Exploring Wave 9: Stresshog 2.0
10/24/16
This will be a small series of articles highlighting some of the stronger individual ship builds that Wave 9 brings to the table to keep in mind when building your lists. I’ve found Wave 9 is proving to be a bit perplexing for a lot of players, and I hope to shine a light on what can be done with the new ships in a competitive setting. These are not going to be speculative or hypothetical builds, they will all be based either on high performing lists on List Juggler or from lists that I encounter online or in tournaments, so you can know these have real world results behind them.
The recent change to the FAQ stripping U-Boats of their integral Deadeye has many Rebel players rejoicing for the possible return of the stresshog Y-Wing (a gold squadron pilot that combined R3-A2 with the BTL/A4 title and TLT to put 2 stress tokens on any ship it attacked at range 2-3), one of the strongest control tools in the Rebel toolbox before Wave 8. However there may now be a legitimate challenger for the stresshog title in form of ARC-170 pilot Braylen Stramm.
Being the first ship capable of bringing astromechs and crew, the ARC-170 is able to create the same double-stress effect by combining R3-A2 with Gunner, so long as your first attack deals no damage. And remember, you're not required to add an extra attack die from the title, so if you care about piling on stress more than dealing damage, you can always roll 2 dice on your first attack and then roll the full 3 on the second. And because Gunner doesn’t specify that you have attack the same target, you can spread stress around multiple ships, just like the Y-Wing can. With Gunner and R3-A2, the ARChog® clocks in at 32 points, 6 points over the minimum for a Y-Wing stresshog. Let's take a look and see what we're getting for that 6 points, and if it's worth considering the ARC-170 over the Y-Wing for the job, based on what I've seen in actual games with it.
The Y-Wing only has a front firing arc and loses access to TLT at range 1, and thus its 2nd stress token and much of its damage potential.Thanks to its auxiliary firing arc and the use of its primary weapon and Gunner, the ARC-170 maintains effectiveness at range at range 1 and has triple the AOE of the Y-Wing stresshog.
The ARC-170 brings several large improvements to the table. The big one is a huge AOE increase, or area of effectiveness, over the Y-Wing thanks to that rear arc and still being effective at range 1. This effectively triples the ARC-170s AOE over the Y-Wing, as you can see above, making it much more flexible in its target selection. The next improvement is that the ARChog actually has action economy thanks to Braylen's ability for a 50% chance of removing a stress after executing any maneuver and the much better selection of green maneuvers on its dial. The ARC-170 also has built-in dice modification thanks to the title, and can upgrade Gunner to Luke Skywalker for more. Because it's doing 2 3-dice attacks with a modifier instead of 3 weak unmodified attacks, and can still attack at range 1, the ARC-170 actively contributes to your lists damage output, whereas the stresshog Y-Wing struggles to deal any damage with its unmodified 2 dice primary attacks and TLT volleys against any enemies with more than 1 agility. And of course, the ARChog gets 1 more hull than the Y-Wing, making it slightly more durable.
The Y-Wing and ARC-170 dials are nearly identical, but the much better selection of green banks combined with Braylen’s ability to shed stress means its much likely to regain access to its action bar after the first engagement.
I have been very impressed with the ARChog every time I've played with it for all the reasons listed above. After playing with the Y-Wing stresshog a few times in the current meta, I think it's definitely starting to show its age and limitations, even without U-boats to threaten it. It struggles to contribute to a list's damage output because of how mediocre its attacks are, and it feels less durable than it used to in the current hyperbolic red dice arms race X-Wing seems to be caught in, while also struggling with the same problem it's always had of staying in the fight. I think the ARChog is a great ship to build a list around, and you can also reduce its point cost to 29 by downgrading Gunner to Tactician, still giving you access to a single stress out the front or back and double stress at range 2, with slightly less damage consistency against higher agility ships. It seems based on my own experiments and tournament results around the world that the best ships to bring with are Biggs (as always it seems) and a shield regen ship like Miranda, Poe or Norra Wexley, another ARC-170 ship worth mentioning for her ability to take R2-D2 and C-3PO. Here's the current iteration of my ARChog list if your looking for an example.
Braylen Stramm [R3-A2, Luke Skywalker, Alliance Overhaul] (34)
Poe Dameron (PS8 Version) [R2-D2, Sensor Cluster, Predator, Integrated Astromech] (40)
Biggs Darklighter [R4-D6, Integrated Astromech] (26)
Edit: Since posting this article, I’ve gotten some good feedback on this list that pointed out that a more offensively oriented ship than Poe would synergize better from the control elements provided by Biggs and Braylen. I agreed with that and thought about what else could work into this list, and I borrowed an element from Malaysian nationals 3rd place finisher Rodric:
Miranda Doni [Autoblaster Turret, Extra Munitions, Homing Missiles, Weapons Engineer , Long Range Scanners] (41)
Braylen Stramm [R3-A2, Gunner, Alliance Overhaul] (32)
Biggs Darklighter [R4-D6, Integrated Astromech] (26)
Talk about a red dice arms race, now there’s an upgrade in firepower! Long range scanners + weapons engineer lets Miranda peg two possible targets on turn 1 for her Homing missiles no matter what pilot skill they are, allowing her to take a focus on the turn of the engagement. Then she can use her ability to spend a shield and make a 5 dice attack with target lock and focus that ignores evade tokens, while safely hiding in Biggs’ protective bubble. Another good option to consider if you want a similar level of offense with slightly more staying power:
Lothal Rebel [Fire-Control System, Autoblaster Turret, Hera Syndulla] (40)
For those curious about the nickname Stresshog, coined by FFG user Major Juggler, this is the A-10 “Warthog”, a slow, heavily armored American fighter with a powerful rapid-firing gatling cannon that entered service in the 1970s and still sees operational use today, and was initially looked down on by Air Force fighter pilots. Its characteristics, history and appearance bear a resemblance to the BTL Y-Wing, and in my opinion to the ARC-170 as well.
Check back next week, I will be going over the Wave 9 ship that has both impressed and greatly surprised me with its performance on the tabletop, the TIE/sf fighter!