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Hello all!

So upcoming SC and I think there will be some Jumpmasters there. U-boats specifically. I have to admit, I'm not that great but I feel like I can make a good showing. Anyways, here is my list I was thinking about running. I am sold on Buzzsaw Whisper after going on a 4 game win streak when I got her and found the build here on dakka, so let's consider her the linchpin of the squad. I figure what better to back her up than four TIEs and a hefty init bid?

Whisper + FCS + ACD + Gunner + VI = 44
4x Obsidian Squadron Pilots = 52
Total 96

So obviously the idea is to take init over the JM5Ks and treat the Obsidians like the up-jumped Academy Pilots they are, going in for the blocks but also netting the sweet sweet shoot first candy! Another option is to swap one Obsidian Pilot out for Chaser. Her ability allows her to assign focus when friendly ships spend focus tokens, so with getting to move first and shoot first as well... You could have a nice little token stack on Chaser after just one round, making her a poor choice for target priority during the return fire. Next round you get to do it again but with probably less friendly ships to feed you tokens. This is great, provided you can stay at R1 of everyone in the TIE swarm. I think the idea is great but maybe there is better?

Whisper as above
4x TIE fighters, but this time only two are Obsidians, one is an Academy, and the other is Youngster with Rage.
Total: 98

A weaker init bid and with less freedom in the activation phase, but wider PS band, more attack power and better freedom of formation. Youngster procs at R1-3 so everyone should be able to take advantage of Rage. However, and this is big, you have to carry stress f you want to turn quickly after Rage. Will you be able to carry stress in this meta? The opportunity to be stuck action-less for multiple rounds seems too great. However with the right timing perhaps Rage can be a game winner? The question is how long can you keep Youngster alive to keep that window open, and how many other TIEs will you have left to attack with?

What do you folks think? What other builds are there that feature Buzzsaw Whisper?

You don't need Gunner on Whisper. Throwing 4 red at 2 green Jumpmasters will net you 1+ hits. Waste of 5 points. Drop it to an Intel Agent to help compensate for not-U-boat lists, then upgrade one of your TIE Fighters to Howlrunner. You can either put a Stealth Device on Howl or leave a 3 pt bid. Up to you and how much you like SD.

If you're convinced it's going to be a Jumpmaster heavy day you could swap one of the OS ties for Dark Curse to partially upset their Deadeye antics

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
If you're convinced it's going to be a Jumpmaster heavy day you could swap one of the OS ties for Dark Curse to partially upset their Deadeye antics

Doesn't work...per the FAQ:

“Dark Curse” can be the target of a secondary
weapon attack that requires the attacker to
spend a focus token.

doh I was looking at the wrong FAQ, a pox on FFG for updating stuff on a timely basis, you won't get that kind of nonsense from GW !

Dark Curse might still be viable as they don't get to re-roll with the target lock

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
...you won't get that kind of nonsense from GW !

Yeah, it throws me off as well. And the April 2 FAQ covered ships that had barely even hit the shelves!

If you are thinking about a youngster-rage group, you might want to consider finding points for Epsilon Leader (stress reduction at the start of combat) so you only have one turn of needing to pull green maneuvers -- I'm not a swarm player but I saw the combo used pretty effectively in a YouTube (possibly a tournament). EL is 19 points, though and IIRC what I saw was a full swarm, not mini.

For Whisper, I tend to agree with Griffigh about not bothering with Gunner. I've really enjoyed running Whisper w/ intel agent. Getting to see an enemy dial (especially higher ps aces) is really handy 'cause you can decloak as needed.

I'd either go with that, or recon specialist, Tactician or rebel captive over Gunner.

Also (partly from advice partly from experience), don't worry too much about the initiative bid. It only matters against PS9 pilots. And if you don't move first, you do shoot first so you can get back into cloak. So I tend to run my whisper lists right up to 100.

Soontir OTOH really needs to win the initiative, so he's a different story. But whisper has benefits either way.

Hope this helps

Apostasus wrote:
Also (partly from advice partly from experience), don't worry too much about the initiative bid. It only matters against PS9 pilots. And if you don't move first, you do shoot first so you can get back into cloak. So I tend to run my whisper lists right up to 100.

But whisper has benefits either way

No, Whisper is one of the pilots in the game that actually cares about initiative. Since decloaking is much less reactive now, shooting first is a must any time Whisper is on the board.

Thanks for the advice fella's!

The qualms about Gunner go unheard though I have to admit. That Gunner card just opens the ship up like nobodies business. So many layers of utility. I can't actually think of a better ship for Gunner in fact. Sure IA is great and RC discourages return fire from Aces, but... neither of those cards affect the damage. You could argue IA lets you get better arcs, and RC helps you last longer, but Gunner is just so great... Especially on Whisper. Echo, maybe I'd run different crew, but Whisper wants to hit, not much about with fancy game mechanics. She wants to decloak almost every round and smash something really hard. Buzzsaw Whisper does just that. Gunner almost guarantees Whispers ability, allows you to FCS effectively, and gives you the action economy you need to keep Whisper either out of arc or behind a token stack. It's just such a synergistic build I have trouble convincing myself that other options even exist. Whoever came up with Buzzsaw Whisper should be given a medal or large cookie.

Dark Curse though... he is one that I really like. Even though he is now FAQ'd down to less awesome levels he can still disrupt U-Boats by virtue of negating TLs. Also, since you can spend tokens on zero results Dark Curse can block certain upgrade cards from triggering, preventing the spending of a focus token. However. DC brings the squad up to 99 points. I could drop one Obsidian to an Academy and have a nice PS band, but then I'm stuck flying ships in order of PS. Maybe it's a weakness of mine, but I always like to fly formations with a single PS rating. You can do amazing things with blocking when you can move the ships in whatever order you choose! That is a powerful thing to give up just to troll U-Boats and it looks like that is all DC brings to the table in this instance.

Youngster and Rage. I don't doubt that this would be a deadly combo, and I totally forgot about Epsilon Leader! But that idea is too good to try and shoehorn into a Buzzsaw Whisper build. I was thinking Youngster would be a good addition, but I think he really wants to have a full compliment of TIEs to really make use of his ability. I had initially thought that he could make my four TIEs a much bigger threat, and he can, but... for how long? A canny opponent would just focus him down before moving on to the Phantom, or even better, wait for a bad Rage usage on my part and leave my TIEs in the dust.


So, I guess I shot down all the suggestions, haha! Sorry! The more I think about it though the more convinced I am that it might just be best to stick with the 4x Obsidian Pilots and the hefty bid.

Cost and time to practice are also a factor. I don't want to rush out and buy more stuff and try to learn new ships in a hurry. As for compensating for lists that don't have Contracted Scouts en masse, well... Lower PS lists I can't block effectively, but I can arc dodge and out-shoot, at least in theory haha! If I come up against Aces I will block them mercilessly, especially triple Aces. My four wins with Buzzsaw Whisper were against triple Ace builds and the only thing that troubled me is higher PS Aces with post maneuver repositioning. A VI Vader gave me a run for my money but Gunner actually saved my butt. If I had taken more damage earlier though I think Vader could have had me as the last two rounds were blow for blow and there was simply nothing I could do but hope to survive the onslaught. As it stood though I got lucky with dice and evade tokens and was able to punch through with Gunner and FCS. I think I should be okay against most other builds with this list, as long as I remember the fundamentals and fly according to the opponent.

Is there any other advice anyone can give me as to how I can better run Buzzsaw Whisper and her Obsidian Squadron escort, I do appreciate the feedback and if nothing else; the chance to debate!

Well, have you thought about something like this, it's something I really want to try.

Buzzsaw Whisper 44

Omega Leader 28
Autothrusters
Comm Relay
Juke

Zeta Leader 26
Autothrusters
Comm Relay
Wired

98 Points

Those TIE/fo's look pretty nasty, and real slippery.

 NH Gunsmith wrote:
Well, have you thought about something like this, it's something I really want to try.

Buzzsaw Whisper 44

Omega Leader 28
Autothrusters
Comm Relay
Juke

Zeta Leader 26
Autothrusters
Comm Relay
Wired

98 Points

Those TIE/fo's look pretty nasty, and real slippery.

You can't put Autothrusters on a TIE/fo.

ptl-black wrote:
The qualms about Gunner go unheard though I have to admit. That Gunner card just opens the ship up like nobodies business. So many layers of utility. I can't actually think of a better ship for Gunner in fact. Sure IA is great and RC discourages return fire from Aces, but... neither of those cards affect the damage. You could argue IA lets you get better arcs, and RC helps you last longer, but Gunner is just so great... Especially on Whisper. Echo, maybe I'd run different crew, but Whisper wants to hit, not much about with fancy game mechanics. She wants to decloak almost every round and smash something really hard. Buzzsaw Whisper does just that. Gunner almost guarantees Whispers ability, allows you to FCS effectively, and gives you the action economy you need to keep Whisper either out of arc or behind a token stack. It's just such a synergistic build I have trouble convincing myself that other options even exist. Whoever came up with Buzzsaw Whisper should be given a medal or large cookie.!

The thing to remember is that Buzzsaw Whisper is designed to kill Fat Han and his annoying ass C-3PO shenanigans. Granted, Fat Han is still around, he doesn't dominate the meta like in years past which frees up the crew options on the Phantom. Even though Fel is still pretty popular and as annoying as ever to kill, there are a lot of popular low agility ships out there and Gunner is generally wasted on them.

Rebel Captive is also a great choice because some pilots, like Fel, are crippled by a second stress token. Kallus is another strong option, especially against two-ship builds and aces. Like some others have mentioned, Intelligence Agent is nice too because it can help you with your decloaks.

Derp haha. Whoops, nevermind me than!

Even though Fel is still pretty popular and as annoying as ever to kill, there are a lot of popular low agility ships out there and Gunner is generally wasted on them.

To be honest, even with a Buzzsaw phantom, the odds of Fel dodging twice in a row are annoyingly high!

If you're worried about jumpmasters, or whisper's survival generally, a sensor jammer may be useful. It's not as great as it might be because they can still guidance chip the focus result, but at least they're doing that and not turning another roll into a hit, especially since it prevents them using a target lock on it.

Agent Kallus is cheap and really, really good.

Youngster with Rage works, but his value is directly proportional to the number of TIEs on the board - when I've played Jumpmasters with Youngster he's literally been off on the flank using the range 3 of his ability to buff them whilst staying the hell out of torpedo arc, but doing that here would leave you with only 3 ships in an increasingly anaemic swarm - and put one of them shooting last, and mean dealing with mixed pilot skill
.
With only 4 I'd probably prefer the less restricting Howlrunner, or else just basic pilots.

Whisper: Kallus, ACD, FCS, VI (41)

Could take a Carnor with the standard interceptor fare of PTL/AT/SD (34), and fly him as hard as you can into R1 of them all.