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As a fan of the ARC (thematically, not necessarily how it handles in the game) I have taken a break from flying scum to try out a kind of Alpha Strike ARC list to see how it fares against Dengaroo lists and the like. It is:

Shara Bay (Dead Eye, Plasma Torpedos, Guidance Chips, Tactician, Alliance Overhaul) 34 points

Esege Tuketu (XX-23 S Tracer Threads, Long Range Scanners, Recon Specialist) 32

Thane Kyrell (Proton Torpedos, Guidance Chips, R2-D6, Deadeye, Mercenary Copilot, Alliance Overhaul) 34

Obviously the plan is to lock on my intended target with the K-Wing, then as soon as we are in range 3, have all ships focus, the K-Wing to fire the Tracer Threads and hand out target locks (with a focus and maybe a TL to modify the roll), followed by both ARCs firing their torpedos (spending their own focus to do so, hopefully with a TL to modify, maybe one spare focus from the K-Wing + Guidance chips). My concerns here were swarms (although I can get a turn or maybe two of kiting, throwing two dice per ship is probably not enough going to take out a single Tie) and the fact that the K-Wing is a massive investment that is largely useless once both ARCs have borrowed a focus and used their ordinance. I wanted to swap it for a Hwk with TLT but without the built in focus sharing AND a missile slot (giving out locks in the combat phase seem to be a good way to get around Poe / Manaroo etc) I couldn't find a way to make it work.

I put it through two games; the first against Whisper, Soontir and some PS 5 Tie. Due to average rolling on my part, but bad rolling on my opponents, I managed to win without taking any hull damage on any of my ships and the Proton Torpedos were unused.

The next game was against Rey and Poe and in this case, my average rolling was trumped by great rolling by my opponent and a maneuverig error on my part (When it was time to FIRE EVERYTHING, Thane was just outside of range 3 of Poe AND Rey and since Poe was sporting R2, there wasn't much sense in wasting my anti-shield Torpedos on him if I couldn't also fire the Proton Torpedos at him as well so it went Rey's way).

Ultimately this lead to Rey taking both Torpedos where they did what they were supposed to (all the shields, then four crits from the Proton Torpedos, two of which were double damage) but in the end it was K-Wing vs Poe and while I had a good six turns of getting out of his arc or blocking, I couldn't damage him faster than he could regen his shields.

Now I want to see how I can improve the list. I could drop Thane down to Braylen and swap Shara for Norra (potentially getting more dice out of each attack including the Torpedos) but then she will be firing before the K-Wing so without a target lock. Wave 10 has some interesting options (I could swap Tactician for Jyn, letting me put several focus tokens on the K-Wing which it could then share; This would also allow me to drop Recon Specialist and change Long Range Scanners for Guidance Chips since the K-Wing could TL in the turn it wanted to fire the Tracers).

Does anyone have any suggestions on improving the list while more or less sticking to the theme?

I think the list whilst really synergy based might have a smidge too many moving parts that could be quite easy to disrupt, I think the ARC's are fine it's just the K-Wing seems a lot of points for something you could mostly cover by giving Predator or PTL to the ARC's and replacing it with another ship with some damage output of its own, or as ever Biggs

I'm also not sure Alpha Strikes really work against Dengaroo, if you sink all the shots into Manaroo then you'll be hard pressed to cope with Dengar, and if you target Dengar then its likely Counter-Measures and G-Stim will get popped and the Alpha Strike will get somewhat blunted

The problem with this list is that you have a convoluted plan to set up a one-shot attack, and once you're done (or a key piece goes down) all you have is garbage ships. The only threat in your list once the torps are gone is the tactician, and one tactician isn't going to win the game for you. And a pair of torps, even assuming full hits on both shots, is often going to fall short of being a crippling blow against good lists. So you have a lot of things which have to come together to make your combo work, but the payoff is less than just taking one of the standard tournament lists. This is not a successful approach to list-building.

 Siygess wrote:
(all the shields, then four crits from the Proton Torpedos, two of which were double damage)

I wouldn't call this "average" rolling. Getting four crits on a torpedo shot against no evades is pretty exceptional luck, the kind of game-changing event that should lead to an easy win. And this pretty well demonstrates the problem with your list: everything went perfectly, you delivered a crippling shot to a ~60 point ship, and you still had no chance of winning the game.

Does anyone have any suggestions on improving the list while more or less sticking to the theme?

Nope. The theme is fundamentally broken. The best you could hope for is a double-ARC list with something like stress Braylen (R3-A2, gunner) and PTL/R2-D2 Nora, probably with Biggs as the third ship. But that's a list that is going to have nothing to do with your original strategy.

New to the forum but I thought I would post a double ARC list that I have had some success with, unfortunately it doesn't fit your theme that you had laid out in your original post. Here it is

Norra Wexley:
-Vectored Thrusters
-Alliance Overhaul
-Veteran Instincts
-Rey
-R5-K6
38 Points


Shara Bey
-Vectored Thrusters
-Alliance Overhaul
-Tail Gunner
-Targeting Astromech
35 Points

Tala Squadron
13 Points

Tala Squadron
13 Points

97 Points

Not sure what to do with the extra 3 points, I was thinking of leaving it as is to have strong position for the initiative bid. If anyone has any suggestions on tweaks I would be willing to try them out as this is already the second configuration of this list so far.