Almost March, time to talk about February and boy was it a rough one. Time for part two of...
~~~Jank Shop~~~
This months list was something I like to call, as the title says...
Torani Kulda — M12-L Kimogila Fighter 27
Adaptability - 0
Harpoon Missiles - 4
Unhinged Astromech -1
Black Market Slicer Tools -1
Guidance Chips - 0
Enforcer - 1
Ship Total: 34
Dalan Oberos — StarViper - 30
Veteran Instincts - 1
Advanced Sensors - 3
Autothrusters - 2
StarViper Mk. II - -3
Virago - 1
Ship Total: 34
Binayre Pirate — Z-95 Headhunter - 12
Scrambler Missiles - 2
Dead Man's Switch - 2
Guidance Chips - 0
Ship Total: 16
Binayre Pirate — Z-95 Headhunter - 12
Scrambler Missiles - 2
Dead Man's Switch - 2
Guidance Chips - 0
Ship Total: 16
The list pushed me out of my comfort zone and remained in it all at once. I'm very familiar with flying Scum Z-95s, almost all of my lists use them, both epic and standard. Whether they are just there as naked blockers and fire dispersers or low-PS missile carriers, they always pull their weight, and this list was no exception.
The Z-95s were surprisingly efficient, even with their shitty card loadout. DMS performed much better than I expected, almost always serving its purpose of punishing an enemy who killed it, and rarely damaging its allies.
Scramblers, on the other hand, were disappointing. There is rarely a situation where you'll want to use them, as they don't do damage, the splash damage is rarely useful, and a single jam token rarely hinders most ships nowadays. Sacrificing your attack to maybe cause your opponent to lose mods next round is hardly worth it. This is a card I wouldn't mind seeing buffed in the future, maybe to discard Reinforce tokens at the least.
Dalan Oberos was the Ace of the list and was the first pilot I've ever flown in a Starviper. Originally meant to be Xizor, Dalan was... okay. Some games he didn't do anything but die and some games he carried the team to victory.
His ability is very niche and only good against certain lists. The ability to turn almost any maneuver on his dial into a talon roll, combined with Advanced Sensors and a 1-bank barrel roll, makes him one of the most maneuverable ships I've ever flown. He's so complicated and mobile the developer of Echolocation outright said he's too complex to put in right now. As such, he is very unforgiving, more-so than Soontir or Whisper in my opinion, and a single slip-up is basically game over for him, which happened on more than one occasion.
At PS 8, VI was a practically worthless card on him, which makes me hate this PS arms race even more than I already do. Not going to be PS 10 or 11? Don't even bother putting PS-uppers on other ships. It really makes other EPTs useless, as if you don't Out-PS the opponent, you eat a Harpoon or 3 turns 1 or 2. Simple as that. It was a pointless card and would've been easily replaced by any other EPT, Adrenaline Rush even.
Finally, we have the heavy hitter, Torani Kulda. Torani was also the first pilot I've flown in the Kimogila, and she gave me... mixed results to say the least. First off we have her ability. I'm glad other people are having success with the Kimo, because I fucking hated it. I know my build is B-tier at best, but god was it difficult to line up with. Not only this, but it rarely had an effect on enemies because, again, PS 9 barely cuts it anymore, she's easily outmaneuvered, or they just don't give a fuck and have a reinforce token. And not only do we have the bullseyes crappy and difficult ability to trigger, we have Torani's herself. The few times she got a shot off in her bullseye arc, the opponent would almost always discard 0 tokens. Her ability is literally useless in 60% of the situations you get into. Not only this, but there was a single game I played where more than 1 ship was affected by her ability, a game against triple defenders, in which I ended up discarding 4 tokens, and still ended up losing that game by a longshot. Not a fan. Enforcer procced a whole 2 times when I played her (14 games) and the downside was minimal, to say the least. The title should be free or non-unique, IMO, but it was not worth the point. Everything else on her was fine, Harpoons are still broken as fuck, BMST helped me kill Corran, and Unhinged Astromech is a godsend for her.
With a final win ratio of 0.56, 'No Tokens for you' was a thoroughly average list. Definitely never going to win anything, but not something that's unplayable. A game that stood out, in particular, was one where I thought I was certainly screwed, with Torani and the Zs dying turn 2 and 3, leaving only Dalan to fight off dying Rey and near full health Wulff. Rey died very quickly, leaving me to deal with Wulff in the endgame.
It was stunning. Beating him out by just 1 PS, VI won the game for me that day. Staying behind the Auzituck the rest of the game and just plinking away at its health until it got corralled into a corner and pushed off the edge. One of my greatest games I've played to date. Another particularly decent game I've chronicled below.
| Looks like its going good right? A single Z has detonated, damaged all the Defenders, another is getting ready to shoot, Dalan is closing in, Torani finally used her ability on more than 1 ship... |
| Yeah wrong. Torani gets incinerated. The Z-95 harmlessly pops out in the middle of space. Only 1 defender dies. Dalan takes a hard hit from the last turn, and I'm sure you can tell where it ends up from there. |
And those two games sum up my experiences with this list. You either win epicly or just die ungraciously out in space at the hands of some elitist tryhard imperial space jockeys.
This concludes this months issue, but I do have some special mentions to give out to my so-called 'Prophets of Jank'. Tag me in some weird ass lists and I'll have them featured on here at the end.
As always, this is u/Echoblammo, signing off. Add me on Snapchat for more jank shit!
