Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 easypeasylemonsquezy wrote:
For Youngster I wonder if something like crack shot would work.... would all other ships only be able to do it once, or would it force the discard, or could it be reused as long as Youngster doesn't use it?....

No. Read the card more carefully, it only allows you to take actions on EPT upgrades, not any EPT bonus. So you can use squad leader, marksmanship, etc. Crack shot would do absolutely nothing on Youngster.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

locarno24 wrote:
Black squadron pilots with expose, howlrunne , and access to crack shot are going to be scary as hell though.

Maybe. It's good on paper, but past experience has shown that "combo" lists like this rarely work very well in actual games.

True.

But on the other hand - it's less combo- dependent than a lot of lists.

Black squadron pilots crack shot are good enough that they'd be a thing anyway, howlrunner has always been a thing.

Younger fits in without reducing you number of fighters (although it costs you a few upgrades on howlrunner), and (unlike howlrunner) both benefits from his own ability and doesn't stop working if he's killed in the combat phase, since the actions happen in the actication phase.

It may not work practice -it certainly adds vulnerability to stress mechanics - but it's probably worth a try.

It'll be more interesting to see how the new fighters work in a TIE All-Stars list - you can rack up a lot of options where there are many pilot talents - squad leader is worth more as an option when all your fighters have differing pilot skills (normally the big bugbear in flying the all-stars: nice to have it be an advantage for once)

 Peregrine wrote:

 easypeasylemonsquezy wrote:
For Youngster I wonder if something like crack shot would work.... would all other ships only be able to do it once, or would it force the discard, or could it be reused as long as Youngster doesn't use it?....

No. Read the card more carefully, it only allows you to take actions on EPT upgrades, not any EPT bonus. So you can use squad leader, marksmanship, etc. Crack shot would do absolutely nothing on Youngster.

Yea your totally right! So it only allows EPT's that allow you to perform an action, dono how I missed that, probably too excited!

That would also count for free actions, but I'm pretty sure they're aren't any EPT's where it just allows you to perform a free action without at least doing an actual action first.

Unless I missed something, those are our 4 options of Youngster.
I like Expose and Marksmanship, but I'm not sure which I like better.

You missed Squad Leader.

Yes, but other than in a TIE Aces list it won't actually do anything because because of the 'lower' pilot skill attribute.
With Youngster, FFG has finally made ACTION: cards interesting again. I hope that we get a few more soon.

 Anpu-adom wrote:

Yes, but other than in a TIE Aces list it won't actually do anything because because of the 'lower' pilot skill attribute.
With Youngster, FFG has finally made ACTION: cards interesting again. I hope that we get a few more soon.

It's possible to chain Swarm Tactics and Squad Leader.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Anpu-adom wrote:

Yes, but other than in a TIE Aces list it won't actually do anything because because of the 'lower' pilot skill attribute.
With Youngster, FFG has finally made ACTION: cards interesting again. I hope that we get a few more soon.

It's possible to chain Swarm Tactics and Squad Leader.

How?

With a hole punch and paperclips.

Well, hypothetically you can, if you take your Action during the combat phase. I'm just not sure how you do that part with TIE's.

 statu wrote:
How?

Never mind... I had a brain fart. Swarm Tactics triggers at the beginning of combat and Squad Leader is an action. Regardless, you can chain ST like this:


However, you could chain Swarm Tactics with Expose to have multiple PS 8 TIEs rolling extra dice:

"Howlrunner" (18)
Swarm Tactics (2)

"Youngster" (15)
Expose (4)

Black Squadron Pilot (14)
Swarm Tactics (2)

Black Squadron Pilot (14)
Swarm Tactics (2)

Black Squadron Pilot (14)
Swarm Tactics (2)

Academy Pilot (12)

Total: 99
View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Not the best thing ever but it would be fun to try.

That's......

Ouch. With Howlrunner, the lack of a focus action isn't so important.

The list does break apart when Howlrunner goes down, though; even more so than a normal TIE swarm. Without Howlrunner's reroll, no-one wants to use expose (focus is better). Without Howlrunner's PS, there's no start to the swarm tactics chain either.

The upshot of this that on turn one, the pass is nothing short of devastating - 5 PS8 3-dice attacks - but after this you've got 5 essentially unequipped pilots to finish off the game.

Of course, if you can't kill something with that initial pass, You're Doing It Wrong (TM) .




I think Squad Leader is best used in a squad with lots of different PS values - you can easily get an elite 'pack' with PS8, 7, 6, and 5 TIEs in the same swarm - being able to pass actions downhill as required is potentially useful.

One rather significant problem here: expose reduces your agility when you use it. So now your 3 HP ships only have two green dice and no defensive tokens. Against high-PS opponents you're very likely going to lose a TIE before it gets to shoot, and if anyone is out of range and/or arc your firepower drops even more. And against low-PS opponents whatever you didn't kill is going to hit you hard in return.

Agreed. That's still a fair question for an opponent, though: are you going to shoot the exposed, tokenless TIE fighter, or Howlrunner with (probably) an evade token?

Given how key she is, I'd still probably shoot her down, but it becomes tempting to switch to the easy kill TIEs instead. I'm really not sure which is the best call in this case, given how vulnerable the TIEs suddenly are.

You don't need to use expose with all your ties every turn. You could use it only on the TIE's your opponent doesn't have a shot at which should happen quite often considering you have 6 ships against only 3-4.

The swarm tactics strategy sounds interesting, but if you ran into and elite pilot list, you may be wasting those 8 points.

I was thinking of one of two lists:

Youngster + Expose + Hull Upgrade
Howlrunner
Academy Pilot x5

Youngster and Howlrunner don't use expose unless no one has a shot at them. Academy Pilots use expose almost every turn - that is 19 attack dice while keeping Howlrunner and Youngster safer. Your opponent can't ignore the 5 ties with 3 attack dice or possibly 4 if you rush your opponent in range band 1

The other list is more elite:

Youngster + Expose
Howlrunner
Backstabber
Scourge
Mauler Mithel + Lightening Reflexes
Academy Pilot

Higher pilot skill and possibly more attack dice.

Azeroth wrote:

Youngster + Expose
Howlrunner
Backstabber
Scourge
Mauler Mithel + Lightening Reflexes
Academy Pilot

Higher pilot skill and possibly more attack dice.

Crack Shot seems like a better choice for Scourge and Mauler Mithel. They're likely to get focused down quickly, and so will benefit disproportionately from a one-time-use ability.

I wonder if putting Howlrunner in the list is a mistake, since it forces you to fly in formation. The really nice thing about Youngster is that the ability works out to Range 3 - so you can fly your TIE fighters in a much looser formation. Since they're only going to have 2 evade dice, it's better to spread them out so that your opponent can't easily pick and choose targets.

I'm also assuming that Youngster doesn't work with TIE f/o fighters? The work-around for the Integrated Astromech was that both versions of the X-Wing had the character string "X-Wing", whereas "TIE f/o Fighter" does not have the unbroken character string "TIE Fighter"

DanielBeaver,
That is my reading of Youngster as well. He specifically boosts TIE Fighters where as Twin Ion Engine Mk. II refers to TIE... without a ship indicator.

 DanielBeaver wrote:

Azeroth wrote:

Youngster + Expose
Howlrunner
Backstabber
Scourge
Mauler Mithel + Lightening Reflexes
Academy Pilot

Higher pilot skill and possibly more attack dice.

Crack Shot seems like a better choice for Scourge and Mauler Mithel. They're likely to get focused down quickly, and so will benefit disproportionately from a one-time-use ability.

I wonder if putting Howlrunner in the list is a mistake, since it forces you to fly in formation. The really nice thing about Youngster is that the ability works out to Range 3 - so you can fly your TIE fighters in a much looser formation. Since they're only going to have 2 evade dice, it's better to spread them out so that your opponent can't easily pick and choose targets.

I'm also assuming that Youngster doesn't work with TIE f/o fighters? The work-around for the Integrated Astromech was that both versions of the X-Wing had the character string "X-Wing", whereas "TIE f/o Fighter" does not have the unbroken character string "TIE Fighter"

With the 5 inch move on TIEs, I figured Mauler could surge ahead, use lightening reflexes to turn right behind something. With Expose, that is 5 attack dice and would be pretty devastating. Crack shot only means that one damage gets thru, Lightening reflexes could let me get off a 5 dice attack without getting shot in return.

With the 5 inch move on TIEs, I figured Mauler could surge ahead, use lightening reflexes to turn right behind something. With Expose, that is 5 attack dice and would be pretty devastating. Crack shot only means that one damage gets thru, Lightening reflexes could let me get off a 5 dice attack without getting shot in return.

Two issues:
1) Lightning Reflexes stresses you - so you can't pull a turn and then have an action to trigger expose

2) An attack with Expose is not as good as an attack with Focus. Even a 2 dice attack would be just as good (on average) with a focus as an extra die - by the time you get to a 4 dice attack, the difference is quite noticeable - in favour of focus.

I think that Marksmanship is the winner for Youngster.
Like Expose, you are going to do it when there is a low chance of return fire but you get a super focus. Range 3 is huge when compared to Howlrunner's reroll. It allows much larger spread of formations, etc. I don't think that it plays as well with low PS TIE's. (Howlrunner is still king there).

locarno24 wrote:

With the 5 inch move on TIEs, I figured Mauler could surge ahead, use lightening reflexes to turn right behind something. With Expose, that is 5 attack dice and would be pretty devastating. Crack shot only means that one damage gets thru, Lightening reflexes could let me get off a 5 dice attack without getting shot in return.

Two issues:
1) Lightning Reflexes stresses you - so you can't pull a turn and then have an action to trigger expose

2) An attack with Expose is not as good as an attack with Focus. Even a 2 dice attack would be just as good (on average) with a focus as an extra die - by the time you get to a 4 dice attack, the difference is quite noticeable - in favour of focus.

If I'm not mistaken, when lightening reflexes was released, Fantasy flight's website said that you could take an action - the card states:
"After you execute a white or green maneuver on your dial, you may discard this card to rotate your ship 180°. Then receive 1 stress token after the "Check Pilot Stress" step".
so you can take the action prior to getting the stress.

The point I was making is that you could get an attack off that you couldn't prior because of the move. Crack shot when it comes down to it, is basically a 1 point card that does 1 damage. Also, an attack with focus is only better if you actually roll the eye - the extra attack dice will always have the potential for more damage. So if I have 7 TIES (we'll assume range band 2) and I use expose instead of focus, you're saying that 21 attack dice will do less damage than 14 attack dice with focus?

Azeroth wrote:

locarno24 wrote:

With the 5 inch move on TIEs, I figured Mauler could surge ahead, use lightening reflexes to turn right behind something. With Expose, that is 5 attack dice and would be pretty devastating. Crack shot only means that one damage gets thru, Lightening reflexes could let me get off a 5 dice attack without getting shot in return.

Two issues:
1) Lightning Reflexes stresses you - so you can't pull a turn and then have an action to trigger expose

2) An attack with Expose is not as good as an attack with Focus. Even a 2 dice attack would be just as good (on average) with a focus as an extra die - by the time you get to a 4 dice attack, the difference is quite noticeable - in favour of focus.

If I'm not mistaken, when lightening reflexes was released, Fantasy flight's website said that you could take an action - the card states:
"After you execute a white or green maneuver on your dial, you may discard this card to rotate your ship 180°. Then receive 1 stress token after the "Check Pilot Stress" step".
so you can take the action prior to getting the stress.

The point I was making is that you could get an attack off that you couldn't prior because of the move. Crack shot when it comes down to it, is basically a 1 point card that does 1 damage. Also, an attack with focus is only better if you actually roll the eye - the extra attack dice will always have the potential for more damage. So if I have 7 TIES (we'll assume range band 2) and I use expose instead of focus, you're saying that 21 attack dice will do less damage than 14 attack dice with focus?

You receive stress when the "Check Stress" ends, but before you get a chance to take actions.