Wave 7 lists: Rebel and Empire
I’m sure a lot of players have been testing Wave 7 online since the dials were spoiled, but I haven’t had much time to give the new ships much more than some idle thoughts. With the new ships now on the shelves and in my collection, I’ve been on overdrive coming up with new lists to try out the new Rebel and Imperial ships. Here are some of the lists I plan on testing out tomorrow at our weekly game night.
Quick confession: I don’t play Scum and have no plans to start, but I have a lot of very good Scum players in my area and I find that I learn just as much if not more about a ship or list by playing against it as I do by playing with it, as I am always trying to analyze every game from both sides of the table and I also get to see my opponents do things that I may not have thought of. I definitely plan on talking about the new Scum ships once I’ve gotten some games in against them and maybe tried them out a little bit on Vassal.
Both the K-Wing and the Punisher offer exciting new control/disruption options to Rebel and Imperial lists that can do a lot of work against the hyper maneuverable, hard to hit ships that have become so popular. I predict that the ability to pin these types of ships in place at will using the new Conner Net bombs will be a huge boon to swarm lists that have a hard time controlling positioning of the hyper maneuverable ships while also keeping enough arcs on them to bring them down, and I’ve designed my first lists to take advantage of this.
Warden Squadron Pilot [Extra Munitions, Proximity Mines, Advanced SLAM] (30)
Warden Squadron Pilot [Extra Munitions, Conner Net, Advanced SLAM] (31)
Tala Squadron Pilot (13) x 3
I’ve got 2 K-Wings, and my first list is designed just to see what I can do with them. When I’m first trying out a ship, I will try to put as many of that ship into a list as I can so I can get lots of practice with it and give myself more opportunities to discover what the ship is capable of. I’ve only done a little bit of testing with what the SLAM action can do, but from what I’ve seen, the possibilities with Advanced SLAM and bombs are insane. Hopefully I can post a battle report of my game from tomorrow to show a little bit of what this ships is capable of. Downgrading the Talas to Bandits gives you enough points to give each type of bomb to both ships without Extra Munitions for more flexibility.
Warden Squadron Pilot [Extra Munitions, Conner Net, Proximity Mines, Advanced SLAM] (34)
Blue Squadron Pilot (22) x 3
This is, I think, a more competitively minded list and closer to what I think actual K-Wing lists are going to look like, a single K-Wing with Conner Nets to pin down slippery targets and a bunch of muscle to support it. The big question that I’m going to be looking to answer is whether a K-Wing can survive long enough to drop 3+ bombs, and whether a second bomb is worth the points. You could replace the B-Wings with 5 Talas and have 1 point left over for bombadier, which I think is actually a good buy for a bomb heavy ship. You could also cut the prox mines instead, or downgrade to Bandits, to get Chewie crew to give the K-Wing some extra survivability to drop all of its bombs.
Miranda Doni [Twin Laser Turret, C-3PO, Ion Bombs] (40)
Prototype Pilot [Chardaan Refit] (15) x 4
I’m not just interested in K-Wings as short range bombers, Miranda Doni has some great synergy with Twin-Laser Turret and with C-3PO can work as a sort of long-range miniature Fat Han, mitigating damage every turn while sniping ships at long range. She complements swarms that like to fight at range 1, and at 38 points with TLT and 3PO she fits perfectly with my favorite list “building block”, 4 Prototype A-Wings. I spent the 2 leftover points on the new Ion Bomb, a card that I wouldn’t normally be interested in taking, as it doesn’t deal damage and is easy to avoid, but I like it as sort of a smoke bomb to deal with enemy ships that try to get too close to Miranda and deny her optimal range for her TLT. For 60 points you could also go with 5 Bandit Squadron pilots if you wanna really swarm it up, and for those that don’t own 4 Chardaan refits or 5 Z-95s, 3 Prototype Pilots with Proton Rockets also adds up to 60 points and also loves fighting at range 1 will Miranda snipes from long range.
“Deathrain” [Enhanced Scopes, Extra Munitions, Conner Net, Experimental Interface] (36)
“Howlrunner” [Push the Limit] (21)
Black Squadron Pilot [Draw Their Fire] (15)
Black Squadron Pilot [Wingman] (16)
The most exciting pilot from the Punisher expansion for a lot of people seems to be Deathrain, and from a competitive standpoint I would definitely agree. His ability to drop bombs on enemies while still keeping them in arc for an attack is fantastic. Enhanced Scopes will allow Deathrain to drop a bomb on any ships on the table without having to predict their movement, and experimental interface will allow Deathrain to imitate the shenanigans the K-Wings can pull off with Advanced Slam, boosting into position and then dropping a bomb on an unsuspecting victim. The way that EI works in the FAQ means you will still be able to get your free barrel roll before you get the stress token from EI. Again, I think Conner nets are going to be a huge tool for swarmier lists, and my favorite imperial mini-swarm is the Black Squadron. For those that don’t know how this works, you get Howlrunner (Dare) who gets a free evade token with PTL, which will get removed for free every turn by her Wingman (Buck), and is protected from crits by Draw Their Fire (Dutch), with one more body in their to benefit from Howlrunner (Rook). It’s a synergy list that’s a lot of fun to play with and benefits a lot from not having to split up and do blocking duty thanks to Deathrain’s Conner Nets.
“Redline” [Plasma Torpedoes, Cluster Missiles, Autothrusters] (36)
“Howlrunner” [Push the Limit] (21)
Black Squadron Pilot [Draw Their Fire] (15)
Black Squadron Pilot [Wingman] (16)
While Deathrain looks to be the most technically interesting Punisher pilot, Redline brings the dakka for people that wanna lay the smackdown. Redline’s ability combos well with upgrades that require him to spend a target lock, and Plasma Torps and Cluster Missiles give Redline great attack options at every point in the range spectrum. Keep in mind if you’re trying out plasma torpedoes that you really want the ship carrying them to be shooting first in your list so that the ability won’t go to waste because your other ships already stripped some shields off of your target. While it’s tempting to include Fire-Control System and Extra Munitions to make Redline even move deadly, loading so many upgrades onto a ship that don’t make it harder to kill is generally not a great idea, as you are basically stealing points from the rest of your list and putting them on one ship that will die just as easily as a cheaper version of that ship, meaning that those points will be wasted if that ship dies early.
I’m super excited to try out these ships and see what kind of shenanigans we pull off with these heavy payloads.
