Looking for a list that does well against Defenders...

[Molaman14 0]

Hi guys, my local meta is still FLOODED with Defenders all over. Anyone have any suggestions of a squad that will destroy these **** things?! In the words of Jar Jar, Any help here would be hot. Thanks in advance.

[BleakSquadron 405]

What faction would you prefer?

[BothanPride 17]

I dont have a specific list, but bumping is what hurts these guys. so a mix of low and high pilot skill. having the blockers to slow play and block those **** k turns. good luck. lol maybe large base ships? i ran lothal rebel and zeb in shuttle w/autoblaster and chewie with title to some success. k turns dont matter as much because you have the fron and rear arc of the ghost plus chewies turret. that second shot from the ghost has proven t be quite difficult to overcome. especially with AB...

[ficklegreendice 34,362]

Bumping doesn't really hurt em as much as it protects your ship

X7 and white 4k means they care far less than normal ships

Honestly, defenders don't seem to have any single horrible weakness apart from red 1 and 2 turns. They're just all around excellent, only they don't have the balls out strength of certain ships (such as soontir arcdodging) and they tend to be lower on the ps scale

So really, you have to outfly them

What they don't have, though, is thrusters

TLTs sting

Edited August 5, 2016 by ficklegreendice

[Shadow345 640]

Grind them down with Heavy Laser Dash.

Single alpha hits don't hurt them like it would Soontir.

Turret ships, Falcon and Ghost work good as well. Hull for them to eat through and firepower that grinds slowly over a few turns.

[ficklegreendice 34,362]

oh hey

 

Palob has TLTs and steals their mods!

 

use zuckuss crew for extra troll and for the fastest growing stress pile this side of the galaxy; predator provides modifiers

Edited August 6, 2016 by ficklegreendice

[JasonCole 1,024]

I've found they don't deal well with a Decimator (or Falcon or Jumpmaster, pick your faction specific PWT), if used properly. Their white K-turn is nice, but I find people overuse it. Oicunn with PTL, Isard and Engine upgrade is hilarious. Bump them, do a damage. Skip your action. Beginning of combat, take a free evade action, PTL that to boost. Should put you at range 3 (ish), which gives you an green dice +1 evade token. Lols ensue.

Personally, I've started using Kenkirk + Palpatine + Isard + Lone Wolf + Anti Pursuit Lasers.  Move to block, take a focus. Hopefully they bump, APL lets you roll. At the very least, it robs them of an action. At best, it prevents action AND does a damage. Then they can't shoot me, and I have a green dice and an evade, plus a palpatine on defense. It makes the Decimator a LOT tankier.

[nitrobenz 1,369]

My experience from flying defenders is that the usual anti-aces stuff is always a tough match for me. So that would be the above suggested turrets and blockers, especially in large numbers. The x7 is as good as thrusters against a single attack, but against multiples I always wish I could have auto thrusters

Also anything that shuts down/steals tokens is strong (Carnor, Wes, Palob).

Out of curiosity, are you seeing more of /D or /x7 in your local meta? In my area the D's got a lot of attention at first but now it's just Vessery/D and a few x7's replacing a standard ace in aces lists (myself being a big fan of juke/x7).

[asters89 280]

I agree pretty much with everything said so far. There isn't really a glaring weakness to the defenders as they are just a really good all round ship (probably undercosted now in the x/7 variety, some may disagree).

 

Lack of autothrusters and relatively low PS may mean you can have some joy with higher PS turrets and I think TLT could also be quite effective.

 

Something else that I am thinking about (but am yet to try yet) is stress and double stress if possible. From what I've seen the defender is fairly predicatable in favouring white K-turns and 3-hards. I've also seen a lot of players will omit to take Mk ii engines which means they they may struggle to clear the stress while staying in the engagement. (Ryad being the obvious exeption to this). 

[ficklegreendice 34,362]

Just here to confirm that Palob does indeed do work v defenders

Actually killed ryad with his primary

[ArbitraryNerd 1,009]

Palob w/ TLT is extremely rough on Defenders -- no autothrusters and/or no evade.

 

Really, really dislike Palob, personally, as he very much changes the way you have to fly almost every Imperial list.

 

Then find something that can cover Palob well. Not Dengar, due to him likely NOT being the primary target, but something with a PWT would be preferable (always assuming a Defender is going to get behind you, of course).

[ficklegreendice 34,362]

Scouts with torps and feedback

Just burly barrel rolling bouncers that deny range 1 forever

The pwt is naff but plasma s are perfect esp with 4lom

Until you roll 4 blanks ofc

[Biophysical 15,761]

As someone who runs Defenders a lot, I don't really fear anything.  I lose when I get outplayed, but there isn't really a match-up that seriously hard counters them.  

[4fox100 609]

I would be interested to run (when they release that is) either of these two lists

Fenn Rau

PTL

Thrusters

Title

X3 Zealous Recruit

Title

Or....

X4 Concord Dawn Ace

Fearlessness

Title

Defenders are jousters. You can't out joust them but they loose effectiveness the fewer there are. So with this the idea is to burn them down quick. In the first pass you want to be at R1 in arc. Then deliver between 17-20 dice (counting fearlessness) in somebody's face. I'd like to see a defender that can withstand that much initial punishment. You might loose a ship in the exchange. But you have 3 more

[IG88E 1,688]

Would highly recommend Super Dash or Fat Han (old C3PO version with Predator/Gunner or the new one with Kyle and Kanan and Push the limit). Wouöd prefer the gunmer mode.

Edited August 8, 2016 by IG88E

[Ronu 503]

Phantoms can cause some scares for defenders. Their own odd movement choices coupled with some predicted flying by the defenders can see shots from odd places. Was able to outfly Marek with Echo and just do to the maneuvers was able to take him down though he was the higher PS.

[mitrandil 9]

I came up with a list but haven't tried it.

Oicunn 45 points

Darth Vader -crew

Gamma vet 27 points x2

Guidance chips

Deadeye

Extra munitions

Homing Missiles

Total 99 pionts.

Edited August 9, 2016 by mitrandil

[asters89 280]

I would be interested to run (when they release that is) either of these two lists

Fenn Rau

PTL

Thrusters

Title

X3 Zealous Recruit

Title

Or....

X4 Concord Dawn Ace

Fearlessness

Title

Defenders are jousters. You can't out joust them but they loose effectiveness the fewer there are. So with this the idea is to burn them down quick. In the first pass you want to be at R1 in arc. Then deliver between 17-20 dice (counting fearlessness) in somebody's face. I'd like to see a defender that can withstand that much initial punishment. You might loose a ship in the exchange. But you have 3 more

If you are looking to go down the PSF route, how about Old Teroch? If you can get inside its arc at R1 you can strip its evades and focuses

[thespaceinvader 17,568]

Arcdodge them.  Basically.  Or outjoust them, Dengaroo and Crack Swarms can both do that pretty reliably.

[Lightrock 856]

Dengaroo confirmed to work vs defenders. They can't really dodge Dengar's arc so he gets to shoot twice every turn. Juke doesn't hurt him either. And Manaroo can just run away from them thanks to boost that they don't have. This leaves the defender player in a very tough spot as he can neither outjoust Dengar nor outfly him.

[ficklegreendice 34,362]

You can outfly dengaroo with defenders; major jugglar even did it with TieDs in the vassal tournie

Most defenders are higher ps than manny and defenders are pretty fast so it is very possible to run her down

If you don't, though, dengar will devour them in a joust

On the rebel side, Wes is NOT a hardcounter but he's really ******* irritating (and since you're rebels and hate scouts/dengaroo anyway...)

[blade_mercurial 2,091]

Arcdodge them.  Basically.  Or outjoust them, Dengaroo and Crack Swarms can both do that pretty reliably.

I have never lost to a crack swarm with my defenders.  Either X-7 or TIE/D.  You'd think they would be good against Defenders, but 6 crack shot usually isn't enough to kill more than one defender and even two wounded defenders will not die to 2 attack guns, and the opposite is NOT true: the defenders bring down TIEs faster.

 

Dengaroo is a tougher matchup for sure.  I think Dengaroo and triple high PS aces that can arc-dodge are the best lists to combat Defenders specifically.  However, there are some tricks the defenders can use to win these matchups, but I don't think most Defender players know them...

 

So, if you really want to be defenders, then these would be the lists to use, I would say.  Unfortunately, giving defender players lots of practice against these lists will only improve their ability to deal with them (well, maybe).

Edited August 9, 2016 by blade_mercurial

[mitrandil 9]

I would be interested to run (when they release that is) either of these two lists

Fenn Rau

PTL

Thrusters

Title

X3 Zealous Recruit

Title

Or....

X4 Concord Dawn Ace

Fearlessness

Title

Defenders are jousters. You can't out joust them but they loose effectiveness the fewer there are. So with this the idea is to burn them down quick. In the first pass you want to be at R1 in arc. Then deliver between 17-20 dice (counting fearlessness) in somebody's face. I'd like to see a defender that can withstand that much initial punishment. You might loose a ship in the exchange. But you have 3 more

I thought he asked how to beat the defenders, in Sept when wave 9 will be released will be another Meta that he hs to deal with. With the same thoughts he could use 3 Upsilon shuttles as well.

[drjkel 1,365]

Dengaroo worked for me last night against Ryad, Maarek, and a Palp Shuttle. It was a ton of tokens to grind through, but I had Maarek and the shuttle gone and Ryad at 2 hull left by the time Dengar bit the dust. Manaroo got a feedback array then R5-P8 on her to finish the job. It was the TIE/D Maarek though, so one less token to chew through, and the player, though he likes the new defenders, is not that used to flying them. I soundly crushed his Ryad in a furball a few weeks back with my Rexler.

 

The lesson to would-be flyers of Defenders is to stop k-turning so much, it does make you crazy predictable. I'm not Biophysical by any stretch, but I have flown them to good effect, surprising people with the lack of abuse of the white k.

[dboeren1 294]

I've only been flying single Defenders so far and lists with multiples don't seem prevalent here yet.  I've had good results from them and opponents who are unfamiliar with them can easily make mistakes like staying in their K-turn "lane", or once I had an opponent try stressing me by Ryad with green K-turns shrugs that off pretty easily.

 

But, I also try to throw in occasional unexpected moves for savvy opponents that are predicting the K.  If they move for a block and you go somewhere else, it can sometimes be costly as they may not have the shot they expected to have anymore and you're retaining your action.  If you K every time, then sooner or later your opponent should be using that against you.