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Hola everyone.
With the release of S+V, I was thinking about the viability of two-ship Aggressor builds and what an optimal loadout would be.
Obviously, each ship takes the IG2000 title to maximize ship abilities.

Thoughts?

I'll start:

IG88B
-IG-2000
-Outmaneuver
-Heavy Laser Cannon
-Accuracy Corrector
-Inertial Dampeners

IG88C
-IG-2000
-Outmaneuver
-Heavy Laser Cannon
-Accuracy Corrector
-Inertial Dampeners

So, the same loadout on both, but sharing the built-in Gunner and looking to grab free evasion from boost.
Both ships have 4 shots at all ranges, possibly more from Outmaneuver.
As discussed in some previous threads, the accuracy corrector can exercise some control over damage output for hitting the requirements for "gunner", or simply to cause 2 damage when needed.
The inertial dampeners are there since they're an easy 1 point, and may come in handy in a pinch.

Thanks!

Well, I'm not sure how useful outmaneuver will be on a PS 6 ship, especially since you don't have the IG88D. I also would rather have Fire Control systems with a Heavy Laser Cannon. Given the many actions and numerous green maneuvers on the aggressor, I think that PTL is near mandatory.

That said, I think that inertial dampeners are and auto-include on the Agressor (just because it's 1 point for a lot of flexibility from an otherwise unused slot).

The first variation that got tested locally was:

IG88-B (49) Aggressor (36), Predator (3), Advanced Sensors (3), Heavy Laser Cannon (7), IG-2000 (0)
IG88-D (49) Aggressor (36), Predator (3), Advanced Sensors (3), Heavy Laser Cannon (7), IG-2000 (0)

The one that got played in a Store Champs this past weekend and went to top 4 was:
IG88-B (50) Aggressor (36), Push the Limit (3), Fire-Control System (2), Heavy Laser Cannon (7), IG-2000 (0), Autothrusters (2)
IG88-D (50) Aggressor (36), Push the Limit (3), Fire-Control System (2), Heavy Laser Cannon (7), IG-2000 (0), Autothrusters (2)

I think some middle ground between the two would be my choice. Taking out the Push the Limit for Predator, though that is more due to not like Push on things not named Soontir Fel or A-Wing. While there is a lot of green on the dial, the S Loop is still the best move he can do on the turn after engagement when you likely have a stress from Push.

IMO, after watching games with it and playing against it the dual-aggressor list is semi-viable. It can win games, especially in a casual environment, with its amazing action and pilot ability efficiency boosting a pretty good stat line. But it has some big weaknesses, and against lists that can exploit those weaknesses it has very little chance of winning. Some observations:

1) Advanced sensors or FCS, no question. AC is not an option. You either need to maximize your firepower when you have shots with FCS or exploit the maneuvering flexibility of AS to gain more opportunities. Points are tight in this list, and a 3-point system upgrade that is situation at best is not a good idea. And TBH, after seeing the maneuvering problems this list has, I'm not sure even FCS is a good idea.

2) You MUST deal with stress ships asap. The aggressor needs to avoid taking stress from other ships because it's going to be giving itself so much stress with PTL and/or s-loops, and its lack of green 90* turns or alternate firing arcs makes it very predictable once it gets extra stress. Stress torps will let your opponent k-turn behind you. Rebel captive will make your shooting choices a nightmare. And the stress y-wing (R3-A2 + title) will take half of your list out of the fight for the entire game. You have to deal with these threats in the initial pass when you can concentrate fire on them. If you let the stress y-wing survive the initial pass and get behind you the game is pretty much over.

3) PTL looks mandatory, but you need to end the turn stress-free sometimes. This means advanced sensors looks like it's also going to be mandatory. Without the extra actions from PTL you're using unmodified dice way too often. It looks like the standard turn is going to be using advanced sensors to get boost + evade + focus followed by a green maneuver to end the turn stress-free and keep your ability to k-turn or s-loop back into the fight.

4) You have to be very careful in managing your approaches. The combination of a large base and frequent boosting to make up for your lack of green 90* turns means that the aggressor is very fast. Even when you don't want to be fast you're still covering a lot of distance every turn. It's going to be very hard to sit back and shoot against higher-PS arc dodgers like Fel/Corran/etc, and turret ships are going to find it very easy to fly past you and make it a one-sided shooting match. And even against lower-skill ships you have to be careful that you don't find yourself in a position where you either bump and lose actions (often followed shortly by losing a ship) or overshoot your target and allow them to k-turn behind you.

5) The PS 6 issue is very relevant. You have a two-ship list with no turrets or secondary arcs, but you move first against pretty much everything besides PS 1-2 swarm lists. This is a problem when a big part of your strategy is how many maneuvering options you have. Remember how Whisper and Echo are terrifying, but nobody really cares about the low-PS phantoms? Same problem here. You've got a lot of options, but you still have to commit to one before your target moves.

Played a double Aggressor build against a friend over the weekend. Since it was my first time running an actual Scum list, he fielded an Empire list for the first time.

My loadout was bad, and identical for both IG88B and IG88D:

Calculation (terrible choice)
Fire Control System (pairs perfectly with IG88B)
HLC (best and possibly only choice)
Ion Cannon (basically 3 wasted points)
IG-2000 Title (duh)
Inertial Dampeners (to use my last 2 points, but reasonable option I think).

Enemy list was Carnor Jax, Soontir Fel and Echo. I don't remember the exact options.

Now again, it was only my 3rd game ever (and only my 2nd solo game). But saying "I got the snot kicked out of me" would be being generous. Part of that was just the dice deciding to go ham (e.g.: losing 7 hits off 1 ship on turn 1 in the second game).

My thoughts are:

Pilot Skill 6 seems a little too low to not run VI on at least 1 ship. This might be exacerbated by my opponent picking 3 ships with 8, 8 and 9; especially a cloaker. Still, going to PS8 would have made a huge difference in that game.

HLC or bust. The Ion Cannon did end up hitting Echo and preventing an attack for a round (not sure we did this right) but when you're already paying 7 for the HLC another 3 for the Ion just seems better spent elsewhere (like autothrusters or something).

I ran up against a guy yesterday using a double Agressor List. He had:

IG88-B and IG 88-C, both with the same loadout:
IG 2000
Push the Limit
Advanced Sensors
Mangler Cannon
Seismic Charge
Autothrusters

While this list was effective on the first two or three turns, I found that it crumbled fast once one of the ships was lost (my opponent made a mistake with his maneuvers, which I was able to capitalize on). Not only did they lose half their points, but now they had one firing arc, making it a lot harder to catch my ships (Boba Fett and N'Dru Suhlak both had better PS and Inertial Dampeners), so I was able to force the fight on my terms.

 streamdragon wrote:
Pilot Skill 6 seems a little too low to not run VI on at least 1 ship.

I disagree. VI is marginal at best because PS 8 isn't worth all that much in a metagame where most ships are either PS 1-2 or PS 9+. A lot of the time VI is just going to be a waste of a valuable upgrade slot. The real mandatory upgrade, IMO, is going to be PTL. The aggressor needs lots of actions every turn to survive, and with advanced sensors you can mostly negate the stress cost and keep your maneuvering options open for the following turn.

 Peregrine wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:
Pilot Skill 6 seems a little too low to not run VI on at least 1 ship.

I disagree. VI is marginal at best because PS 8 isn't worth all that much in a metagame where most ships are either PS 1-2 or PS 9+. A lot of the time VI is just going to be a waste of a valuable upgrade slot. The real mandatory upgrade, IMO, is going to be PTL. The aggressor needs lots of actions every turn to survive, and with advanced sensors you can mostly negate the stress cost and keep your maneuvering options open for the following turn.

Fair enough. Like I said, my view may be skewed because 2 of the 3 ships I was up against were PS8.

Boring though it may be, I think the dual Aggressor list I would run would be

B and C identically loaded out with
PTL
HLC
FCS
Autothrusters
and the title

Focus and boost every turn, you get free evade and target locks, extra shots with gunner, maneueverable enough to stay out of arcs of turret ships and you have a focus and evade to use on defense and a target lock to use on offense.

I think if you're going to run the slippery Advanced Sensors build you need to bring D for the alternate hard turn S Loop. And Expert Handling wouldn't go astray. it just makes you that much more unpredictable. If you aren't bringing D (and I like C and B for free gunner and free evade) FCS is a better bet for jousting and getting those hits through, especially with B. You will get damage through every turn. Even against say a cloaked Phantom (roll 4 dice, spend target lock, get 3-4 hits, phantom rolls dice, gets 3-4 evades, TL reacquires, shoot again with 4 dice because you missed, spend TL, get 3-4 hits, phantom has to roll again, with no tokens, takes at least 1-2 damage, possibly more)

I think A and B might be good, but it's hard to survive long enough to take advantage of the shield regeneration if you aren't arc dodging and/or getting the evade action every turn. And it also requires you keep the opponent in arc and shoot every turn for the best chance of killing someone and gaining back a shield. You're obviously going to do a lot better against swarms than against arc dodging interceptors and phantoms

I'm tossing around the idea of bringing the following to a 150 point tourney this weekend.
Should be pretty fun to play, but not sure how well it'll do.

3x Aggressors (B, C, and D) - Each is 50 points on the nose.
- Push the Limit
- Advanced Sensors
- Heavy Laser Cannon
- IG2000 title
- Inertial Dampeners

The alternate to the above is to swap out AS for Fire Control System, and Swap out Inertial Dampeners for Autothrusters.

I think I get more utility and maneuverability out of the AS build, but more durability with the Autothruster build.

So I'm kind of going to necro/revive this thread because I finally picked up two Aggressors and with the change to the Phantom, I think they're going to be a lot more competitive since Whisper was the scariest IG-2000 hunter in the game. Keyword being was.

IMO, IG88-C is practically mandatory. The action efficiency is just too strong to ignore. I want to bring PTL, AdvSensors and a Proximity mine on both ships, that kind of excludes the Heavy Laser Cannon (and thus, the IG88B as that was really his best cannon option) That leaves A and D to choose from for my second ship. I like both, and will probably test both. I'm leaning towards A right now, just to make the ships better against attrition and even harder to kill. But I also think D is valid, and like I said will give him a try.

As for loadout in addition to the aforementioned PTL, AS and PM, Autothrusters is an autoinclude for me as well. I love the 3 agility ships and if you have the boost action it makes a huge difference in the opening shots of an engagement and against turreted ships. That only leaves Cannons and Illicit slots and 6 points left to use. I hate one shot weapons as much as the next guy but the only cannon options are Ion on both or a mangler on one which is just atrocious. So I think I'm going to opt for the Hot Shot Blaster on both ships. I can imagine it tripping up some people up that think you're going to K or S loop when you just boost past them, target lock and shoot them out the back with the Hot Shot. Sadly it doesn't fix the Aggressor's weakness of high PS arc dodgers due to only having three dice and those ships carrying autothrusters now, but it does alleviate some of the pressure to have your opponents in arc every turn.

That's what Proximity mines are for. If someone ends up behind you, you Advanced Sensors drop the proximity mine on top of them boom goes Soontir (or Turr or whoever) and still boost+evade away with PTL and clear the stress or throw an S loop to try and get them in arc

So the final list would be:
IG88-A (or D) 36
Push the Limit 3
Proximity Mines 3
Advanced Sensors 3
Hot Shot Blaster 3
Autothrusters 2

IG 88-C 36
Push the Limit 3
Proximity Mines 3
Advanced Sensors 3
Hot Shot Blaster 3
Autothrusters 2

100 points

 bocatt wrote:
Whisper was the scariest IG-2000 hunter in the game.

Not even close. The scariest IG-2000 hunter is a "warthog" y-wing with R3-A2. Two stress a turn shuts down an aggressor's fancy tricks and prevents them from ever getting back into the fight while you sit behind them with the rest of your ships and tear them apart. And IMO Corran was even scarier than Whisper. At least with Whisper you can spread your arcs and when you do get a hit (HLCs with "gunner" are good for that) it's permanent damage. Corran has the ability to dodge your arcs and you have to keep hitting him turn after turn to break through the shield regeneration

IMO, IG88-C is practically mandatory. The action efficiency is just too strong to ignore.

Honestly, I kind of disagree with this. The free action looks great on paper, but in actual games it takes up a huge amount of space that you can't depend on having. Far too often I either had no room to boost or did a marginally-useful boost just to feel like I justified my investment in C. And of course if you successfully dodge arcs with your maneuvering tricks then the free evade action is worthless.

IMO the mandatory one is B, for the ability to deal consistent damage. You're spending 50 points per ship so you can't afford to have turns where you miss entirely. Even if you can only afford a mangler or ion cannon you need the extra firepower.

 Peregrine wrote:

 bocatt wrote:
Whisper was the scariest IG-2000 hunter in the game.

Not even close. The scariest IG-2000 hunter is a "warthog" y-wing with R3-A2. Two stress a turn shuts down an aggressor's fancy tricks and prevents them from ever getting back into the fight while you sit behind them with the rest of your ships and tear them apart. And IMO Corran was even scarier than Whisper. At least with Whisper you can spread your arcs and when you do get a hit (HLCs with "gunner" are good for that) it's permanent damage. Corran has the ability to dodge your arcs and you have to keep hitting him turn after turn to break through the shield regeneration

Fun fact if you end a first turn at the very edge of the Y-wings range, an Advanced Sensors boost forward into a K turn will end you behind the Y wing even if they only performed a 1 straight maneuver.

This trick will only work once but seeing the look on the warthog players face will be priceless

 bocatt wrote:
Fun fact if you end a first turn at the very edge of the Y-wings range, an Advanced Sensors boost forward into a K turn will end you behind the Y wing even if they only performed a 1 straight maneuver.

Too bad you can't do this because you're stressed from R3-A2.

 Peregrine wrote:

 bocatt wrote:
Fun fact if you end a first turn at the very edge of the Y-wings range, an Advanced Sensors boost forward into a K turn will end you behind the Y wing even if they only performed a 1 straight maneuver.

Too bad you can't do this because you're stressed from R3-A2.

Why would you be when they can't shoot you because you're outside of range. The outside edge of the Y Wings range. I checked it to make sure because covering 3 whole range bands with one maneuver seems like a lot but you can.

You can be outside your opponents range and then you can be behind them. Without ever being shot at. So you don't have stress from R3-A2

 bocatt wrote:
Why would you be when they can't shoot you because you're outside of range. The outside edge of the Y Wings range. I checked it to make sure because covering 3 whole range bands with one maneuver seems like a lot but you can.

You can be outside your opponents range and then you can be behind them. Without ever being shot at. So you don't have stress from R3-A2

In theory, but it's extremely unlikely in reality. Range 3 is 7.5 base lengths, so you have to be at least slightly more than 7.5 away to be out of R3-A2 range. The y-wing moves the back of its base to 6.5 base lengths away at its activation step. Then you boost, adding 3 base lengths (2 for the base, 1 for the template) bringing it to 3.5. Your 4-k maneuver clears in theory, but only if you're less than half a base length outside range 3 on the previous turn (and don't forget to account for the movement guides). Are you really that precise with your measurement, especially on the "out of range" turn where you have to set everything up to land just barely outside range 3 before you know exactly where your opponent is going to move to?

The much more likely outcome is that on the "out of range" turn you're either outside range 3 by too much of a margin to risk disaster by attempting a k-turn or you get into range 3 and take R3-A2 stress. Or the R3-A2 ship will have a second ship trailing it slightly and in a position to block your k-turn. Or maybe the R3-A2 player anticipates your k-turn and does a k-turn of their own, leaving you multi-stressed and completely screwed*. Are you willing to take that risk with a 50-point ship?

*This is actually a pretty decent option. A 4-k by the y-wing leaves its base occupying the space between 3 and 3.5 base lengths away from where you start your move, which means that you either move slow and bump the y-wing (denying your ability to shoot at it and probably setting up an easy stress shot next turn when you fly past it), k-turn and get multi-stressed, or bank/turn away from the y-wing and point your arc off into the middle of nowhere. And you can't boost to adjust your maneuver because all of your boost options are now blocked. Of course the y-wing is vulnerable to an s-loop (bank or turn), but do you want to commit to an s-loop in a position where the y-wing gets to multi-stress you if it just does that simple 1-straight instead of the k-turn?

 Peregrine wrote:

 bocatt wrote:
Why would you be when they can't shoot you because you're outside of range. The outside edge of the Y Wings range. I checked it to make sure because covering 3 whole range bands with one maneuver seems like a lot but you can.

You can be outside your opponents range and then you can be behind them. Without ever being shot at. So you don't have stress from R3-A2

In theory, but it's extremely unlikely in reality. Range 3 is 7.5 base lengths, so you have to be at least slightly more than 7.5 away to be out of R3-A2 range. The y-wing moves the back of its base to 6.5 base lengths away at its activation step. Then you boost, adding 3 base lengths (2 for the base, 1 for the template) bringing it to 3.5. Your 4-k maneuver clears in theory, but only if you're less than half a base length outside range 3 on the previous turn (and don't forget to account for the movement guides). Are you really that precise with your measurement, especially on the "out of range" turn where you have to set everything up to land just barely outside range 3 before you know exactly where your opponent is going to move to?

The much more likely outcome is that on the "out of range" turn you're either outside range 3 by too much of a margin to risk disaster by attempting a k-turn or you get into range 3 and take R3-A2 stress. Or the R3-A2 ship will have a second ship trailing it slightly and in a position to block your k-turn. Or maybe the R3-A2 player anticipates your k-turn and does a k-turn of their own, leaving you multi-stressed and completely screwed.

Or maybe for once we arent completely doom and gloom about everything ever, we end the first turn a little farther out of range than we like but the Y wing pulls a 2 or 3 maneuver to try and get close enough for the ion to go off and we end up behind him and we actually enjoy the game. It's like pulling teeth with you, man.

 bocatt wrote:
Or maybe for once we arent completely doom and gloom about everything ever,

It's not "doom and gloom", it's experience with the ships involved. IG-88s have great maneuvering options on paper but most of their fancy tricks aren't so impressive in real game situations. I don't see any point in talking about ridiculous theoretical scenarios where everything is lined up perfectly to let the IG-88 maybe do something cool, with absolute disaster waiting if things aren't exactly perfect.

we end the first turn a little farther out of range than we like but the Y wing pulls a 2 or 3 maneuver to try and get close enough for the ion to go off and we end up behind him and we actually enjoy the game. It's like pulling teeth with you, man.

Why do we assume the y-wing player is stupid? If they're a decent player they know two things about IG-88s:

1) They're extremely fast. The large base covers a lot of distance, and they like to boost to adjust their maneuvers which adds even more distance. If we start just over 7.5 base lengths away and both ships do 1-straight maneuvers (the slowest possible speed for both ships) then the y-wing will end 2.5 base lengths away (just outside range 1). The only way the IG-88 can stay outside ion range without starting at least range 4 away is to use inertial dampeners to do a stop maneuver, but that just leaves the IG-88 at range 3 with a stress token on it which is essentially the same as getting shot an extra time with R3-A2.

2) Their best maneuvering tricks involve k-turns and s-loops. The IG-88 player is almost always going to want to k-turn or s-loop past its target and come in from behind, so why would you go faster than necessary and make it easier for the IG-88 player to get behind you? If you start significantly outside range 3 you do a 1-straight to keep your target in your arc.

 Peregrine wrote:

 bocatt wrote:
Whisper was the scariest IG-2000 hunter in the game.

Not even close. The scariest IG-2000 hunter is a "warthog" y-wing with R3-A2. Two stress a turn shuts down an aggressor's fancy tricks and prevents them from ever getting back into the fight while you sit behind them with the rest of your ships and tear them apart. And IMO Corran was even scarier than Whisper. At least with Whisper you can spread your arcs and when you do get a hit (HLCs with "gunner" are good for that) it's permanent damage. Corran has the ability to dodge your arcs and you have to keep hitting him turn after turn to break through the shield regeneration

IMO, IG88-C is practically mandatory. The action efficiency is just too strong to ignore.

Honestly, I kind of disagree with this. The free action looks great on paper, but in actual games it takes up a huge amount of space that you can't depend on having. Far too often I either had no room to boost or did a marginally-useful boost just to feel like I justified my investment in C. And of course if you successfully dodge arcs with your maneuvering tricks then the free evade action is worthless.

IMO the mandatory one is B, for the ability to deal consistent damage. You're spending 50 points per ship so you can't afford to have turns where you miss entirely. Even if you can only afford a mangler or ion cannon you need the extra firepower.

This is a pretty good overview of aggressors in my experience. Low damage output is my main concern with them and therefore B is the first Aggressor on my list everytime. I have played about with C & D but C consistently outperforms D as I am frequently using boost to gain position - the free evade is therefore great value, especially combined with autothrusters.

High PS arc Dodgers are challenging but not insurmountable. Overlapping the wide firing arcs, cannons and gunner will eventually force hits through. The errata to the phantom should help a bit too.

But where I absolutely agree with you is what the aggressors primary weakness is and that's stress control lists. They're the hardest match up ive encountered to date. Well defenders are also tough for the aggressors but they're a niche hard counter and unlikely to be found in tournaments.

So what happens if you take Wingman and Fire Control Systems on both ships?

You still get modifiers on your dice (target locks) even when stressed and although you tie your ships together (bad) it's only to weather the opening salvo so you can kill the Y Wing(s) where you want to focus fire anyway. And then you can shed the stress (and any stress from turn arounds or inertial dampeners) and split up to take down the rest of the squadron for relatively little points.

The catch-22 is you gimp your ships against anything that isn't Warthogs. Admittedly HLC with target lock and focus is good against anything but you don't have "all the fancy tricks" as you keep saying

 bocatt wrote:
So what happens if you take Wingman and Fire Control Systems on both ships?

Then you've just wasted points and upgrade slots on cards that are mediocre at best on the aggressor and the R3-A2 player has succeeded in crippling your list without ever firing a shot. A big part of why R3-A2 is so effective is that it shuts off all of the tricks you can do with PTL and advanced sensors, and you've voluntarily removed those options yourself. And, as you said, now you've removed all of your best tricks against lists that don't have R3-A2 warthogs. This is a classic case of trying so hard to metagame against a bad matchup that you forget your identity and lose the game anyway. If you're going to take a dual-aggressor list you just have to accept that R3-A2/rebel captive/tactician/etc are going to be problems for you and try to win all of your other games.

I started running a two Aggressor list when S&V first came out. List was as follows.

IG88B: Veteran instincts, heavy laser cannon, advance sensors, auto thrusters, IG2000, and inertial dampners.
IG88C: same as above.

Noticed in games where the PS8 didn't matter too much. Either they were using higher PS and 8 didn't matter, or, that it was lower swarm lists.

It seems to me, that the shoot again if miss ability Of IG88B didn't come into play often enough. So, here is current list.

IG88 A and C with the following upgrades on both.
Adrenaline Rush
Auto thrusters
IG2000
Advanced sensors
Heavy laser cannon
Inertial dampners.

I have enjoyed using the adrenaline rush after the S loop or K turn then boost. I k NJ ow it seems counter productive to advanced sensors, but there is time when you can't boost let alone move. Went from the double shot to the shield recovery. Just giving it a try now.

One thought is replacing the HLC with Mangler cannon and Ion cannon. Your thoughts?

 Peregrine wrote:

. If you're going to take a dual-aggressor list you just have to accept that R3-A2/rebel captive/tactician/etc are going to be problems for you and try to win all of your other games.

you're not helping your "Im not being doomy and gloomy" case.

I'm trying to think of solutions, not problems, and your response is that everyone should just accept their fate in the face of the almighty warthog

 bocatt wrote:
you're not helping your "Im not being doomy and gloomy" case.

Too bad. I'm not going to lie and pretend that a list is good so that I can fill your "bright and cheerful" quota.

I'm trying to think of solutions, not problems, and your response is that everyone should just accept their fate in the face of the almighty warthog

And sometimes, like it or not, the answer is "there is no good solution". Not every random list people throw together is going to have a decent chance of winning. No matter what you do the dual aggressor list is going to be extremely vulnerable to stress because it's a two-ship list that depends heavily on actions and k-turns/s-loops. The ship itself is mediocre at best if you take away its fancy tricks, and you don't have any expendable meatshields to throw at R3-A2 and get it off the table before committing your big stress-vulnerable elites.

Also, the R3-A2 warthog is hardly "almighty". It's a good ship, but it's not an auto-win. It's just a ship that is really good against low-numbers elite lists like dual aggressors.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 martin74 wrote:
It seems to me, that the shoot again if miss ability Of IG88B didn't come into play often enough.

That's probably one of those "small sample size" things. The "gunner" ability is incredibly useful because it gives much more consistent damage to a list that can't afford to have its 50-point ships turned into useless paperweights because of a bad roll. You can get away with omitting B in a metagame where there are no high-agility targets, but once you have to deal with Corran/Fel/etc you're going to realize how important it is. And even something like the humble TIE swarm can give you problems with damage consistency.

IG88 A

Does your metagame really have enough ships for this to be a good option? Lists with only 2-3 ships are still popular, and getting 1-2 shield HP back (if you make sure to kill the target with the ship that needs the HP) isn't really all that impressive.

One thought is replacing the HLC with Mangler cannon and Ion cannon.

It's a decent option if you're using B since the mangler doesn't have a range-1 blind spot where you can't make your second attack. You trade some damage for some consistency, and you add a bit of a control element for when you have a good ion opportunity. But without B I wouldn't suggest it. The mangler is barely better than the primary weapon without B's ability (or something else that specifically requires a cannon and/or crits). The ion might be worth taking though, which would leave 4 points to spend on something other than a cannon (bombs are a good option).

Yes, local meta is surprisingly diverse. You never know what will show up. Tie swarms, 4 b-wings with advanced sensors, Han shoots first and so on. Yes, the A variant has proven usefull.

The mini gunner effect is good and all, it just seems I will hit with primary weapon, when I could have gone secondary from the start with a possible extra hit from the HLC.

Oh, by the way, I don't consider perengrine an expert by any means.

 martin74 wrote:
The mini gunner effect is good and all, it just seems I will hit with primary weapon, when I could have gone secondary from the start with a possible extra hit from the HLC.

Then why not shoot the cannon first? You can trigger the "gunner" effect off a missed cannon shot and then shoot again with the same cannon (or a different one if you have two equipped). Fel might dodge the first HLC shot by spending defensive tokens, but that gives the second one a pretty good chance of doing some damage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Yes, the A variant has proven usefull.

But how useful? Let's say four ships like BBBB is a decent average (swarms obviously have more, HSF/Dash + Corran/etc have less) for a metagame that isn't dominated by the elite pilots. Against four ships you have an absolute limit of three extra shield HP to split between your two ships, and you aren't guaranteed to get all of them (you can kill a ship with full shield HP on your own ship, your opponent can lose a ship by hitting an asteroid, etc). And of course the lower limit is zero extra HP, so if you're losing the game A isn't doing much to help you get out of your mess. So how does that average of 2-3 HP compare to the defense provided by the other options?

A vs. B depends heavily on how many green dice your opponent is rolling. But in general avoiding damage by removing the red dice from the table is better than hoping for the green dice and HP to keep you alive. It's quite likely that killing a ship faster because of B will prevent more than one damage, especially against targets like Fel/Whisper/etc where good opportunities to kill them are rare. But if B's ability doesn't activate very often because you're in a low-agility metagame (b-wings and decimators) then a single HP is better than nothing. But in an average metagame B probably wins this.

A vs. C is a clear win for C. You're almost guaranteed to get more than 2-3 evade tokens between your two ships, and a two-ship list rarely wastes evade tokens. You should never even consider taking A unless C is already in your list.

A vs. D is probably a win for D. A failed k-turn or s-loop is one of the worst things that can happen to a ship and very often results in losing multiple HP that it shouldn't have lost. And the extra arc-dodging potential combined with the ability to make offensive s-loops in tighter spaces to kill stuff faster will add even more HP. If you pay attention you'll probably find that you're avoiding more than 2-3 damage that you would have suffered without the 90* s-loop.


Conclusion: A is obviously better than no ability at all, but it doesn't seem to compare very well to the alternatives.

Played again tonight with my list. Tried the A and C ships. C does well as always. The A was hit and miss, mostly miss. Tried the D, and after that trick once, my opponent was wise to it. So, it looks like B&C for a tournament in two weeks. Tried the following upgrades.

Adrenaline Rush. Pros, cheap and works well with the 4K-Turn, 3S-loop. Cons, one shot use. The ability to boost after the red turn helps. Sometimes you can't do much before the turn.

Advanced sensors: pro, ability to do something before red turn. Or, before you know you will bump.

Ion Cannon: pros: range 1-3, helps break up formations. Predictable of the opponents ship movement. Cons, takes place of HLC?

Mangler cannon: range 1-3. The term I to critical when you hit is nice. Cons, not HLC.

Inertial Dampners: sometimes it is best not to move.

IG-2000. Why wouldn't you run this.

Auto thrusters. Pros: turrets are still out there. Range three still exsists. Between the 3 maneuvers and boost, you can get into range three when running away.


List I have the hardest time against is the 4 b-wing list. Either with advanced sensors or FCS. Just a lot of shots on their part and a lot of shields/hull to get through.

 martin74 wrote:
Tried the D, and after that trick once, my opponent was wise to it.

So what if they were wise to it? That's like saying "my opponent was wise to the fact that my dial has a 2-turn maneuver on it, so it's not worth having". The 90* s-loop is just another maneuver on the dial to be used appropriately. The fact that you can sometimes change it in response to a lower-PS ship's position is just a nice bonus.

Advanced sensors: pro, ability to do something before red turn. Or, before you know you will bump.

It's also very good for stress management with PTL*. You can do your two (or three if you boost with C) actions then reveal a green maneuver and immediately clear your stress. This leaves you stress-free and able to take any maneuver on your dial next turn. So you get both the extra actions of PTL and the ability do your red maneuver tricks, essentially negating the biggest drawback of PTL.

*And yes, you need to be taking PTL. No other EPT is even close to as effective on this ship.

List I have the hardest time against is the 4 b-wing list. Either with advanced sensors or FCS. Just a lot of shots on their part and a lot of shields/hull to get through.

Two things:

1) You're having trouble because you don't have PTL or FCS and have to use unmodified attack dice. You're probably boosting almost every turn because you have C, and even when you don't boost for the free evade you probably want to spend your action on an evade token. And even against low-agility targets unmodified attack dice aren't very good. With a HLC you're averaging about 1.5 HP per turn, which doesn't really scare b-wings. Getting focus and/or TL adds about an extra 1 HP per turn of damage and significantly reduces the time it takes to kill a b-wing.

2) This might be an argument for ion cannons. B-wings are extremely vulnerable to ion weapons because their low agility makes it almost impossible to dodge the shot. You won't be able to ionize all four b-wings at once, but if you're smart about switching targets you can break up your opponent's formation and keep them from ever getting the concentrated fire necessary to break through a focus + evade stack on a 3-agility ship. And then once you get the b-wings low on HP and vulnerable to being finished off with concentrated fire from your own ships you switch to primary attacks for a round and remove a ship from the table.

So what if we fly one fancy trickster and one no stress no mess Aggressor?

IG88C (bait)
PTL
AdvS
Mangler
Autothrusters
Feedback Array
IG2000

IG88B (hook)
Outmaneuver
HLC
FCS
Autothrusters
IG2000

So our C is boosting (and getting an evade token) and focusing every turn possible. Flying in their face and arc dodging and generally being a nuisance with Autothrusters focus and evade on 3 agility while still being able to hit enemies that aren't in firing arc with the array and being able to gunner with the Mangler on people in arc

While B hangs back and rips people apart with Focused Target Locked Gunner HLC and shoots from out of arc as much as possible to reduce their agility and get more hits through.

The obvious choice for a Warthog stressbot Y wing (or tactician ship) is to attack C. C relies on actions and may take ion tokens and damage from feedback array. you would be stupid not to focus on C. But C is shooting back at you and by ignoring IG88B, you'll quickly start to lose ships. and C doesn't want to be ignored either because a 4 dice primary or a Mangler with Focus and Target lock is still nasty.

It doesn't matter if you chase the bait or the hook, you still lose

Both ships fare well against turrets and Feedback Array helps solve the Arc Dodger problem. Swarms fail once you swat Howlrunner (and with 2 strong cannon weapons it shouldn't be hard) and Corran eats it from Outmaneuvering Heavy Laser Cannon. Even 3 agility focus and evade can't hold up against 4 attack with gunner, target lock and -1 to target's agility. He can still arc dodge you but if it comes down to Corran stalling for time vs one Aggressor, you win because the Aggressor is 50 points and Corran is 49.

We could also trade the Mangler for an Ion Cannon and Inertial Dampeners on B but this makes C less of a threat. Feedback Array could also be traded for 2x Inertial Dampeners but C has no use for them and possibly getting one extra turn at long range with B might not pay off. If there was 1 point to spare it would be a no brainer but there is the difference between the Mangler and the Ion to consider.

I'm sure Peregrine will be here any second to tell me why I'm wrong but it works on paper.

 bocatt wrote:
So what if we fly one fancy trickster and one no stress no mess Aggressor?

Then you have one decent ship and one crippled ship. Remember how I said earlier that shutting down PTL and AS is a major part of R3-A2's job? Now you've removed those upgrades from your own ship voluntarily and done R3-A2's job for it before it fires a single shot. You're tailoring to beat one specific card, but only at the cost of making your list significantly weaker against everything else.

While B hangs back and rips people apart with Focused Target Locked Gunner HLC and shoots from out of arc as much as possible to reduce their agility and get more hits through.

And here's the problem with this idea: large-base ships with no turret are very bad at staying at HLC range. The large base covers so much space with every maneuver that even against slow targets you're going to be getting up close.

The obvious choice for a Warthog stressbot Y wing (or tactician ship) is to attack C. C relies on actions and may take ion tokens and damage from feedback array. you would be stupid not to focus on C. But C is shooting back at you and by ignoring IG88B, you'll quickly start to lose ships. and C doesn't want to be ignored either because a 4 dice primary or a Mangler with Focus and Target lock is still nasty.

Actually you've got that backwards. B is the biggest threat because it has your biggest gun and your "gunner" ability. Take B out quickly and C is in serious trouble. So that gives two possible options depending on how everything is deployed:

1) Stress and shoot B, ignoring C's much weaker damage (other than maybe a quick shot from the stress ship to keep C from k-turning back into the fight) until B is dead. Which should happen quickly with B getting no actions or defensive abilities.

or

2) Stress one out of the fight (whichever one is in the right position, depending on deployment and the opening turns) and chase it around the table while the firepower ships go after the other. Essentially you're getting 50 points of IG88 against 75 points of conventional ships, which is a matchup that does not favor IG88.

Also, as a general rule, if your plan depends on your opponent making the wrong choice because of your "bait" ship then your plan is not a very good one. Assume your opponent is making the correct decision at all times, not the stupid one.

and Corran eats it from Outmaneuvering Heavy Laser Cannon. Even 3 agility focus and evade can't hold up against 4 attack with gunner, target lock and -1 to target's agility.

And this is why B is the priority target.

I'm sure Peregrine will be here any second to tell me why I'm wrong but it works on paper.

Key point: on paper. This is the problem I keep trying to get you to understand. IG88s look great on paper but you need to play with or against them in real games to understand where they can fail. When you say things like "stay at range 3 with HLC + outmaneuver" it just demonstrates that you haven't really put the list on the table and seen how it works.