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Hey all,

The winner of the weekly tournament at my FLGS brought 3 jumpmasters with plasma torps, k-4 droid and feedback array on each. I didn't face him (I was in the lower bracket by a lot) but he tabled a Dengar & Latts Razzi list in three turns, handily beat the Dash, Sabine, A-wing list and went undefeated in the 3rd game.

It's a list that I'm just struggling to see how to beat (at least with my current inventory of ships - 3 Interceptors, 2 Advanced, a Defender, a Phantom, a TAP, a Firespray and the two TIEs from the core set plus a Mist Hunter i picked up for cards).

There's just so many shields and hull to get through, they have a pretty effective deterrent to R1 firepower (a mainstay of the lists I've been working on) that I just don't see how to beat it - barring major mistakes...

Soontir Fel can easily just eat through those hull points one bite at a time providing you don't get him blasted by Plasma Torps on round 1. What does 3 dice at R1 mean to a ship with 4 agility, autothrusters and focus and evade? Nothing. And 3 times nothing is still nothing. That's only 35 points of your list. Now bring 65 points of your own ordnance or something equally nasty and let the two trade blows before mopping up with Fel. I've been trying to find way to fit a solid 3 TIE Bombers into 65 or 66 points. Because U-Boats can only take down one at best (could kill two with 12 damage but since they're 6 and 6 and the attack dice are 4 4 and 4 its not possible to get both in one round) and maybe not even that provided you roll well on 2 agility. They have no shields so Plasma torps doesn't add any damage. And bare hull isn't a liability against things like ion, tractors, and Twin Laser Turrets.

Defenders might also be good against U-boats after Veterans drops. The problem is going to be balancing effectiveness with survivability. x/7 and a stealth device on a PS1 generic should be tanky enough to survive initial trades (before the SD fails) but only 3 can fit in a list, and with no other support I think the Defenders will lose to barrel rolling turrets. Possibly not, but that's just my prediction.

Crack Squadron swarm will eat U-boats alive. All 6 ships fire before the 'boats and 5 should be getting 2 hits a piece, meaning 1 dead JumpMaster even before it gets to shoot once. Then you lose a TIE fighter or 2 to torpedoes, close to R1 to finish the deed. Howl with a SD should easily survive the two shots, even if the SD breaks. Then all those 3 dice attacks with rerolls at PS 4 should bring down a second 'boat before it shoots. Leaving one JumpMaster to shoot back and then limp away with no torpedoes left, trying to kill 3 or 4 TIE fighters with a 2 dice turret. Which is practically game over. Adding unique pilots like Mauler or Scourge just make the match all the more lopsided.

I'm not saying U-boats is weak by any means. It's obviously very strong. But you can't just say it has no counters.

There are two phases to play against wolfpacks: survive or disrupt the initial alpha strikes, and then maneuver correctly against them in the endgame to minimize their advantages (they can sloop endlessly, and have powerful blocking with their barrel rolls).

So for example, an Imperial ace list with Vader, Whisper and Omega Leader would want to play very defensively early on, trying to maneuver around the edges of the board in a way that denies a concentrated alpha strike from all three U-boats. Once their alpha strike is used up, you can rely heavily on tokens and agility to shrug off the 2 dice turrets. You need to play fairly defensive in this second phase as well, and be willing to turn away from them if you think there's a risk of being blocked (token-less imperial aces will die to the 2 dice turrets). I can't say much about how other lists might play, I've only played against U-Boats with imperial aces.

It's strong, but not undefeatable. It reminds me of the early days of TLT Y-Wing spam, which initially seemed game-breaking. Part of that is because there is a disparity between the skill required to fly a TLT swarm effectively, and the skill required to defeat it. Once their flaws were more well-understood, they started to recede a bit - still present, but not as dominant as before. I suspect the wolfpack will follow a similar trajectory.

Howlrunner black crack swarm, or soontir, carnor, and an ace of your choice. Carnor will eat their list alive, no problem.

Secondly, mash as many asteroids in the center of the board as you can. Leave them no room to sloop. You are more maneuverable than they are, you should have no problem sitting at R2 the entire game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 bocatt wrote:
Soontir Fel can easily just eat through those hull points one bite at a time providing you don't get him blasted by Plasma Torps on round 1. What does 3 dice at R1 mean to a ship with 4 agility, autothrusters and focus and evade? Nothing. And 3 times nothing is still nothing.

See what the R1 death he was talking about isn't the turret, it's the feedback array. The ability to simply hand out a damage without anyone rolling is deadly against our interceptors.

I see swarms coming back. PS 1 academys will block and prevent actions, PS 4 Blacks with Crackshot will remove them before they finish unloading their ordinance.
Carnor is going to replace Fel in a lot of my lists going forward... Omega Leader also has work to do.
On the Rebel side, I see Regen continuing. I also see Fat Han coming back.

Hot off the receiving end of losses with my own triple jumpmaster list:

1. I lost to PalpAces.

List was Vader, Palpshuttle, and Inquisitor.

As Bocatt said, as long as they don't take a torpedo blast to the face, they can outmaneuver you and a 2/3 shot turret weapon means little to a platform with 3-4 defense dice that can turtle at will.

The only thing I killed of his was the Inquisitor after he forgot that I could take 2-speed segnor's, and he never made that mistake again with Vader. I did manage to one-shot all the shields off the Shuttle for half points, but that was late game after he brought his shuttle out of slow rolling on his board edge. To that point I was getting circles flown around me be Vader and the Quis.

2. I also lost to a Moralo and Boba Fett list, but that was due to EXTREMELY poor dice rolls on my end both offensively and defensively, so I consider that one as an anomaly. When I say poor, I mean, I shot my ordnance multiple times at Boba and got blanks, blanks, blanks. Even with the TL, even with the Guidance Chips. Oh, and I didn't roll a single evade the whole game in defense. I managed to take down Moralo late game out of frustration, but by then Boba was flying circles around me as I struggled to plink at him with 2 dice.

Mr ghoti wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 bocatt wrote:
Soontir Fel can easily just eat through those hull points one bite at a time providing you don't get him blasted by Plasma Torps on round 1. What does 3 dice at R1 mean to a ship with 4 agility, autothrusters and focus and evade? Nothing. And 3 times nothing is still nothing.

See what the R1 death he was talking about isn't the turret, it's the feedback array. The ability to simply hand out a damage without anyone rolling is deadly against our interceptors.

You can't fit bug zappers.

Contracted Scout is 25 base. You have to take Deadeye, R4 agromech, Plasma Torpedoes, guidance chips and Extra Munitions to make an effective u-boat. That brings the cost up to 33 points. 3 of those leaves no points for feedback arrays. Theoretically you could lose extra munitions for bugzappers but that would be dumb because the U-boats strength lies in its ordnance, not in hurting itself to deal 1 damage a turn and not attack. That's what Z95s are for.

The argument I had heard over on the FFG forums was that replacing Extra Munitions for Feedback Arrays might prove to be more resistant to hard-counters, and as such have better survival characteristics in a tournament setting.

 DanielBeaver wrote:
The argument I had heard over on the FFG forums was that replacing Extra Munitions for Feedback Arrays might prove to be more resistant to hard-counters, and as such have better survival characteristics in a tournament setting.

Hush... nothing to see here.

I beat this list (albeit the one I played was slightly different as he had extra munitions) which sounds a bit tougher as two turns of alpha strikes is really nasty. I used a TIE swarm...

Colzet with Title and ATC
Wampa
Backstabber
Dark Curse
Scourge
Obsidian Squad

I lost the obsidian on the his first shot of the game, but once I got in close, the TIEs can handle damage they can put out. Granted, I was rolling extremely well on damage and he wasn't on defense. But it can work.

 DanielBeaver wrote:
The argument I had heard over on the FFG forums was that replacing Extra Munitions for Feedback Arrays might prove to be more resistant to hard-counters, and as such have better survival characteristics in a tournament setting.

Yep, that's the variant that showed up at my FLGS

I think that 2 of the missile boats variations and one 'bumpmaster' will be the norm.

The two squads that I've seen beat this are (a) a TIE swarm of 8 academy pilots with Rage/Youngster, and (b) randomly a classic T65 Xwing trio - Wes, Luke and Biggs.

R4-D6 is a nice trick - against an Agromech/Guidance Chip torpedo it can stop a hell of a lot of damage, especially with Draw Their Fire/R2-D2, and Wes' ability can stop one Jumpmaster per turn getting a torpedo shot off.

Yes... I see both of those working well. Action denial in all of its forms will help against these lists, so will out lasting them. Once the ordinance is shot off, all you really have is a 2 dice turret.

Oh, and after last weekend, if you really, really want to troll deadeye jumpmasters....

Dark Curse.

Seriously, he's 16 points and he killed one by himself.

I'm about 90% sure that Dark Curse cannot prevent them from spending the focus to attack... he can only prevent them from using Focus to modify the dice or a Target Lock to reroll.

EDIT: Yep, its in the most recent FAQ.

Dark Curse, Omega Leader and Carnor Jax are all really good Imperial options for messing up Deadeyed ships.
Palob Godalhi is a great for Scum.
Wes Jansen is a great option for the Rebels.

 Anpu-adom wrote:
I'm about 90% sure that Dark Curse cannot prevent them from spending the focus to attack... he can only prevent them from using Focus to modify the dice or a Target Lock to reroll.

EDIT: Yep, its in the most recent FAQ.

It's a pretty recent change and a reversal from their previous ruling.

I believe it was changed in the FAQ put out immediately after the release of the Force Awakens core set.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Anpu-adom wrote:
I'm about 90% sure that Dark Curse cannot prevent them from spending the focus to attack... he can only prevent them from using Focus to modify the dice or a Target Lock to reroll.

EDIT: Yep, its in the most recent FAQ.

It's a pretty recent change and a reversal from their previous ruling.

I believe it was changed in the FAQ put out immediately after the release of the Force Awakens core set.

That timing seems about right. I knew it was recent, but not this last update.