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Looking at the options available for Youngster - I was thinking more about using Expert Handling rather than Expose or Marksmenship. The TIE's biggest advantage is that it has 3 green dice for defense. It seems that a lot of the newer ships all have target lock or ways of adding a target lock. This seems like the biggest threat to a TIE fighter. By removing the target locks it can prevent your opponent from using target lock with focus to really damage your ship. Expert Handling is also something that won't be needed every turn and so you can take focus with all the other ships. What do you all think?

Dunno. My first instinct is still that I'd rather have focus for defence against whatever attack is incoming. No idea if the maths bear that out though, and pilot abilities could skew it one way or the other.

I'd be more interested in it as a way of preventing a nasty missile or torpedo wiping out a key piece like Howlrunner early on, though that's hampered by having to use your action after they do (not such an issue for Howlrunner, but could be for others) and that ordnance carrying craft are still a rarity (at least round these parts).

First reactions is that giving EH to a ship that already has a native barrel roll is diminishing returns somewhat, albeit not a deal breaker, especially, as you point out, in a game that gaining or holding a target lock is becoming easier or more important respectively. Equally, it is a lower cost EPT.

Then you have to consider the times where a barrel roll alone would be sufficient by getting you out of arc.

Then you have to factor in the times where you wouldn't get chance to execute the BR because a higher PS pilot has you locked and has used it before you get your action.

Then you have to account for the fact that a Focussed attack still has plenty of poke, as all you really need the TL to reroll the 1/4 chance of a blank, making the TL the "nice to have" when attacking, but less potent than focus.

I think your logic is sound, and it isn't a bad idea, but all in all if I were flying a post-Gozanti TIE swarm, I think either of the others is still superior.

It;s a reasonable idea on paper, but I don't think it will play out very well as;

1) If the other player knows you can get rid of the TL they are unlikely to lock you and just focus or other offensive action instead

2) Seems a bit of a points sink to use points to give an ability to a ship that already has that ability (albeit EH has a further side effect)

3) Ships currently in the meta that make use of target locks will tend to have high PS meaning they can acquire and then use the TL before you get
to BR it off

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
It;s a reasonable idea on paper, but I don't think it will play out very well as;

1) If the other player knows you can get rid of the TL they are unlikely to lock you and just focus or other offensive action instead

2) Seems a bit of a points sink to use points to give an ability to a ship that already has that ability (albeit EH has a further side effect)

3) Ships currently in the meta that make use of target locks will tend to have high PS meaning they can acquire and then use the TL before you get
to BR it off

That's the kicker for me. If you can't even prevent a PS2 Bomber from generating target locks on your TIEs... then what's really the value of EH?

 DanielBeaver wrote:

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
It;s a reasonable idea on paper, but I don't think it will play out very well as;

1) If the other player knows you can get rid of the TL they are unlikely to lock you and just focus or other offensive action instead

2) Seems a bit of a points sink to use points to give an ability to a ship that already has that ability (albeit EH has a further side effect)

3) Ships currently in the meta that make use of target locks will tend to have high PS meaning they can acquire and then use the TL before you get
to BR it off

That's the kicker for me. If you can't even prevent a PS2 Bomber from generating target locks on your TIEs... then what's really the value of EH?

I was planning on using obsidian squadron so that they would shoot and go before vanilla ships. Also, there are more ships now that need to hold that target lock like TIE advanced and it prevents your opponent from holding onto the lock and combining it with focus the next turn. Granted aces will probably get the lock and use it before I can remove it, but you are also talking about a 2 point card and the other options while good both have their limitations.

I figured it would help with lists that a swarm would struggle against like 4B and a HH. Or just vanilla spamming ships.

Maybe, but none of the low PS ships generally rely on Target Locks, it tend to be the upper half of the scale, the lowest would generally be PS6 for IG88B with cannons and a FCS, with Procket Jake (9) and Corran (8 or 10) in the middle and Vader (9 or 11) at the top end

I'm still not totally sold on Youngster but one day an EPT may come that changes everything