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Hey all,

Just watched the stream from FFG on twitch of many of the top X-wing games in the world's championship (and congrats to Nand for his victory if there are any Belgians on Dakka).

Clearly Dengaroo (Nandaroo?) is going to be a big factor moving forward (especially in the NE regionals in less than a month)... so I'm trying to think out the strategy to beat it with an imperial (no Palp) list (the SO will not let me spend the ebay money for the card on top of another ship).

Trip defenders did pretty well from what I saw on the streams, so I'm kinda thinking Vessery/Ryad w/ x7 and a Delta with D & Flachette or Ion cannon (I've got enough store credit from a previous win to pick up a 3rd defender, but not enough to pick up another imp vets so I'm kinda limited to 2 x7s).

Having 1 defender to limit Manaroo with stress (and damage) while the other 2 try to peck at dengar from outside of his arc seems like a decent plan but the J5K dial is so good that I'm not sure how much 1 stress (the max with flachette cannon) really limits manaroo (still, it would interfere with my opponent's plan, which is always good).

Or am I just thinking in the wrong direction? Should imps just not bother with a stress build at all? And a single ion cannon isn't going to be great against large ships... And I also have nightmaares about the agressor/party bus build, where again, the one ion doesn't do much (but a single stress at an agressor can stop lots of advanced sensor shennanigans). But is a low PS defender going to be able to deal with a Manaroo trying to evade arcs? I clearly have a lot of thinking going on

Also, @Peregrine... the match between Team Covenant's boss Zach Bunn and a trip Defender list could be used as an argument for my case that you shouldn't let Biggs get hit by the early shots. and the defender player was masterful at pulling his ships out of TLT range after they'd taken a few shield damage.

I'm really thinking about how trip defenders can kill Dengaroo, but I also want to know how and with what lists you folks would try to deal with the Dengaroo list


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The list I'm toying with at the moment:

100 points
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Delta Squadron Pilot (32)
TIE Defender (30), Flechette Cannon (2), TIE/D (0)

Countess Ryad (33)
TIE Defender (34), Lightning Reflexes (1), TIE/x7 (-2)

Colonel Vessery (35)
TIE Defender (35), Juke (2), TIE/x7 (-2)

I am really thinking that reflexes on Ryad is an under appreciated EPT... in many of my games with ryad I've wished I could s-loop or tallon roll. And given that I don't have the points for the better EPT choices, it seems like a really good option (better than crack shot, I'm thinking). And it should be unexpected for my opponent

I'll have to ask Kevin about what his game plan was, as I remember him practicing quite a bit against Dengaroo and Palp Aces in preparation for worlds (and indeed, he faced 3 of each of those list archetypes over the course of the 12 games he played between Friday and Sunday). Dengar can easily outrace Corran's regen, so you have to set up a good initial exchange to take off a chunk of Dengar's health, and then finish him off with the second/third ship in your list (Miranda in this case). But even that is tricky, since Dengar is going to pop countermeasures and dampen that alpha strike. For this final game, the initial engagement went very poorly - Nand was able to thread the needle between that first connor net and the asteroid, and so he was able to engage Corran a turn or two earlier than what Kevin probably expected. With the positional advantage gone that initial alpha strike failed to materialize, and so dice efficiency took over (to Dengar's extreme advantage).

Having 1 defender to limit Manaroo with stress (and damage) while the other 2 try to peck at dengar from outside of his arc seems like a decent plan but the J5K dial is so good that I'm not sure how much 1 stress (the max with flachette cannon) really limits manaroo (still, it would interfere with my opponent's plan, which is always good).

Or am I just thinking in the wrong direction? Should imps just not bother with a stress build at all?

Flechette cannons can't stack a second stress on Manaroo, so she will just blow it off with a green maneuver next turn. If your intent is to shut down the focus tokens with stress, then you'll have to look elsewhere. The rebel stressbot (R3A2) can stack a second stress, but I'm not sure that any of the carriers can reasonably expect to catch a PTL/EU Manaroo in a reasonable number of turns.

But is a low PS defender going to be able to deal with a Manaroo trying to evade arcs? I clearly have a lot of thinking going on

I don't think the high PS defenders can really deal with her, much less the low PS defenders. I kind of think that going after Manaroo is a trap - she can run a circuit around the edge of the board using 4 straights and 2bank+boost at the corners, which Defenders can only *kinda* keep up with. And meanwhile you're letting Dengar shoot at whatever he pleases. Granted, the Defenders can weather the storm of Dengar's shooting better than a lot of ships (at best he'll plink off 2 heatlh a turn, so he needs at least 9 turns of shooting if you discount crits), but... are you confident that you can kill Manaroo in 9 turns of chasing? Because at the end of that, you still need to kill Dengar (who is seriously weakened by the lack of focus tokens, but can retains some ability to modify dice with LW and Zuckuss).

None of this is to say that Dengaroo is game-breaking - there were something like 8 or 9 Dengaroo squads in the tournament. All but one were snuffed out by the second round of the top cut. But it is a very good list, and any competitive squad needs to be able to deal with it.

 DanielBeaver wrote:
I'll have to ask Kevin about what his game plan was, as I remember him practicing quite a bit against Dengaroo and Palp Aces in preparation for worlds (and indeed, he faced 3 of each of those list archetypes over the course of the 12 games he played between Friday and Sunday).

Totally look forward to his comments!

Dengar can easily outrace Corran's regen, so you have to set up a good initial exchange to take off a chunk of Dengar's health, and then finish him off with the second/third ship in your list (Miranda in this case). But even that is tricky, since Dengar is going to pop countermeasures and dampen that alpha strike.

This seems to me that Defenders are a counter. They don't depend on an alpha strike. They can deal a lot of damage at just about any point.

Having 1 defender to limit Manaroo with stress (and damage) while the other 2 try to peck at dengar from outside of his arc seems like a decent plan but the J5K dial is so good that I'm not sure how much 1 stress (the max with flachette cannon) really limits manaroo (still, it would interfere with my opponent's plan, which is always good).

Or am I just thinking in the wrong direction? Should imps just not bother with a stress build at all?

Flechette cannons can't stack a second stress on Manaroo, so she will just blow it off with a green maneuver next turn. If your intent is to shut down the focus tokens with stress, then you'll have to look elsewhere. The rebel stressbot (R3A2) can stack a second stress, but I'm not sure that any of the carriers can reasonably expect to catch a PTL/EU Manaroo in a reasonable number of turns.

I'm kinda still thinking that a stress on manaroo isn't futile as it makes the next turn a bit more predictable. Also it probably playes hell with attani mindlink lists. But you have a point in that 1 low ps Defender isn't all that should be chasing manaroo.

But is a low PS defender going to be able to deal with a Manaroo trying to evade arcs? I clearly have a lot of thinking going on

I don't think the high PS defenders can really deal with her, much less the low PS defenders. I kind of think that going after Manaroo is a trap - she can run a circuit around the edge of the board using 4 straights and 2bank+boost at the corners, which Defenders can only *kinda* keep up with. And meanwhile you're letting Dengar shoot at whatever he pleases. Granted, the Defenders can weather the storm of Dengar's shooting better than a lot of ships (at best he'll plink off 2 heatlh a turn, so he needs at least 9 turns of shooting if you discount crits), but... are you confident that you can kill Manaroo in 9 turns of chasing? Because at the end of that, you still need to kill Dengar (who is seriously weakened by the lack of focus tokens, but can retains some ability to modify dice with LW and Zuckuss).[/ quote]

This raises the basic question; ion cannon or flachette (and if the former, what do you give up)? Against large ships, Ion is distinctly crippled. But 1 stress doesn't do much