upgrade information plus movement dials from Board game Geek and Team Covenants unboxing video, I came up with this list.

The traffic jam list:

4x Omicron Group Pilot 21

- Anti-pursuit Lasers 2

- Fire Control system 2

Advantages:

Huge stat line with 40 hit points total and good firepower for very low cost

Ships can perform red 0 manoeuvers and provoke crashes

Low pilot skill allows for people to crash into you reliably

Fire control systems for target locks during your stationary time

Customizable:

You can replace the Fire control systems with crew members of your choice for a total of 8 points (there are very good other options with Intel Officer, Vader, Navigator and Saboteur)

Captain Yorr would make another viable addition to replace one Omicron pilot.

Disadvantages

No K-Turns at all.

Generally difficult to play 4 large ships

Very poor maneuverability overall with lots of stressful maneuvers.

After initial clash you need to create overlapping fields of fire whenever one of your ships is being tailed. So this is no newbie list at all.

Bad against skill 1 pilots, that will move before you and never trigger your pursuit lasers.

Gotta buy 4 shuttles and perhaps 4 B-Wings...

I've been wondering if I could manage to maneuver the shuttles into a decently tight square and then fly them in a circle in such a way that they help cover each others back sides and manage to avoid colliding during the maneuver. I'm not sure it's even possible to do well though and I'm pretty sure it's beyond my ability to get set up during a game.

Four shuttles are just target practice for your opponent.

Or you do it for the fun of it? Doesn't need to be competitive, you know?

Four shuttles are just target practice for your opponent.

Agreed. Did you ever see the Empire send 4 Lambda Shuttles to attack a squad of X-wings?

Along a similar train of thought, there is also the possibility to take the traditional 3 bounty hunter list, remove one bounty hunter and replace it with a shuttle. You can then disperse any leftover points for upgrades and crew on the bounty hunters, or play two barebones firesprays and a somewhat beefed up shuttle with the shuttle potentially passing off target locks or otherwise supporting the firesprays. You can still have 3 big ships with 3 attack and lots of HP, but you have some options for how to build your squadron instead of just throwing the firesprays in there and only having one single point to spare.

At first I thought that a 4 shuttle list would be easy to defeat. You just simply get behind them. But the more I think about it, the more viable I think it could be.

I'm thinking:

OMG with APL and Rebel Captive
OMG with APL and Vader
OMG with APL
OMG with APL

98 pts to ensure you do move first against anything PS 2 or higher. But how do you fly it? Like a Hapan Battle Dragon turret gun. Essentially delay some of them until after the first engagement. Then when the front OMG (without crew) is turning, the others can attack the damaged target(s) to try and finish them off. Your opponent is going to want to try and concentrate fire to get rid of one OMG, but by doing so, he will be taking fire from the others who now have good arcs on your opponent's ships if they try to K-turn to kill off the first OMG.

Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. I don't know. But I do know that I want to try it and see if it will or not. It could get some modified wins in a tourney setting, though.

Well it is certainly not the most competitive list out there, but i am convinced it would be way more than target practice, especially against X-Wings. They don't have the greatest maneuvrability themselves the one thing they do have going for them is range 1 movement options for not overshooting. But remember they have to deal double the damage to win and that is nothing easy to do even against an enemy with equally good firepower wven against agility 1 targets. Not saying it is not possible but it's way more difficult than just duscardibg it saying it is target practice.

When i posted the list i knew the first thing people would modify would be the Fire Control systems.

My tactic was to present a single front that moves toward the biggest threat as slowly as possible. Means that you stop, take a stress token as the 0 is a red maneuver. If you shot the turn before you would have a target lock. But that depends. Next turn you take a 1 straight or bank depending on your opponents manoeuvers getting rid of stress. Rinse repeat. As long as the opponent does not flank you at full speed or comes as fast as possible toward you and tries to K-Turn behind you, you should have the sheer weight of fire helping you. And every kill you get during that initial encounter helps you enormously just because every kill means some guns less nagging at your enormous hit point reservoir.

After that it is a game of presenting them an easy target and getting the rest of ypur ships in position to shoot back while making the enemy overshoot their targets or crash into you.

I agree that the Fire control system would be rather worthless during the second, much longer phase. But what crew upgrades would you replace the 8 freed points with? Saboteurs? Vader? Rebel captives? Intel or Nav officers? I don't really came ip with a great combination of those that would give you the edge.

Lol, I just realized you can have your shuttles face one another and keep selecting forward 1s. They will never move, and will always be covering each others' 6. Even while I was doing it I would feel bad, but it would be funny.

Get the box of 4 doing this and watch the insanity. You'd definitely want the fire control system then to give them something resembling an action.

Tycho chased down a tie in a shuttle.

Four shuttles are just target practice for your opponent.

This.

I think you would have to stagger your approach with the lambda's quite honestly. Like have the first movement for a couple of them be a 0, and then a 1, and so by the time the first two are engaged, the last two have range 3 shots, and the enemy can't just koiogran around them and stay on their tail. Sure a wall could do alot of damage in the first turn, and possibly the second, but after that, it will be near impossible to line up more than 1 shot a turn.

I believe that if you're smart flying them, stagger their approach, and maybe if you give 1 or 2 an engine upgrade you could do some work with them. I like the idea certainly

1 shuttle is the max you will ever want to run unless you are a sadist, or a role player.

Shuttles are probably the last kill target in any list they are in. They are far too easy to avoid and have too many hit points to be a target of opportunity. Their purpose is buffing and support. Don't be fooled by their 3 attack dice. You won't be using them more than a turn or two because it will be impossible to keep anything in your front arc.

1 shuttle is the max you will ever want to run unless you are a sadist, or a role player.

Shuttles are probably the last kill target in any list they are in. They are far too easy to avoid and have too many hit points to be a target of opportunity. Their purpose is buffing and support. Don't be fooled by their 3 attack dice. You won't be using them more than a turn or two because it will be impossible to keep anything in your front arc.

Why a sadist or a role player... a sadist would mean they are very strong and you like to inflict pain on others...

Also the real thing is that you won't keep a lot of things in your front arcs for very long. But in order to avoid shots, opponents also will miss occasions to shoot themselves. Plus it will not be one shuttle but four. Overlapping firing arcs are very hard to create but also very hard to avoid. you tail one shuttle, I will stop it and make you overshoot, while facing the ship with another shuttle...

Four shuttles are just target practice for your opponent.

This.

I don't wanna be cynical but this sounds like you just don't want to even think about it. I don't say this is the strongest list ever but I am pretty sure you underestimate it by a good amount.

You are welcome to test it to prove to yourself that any opponent worth his salt will out maneuver you all day long. The shuttle is great but two is not better than one, and 4 is silly.

Remember, you get no dice at all if you aren't pointing at your target.

Bah, ignore them. I posted the exact same list a few days. I think it would be a hoot to run. I'm sure it would foul up more than one opponent. will this be a big fad? Nope, but still lots of fun.

I just wonder what makes people think that you get no shots.

You either stagger them like some people already suggested, or you fly what's called a Thach Weave pattern (it's difficult to do but i manage to with bounty hunters, so it is possible). You will not shoot every turn with every ship but if you do it right you will get shots off. And remember you will probably have way more hit points than your enemy. This manoeuver was specially designed to counter more manoeuvrable enemies by an american Wildcat pilot during WW2 plus it is somewhat a 2D maneuver.

And one thing is for sure. If a shuttle gets tailed and the enemy is close enough you just stop mid flight. No other ship does this and there will be more than enough occasions where you keep your enemy guessing what you will do or with absolutely no way to counter a 0 manoeuver without either crashing into you, K-Turning in front of your guns or just sacrificing his own shots.

Honestly i don't know if this list is a top of the meta list, i strongly doubt it even. But it will not be easy to handle by opponents (and yourself) either.

Hey, it sounds like a blast to me. The reasons you gave are compelling enough for me to give it a shot. Assuming I can afford four shuttles (It's not like I often have $120 sitting around to blow on miniatures).

Lol, I just realized you can have your shuttles face one another and keep selecting forward 1s. They will never move, and will always be covering each others' 6. Even while I was doing it I would feel bad, but it would be funny.

And while you sit there, your opponent is maneuvering for flank shots on the two shuttles playing kissy face. One or two firing runs later and you won't be doing it anymore as one shuttle will be an expanding cloud of debris.

Lol, I just realized you can have your shuttles face one another and keep selecting forward 1s. They will never move, and will always be covering each others' 6. Even while I was doing it I would feel bad, but it would be funny.

If you could somehowq get them in a box, this might work, but as soon as the box started losing ships, it is over. Plenty of staying power, but not a whole lot of anything else.

Yeah, it would be like a single, really expensive turret. Not exactly a great play, but it would be amusing to watch.

Yeah, it would be like a single, really expensive turret. Not exactly a great play, but it would be amusing to watch.

A single, really expensive turret that could fire at multiple targets each turn if they were in different quadrants. I agree that it's probably not great, but I suspect somebody could fly a 4 shuttle list more effectively than people are giving it credit for.