The TIE Punisher: A Crash Course

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in again

This piece is dedicated to the reddit user who requested a guide on how to make his favourite ship work in a more competitive environment. The idea had crossed my mind before and it’s true that my blog hasn’t been very forthcoming with the tiny details when it comes to the actual games. This is usually because I’m too preoccupied with scoffing carbonara in a hotel room. But now that Deathrain is taking a break it’s time for me to give something back to the community with this guide and to announce the Punisher’s biggest secret.

The baby isn’t yours

Let’s get one thing straight. This guide on how to make the Punisher hold it’s own in a fight can apply to any ship in the game. I hope by the end you’ll be inspired to pick up that dust covered, ‘low tier’ ship and make it work for you. Right let’s start with the basics, check out this pilot card and dial:

Don’t keep reading! Go back and truly soak in those 2 images I stole. Measure up what you’re getting for the points, the stats, the speed and how easily it can be killed.

The X-Wing community will tell you this ship is garbage. Now I’m about to tell you Deathrain’s biggest secret. Are you ready for this? The secret is: the community is right. This ship is garbage.

Ships like these aren’t gonna hand victory to you on a silver platter. We’re gonna have to work for it. We gotta stretch out as much value as possible and focus on every strength and weakness. The ship needs to be cheap, about a third of your list is probably the limit. Below is the setup I’ve had him at for a while.

Deathrain with lightweight frame, unguided rockets, trajectory simulator and bomblet generator. 34pts

Lightweight frame offers 2 agility, 3 at range against most primary arcs. This keeps him in the game much longer. Unguided rockets gives him a 3 attack primary that acts like a secondary. You need a focus which is fine as he’ll only be boosting to either bump or escape. So now we’re at 30pts for a 3 attack, 2(3) defence, 9 health ship. That’s not too bad.

Later nerd

Bomblet generator allows infinite bombs which means infinite barrel rolls. Coupled with boost it makes his garbage dial very unpredictable.

Touch a shield, get dinked.

Trajectory simulator adds a third location for a potential bomblet, creating the single largest area of denial a bomber can accomplish (I think).

These 4 upgrades play surprisingly well together. Upon the launch of a bomb and a 1 forward an opposing ship will either hit the bomb and take a range 2 shot, or stay away from it and take a range 3 shot, giving me 3 agility dice in some cases. Also if they stay away, rockets deny the range 3 dice.

Just the tip

Now we’ve glossed over what he’s got under the hood it’s time to talk strats and to do that here’s a quick look at the rest of the list:

QuickDraw with Lightweight frame, fire-control systems, spec ops and adaptability.

Colonel Vessery with TIE/x7 and adaptability.

These two need no introduction. Together they make a strong kill team and their abilities alone carry them to victory. So much so in fact that I’m more than comfortable stripping them down to a cheap loadout to fit them in the list. The 34/33/33 point split actually helps where mov is concerned. If you can trade one for an enemy ship that costs more than a third (most lists won’t have even splits) then you come out on top.

So we’ve got our garbage ship and we’ve got our decent ones, time to figure out how they’re gonna work together. After 50+ games I’ve finally figured it out.

The Asteroids

I will usually counter to what my opponent does. If they spread them out you bunch them up. If they go 2 and 2 in the corner then you go 3 and 3. 2 and 2 is very useful against large base ships as it makes them slow down near a corner instead of 3 bank drifting around it.

The Placement

Deathrain sits in the centre as far back as possible. VessQuick (get used to this terminology) sits far back on the flank opposing any placed enemy ships (depending on the situation it may be the opposite flank but they will stick together).

The Approach

Approaching the enemy fleet the right way has to be considered. Play cautiously in the beginning. VessQuick can 4k/1forward if you think the opposing ships will turn away (falcon or ghost are good examples). Deathrain can drop his bomb off the board and roll left or right to get a better line up.

The Opening Engagement

This will be the first turn when shots are fired. Vessery needs to hit a 3 speed for the opening shots to get a free evade so he needs to be lagging behind. QuickDraw shouldn’t be in the fight and should be just out of range 3 of the enemy. Deathrain should be in front with the bomb launch followed by 1straight and a focus. Now here’s the best bit. As my opponent you have 2 options. Shoot Vess at range 3 with full mods or Deathrain at range 2. The choice is obvious. Without knowing it you are now following my plan.

Now credit to wargamerfritz (he used to have a YouTube channel but he does blog stuff now) awakening me to this. Every player goes into a tabletop game with a plan. How you’ll set up your forces, what your target priorities will be, etc. If you have a plan then it’s best to stick to it. If you don’t then you’ll end up reacting to your opponent’s plan, if that happens then they will be one step ahead of you in the game. You’ll be on the back foot trying to catch up. Having said that it’s useful to be able to adapt to the situation but if you’re the one reacting you are more likely to make a mistake.

After the dust has settled deathrain is shieldless and taken a bit of hull damage. My opponent’s ship has eaten a bomb and been chipped by rockets. They’ll be ahead in the damage race but that’s fine by me.

The Second Engagement

Now my opponent is reacting. They are facing down a bomber that’s one turn away from turning into space dust, but that bomb is likely coming out 1 or 5 forward. So now they have to either press on or disengage and come in at a different angle, leaving them exposed. VessQuick are in a good position to assault the lead ship. Depending on the range and damage taken deathrain can either launch and 1forward again, or 3 speed, boost to bump the ships at the back, keeping them at range from my kill team. He can also drop forward, barrel roll, 3 turn boost and lose his pursuers in the asteroid field if things are looking dire. Sometimes I’ll launch then 3 speed bump to force bumped ships to eat bomb damage and have VessQuick hunt the bumped ships instead. During the second engagement my opponent has a choice of shooting a tokened up defender, a close range QuickDraw, or a half health easy to hit annoyance. They have to go for deathrain, leaving the killteam well alone.

The Rest of the Game

The longer Deathrain stays in the fight the better. He soaks up all the aggro and all the damage, while at the same time denying areas with bombs and being an all round pain in the backside for my opponent. Having barebones VessQuick pays off as well, with Deathrain holding the aggro they can afford to use their focus on the attack. Expertise would have actually been wasted points in this list when you think about it.

Here’s an example of what I’ve just mentioned:

QuickDraw just off to the right out of range. This was my first match of the open and hadn’t quite got the second engagement working yet.

Fenn, Lowhhrick and Poe set up in formation on the flank. Deathrain sets up opposite ready to joust with no support. Deathrain ‘rings the dinner bell’, by launching a bomb, just clipping Poe. Shots are exchanged at range 3 and he takes glancing hits. Next round my opponent has to react to the bomb and splits up, mayhem begins and VessQuick comes charging in to capitalise on the situation. The most garbage ship in the game set a tight formation of the Rebel’s finest scrambling for cover in the second engagement. Is this starting to make sense?

Here’s another example:

Facing off against Miranda Nym. One of the top lists out there (to the point that they have to be nerfed over and over). This time I go with my gut as to where Nym might slip away and go for the bump and get VessQuick ready to engage. It pays off and Nym goes down, leaving Miranda to fend off 3 ships.

Here’s an example of the approach gone wrong:

The only game that Deathrain wasn’t shot at first, you can see why.

For one thing deathrain is pointing the wrong way due to the rock and VessQuick are too close to engage after activation. His proton bombs have me concerned and now I’m the one reacting to his plan, putting me in a bad position. Miranda and Nym are all to happy to take advantage of the fight in the asteroid field with their bombs frozen in place.

Here’s an example of the approach done right:

Ghost Fenn is a very effective list and if you don’t get the approach right it’ll eat you alive. I slow roll to begin with, the ghost turns away and skirts the line of asteroids for cover, goading me in. I set up lines ready to pounce but slow roll again. The ghost turns away in preparation for the attack, now out of range. Now the ghost is in trouble. Using that imperial speed I race up the map to intercept the ghost as it turns around the top right corner, limiting its options. Deathrain is hot on Fenn, dishing out bombs and bumps and keeping him from supporting the ghost who is now trapped at range 1 of VessQuick. Ghost gets taken down to half health in an instant.

With this list I went 3–3 and placed 150/500 main event (edit:140, can’t read) then 4–2 and placed 58/416 side event. It’s not gonna be the next overpowered thing but the list does function, it has a solid plan behind it, it’s a lot of fun to fly and it can most certainly win games.

If you’re still reading this then it looks like you’re a true Punisher fan who wants to try this list out. Feel free to do so but there’s a few conditions to this, yeah you’re making a deal with the devil now. >:-D

1. Play it 50 times. Yeah you heard. 50. Flying any ship takes a bit of getting used to and Deathrain is no exception. There will be frustrations, there will be times where you just wanna give up all together. You’ve gotta bang your head against the wall and break through to the other side.

2. You will blame the dice. Kick this habit. In my first game at the open QuickDraw was chasing regen Poe and his dice were lousy even with free target locks. But where was Vessery? He was chasing Lowhhrick on the other side of the table. If he was also chasing Poe then even with lousy dice I would be able to push some hits through. The game was lost because of my mistake, not the dice. Side note: the only time it’s ok to blame the dice is if you you make the perfect calls during activation then blank out anyway. :P

3. In the beginning you will lose a lot of games. This is a good thing. You learn so much more from a loss than a win. When a game is over look back on the turn when it all went to hell. Then think about the turn before, could you have played it out different? What about the turn before that? Learn from your mistakes. At the system open there are 3 games that I’ve looked back on and know that I would have had a chance if I’d played it differently. Don’t beat yourself up about it you’ll get them next time.

4. I’ve never been one to name lists but if you plan on trying it out I suppose it should have one. Deathrain’s Milkshake. Yeah.

5. Let me know how Deathrain’s Milkshake is holding up. There are far better players out there than me and it would be cool to see how it holds up in more skilled hands.

6. Before you even hit the tables it will be a good idea to practice bombing runs with Deathrain on your own. Figure out which movement combinations will keep you out of the bomblet’s range. Write them down if you have to. Don’t be a dipstick like me and on a very important turn of a tourney match ponder aloud, “huh, I wonder if this will clear it”.

The list was never built around this strategy. The tactics employed emerged gradually after playing it over and over. Some ideas work, some don’t. You gotta play to find out which are which. I went into this list determined to make the most of Deathrain’s strengths. In the end it was his biggest weakness that claimed victory over many a game.

But enough about Deathrain I hear you sputter. What about the other pilots the Punisher has access to?

Peter had just finished his top 32 match and was ready to kick back in the hyperspace with triple Punishers and a whole lotta bombs. Take it away Peter!

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Hiya

Minefield Mapper / Cluster mine Tactics:

Firstly, you get to deploy them after your opponent sets up. This means you can try to predict the travel lanes a ship will take and block them off.

The one downside is that you can’t place within range 3 of a ship (a good rule otherwise it would be way too damaging to a game). This does however mean if your opponent spreads out their forces, you have half the board that you can’t influence.

I had purposely selected the largest obstacles possible to provide little room for manoeuvre. Even with the range 3 impediment managed to create an approach path.

Another issue with the 3 is their low final salvo value. 6 dice. Hardly stellar so you may have to try and make something happen.

The best and most sensible tactic would have been for me to skirt round the bottom right asteroid and try to plink half health away from the shuttle while preparing to plug any gap that the shuttle made with more mines forcing the Aces to come to me.

However I was looking to be a little more aggressive.

I decided to approach up the middle to work on plugging the gap. With unguided rockets I managed to take a couple of shields from the defender at R3.

At this stage instead of laying chase to an ace through the gap. I should be looking come right through the two clouds firing rockets into the shuttle and hoping my shots and my opponent using it as a minesweeper delete it from the board.

The game didn’t go well for the Punishers, I should be attempting to pursue a ship. I should keep them together make an approach that has no shots at just outside r3, then combat just outside R1 followed by me using the movement phase to drop cluster mines directly onto my opponent. Corran and Poe have been known to fall fowl of this tactic, especially as people can underestimate the difficulty in taking 9 health ships with primary weapons.

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Alex weighs in on his experience flying Redline during the event. Over to you Alex!

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My list for the 2018 Birmingham system open was Redline in the Tie Punisher, with long range scanners, trajectory simulator, harpoon missiles, extra munitions and bomblet generator twinned with Quickdraw in the Special Forces Tie, with harpoon missiles, fire control system, veteran instinct, lightweight frame and special ops training with the Seinar Specialist in the Tie Aggressor running lightweight frame and twin laser turrets.

The inspiration came from looking at Rebel Nym Miranda lists and wondering if I could do something similar with an imperial fleet, and this is what I came up with. It does it’s best when you get the opening engagement right. From the set up you want to decide, which of your opponents ships you want to take off the board first, and use long range scanners on Redline in round 1 to get it’s 2 target locks on it (Redlines pilot ability means you get 2 target locks on your chosen ship, so you don’t have to worry about reacquiring a second target lock later for your second set of harpoons), then if you can judge the distance right, hit your target with a trajectory simulated bomblet (whilst not hitting yourself with the bomb) and fire harpoon missiles with Quickdraw and Redline together, and then finish it off with the Tie Aggressor’s TLT if it’s still alive. It’s not all over if don’t manage that, but if you can get something off the board in the first round of combat, it makes it a lot easier later in the game.

I flew it at Birmingham because I’d fallen out of love with the quad Tie Aggressors and X7 Triple Defenders I’d been flying since UK nationals, and I’d always had fun with it when I took it to the Amsterdam Regional, and a small local 3 round event. I hadn’t been doing so well at X-Wing lately, so I decided to go to Birmingham to have fun, meet new people and see how the Punisher would go.

A lot of the games I played were really close (apart from round 6, but you can see that on YouTube). Triple Defenders in round 1 caused a problem, but the next 3 rounds were a bit easier. Round 5 was really close. It came down to Redline and a damaged Agressor Vs “The Inquisitor” (if I remember rightly). The Aggressor blew up rather quickly, and it turned into 18 minutes of running away and dropping bombs to try and survive and get damage through. When time was called I’d done 2 damage and had 1 hull left on the Punisher. I was killed 100–0 in round 6 on stream, Maybe not the most successful of endings for the Punisher in the main competition, but was a good game all the same.

Surprise!

Day 2 was the hyperspace, and of course the Punisher came out again. Quad Aggressors in round 1 didn’t like harpoons and bomblets. I won round 2, but lost round 3, in a really close game. Round 4 I came up against Charles and the Deathrain Punisher. I destroyed Deathrain, but the loss of my Quickdraw to Quickdraw and Vessery at range 2 (my dice totally blanked out) sealed Redlines fate, and a game loss (it was a good game, and would be up for a rematch at some point). I also lost round 5, but won round 6 in a close fight with a rebel bomber.

Redline sent Deathrain to the naughty corner

Overall, making Stage 2 was more than I’d ever hoped for at a system open this year, but to go 4 wins and 2 losses in the main tournament, play on stream in round 6, and then go 3 wins and 3 losses in Hyperspace, was beyond my wildest dreams, especially running a Tie Punisher. I think it may coming out to play a bit more now, but maybe with a few modifications to the list for future.

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So there you go Punisher fans, now there are no more excuses. Dust it off and get it on the table!