Concentrate Your Fire - LAAT Preview

[AceDogbert 777]

On 10/13/2020 at 10:26 AM, Rich P said:

So I flew 7th fleet gunner LaaT with Arc/Ric/Plo and it was a completely different kettle of fish.

Ric with rerolls on his shots where the ability procs is a terror. 7th Fleet gunner plus 2 rerolls and a focus, and still leaving an evade token for defence.

Similar with Plo and CLT - suddenly punching 5 dice at range 1 with rerolls and focus/force is amazing. And having Plo be able to pull the disarm token off the LaaT if necessary depending on who has the better shot really helps to keep the damage ticking over.

To pick up on this; lobbing all of this into YASB, I can see that at their very cheapest, this list has 4pts floating around. What are your thoughts on what to do with those? My gut always wants to staple an R4 unit to a Delta-7, because blue speed one turns are FUN, but that is likely not the best choice...

[RStan 3,627]

12 minutes ago, AceDogbert said:

To pick up on this; lobbing all of this into YASB, I can see that at their very cheapest, this list has 4pts floating around. What are your thoughts on what to do with those? My gut always wants to staple an R4 unit to a Delta-7, because blue speed one turns are FUN, but that is likely not the best choice...

i5s like having some amount of bids...and Plo can live without an astromech

Edited October 16, 2020 by RStan

[AceDogbert 777]

7 minutes ago, RStan said:

i5s like having some amount of bids...and Plo can live without an astromech

I'm sorry, but I got hooked on blue speed one turns when messing around with Supernatural Inquisitors. They were just so squirrelly!

[RStan 3,627]

9 minutes ago, AceDogbert said:

I'm sorry, but I got hooked on blue speed one turns when messing around with Supernatural Inquisitors. They were just so squirrelly!

Aethersprites don't really need more blues. They don't stress themselves except after a kturn or sloop and I haven't found the need for more blues after that versus having a bigger bid. 

[Gupa-nupa 198]

My friend who I play against regularly put together this terrifying thing. 

List to Beat

(25) Gold Squadron Trooper [V-19 Torrent Starfighter]
Points: 25

(25) Gold Squadron Trooper [V-19 Torrent Starfighter]
Points: 25

(42) 104th Battalion Pilot [ARC-170 Starfighter]
Points: 42

(51) 212th Battalion Pilot [Laat/i Gunship]
(5) Ghost Company
(3) "Fives"
Points: 59

(46) Mace Windu [Delta-7 Aethersprite]
(3) Brilliant Evasion
Points: 49

Total points: 200

 

It slots in at exactly 200 (but if I were flying it I would drop the evasion on Mace). I couldn't even fly against it. The torrents/ARC powered up by that Laat was so good! Mace made an ok flank, but Fives was so good. I think that he will get dropped significantly. 

[xanatos135 64]

2 hours ago, Gupa-nupa said:

My friend who I play against regularly put together this terrifying thing. 

List to Beat

(25) Gold Squadron Trooper [V-19 Torrent Starfighter]
Points: 25

(25) Gold Squadron Trooper [V-19 Torrent Starfighter]
Points: 25

(42) 104th Battalion Pilot [ARC-170 Starfighter]
Points: 42

(51) 212th Battalion Pilot [Laat/i Gunship]
(5) Ghost Company
(3) "Fives"
Points: 59

(46) Mace Windu [Delta-7 Aethersprite]
(3) Brilliant Evasion
Points: 49

Total points: 200

 

It slots in at exactly 200 (but if I were flying it I would drop the evasion on Mace). I couldn't even fly against it. The torrents/ARC powered up by that Laat was so good! Mace made an ok flank, but Fives was so good. I think that he will get dropped significantly. 

It's a real pity you can't squeeze cody in the LAAT, it would make the torrents and ARC more deadly. An option could be to take cody and N1 Anakin instead of Mace, it fits exactly with daredevil and RP-4. Just for 1 point you can't include CLT Saeese or Luminara... 

Edited October 16, 2020 by xanatos135

[Blail Blerg 7,588]

how are we liking our LAATs so far? 

[dezzmont 690]

1 hour ago, Blail Blerg said:

how are we liking our LAATs so far? 

When playing against fair lists it feels really good though. I like being able to force my ships to hit. As someone who regularly flies A-wings, hitting shots feels good. And I sorta love double modding, its why I like Dutch so much in the first place.

The issue is the current environment makes legitimate experimentation with this really hard. It totally folds under the weight of any serious list in the current meta, but that isn't really a flaw with the LAAT and wouldn't be solved if it went down to 49 points or whatever. Like I can test this at the kitchen table all day but once you get to 'real games' you can't say anything besides 'it loses to Nantex like everything else' and 'well it did ok/bad against this super-experimental list specifically targeting Nantexes.'

Edited October 19, 2020 by dezzmont

[Target_2.0 51]

Only managed one virtual casual game so far.  Didn't quite play the way I expected it too.  Wiped out my opponent while only losing one torrent and 2 shields from the laat.  Will definitely play again with only minor tinkering. 

The green dice were definitely against my opponent. 

Edited October 19, 2020 by Target_2.0
More thoughts

[Rich P 909]

On 10/16/2020 at 3:20 PM, AceDogbert said:

To pick up on this; lobbing all of this into YASB, I can see that at their very cheapest, this list has 4pts floating around. What are your thoughts on what to do with those? My gut always wants to staple an R4 unit to a Delta-7, because blue speed one turns are FUN, but that is likely not the best choice...

I had daredevil on Ric, and R4-P and sat at 200, though I don't think I needed the mech, and a 2 point bid is probably better

Edited October 19, 2020 by Rich P

[reqent 430]

7 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

how are we liking our LAATs so far? 

So far so good.  Fire convergence is awesome.  Even when you disengage or need to repair a crit the laat is still supporting the squad (as long it's in a turret arc).  I haven't tried it in a really competitive setting though.  That being said it is very versatile and it will be neat to see how people build it.

[Target_2.0 51]

I enjoyed not caring about losing modification to the LAAT guns so I could rotate.  If I missed, Cody just shifted that bit of damage to one of the other ships in the squad that was getting double mods. 

[Cuz05 3,567]

Competitively, seems like it's beef variants that can carry it best. 5/6 ships?

Almost, possibly, probably nearly there are the LAAT plus 3 small things. But the blend is tricky and it's hard to use against some other things. Needs a bit of screen, but squishy screen carries considerable risk. Y Wings bring some meat but it's hard to squeeze enough in to maximise all 3 small things. Individually, it kinda gives up more points than Reps are used to.

But the 4 ship can certainly do a fine job of smashing things to pieces in even vaguely competitive settings, just a little match up stuff going on. Lots going on though, I like it in there more than not atm.

(I'm maybe mostly thinking Hyperspace)

Beyond that, it's all a little blurry to me.

[Rich P 909]

I'm enjoying games with the LaaT - though people have learned fast that the way to play against a LaaT based squad is to ignore the LaaT because it is easy to kill in end game.

This means needing to craft lists where the LaaT isn't a liability by either dying fast and hard, or just being an irrelevance once the end game comes.

Still, it's a lot of fun, banging out rerolls left, right and centre on hard hitting ships.

[Cpt ObVus 1,217]

I haven’t used it extensively, and there’s something that really hasn’t yet “clicked” for me with the Republic as a faction, I think... but I’m like, sort of almost impressed? I mean, I like Fire Convergence, but the Acey Republic ships are hard to keep up with, and I think Torrents are pretty much trash (Hey look, I’m a beefy TIE Fighter with no blues that spends half the game stressed!), so I was sort of left with the impression that they’re vastly overpriced. I feel like most good individual Republic options come in at right around 50 points, and a 212th LAAT with any kind of crew or gunner comes in at a bit more than that, which kind of leaves every list I build with an awkward 20-35 point hole in it, and just jamming a V-19 unique in there because that’s all I can find that fits feels like I’m giving points away.

As a matter of fact, I think I’m gonna go start a thread about the Republic faction, and see if it’s just that I haven’t yet got them figured out.

[xanatos135 64]

1 hour ago, Cpt ObVus said:

I haven’t used it extensively, and there’s something that really hasn’t yet “clicked” for me with the Republic as a faction, I think... but I’m like, sort of almost impressed? I mean, I like Fire Convergence, but the Acey Republic ships are hard to keep up with, and I think Torrents are pretty much trash (Hey look, I’m a beefy TIE Fighter with no blues that spends half the game stressed!), so I was sort of left with the impression that they’re vastly overpriced. I feel like most good individual Republic options come in at right around 50 points, and a 212th LAAT with any kind of crew or gunner comes in at a bit more than that, which kind of leaves every list I build with an awkward 20-35 point hole in it, and just jamming a V-19 unique in there because that’s all I can find that fits feels like I’m giving points away.

As a matter of fact, I think I’m gonna go start a thread about the Republic faction, and see if it’s just that I haven’t yet got them figured out.

Torrents are a bit boring, but I think they can be interesting as cheap missile carriers, specially with wolfpack and synced console. You don't even need a LAAT for that, a generic 42 points ARC can carry Wolfpack. 

Also the talent generics are really cheap compared to the I2, just one extra point, and OddBall in a torrent can consistently get locks to fire his missiles and/or pass the lock to another guy with synced console. A good priced filler for example with ion missiles and synced, just 35 points. 

[Target_2.0 51]

My LAAT experiment was Warthog (Cody/Fives), 2 missile BSPs, and Anakin CLT.  I doubt it's meta, but it did well in casual.