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 streamdragon wrote:
But paying 2 points to ... pay points for something else doesn't really make any sense to me for a ship that's already 14 points and fragile.

I think the idea was that they didn't want to have the same problem that the a-wing did, where you pay for the missile slot by default but when you don't use it the ship is too expensive. The title is the inverse of the a-wing refit: the ship starts cheap, but you pay to add the upgrade slot. Which would have been great if the basic ship was worth using, but it doesn't seem to have much value. And I don't think making them start at 12 points with a 2-point title was the answer, because then you've got a ship that is just plain better than the TIE fighter (a ship that already sets the standard for jousting efficiency) for the same cost.

 derek wrote:
They did that for the Tie Interceptor, and A-Wing titles though. They're both non-unique, free, and allow you to take an additional upgrade with no drawback other than paying the cost for the 2nd Modification or EPT.

Only because those ships had already been printed and it was impossible to go back and edit the upgrade options for the old pilots. If FFG had decided to add those upgrade slots back when the ships were originally designed then they would have been built into the upgrade bar and there wouldn't have been any title cards for the a-wing or TIE advanced (maybe the interceptor one would needed a title since modifications aren't shown in the upgrade bar and there's no room for extra rules text on the ship card).

 Peregrine wrote:

 derek wrote:
They did that for the Tie Interceptor, and A-Wing titles though. They're both non-unique, free, and allow you to take an additional upgrade with no drawback other than paying the cost for the 2nd Modification or EPT.

Only because those ships had already been printed and it was impossible to go back and edit the upgrade options for the old pilots. If FFG had decided to add those upgrade slots back when the ships were originally designed then they would have been built into the upgrade bar and there wouldn't have been any title cards for the a-wing or TIE advanced (maybe the interceptor one would needed a title since modifications aren't shown in the upgrade bar and there's no room for extra rules text on the ship card).

That explanation doesn't make a lot of sense for the A-Wing. Are you arguing that Tycho and Green Squadron Pilots should have had 2 EPT slots from the start?

 derek wrote:
That explanation doesn't make a lot of sense for the A-Wing. Are you arguing that Tycho and Green Squadron Pilots should have had 2 EPT slots from the start?

That's exactly what I'm saying: by publishing a zero-cost title that adds a second EPT to those two ships FFG is saying "these should have been included". You are always going to add the title unless you're too poor to afford a copy of the card. Therefore there is no functional difference between adding the a-wing title and adding a second EPT directly to Tycho's card. The only reason to do it as a title is so that FFG could go back and include previously-printed pilots (instead of just the new ones in rebel aces) without violating their "no changes to existing cards" policy. This principle wouldn't apply to the scyk because it's an entirely new ship with no previously-published ships to update.

derek wrote:
They did that for the Tie Interceptor, and A-Wing titles though. They're both non-unique, free, and allow you to take an additional upgrade with no drawback other than paying the cost for the 2nd Modification or EPT.

Ah, fair enough. I don't have either of those ships so I was unaware of the title.

Peregrine wrote:I think the idea was that they didn't want to have the same problem that the a-wing did, where you pay for the missile slot by default but when you don't use it the ship is too expensive. The title is the inverse of the a-wing refit: the ship starts cheap, but you pay to add the upgrade slot. Which would have been great if the basic ship was worth using, but it doesn't seem to have much value. And I don't think making them start at 12 points with a 2-point title was the answer, because then you've got a ship that is just plain better than the TIE fighter (a ship that already sets the standard for jousting efficiency) for the same cost.

So... 13 points then? Would a 1 point drop make the Scyk go from "Why would you take this" to "this is a workable option"? Or is that the Scyk would still have no role to fill in a Scum list? I'm fairly new to X-Wing, so I'm probably missing something. Is it just that the Scyk competes with a Z for a chaff role, and the Z does everything better?

 streamdragon wrote:

derek wrote:
They did that for the Tie Interceptor, and A-Wing titles though. They're both non-unique, free, and allow you to take an additional upgrade with no drawback other than paying the cost for the 2nd Modification or EPT.

Ah, fair enough. I don't have either of those ships so I was unaware of the title.

Peregrine wrote:I think the idea was that they didn't want to have the same problem that the a-wing did, where you pay for the missile slot by default but when you don't use it the ship is too expensive. The title is the inverse of the a-wing refit: the ship starts cheap, but you pay to add the upgrade slot. Which would have been great if the basic ship was worth using, but it doesn't seem to have much value. And I don't think making them start at 12 points with a 2-point title was the answer, because then you've got a ship that is just plain better than the TIE fighter (a ship that already sets the standard for jousting efficiency) for the same cost.

So... 13 points then? Would a 1 point drop make the Scyk go from "Why would you take this" to "this is a workable option"? Or is that the Scyk would still have no role to fill in a Scum list? I'm fairly new to X-Wing, so I'm probably missing something. Is it just that the Scyk competes with a Z for a chaff role, and the Z does everything better?

Yeah the overlap with the Z-95 is the main issue I think and is why this is so hard to balance. The Z and the standard Tie have similar roles, cost and stats and the Scyk is very close to them as well, as soon as you have two of the three in the same faction its going to be very hard to give them both a place. If a Scyk was 12pts its basically a slightly better Tie and it would be rare to take it over a Z, but at 13pts I'm not sure you take it over the Z. Imo its paying a 1-2pt tax to allow for the fact that it can take a 2pt upgrade which gives it a significant increase in options, but it means that the basic ship is slightly overcosted.

Anyway, the scum ship that has impressed me the most has been the Y-Wing - firing both weapons gives it incredible damage output and they take quite a bit of work to remove (it seems like they last longer than B-Wings for some reason). The Autoblaster version seems fun, but I think the Ion version is going to be the strongest as it helps counter some of your manuevering issues - if you set it up right you get a range 3 shot with focus to maybe chip a few HP, and then get a range 1 shot with TL+Focus + TL. Z-95s are just as good as they are with Rebels, although the fact that they start with an Illicit slot means I have seen people spaming Hot Shots with them (the idea being that you can block most decloak positions for a Phantom and still get shots off). The only HWK that seems interesting is Torkil, aside from the obvious Phantom counter I think he has one of the most powerful pilot abilities in the game - dropping Han or Soontir down to PS0 so that all your ships can blast them to strip tokens and allow for game changing crits is huge. Double Aggressor seems cool, but is going to have huge issues against control builds and your options are very limited as soon as you take two of them. The Starviper I am actually really enjoying, Xizor is an anti Biggs in the first pass and once formations break up it can do a heap of work and close out games. The trick is to think of it as a maneuverable B-Wing rather than an Interceptor. Even once you break formation its amazing how often you end up at range 1 of another ship and can spread damage around - Autothrusters + arc dodging + Xizors ability means I have never been close to losing him. I actually feel like I should be flying him more aggressively to try and get people to shoot him on the first pass.

The list I have been running is:
Xizor, VI, Virago, Fire Control, Autothrusters and Inertial Dampeners
2 Thugs with Ion Turret, BTL-A4 and R4 Agromech
Binaye Pirate

Today played three games with my IG88 B&C list. Look at earlier post for full list.

Game 1: won against a 5 tie fighter/interceptor list. Anchored by Carnor Jax. Didn't have a lot of problems until he clogged up my flight lanes. After some time I just wore that fleet down.

Game 2: Lost to a BBXX rebel list. Red squadron x2, Dagger Squadron w/ advanced sensors x2. He played well, concentrating on a single ship at a time. This seems to prove that lower PS rebels seem to be a problem.

Game 3: Han Solo, expose. Jan Ors, and a cheap A-Wing. Took down Jan first, then the poor A wing. I realized how good auto thruster were this game. First time I have seen Han (or any other Yt-1300) do a K-turn. Man use red and concentrated fire.

Have a tournament this Saturday, thinking of running the double IG list. Will post results.

Powerguy wrote:
Xizor is an anti Biggs in the first pass and once formations break up it can do a heap of work and close out games.

The problem with this theory is that it only works against certain lists. Against an opponent with nothing but low-PS jousting ships Xizor is going to be amazing. You can't shoot at him effectively while his meatshields are on the table, but once he gets into endgame you probably won't have enough ships left to catch him in arc. So you have the rare ability to bring a powerful endgame ship that has its own inherent ability to reach the end of the game without getting focused on and killed. The problem is that this plan falls apart entirely when your opponent brings their own endgame ship. Corran, Fel, etc will consistently beat Xizor, so now your plan of "let my ace win the game" is no longer valid and your focus on setting up Xizor endgames just hands easy wins to your opponent.

The trick is to think of it as a maneuverable B-Wing rather than an Interceptor.

I disagree with this. The b-wing is good because it's a very cost-effective ship. At 22-25 points you have good firepower, good durability, and HP-focused defense that doesn't fall apart instantly once the green dice betray you. But the starviper isn't a 25-point "jousting efficiency" ship, it's a 40+ point "supership". If you treat it like a b-wing you're just throwing away tons of points on upgrades that aren't helping you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 streamdragon wrote:
So... 13 points then? Would a 1 point drop make the Scyk go from "Why would you take this" to "this is a workable option"?

Maybe. One point might not seem like much, but it's a 7% drop in price.

Or is that the Scyk would still have no role to fill in a Scum list? I'm fairly new to X-Wing, so I'm probably missing something. Is it just that the Scyk competes with a Z for a chaff role, and the Z does everything better?

I think this is more likely though. Even if the scyk is in some abstract sense "worth 13 points" the naked scyk is trying to fill the same cheap meatshield/blocker role as the z-95. And that's a role where getting the cheapest possible ship is the top priority, and it isn't usually worth spending points on upgrading them. So the naked scyk can't just be equal to the z-95, it has to be better by a large enough margin that you feel justified in spending points on upgrading your meatshields at all.

The role where the scyk could in theory work is with the title, but the execution of the concept didn't work. Missile/torpedo versions are bad because the weapons are bad, and cannon versions are way too fragile for their high point cost. Maybe if/when we get a missile/torpedo fix the scyk will improve in value, but right now it's just a disappointment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 martin74 wrote:
Game 3: Han Solo, expose. Jan Ors, and a cheap A-Wing. Took down Jan first, then the poor A wing. I realized how good auto thruster were this game. First time I have seen Han (or any other Yt-1300) do a K-turn. Man use red and concentrated fire.

I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from this game. That's a really bad list, especially against autothrusters.

One of the things I get about the Scyk or the Starviper for that matter is why they bothered with putting titles in at all. A 16 point ship with cannon/missile/torp or 26 point ship with sensor slot & illicit would have changed my initial evaluations of those ships greatly.

After my last two games last night I have nothing but love for the K4 security droid. In my first game combo'd with Push the Limit I was reliably getting 3 actions every turn I was engaged with the enemy, but it was in my second where my opponent gave me the theoretical nightmare of repeated blocking and flechette cannon stress infliction being able to reliably get a target lock every turn turned the K4 into a firespray advanced sensors equivalent.

 David Clarke wrote:
One of the things I get about the Scyk or the Starviper for that matter is why they bothered with putting titles in at all. A 16 point ship with cannon/missile/torp or 26 point ship with sensor slot & illicit would have changed my initial evaluations of those ships greatly.

Because of the history with the a-wing would be my guess. They released it initially with a missile slot included by default, but few people thought it was worth paying for that missile slot. So, to fix the cost issue, FFG published the refit upgrade that spends the missile slot for -2 points. With the scyk they did it the right way and made the cheap no-upgrades ship the default and gave you a choice of which upgrade slot, if any, to add. Otherwise if you weren't going to use the secondary weapon upgrade the 16-point scyk would pretty clearly be the worst ship in the game. And with the starviper they accomplished the same goal, but with the added bonus of limiting the upgrade slots to the unique pilots (and only one of them if you use two starvipers for some odd reason) without having to print different upgrade bars for the generics and have people wonder if it was a mistake.

After my last two games last night I have nothing but love for the K4 security droid. In my first game combo'd with Push the Limit I was reliably getting 3 actions every turn I was engaged with the enemy, but it was in my second where my opponent gave me the theoretical nightmare of repeated blocking and flechette cannon stress infliction being able to reliably get a target lock every turn turned the K4 into a firespray advanced sensors equivalent.

The K4 is good on PTL ships (or any other ship that expects to have to do greens anyway), as long as you're willing to have a target lock as your bonus action. But it does have some tough competition. Gunner gives you an alternative form of no-action firepower, recon specialist gives you an extra focus for defense, etc.

The K4 is good on PTL ships (or any other ship that expects to have to do greens anyway), as long as you're willing to have a target lock as your bonus action. But it does have some tough competition. Gunner gives you an alternative form of no-action firepower, recon specialist gives you an extra focus for defense, etc.

I definitely agree that the crew slot competition is pretty fierce. Having an Elite Pilot Talent slot and Crew as standard is a really big selling point on the scum firespray for me at the moment. Odds are the ship can be customised to the role you need it for provided you have the points.

Got another couple of games in now and have changed my list around to-
Kath Scarlet (Scum) (38)
Push the Limit (3)
Seismic Charges (2)
K4 Security Droid (3)
Engine Upgrade (4)

Syndicate Thug (18)
Ion Cannon Turret (5)
R4 Agromech (2)
BTL-A4 Y-Wing (0)

Syndicate Thug (18)
Ion Cannon Turret (5)
R4 Agromech (2)
BTL-A4 Y-Wing (0)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

The action efficiency from R4 Agromech is pure joy, especially when they can find a big ship to chew up. Kath is a massive improvement over the already quite respectable Mandalorian mercenary, the disruptive effect of people trying not be in that rear arc has been worth those 3 extra points for me. Never got round to using the seismic charge in either of my games, my opponents were too scared of the rear arc and my control game just isn't up to keeping them there. Thinking about swapping it out for a flechette torpedo and the Slave 1 title on Kath to give her opening shots a bit more of a control effect/limit opponents manoeuvre options. Anyone got any ideas about how to spend those last 2 points?

Syndicate Thug (18)
Ion Cannon Turret (5)
R4 Agromech (2)
BTL-A4 Y-Wing (0)

I like the R4B11 on one of them
Because of the 1-2 pass of the BTL-A4, I'd probably rather just get the target lock up front instead of the focus and then hope they're still in your arc to shoot next turn. I've never read that you can use the target lock immediately ( I guess you could use it on your secondary weapon but I'd rather have it for the entire combat phase as your two primary attacks don't always have a great chance of damaging middle to high defense ships


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Instead of the seismic charge ( and I love all bombs) you could do inertial dampeners and give you're opponents nightmares as to which way you're going ~ are you stopping or starting? I really love predator on the fire spray BC I can't roll dice well.

buckero0 wrote:
I've never read that you can use the target lock immediately

That's because it's so obvious that it doesn't need to be stated explicitly. If you have a target lock you can spend it. As soon as you spend the focus token (even if you don't modify any {eye} results) you immediately get the target lock before you leave the "modify dice" step. You can spend it immediately to modify the current dice, or you can save it to spend it on the second attack from the A4 title (as well as hypothetical other attacks from gunner/cluster missiles/etc if there's ever a way to combine them with an R4).

The only exception to "you can spend it immediately" is cards that explicitly state that you can't. For example, R5-K6 explicitly says that you can not spend the new target lock on the current attack. You can, of course, spend it on another attack that turn (A4 title, Corran's double-tap, etc).

I did alright with this list.

Black Sun Soldier (13) x 3

Kaa’to Leeachos (17)
Z-95 Headhunter (15), Bodyguard (2)

Guri (43)
StarViper (30), Veteran Instincts (1), Advanced Proton Torpedoes (6), Virago (1), Autothrusters (2), Fire-Control System (2), Inertial Dampeners (1)

---------------------------------------------------

Admittedly, several elements of it were because I was trying to make up the points from my lack of general scum ships/upgrades and I never did get to fire my Advanced Proton Torpedoes (next time, Gadget, next time! *Shakes fist*)

However, the general concept of it all seemed to work quite well together. Leeachos stealing a Focus from a Z-95 that was out of arc-ish, or not going to get shot at, then converting it to the +1 agility for the Virago worked rather well.

And the Virago's turns (including the S-Turn), made it a pretty good flanker for the Z-95 squad.

I'm not going to claim it's the be-all-and-end-all or anything, but there was elements of it, I was pretty darn pleased with.

I guess (from my inexperience) then, wouldn't the target lock still be better? For some reason I thought the target lock worked for the whole turn (both shots primary and secondary turret) and the focus only worked on the first round. Please correct me if I'm wrong

Basically, whenever you receive the Target Lock, or Focus tokens (or evade, for that matter), you put them beside your ship and they're effectively "banked."

Whenever you use one of these tokens, you're actually 'spending' it and so, removing it from your ship and the game (or, depending on the ships special rules, possibly 'trading' to someone else.)

Generally speaking, once you've used the token, it's removed from the game.

Also, at the end of a round, basically, all green tokens, are removed from the board - Generally speaking, that's all of them except for target locks and Cloaks. (Generally speaking).

Try to have a watch of these, to see if there's anything else you've missed.

Huh, looks like something to check out, just in case.

So, I may try to get out for a small gamestore tournament and I want to bring Scum just because, thinking of bringing something like:

Kavil, r4 agromech,blaster turret, VI (31)

Syndicate Thug, title/warthog r4 agromeh, ion turret (25)

Suhlak, lone wolf (19)

2x pirates (24)

I figure it's got quite a few ships, a couple of which are kind of tough, Kavil can try to blow up arc dodgers with his (probably) 4 dice turret and can probably keep the focus up since he doesn't need to turn around and stay in arc as much. I can send Suhlak down the flank to either cause trouble or be a distraction and let the others get off a nasty round of flank shots.

Or I could be going in the wrong direction. I figure it's a pretty straightforward plan with simple ships that don't have a lot of fancy maneuver tricks, which should be easy on me since I'm still a n00b.

Would I be better served with something along the lines of firespray/Boba+warthogs?

I don't think there's anything wrong with that list. My personal preference would be changing out Kavil's Blaster turret for an Ion Cannon Turret, which you have a spare point to play with so could try.

I just find 3 ships a lot easier to fly than 5 so prefer 2 Warthogs and a Firespray over a swarm build. If you're comfortable flying that many ships then go with it. Non-Phantom based opponents are probably going to struggle when you bring numbers to the table. At the end of the day the list you take to a tournament needs to be something you're comfortable playing multiple practice games with and then playing games for most of a day at a tournament, so the more you like it the less bored you'll probably get with it.

^Good advice, I need to try the Firespray variation a bit more, I just recently managed to get 'hold of one so it hadn't been included in my plans until very recently.

Just wanted to add "something" that worked for me to this thread:

Phantom Counter Kavil (32 points)
VI
Unhinged Astromech
Autoblaster Turret
Engine Upgrade

I just tested this in 3 games against a regular Imperial player that brought a regular Imperial List with Whisper and all the fixins. as long as he was moving first and shooting first, this Kavil did work. Dodging arcs and almost always being at range 1 of Whisper. I never once worried about not having the right maneuver or hitting an Asteroid. Against Echo, your strengths are exaggerated even more.

SeanDrake wrote:


1st games was against an in experienced player with Whisper,Echo and a Tie Defender.
Kavil was a monster in this match dispatching whisper due to being able to ignore defence dice.
Echo found himself at range 1 in Kath's rear arc uncloaked and got vaporised with a 6 die 6 dmg roll.
Leaving the defender to get focused down by everything.

OK. I missed something here.

Kath is attack 3. Rear arc +1 to 4. Range 1 +1 to 5.

How did you get six dice? What am I missing here, Dakkanaughts?

 EmpNortonII wrote:
OK. I missed something here.

Kath is attack 3. Rear arc +1 to 4. Range 1 +1 to 5.

How did you get six dice? What am I missing here, Dakkanaughts?

You aren't missing anything. The maximum is five dice, not six, and the player you quoted made a game-changing mistake.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

OK. I missed something here.

Kath is attack 3. Rear arc +1 to 4. Range 1 +1 to 5.

How did you get six dice? What am I missing here, Dakkanaughts?

Opportunist, maybe? That'd do it.

 Compel wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

OK. I missed something here.

Kath is attack 3. Rear arc +1 to 4. Range 1 +1 to 5.

How did you get six dice? What am I missing here, Dakkanaughts?

Opportunist, maybe? That'd do it.

Or expose.

 Compel wrote:
Opportunist, maybe? That'd do it.

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:
Or expose.

It would, but the ship in question didn't have either. If you look at the post with the story about the six-dice firespray you'll see that it had PTL and therefore no way to get six dice legally.

I haven't really hit on a fleet i like yet (other than mobs of Binyare's ... but that's kind of boring, even if it is effective), but i'm absolutely loving a Y-wing with the YTL title card, an ion cannon secondary weapon, and then the new scum droid that makes "3" maneuvers green (though the "spend a focus token, get a target lock" droid is hot too).

Good googly moogly can that combination make for a scarily maneuverable Y-wing that can really ruin an opponent's plan and put some heat on a target. A bit pricey, but i think worth it for a fairly maneuverable tank ship that can throw two attacks a turn on a target, one of them with hideous consequences.

I've also been enjoying Kath Scarlett's scum pilot in larger games where i have some points to kit her up decently.

Played that list I posted three times today, didn't win the tournament but I did win 2 of my 3 games, so that's pretty cool.

My takeaway is that Kavil is a beast. I *really* liked VI on him in combination with the Initiative bid, he pretty much always got to shoot first all day. It's proving a bit tricky to fly him as I'm not as used to the y-wing dial as I am some ships, and he flies a bit differently than others as he wants to NOT have people in his main arc. Also range 2 is not range 3, and with limited maneuvers that won't stress him and remove his ability to focus, just gonna take some getting used to flying. But damn, that 4 dice blaster turret with the target lock is a monster. I realize it's anecdotal as it was just three games, but that gun can just smoke ships off the board.

The warthog y-wing with agromech and ion turret was also brutal. He managed to Ionize both Kath Scarlet over two rounds, and nearly chase Abaht off the board as the first shot tended to eat up defensive tokens leaving the Ion to barely sail past the defense dice. This thing is a scary ship for the price, wondering if I wouldn't want more than one somehow...

The pirates did their job as expected, the only ship I'm not sure about was Suhlak. While he did manage to bait some fire to come his way, I almost always ended up losing him or having him end up too close to allies in order to engage the best targets. Distraction is good but I'm just wondering...

Maybe take my spare point and swith Suhlak to Serissu and basically just fly them around in a squad? Kavil would obviously start veering off eventually but the Scyk could easily keep up. No room for upgrades as the list stands though, but such a killable target may draw just as much fire as Suhlak while also providing a benefit.


I'm also thinking of looking into a 50 point Firespray with a couple of Ion Warthogs as escort, still a reasonable amount of hull and shields... I would assume to build around the Y-wings ionizing things with their second shot and the Firespray using whatever gimmick it's pilot or elite pilot talent (in the case of the mandalorian) offered up.. haven't had a chance to play around with it yet.

Remember you need 2 ion tokens on a large ship like a firespray in the same round to actually ion them.

Yeah, my opponent didn't remember that, but I did. I got two rounds of fire off before the ships passed each other.

 Compel wrote:
Remember you need 2 ion tokens on a large ship like a firespray in the same round to actually ion them.

It's not in the same round. A large based ship with one ion token is RAW "ionized" for any such rules interactions that call for a target that is ionized but does not remove the ion token(s) at the end of the round unless the maneuver effect has taken place. At which point the ship can then remove all ion tokens from itself.

I checked the reference card just to be sure.

It's in the little extra booklet for any large ship.

"Blah blah receive token.... Large ship unaffected by one token; token simply remains assigned to the ship. When a large ship has two or more ion tokens assigned to it, it suffers the ion token effect as normal. Then remove all ion tokens from the ship."

I don't think we were misinterpreting that any.

Then in the end phase, the only tokens specifically removed are focus and evade.. so yeah, think we were correct.