Article 10: The Fat Turret Rises, and Token Stacks to meet it

Or:  Brainstorming TIE Defenders

Way back in the dawn of X-wing 2.0 (all those several months ago), I looked hard at TIE Defenders.  I have history with them and I think the models are cool.  I had some good fun for a while, but they worked their way out of the rotation for a while because I didn't like the win condition.  2.0 Defenders are skewed hard toward defense, which means games end at time a lot, and that's not my favorite way to play.  The opinion I settled at was that Defenders were solid, but lacked the necessary offense to play the style of game I enjoyed against a lot of the 4+ ship squads that were so popular.  I kept them in mind, however, if the meta shifted to low ship count squads where their high defense let them shrug off the limited offense of the squads while pressing their own attack.  

There have been some development on this front, recently.  Several prominent players (Zack Mathews, Nathan Eide, Jack Mooney) have been pioneering the use of Han Solo (Rebel).  The rules have been adjusted in the favor of a well-equipped Han as well, first with points drops, then with a ruling on the interaction of Kanan Jarrus and Inertial Dampeners that allowed Han to stop with ID and take no stress, allowing him to take an action after the stop.  Jack Mooney's win of the truly massive UK system open brought the simmering stew of Fat Han usage to a boil.  All of a sudden he was regularly making cuts in System Opens and even making cuts and occasionally winning Hyperspace events as well as Extended ones.  

And thus my mind drifted back toward the old warhorse of my youth.

In the time of a turret that operates with near perfect information (or perfect information in the case of Luke Gunner builds), is largely indifferent to being blocked, and is exceptional at running to time if it gets ahead on points, maneuverability is not enough to get the job done.  Against 100% duty cycle offense, you need defenses.  The TIE Defender has that in spades.  Assuming Han has all the mods (Focus/Lock/Han re-roll) and the Defender has Focus/Evade, Han expects to put a damage through about every 3 turns.  If Trick Shot is on, it's about every 2 turns.  If it's at Range 3, or Han doesn't have all the mods, it's substantially worse for Han.  Range 1 is the only shot Han can reliably average a hit per turn, and TIE Defenders don't lack for hit points.  

If you've accepted the premise that TIE Defenders are nicely positioned in a meta with a high Fat Turret content (even if we're not in that meta right now), the question becomes what kinds of Defender lists are worth looking at.  That's the real goal of this article, not to give you an answer, because I don't know the answer, but to formulate some starting places for players interested in Defenders.

Archetype 1:  Delta Squadron Pilot x2 + Soontir Fel

Deltas aren't winning any initiative games, but they're tough enough that they're not heavily punished for being i1.  At 70 points, two of them leaves 60 points for a 3rd ship plus any upgrades.  The two obvious options are Soontir Fel or Lambda Shuttle.  Soontir gives an high Initiative ace to supplement the weaknesses in the Deltas.  I didn't love this list at initial release, because the Deltas didn't do a ton of damage.  A minor points drop does allow them to take FCS now, which really does have an effect in a low ship count meta.

Archetype 2:  Delta Squadron Pilot x2 + Lambda

The Lambda version triples down on tough ships and leaves more points to play with than the Soontir version.  You can have things like Palp crew to get even more mods, or upgrade to Jendon and take FCS to make the Deltas hit harder on the opening.  This squad is not likely to lose a ship too early in the game.

Alternatives:  there are other options that could fit with two Deltas.  Maarek instead of Soontir or a Reaper instead of a Lambda could be fine, but at first blush, Soontir and the Lambda seem like the strongest ships in their point range for this spot in the squad.

Archetype 3:  2 Onyx Squadron Aces + Something 

The upgrade to the Onyx costs 6 points and gets you to i4.  That's not a huge deal, but it gets you access to the Juke talent.  I think Juke on the Onyx is close to required.  If you're not taking Juke, you should probably be an i1 Delta and save some points.  So the Juke Onyx at 81 (x2) leaves 38 points, or 34 if you grab FCS as well.  That 34-38 range doesn't leave a lot of "something", though.  You're looking at TIE Fighters, v1s, and almost naked Bombers or Gunboats.  Because lots of squads will fire their whole salvo before the i4 Onyx does, I'm not sure how useful its going to be over a Delta.  11 points is a lot to pay for something only sometimes useful. 

Archetype 4:  Two Heavy Defenders

This archetype dumps the little 3rd ship to go all-in on the Defenders.  You can get some named ones, at least one Advanced Sensors instead of FCS, and some Cannons and/or Missiles, depending on which named Defenders you go after.  I can't say I believe in this squad.  The offense is low, making the matchup vs beefy squads pretty bad, and it's difficult to fit two Advanced Sensors into the squad, so you can't always rely on outmaneuvering them.  But maybe there's something to having two really sturdy ships.

Archetype 5:  Defender + 2 Aces

This archetype fills in a defender alongside two other aces.  The Defender provides an extremely sturdy ship which occupies the position of "somebody in in the place that gets shot at, might as well be something that can take it".  These ships are good points lockers, which is extremely handy if we find ourselves in a "run to time" meta.  Most squads can't grab the 70 points of a naked Delta Squadron Pilot without a lot of work, so it's unlikely you're losing those points just because of a bad turn.  If the other two aces are lighter, you can fit a named Defender in the squad.  The best example of this is probably Soontir Fel/Whisper/Rexler Brath.  Soontir is the ace, and Whisper is an ace that can still joust a little, and Rexler is a jouster that can ace a little.  You can fit Whisper and Rexler with Juke (although we'll see how long the points on that remain the same), making a hard hitting squad with an 87 point core of Juke/Rexler that isn't giving up those points quickly.  

Archetype 6:  Defender + Ace

This is, I think, the more competitive version of Archetype 4 (Two Heavy Defenders).  Instead of a second Defender, you can get a ship more focused on doing damage, such as Vader or Redline.  Whisper used to fit in this slot a few months ago, but when she lost Vader crew, she didn't give enough for a two ship list.  A heavy Soontir (5 HP) could also fit, but I'm less confident in him than Vader or Redline.  With just two ships, you can get Rexler with Advanced Sensors, all the upgrades to keep damage going, and a solid bid.  An Advanced Sensors Rexler isn't doing Guri levels of movement tricks, but it basically lets Rexler spend more time pressing the attack, because he still gets an action while blocked or can make a move to bail out.  The whole point of this squad is to use the Ace to thin the opposing squad enough that Rexler + Bid is worth more than the remainder, then lean on Rexler's amazing defense.  


Those are my ideas.  I'm probably most interested in archetypes with the double Deltas or Defender + Ace, but that's just me.  Do you see any Defender squads that are missing from these archetypes?  Are there any special strengths or weaknesses they have against other strong meta squads out there?  

Thanks for reading.