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Starting a new thread because someone's useless spam post got the other one locked:

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2016/2/10/payback/

So, first impressions:

Dial: worse than I'd hoped, but possibly acceptable. I was really hoping for 3-turns, even red 3-turns, to make a PTL kiting ship with engine upgrade and unhinged astromech. But it does have plenty of greens if you're willing to turn left, and a white s-loop is pretty obviously powerful. Amusingly the biggest loser from the asymmetrical dial is probably Dengar, since his pilot ability needs to have the target in arc. The others are probably happy enough to turn left and exploit the 360* turret.

Title: it's mandatory. The difference between a 2-dice gun and a 3-dice gun on an expensive ship like this is the difference between a garbage-tier ship and a ship that might actually be useful for something. Think of this as less of an optional title and more of a "only one of these ships per list" rule attached to the base hull.

Dengar: we've already seen this, and not much changes. His pilot ability is amazing when it works but pretty strongly contradicts the usual turret strategy of flying away from the enemy while shooting out of arc with the turret. On the other hand he's a natural PS 9 which is a pretty important fact even if his pilot ability doesn't happen all that often.

Tel Trevura: garbage. Staying alive at 1 HP usually just means you die to the next attack instead, so his pilot ability is little more than a "free" hull upgrade. You'll almost always get more durability out of Dengar's PS 9 than +1 HP.

Manaroo: too expensive for a support ship. If you're giving up all her tokens then you have a very expensive ship with no dice modification of its own, and that probably balances out the benefit those tokens grant another ship. Maybe there will be a way to make it work, but I wouldn't bet much on it. You'll probably have to treat her as a PS 4 generic most of time and only occasionally pass the tokens when you really need to.

Generic: is there really a point to this? If you're going to invest enough points to make it effectively why not invest a few more for one of the uniques (and probably Dengar)? At least it gets an EPT, which is better than most generics.

Rage: garbage. The benefit is nice, but double stressing a ship is usually suicide. The only situation where I could imagine using this is on Tycho, and even then it's not a very compelling argument.

Attanni Mindlink: too much trouble to be worth it. When it's working it's great. You essentially get a free action on every ship after the first, since they can take their non-focus actions and then have the first ship hand a focus to everyone. And it's especially amusing with Manaroo, since you can pass her focus to another ship and then get it right back. But then you have the potential to be absolutely screwed by stress, and I think that risk is going to be very hard to justify.

Gonk: questionable. Taking an action to store shields isn't as bad as it seems, since you should always have at least 1-2 turns at the beginning of the game to store them. But taking an action to recover a shield is really painful. Rebel regen is as powerful as it is because it happens in addition to your actions. But with Gonk you're likely to take extra damage because you didn't have that action to spend on a focus or evade token. And scum don't really have the kind of high-PS aces that make rebel regen so effective. On the other hand HP regeneration is an incredibly powerful mechanic, so it's probably worth a look.

R5-P8: Hilarious, but who does it go on? The potential to kill Soontir Fel and similar aces with a droid with a blaster duct taped to its head is obvious, but it's probably too expensive for y-wings (which are most often used as generics with TLTs) and I'm not sure the jumpmaster wants to take it over the other options (especially unhinged astromech). I guess it's worth a look if your list is strong in most matchups but needs a little help against imperial aces.

Boba Fett: Crippling when he works, garbage when he doesn't. Playing against a list like BBBBZ? Congratulations, you spend a crew slot on a blank card. Sneak a lucky crit through against Soontir Fel? You probably just won the game. And of course you still need to inflict that face-up damage card in time for it to matter. Rebel ships don't care as much because they have shields to stop the crit. TLT y-wings really don't want to lose their turret, but by the time you get a crit through you can probably just kill the ship with your next attack. Etc. How good Boba Fett is will depend entirely on the kind of lists you expect to face in a given game/tournament.

Dengar (crew): finally an upgrade that is just plain good (I saved the best for last I guess?). Remember how predator is one of the best EPTs? And how scum really like the K4 security droid that gives free target locks on green maneuvers? Well, Dengar has the same relation to a K4 as predator does to a target lock: always active (including if you have multiple shots per turn), but slightly reduced effect. But in this case it's arguably better than predator's re-roll, since unique pilots are the ones where you need a re-roll the most. The only real question is whether you can afford to spend a crew slot, and given how frequently we see the K4 droid in scum lists I think the answer is going to be "yes".

Dengar's ability would happen more than you would think, in my opinion. A white 2-S loop is powerful, and then the ability to Barrel Roll afterwards could really help position yourself for it. I think he'll be great fun, and rather deadly. PTL, Unhinged, Punishing One Title, and maybe an Engine Upgrade.

Tel Trevura is probably the one I'm looking forward to the most. Hull upgrade means you have 2 health left after dying, give him the title so he can do the generic 360 degree thing and avoid arcs. Gonk as a crew if you want to bring shields back late game, or perhaps Dengar if you want to spend your focus for defense or reposition with Barrel Rolling.

Manaroo is actually quite good. Not only can you pass off tokens to another ship (with no range restrictions) but that includes all Target Locks. So, essentially, he's immune to missiles/torpedoes, immune to Advanced Targeting Computer, and other ships just can't use target locks to reroll dice against him. Granted, you need another ship alive to do so, but you can pass it to any ship, so pick someone that your opponent wasn't planning on shooting at that turn. Either they focus on Manaroo, or they focus on your other ships, which allows Manaroo to run around with his turret and do some damage.

Rage is definitely "Meh".

Attanni Mindlink seems to have potential. I'll definitely be trying it out in a few builds. Not quite sure what yet, though.

Gonk is okay. He's essentially an action when you don't have any other useful actions for that turn (Which happens a couple times a game).

Boba Fett is....not going to be used in any of my lists. He's too situational, imo.

Dengar (crew) is obviously good.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2016/2/10/payback/

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Who broke my thread?!!

What happened to the actual preview?

I wish the dial had a 3 turn, even if just to the left.

I also think the other ships have merit. You're not going to be able to fit a full FAT dengars in every scum list, he's going to cost too much.

R5-P8 will work on Kavil as would Rage TLT and unhinged, it's nice to have droids, but I agree, there needs to be at least another ship that can take them. I've never flown R4B11 for the same reason

buckero0 wrote:
What happened to the actual preview?

I mucked it up, sorry. I asked the mods to remove my post and re-open the thread, but they appear to have deleted it entirely.

buckero0 wrote:
I wish the dial had a 3 turn, even if just to the left.

I as well. 3 Turns are helpful in many situations. Enough speed to run from fast buggers like squints, and 90 degree turns are a big improvement over banks. And it's a good compromise between a predictable green 2 maneuver and a red 4 k. I really like having the option for a 3 turn on large based turret ships. Even if they're white, or only go in one direction.

My thoughts restated:

The dial: Great to the left, average to the right for a Scum ship (meaning a little weak to the right overall). Wold certainly have liked to see a hard-3, but can live with it.

Rage: There are certain pilots who will take this card, and a lot who won't. For guys like Tycho, 4-LOM and Ezra, double stress is a small price to pay for the offensive punch this gives.

Attanni Mindlink: Cool concept, decent upside, massive downsides. There is too much stress in this meta to make it worth it, and yo have to sacrifice an EPT slot to take it.

Gonk: Shield Regen is good. Sure, you need to bank shields to start, but once yo do this guy with either PTL or Ex. Interface compares reasonably to R2-D2. Probably a good friend for Dengar (Bank shields, joust for the double-tap, then break off and regen).

R5-P8: Fun little "Don't shoot me" card.

Boba: Pretty sweet. Once per game, you can make one of your crits crippling.

Contracted scout: Why take this, when a TLT Y-wing costs the same?

Manaroo: Dear FFG, can you please stop making support ships that are also the most expensive ship in my list? Sincerely, Crazy_Carnifex.

Tel Trevura: Viability dependent on where and when he dies.

Dengar [Crew]: Nice combination with Predator, as you will re-roll 3 dice vs most targets. Crew-Slot Predator is also nice for a lot of pilots.

Mindlink will last only to the point when a squad needs to perform multiple Red maneuvers...the first one K-Turns (or hits debris), gets a stress, then passes it to everyone else. The second, third, etc all flip red dials, newly stressed, and I get to decide their actual moves.
Gonk is nice if you've got a few points left over...Turn 1 no viable action anyways...cheaper than a Shield Upgrade and it can stack with the Shield Upgrade.
Double Stress for rage is suicide except for Tycho.
Boba Fett. Situational but real dirty for 1 point. A way to dump Palpatine a turn or 2 early. Get rid of those nasty regen droids or strip the TLT from Miranda. No more PTL for Soontir. Get rid whispers ACD so your TLT Y can kill him this turn. Fat Han losses Gunner/Luke. Hit a ship with 1 hull and a Hull Upgrade, pop the upgrade and kill the ship.

Anyone think of a sound platform for Crew Bob with a slot for Adv Homers?

 Azreal13 wrote:
Anyone think of a sound platform for Crew Bob with a slot for Adv Homers?

:Latts Razzi maybe but its a bit of points sink

 Azreal13 wrote:
Anyone think of a sound platform for Crew Bob with a slot for Adv Homers?

There are only 2 ship options with Crew slots and Missile slots:

Firespray
YV-666

Of those, the Firespray only had 1 crew slot, so if you're using your crew slot for Boba you need a pilot you weren't planning on running an actual crew card for. That means maybe Emon, but realistically there isn't a good Firespray build for Boba.

The YV-666 on the other hand seems ideal. It has 3 crew slots, and usually one is either empty or a non-critical fill. You figure Bossk hunts for crits anyway, so Bossk seems like the most logical choice. Sure, you don't get to turn that crit into two hits, but you get to strip an upgrade card, which is anywhere from better (Palp, R5-P9, etc) to "basically just as good" (TLT off a generic Y-Wing, turret off of a VCX, etc).

You could also combine Greedo + Boba so you don't have to use AHM if you wanted, but you would have to burn through any shields first. Something Bossk excels at, btw.

I figure Boba is only 1 point, and if you're not filling you YV with essential crew anyway (I never do), you don't stand to lose much by putting Boba in there for that last point.

That said, the Jumpmaster itself has Torpedo slots, and proton torpedoes let you change an eyeball to a crit. It's not as reliable as AHM, and like Greedo you would have to take down their shields first, but it is an option.

I think Rage has potential with Youngster and a Tie swarm. If you also run Epsilon Leader with it. Fly in tighter formation and not only do the TIEs get the defensive focus, but also get the re-roll ability. Epsilon Leader takes off one of those stress and then green manuever the next turn for the other. To give Tie fighters the ability to re-roll all their dice is huge and for only 1 point.

If it works, it works well, if it goes wrong, it'll do so spectacularly.

Agreed. YV-666 usually has a crew and missile slot 'spare', and theoretically that shot could blow away.....Palpatine, Isard, R5-P9, Engine Upgrade, Outrider, you name it. It's situational, but for 4 points, could really mess up someone who slavishly follows "that list off the internet".

Rage: garbage. The benefit is nice, but double stressing a ship is usually suicide. The only situation where I could imagine using this is on Tycho, and even then it's not a very compelling argument.

Push The Limit and Rage is nice, essentially giving you focus, pseudo-target-lock, and a third 'normal' action. It's not like it's expensive.

I actually wonder if it might work on a swarm via Youngster. You've got to figure out how to mitigate the double stress - which will hurt.
Either you can try to burn through the stress faster with Epsilon Leader, or else use the stress to your advantage with Wired.

locarno24 wrote:
Push The Limit and Rage is nice, essentially giving you focus, pseudo-target-lock, and a third 'normal' action. It's not like it's expensive.

On anyone but Tycho it's suicide. It doesn't matter if PTL + rage is cheap it's still suicide to take multiple stress tokens. And on Tycho it's just not very good compared to having PS 10, or daredevil + EI if you're willing to settle for PS 8.

I actually wonder if it might work on a swarm via Youngster. You've got to figure out how to mitigate the double stress - which will hurt.
Either you can try to burn through the stress faster with Epsilon Leader, or else use the stress to your advantage with Wired.

Sure, but now your "cheap" EPT is no longer cheap, and you should just take a crack shot and/or Howlrunner swarm like everyone else. If you're paying for stress removal support then you can afford Howlrunner for the re-roll and a focus action for the focus.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Azeroth wrote:
To give Tie fighters the ability to re-roll all their dice is huge and for only 1 point.

But it's way more than one point. You have to pay to upgrade a TIE to Youngster, and you also have to pay for stress removal to have any chance of it not being a suicidally bad plan. If you're taking epsilon leader for your stress removal you're spending at least 9 points on the rage gimmick. And congratulations, now you've created an awkward version of a Howlrunner swarm.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Azeroth wrote:
To give Tie fighters the ability to re-roll all their dice is huge and for only 1 point.

But it's way more than one point. You have to pay to upgrade a TIE to Youngster, and you also have to pay for stress removal to have any chance of it not being a suicidally bad plan. If you're taking epsilon leader for your stress removal you're spending at least 9 points on the rage gimmick. And congratulations, now you've created an awkward version of a Howlrunner swarm.

Azeroth wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Azeroth wrote:
To give Tie fighters the ability to re-roll all their dice is huge and for only 1 point.

But it's way more than one point. You have to pay to upgrade a TIE to Youngster, and you also have to pay for stress removal to have any chance of it not being a suicidally bad plan. If you're taking epsilon leader for your stress removal you're spending at least 9 points on the rage gimmick. And congratulations, now you've created an awkward version of a Howlrunner swarm.






Using Youngster rather than another TIE is no big deal - so I don't run Night Beast or Winged Gundark and instead run Youngster. As for stress removal, you make it sound like that is all it can do. A TIE/Fo is a good ship and the ability to remove a mass amount of stress is very good especially in a TIE list. Howlrunner has nothing on rage. Howlrunner only lets me re-roll 1 die. Rage basically gives all the TIES Han solo's ability only better.

So your "9 point gimmick" gives all TIE's in the list a focus that they would want anyway and Han's ability except that you can keep the dice that actually roll hits. And part of that gimmick includes a TIE/fo that has a shield and a slightly better dial.

Biggest problem that I see is that now your list has two points of Failure- Youngster and Epsilon Leader. Lose either, your list stops working. In contrast, a Howlrunner Swarm with Youngster will still work, although less effectively, if you lose either.

Azeroth wrote:
Using Youngster rather than another TIE is no big deal - so I don't run Night Beast or Winged Gundark and instead run Youngster.

But you still have to count the points you're paying. You can't just assume "I'm going to spend 16 points anyway, so Youngster is free". Youngster costs 4 points more than an academy pilot (the cheapest generic) no matter what other things you might have spent those points on.

As for stress removal, you make it sound like that is all it can do. A TIE/Fo is a good ship and the ability to remove a mass amount of stress is very good especially in a TIE list.

No, that's not at all what I said. You're paying 4 points more than the cheapest generic TIE/FO to get that stress removal. All of the other things the ship can do are accounted for in the base cost of the TIE/FO.

Howlrunner has nothing on rage. Howlrunner only lets me re-roll 1 die. Rage basically gives all the TIES Han solo's ability only better.

You're talking about a ship with a 2-dice gun. A single re-roll isn't quite as good as a re-roll on all of your dice, but most of the time it's close enough. It's the same reason why predator is awesome and nearly the same value as a free target lock even though you can only re-roll 1-2 dice.

Juno Eclipse with Prockets and Rage and Advanced Sensors and tie mkii could be cool. Pick a speed 2, use rage, speed up or slow down so your target is in range 1, shoot 5 dice and reroll three and bleed one of your two stress. A Gamma Squadron vet with Rage, Clusters and Long Range Sensors is only 24 points.

And I have to say, Dengar (pilot), rage, bossk and R4-B11 have an interesting interaction even if it IS garbage tier. You can shoot someone, rerolling your dice with a focus, shooting at say an Interceptor in your front arc, and you miss still, Bossk triggers, you don't get any stress but you get a focus and a target lock, then, when they shoot you and triggers your retaliation, you get to reroll your dice and have a focus again and you can use your target lock to make the squint reroll its successful green dice. I think at range 1 (assuming the title was taken) that would smoke even Soontir Fel with his two focus and evade.

I didn't say it was "good". I said it was interesting. There's a big difference that some people seem to forget

Actually, no it doesn't - at least not completely.

Youngster with Rage has at least one key advantage over Howlrunner; it's harder to knock out your bonuses.

I prefer using Howlrunner with Black Squadron Pilots with Crack Shot for two reasons - firstly Crack Shot is awesome, but secondly it improves the odds Howlrunner will still be around by the time the rest of the swarm fires.

Because Youngster's bonus is applied in the activation phase, not the combat phase, it doesn't matter if he eats a heavy laser cannon shot (or whatever) at PS7. Plus, with a range 1-3 ability, he can do so from a safe(ish) distance back.

Epsilon Leader is the same - his ability triggers at the start of the combat phase, so you don't care if he dies during the shooting. Plus, he's quite a bit tougher in a TIE/fo than another TIE/ln fighter, especially with a comms relay.

If you want a swarm with Howlrunner, you get a maximum of seven ships - the classic being Howlrunner, 5 academy pilots and one other named or upgraded TIE. If this is Epsilon Leader, you're not losing ships for your 'stress burning trick'.

The extra dice rerolls are largely irrelevant at long range, but if you close to range 1, I suspect it does more good.


I dunno. I agree that the double stress is a big deal, but it does give some potential massive damage without being vulnerable to having Youngster 'sniped' out before he can do his job like howlrunner can, and without making the attached TIEs left vulnerable to being gunned down in droves before they can fire like Expose.

The problem is that, as noted, you are left actionless and unable to K-turn afterwards, but one turn of point-blank firing - especially if you can use your 1-ship advantage over a 'normal' howrunner swarm to block your target - can devastate an enemy squad.

I think it's at least worth a try. If nothing else, you're not losing any fighters over the 4 academy/4 obsidian mix, so you're not really losing much capability if you never actually trigger Rage.

So, Attani Mindlink. The more I think about that card, the more interesting it seems. I'm tempted to give this a try:

Kath Scarlet (Scum) (38)
Attanni Mindlink (1)
Gunner (5)
Inertial Dampeners (1)
Engine Upgrade (4)

Bossk (35)
Attanni Mindlink (1)
"Mangler" Cannon (4)
Outlaw Tech (2)
Mercenary Copilot (2)
K4 Security Droid (3)
Inertial Dampeners (1)
Maneuvering Fins (1)

Total: 98

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

I've got auxiliary arcs on both ships to make arc dodging more difficult. Because they are both PS7, I can decide each turn who activates first based on who has stress and who is going to perform a green maneuver/action. Having a stress token during my activation won't necessitate a green maneuver if I was going to just focus anyway. It sort of opens up the dials a bit. Granted, I could have VIed both of them to PS9, but I think the idea merits at least a trial game.

Bossk is the obvious green stress reliever. With the K4 he's able to TL and (assuming he only had 1 stress to start) Focus on a single green maneuver, AND would pass a focus on to Kath which would free her up to Boost (via EU) as her action. Obviously a stress hog / tactician hog is going to be an issue, but only one stress gets passed to the second ship. That means that even if, for example, Bossk gets double stressed (thus passing a stress to Kath), Kath can do a green to clear her one stress, perform a Focus maneuver and pass a Focus onto Bossk even though he's still stressed after his activation (since even with a Green maneuver he'd still have one stress). So Bossk, despite being double stressed, ends up with Focus/TL. Even when Bossk takes that 0 stop maneuver, he gets a Focus thanks to Outlaw Tech and passes a Focus onto Kath.

It's tempting to down grade the Gunner on Kath to a K4 for the same reason. Basically unless both of my ships were double stressed at the start of the turn, each one could end up with TL/Focus each turn. Edit: dropping Gunner down to a K4 would mean that I could upgrade Bossk's Maneuvering Fins (which were thrown on for the heck of it) to an Engine Upgrade.

The only downside is, as I said, PS7 means I'm basically giving aces free reign on my ships.

I've never seen the fins be useful, usually you want to get turned around not switch to the bank. I'd put the k4 on Scarlett, and maybe hookup a hotshot blaster on bossk. If you can wait a week or so, you could throw zuckuss on instead of the merc copilot, when an ace gets on your tail, you can get a TL, pop the Blaster, Zuckuss him, and then bossk him for extra damage, goodbye blindside

I had an idea for Attani mindlink:
Palob and Guri. Theyre both PS 5. Their focus gaining abilities outstrip the possible stress gains by a lot. Obviously you can't get stacks of four tokens started on both pilots, but you can always cover one or the other so they both always have a focus. Guri has trouble predicting enemy movement on higher PS pilots, so an Intelligence agent on Palob would be good for 1 point. And Blaster turret is pretty good if you always have focus to power it and can take target locks to make it better. Guri can run with fire controls, autothrusters and cloaking device. Due to Attani Mindlink, on the turn she cloaks, she can get a focus to make those 5 green dice count because of Palob, even if she's not at range one of someone (which she shouldn't be since cloaking is just to stay alive from the opening volley).

and all of that still leaves 36 points to play with. You could fit 3 basic blocker Z95s. Or a force multiplier for your two ships like Latts Razzi with Weapons Engineer or Trandoshan Slaver with Gunner and Tactician. Or a Mindlinked Mandalorian Mercenary firespray. 4-LOM, Zuckuss or maybe even generic G-1As might play well with these two. Leech with Mindlink actually plays pretty well with others and only being 16 points that leaves enough for a mindlinked PS5 tractor Scyk if you drop the intelligence agent (which is not a net loss since you're getting to reposition the enemy in the combat phase anyway) or a generic Kihraxz without losing the Int agent. Serissu is also an option with 24 pts in VI and tractor beam leaving enough for a Z95. Talonbane is pretty good but I think he'll be even better with Cloaking so he's a miss for this list. And none of the Jumpmasters can take Punishing one and won't add enough to the list without it, so also a miss. There's enough points for any of the naked Aggressors but I don't think that would be very helpful.

There's lots of options for these two. The trick might just be not to make it your whole list. If your one trick pony is a Mindlink team and nothing else it might roll over to any stress control. On the other hand, the only way to get enough economy out of it to make it worthwhile might be to put it on everyone. I think it will require playtesting before it's written off as garbage.

buckero0 wrote:
I've never seen the fins be useful, usually you want to get turned around not switch to the bank. I'd put the k4 on Scarlett, and maybe hookup a hotshot blaster on bossk. If you can wait a week or so, you could throw zuckuss on instead of the merc copilot, when an ace gets on your tail, you can get a TL, pop the Blaster, Zuckuss him, and then bossk him for extra damage, goodbye blindside

I test flew the K4-Kath/EU-Bossk list over the weekend against myself. (I was bored!) My rebel list was:

Poe- VI, R5-P9, Autothrusters, Weapons Guidance
Blue Ace - BB-8, Autothrusters
Gold Squadron Y-Wing - stress hog w/ Bomb Loadout and Ion Bombs

Link

Scum lost, but mostly because I couldn't fly a large base to save my life while my small base ships were flybying obstacles like they weren't even there. That said, the list responded to the stress hog fairly well. There were multiple turns where a ship that was double stressed still ended up with a crucial focus token despite not being able to take an action (or in Bossk's case perform a red maneuver). I also managed to completely forget about ID when I had the Stresshog at R1 of a TL/Focused Bossk who ended up passing him by.

It was a fun list to fly, and I was definitely right about it opening up dials. Being able to do non-green maneuvers and still end up with Focus was a godsend for awhile. But alas, the dice are fickle and Poe never got to use his ability offensively. He was either hits/crits or blanks for the most part; mostly the hits/crits. He managed to strip all 4 of Kath's shields in a single attack, with no tokens necessary.

Fun list though. I will definitely give it another play. The stresshog more than anything ruined Scum's play, but I guess that's its entire point. It's definitely a ship I would avoid using in "for-fun" games.