WORLDS PREP III - Unscheduled Downtime

There’s been a bit of break in my regular blog updates on Worlds Prep because, well… there’s been a bit of a break in my Worlds prep.  A couple of weekly game nights have come and gone without me getting a chance to play and so I’m actually not very much further on than I was at the end of the Wampa Warm-Up despite that fact that my second 'gate' is fast approaching in the form of the Sith Taker Open.

Just like in the Resistance cartoon: not a lot has been happening.

This is clearly bad news, but it’s not as bad as it could be for two main reasons:

1. My post-Wampa plan was to experiment with a couple of wildcard options that I probably would have discarded anyway
2. The results from recent tournaments like the Las Vegas Open have supported that my main plan for Worlds is probably fine and wildcard options aren't needed..

Missing out on play sessions is not good, but I’m very lucky to be in the position that I’m in – settled on a broad list that other people also are using and doing well with – as it means I can absorb that loss of playtime more easily.  I can catch up on most of the lost time by just deciding to ignore all the wacky ideas I had and focusing down on the core list that I'm pretty happy with and spend my time on fine-tuning details, and make sure all my decisions have good thought processes behind them.

The Devil’s In The Details

Here is the list that I flew to victory (through some close games!) in the Wampa Warm-Up.  In Bold are cards that I’m pretty certain are in my finished Worlds list, and in red are cards that I’m actively looking at options for.

• Commander Malarus – Cluster Missiles
• Lieutenant Galek – Proud Tradition, Ion Cannon
• Scorch – Shield Upgrade
• DT-796 – Shield Upgrade
• Ember – Elusive, Pattern Analyser
• Grudge – Electro-Chaff Missile, Thermal Detonators, Delayed Fuses

The central Core of the list is set – the four TIE/fo that all throw 3 red dice for just 3 squad points.  They’re super-efficient, quick, tough to kill, and can punch above their weight.  If you got four First Order players into the room and asked them to rank those four TIE/fo pilots from best to worst I think you’ll probably come out with four different lists, but thankfully we don’t have to decide which to use because they’re all great and we can just bring all of them!

I’m happy with my loadout choices on most of these ships, although there are different ways of kitting them out.  Malarus can bring Mag-Pulse or Ion Missiles instead of Clusters, and both Scorch and DT-796 can be equipped either for maximum damage output (Advanced Optics) or maximum survivability (Shield Upgrade) and while there’s arguments in favour of both I’ve never regretted having Shield Updgrade.  For me the payoff on Shield Upgrade is any time that the opponent has finally spent several turns pouring shots into Scorch and finally kill him, only to find he was only worth 3pts anyway.  

You have to put way more than 3pts worth of effort into killing either of these guys, which is basically the whole point of them and just an updated version of what we first discovered about Epsilon Squadron Cadets back in 2019.

Choosing the ships to run alongside the four TIE/fo is where the real decisions are being made and then some other decisions cascade from there.  So I think my full decision tree looks something like this:

It all hinges on whether you feel Ember brings more glass or more cannon.  I like Ember a lot and I fly her in a way that I think protects her a little bit from being picked on – she’s definitely not the tip of my spear – and so my default stance is that I’m just looking for the right 4pt ship to pair with Ember.  But there are a lot of First Order players who don’t like Ember and feel like she’s an easy target for the opponent to come after, while Recoil’s TIE Silencer may cost 5pts instead of Ember’s 4, but he’s harder to bag those points from.  That’s undeniably true – it’s 5.3 average attacks to kill a Silencer vs 3.7 to kill a TIE/ba, which even at Recoil’s higher cost pays out 0.9 pts per attack vs 1.1 pts per attack on Ember.

Those kind of raw maths are very simplistic but they’re a starting point, and on top of that Recoil can probably cut & run from a fight he’s losing more easily than Ember can.  And yet… I think Elusive closes the survivability gap significantly, and then you get into looking at the extra things you get from Ember like Pattern Analyser, target locks for rerolls at all ranges, and her ability to snipe wounded targets.  And as much as you can do the maths that Ember returns points for the opponent about 25% more quickly than Recoil does (1.1 per shot vs 0.9), he also outputs hits about 50% more quickly than Recoil does until Recoil gets into Range 1 and gets Predator online (when Ember is still 10% better).

Ember brings both glass and cannon.  I’v been happy enough with my cannon thus far.

If you go the Ember route the question becomes what 4pt ship to pair with her.  I’ve tried and discarded a TIE/sf twice now, and I’m comfortable that regardless of what anyone else is managing to get out of them they’re not for me.  In my head filling the spot next to Ember is a straight shootout between two ships that both offer a tool for matchups against incoming target locks and alpha strikes – Nightfall’s Sensor Scramblers and Jam actions vs Grudge’s Electro-Chaff Missiles.

I want to pick the TIE Whisper and yet it’s been quite awkward the last few times I’ve used it.  I really want to use Pattern Analyser on Nightfall, the Whisper has great red maneuvers and being able to chain Jam-Focus, Boost-Focus etc off of them is phenomenal and it also helps you keep the dangerous bullseye arc pointing at the enemy.  Without that I think the TIE Whisper switches to rotating its turret a lot more often and that drops your offence and moves you away from the fight instead of staying engaged.  But without Sensor Scramblers it’s much more dangerous for Nightfall to approach and Jam the alpha strike lists that I really want him to deal with.  

I find Nightfall’s loadout incredibly frustrating – if I take Sensor Scramblers I compromise unacceptably on what the Whisper does in order to get into position to do it, but if I take Pattern Analyser the Whisper may never live long enough to get where it can be dangerous.

I WANT to pick Nightfall, but while Nightfall's loadout gives me a headache Grudge has just been a solid little workhorse in every game I’ve tried him.  Unspectacular.  No 4-dice bullseye shots into jammed targets like Nightfall gets, no dramatic 5ks over the enemy to set up a killbox.  But the Electro-Chaff blunts a lot of attacks and with his boost and 3-speed turns Grudge puts in a real shift getting around the table and doing objectives for me.  If Grudge disappoints me at any point I’ll go running back to Nightfall, but for now its Grudge’s spot to lose.  

My only real decision for Grudge is that maybe, just maaaaaaaaybe, he can make use of Blazer Bombs?  Blazer Bombs are crap.  Everyone knows they are crap.  But Grudge can boost before dropping it, his ability means the 1 red dice you roll may actually hurt when it explodes, and unlike Proximity Mines they can be reloaded to cover more of the table in fiery circles.  I want Proximity Mines but I can’t afford Proximity Mines, so are positional Blazer Bombs better than hurling Thermal Detonators into space and hoping they hit something?  Almost certainly not… but maybe?  I’ll have a look.

The other side of the decision tree is where you go if you decide that Ember is more glass than she is cannon.  Here we find the successful list from the Las Vegas Open, which had Recoil and Static with Tractor Beam on Lieutenant Galek.  Because I came from the 4pt side of the faction (playing 5x 4pt ships all last year) I was slow to see the value in Recoil but I have given him a game or two and he’s better than I thought.  I’m still not sold on Recoil, though, in large part because of how much he gets locked into those 2-speed blue maneuvers once the fighting starts and that can be tough to keep turning around and finding range 1 shots on things, where my solutions like Ember or Nightfall can keep the pressure on with Pattern Analyser.

If I do go to the 5pt ship route I may actually pick another wildcard and use Wrath, even though he faces many of the problems Nightfall faces at the 4pt level.  I just really like having the higher Iniative on the Whisper for hunting out those bullseye shots, and having an Ion Cannon as well gives him strong attacks across his whole front arc.  Wrath definitely isn’t my first choice, but I might pick well him ahead of Recoil.

If Worlds was tomorrow I would be playing Ember & Grudge, and that’s likely to be what I play into my second ‘gate’ at the Sith Taker Open in two weekend’s time.  The result of that will tell me how likely I am to fall off the Ember plan entirely and move to 5-3-3-3-3-3.  But, to be honest, with a couple of days in Chicago to cram some playtesting in ahead of Worlds Day One I’m highly likely to be packing every option into my bag and deciding when I get there!  It’s not like I’m having to bring two or three completely different squads in different factions, it’s all circling the same plastic miniatures.

First Order Army List

• 4-5 TIE/fo
• 0-1 TIE Silencer
• 0-1 TIE Whisper
• 0-1 TIE/se Bomber

Simples!