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Hey guys, I'm thinking of building this squad:

"Howlrunner" - 20pts
-Swarm Tactics

"Mauler Mithel" - 19pts
-Wingman

"Dark Curse" - 16pts

"Night Beast" - 15pts

Black Squadron Pilot - 15pts
-Draw their Fire

Academy Pilot - 12pts

For a total of 97 points, giving me a pretty good initiative bid. Now, there are a couple options that would have me sacrifice the initiative bid to bring it to 100 points:

First is to drop the Academy Pilot for a second Black Squadron Pilot with the same upgrade. Major downside to this is that I'd need to buy a second Millennium Falcon for the second copy of Draw their Fire.

Second is to replace the BSqu Pilot for a FO Omega Squadron pilot, which would give me some more survivability in taking the hit for Howlrunner or Mauler. Upside here is that I'd really like to put at least one of my FO TIEs to use.

Thoughts?

I'd recommend grabbing a Stealth Device for Howlrunner with your extra points, as the initiative Bid isn't really important to you. Also, try dropping the Black Squad and Night beast for F/O's. I'm not a huge fan of either the way you've got them, so I think that you would get more millage from the F/O.

Wingman doesn't do much for you, as you aren't going to be drawing too much stress. While Swarm Tactics is useful, I think it would be better to drop both EPT's to grab Mauler a stealth device. With the remaining point, grab Mauler Crack Shot.

Hmmm... I do have everything I need to do that. Did Slave 1 come with 2 Stealth Devices?

I believe so.

It does.

But yeah, Stealth Device is usually a good call on howlrunner. You'll never make her "tough", but you can make her an unappealing target.

Dark Curse and Night Beast make a nice durable front line. If you can spare the points, Twin Ion Engines MkII helps by making the Speed 3 banks green.

I might suggest swapping swarm tactics for Determination for Howlrunner, giving Night Beast Twin Ions, and you're more or less good to go.

If you can get a copy, Crack Shot works well on Mauler Mithel. Otherwise, Veteran Instincts (for PS9) makes him a fairly decent dogfighter.

Lastly, if the carrier turns up soon, consider swapping him out for Scourge with Decoy. You can decoy scourge down to shoot at PS1 and get the academy pilot up to PS7 - and since the rest of the squad shoots first, it should be fairly easy to get and extra dice attack with Scourge. by picking on someone damaged.