“Hey, Thweek! ‘The Sun is still in the sky and shinning above you.”

Or is it? A couple of Zombies try Thweek Parattanni at a Q4 and Thweek becomes infectious enough to spread to a 186ther. Is Thweek good or will he just leave you with a hole in your sole?

Sixteen gaming weeks till the Yavin System Open 2018 and in theory we should be playing in the thick of the Wave 12/13 meta, barring any surprises. So with this in mind I had to use my last Q4 event of 2017 to good effect. Dubbed ‘the Woking Masters’ due to the high caliber of the field I could either run Imperial Alpha, Rebel Alpha or Thweek Attanni.

Crazy World

Having played Imperial Alpha since Nationals and mainly #Deathfiremeta, (probably around 60 games), I’ve recently latched onto the rebel ‘Triple Tens.’ But the day before the event, which at the time I was going run triple tens, Tom from Zombie Squadron was asking for list ideas based around Parrattani. Like a man in the middle we swapped a few messages back and forth and came up with Thweek Attanni.

Thweek Attanni

Thweek: Fire Contro systems, Auto thrusters, Virago and MK2 titles

Ventress: Mindlink

Contracted Scout Mindlink

94 points

Personal flavouring:

Tom took Latts Razzi crew on Ventress for 96 points.

I took Intel agent on the scout for 95 points.

One of us went 1-3 and the other 3-1 and lost a close final.

‘Experience Lad, you should learn to appreciate it.’

Three losses at 0-49, 0-27 and 54 (ish) – 100 plus a 71-32 (half on big ships) win is not a good day at the office from a pure results perspective, although I was in there at the death in all three defeats. I also lost the Zombie Squadron vs 186th Squadron silly hat competition at the start of the day to Janus. His woolly Dalek trumping my A-ha hat with dangling plats.

I’ve never flown Parattanni in anger and it showed in the first two losses which were close and mistake laden. The last two games were improvements but still flying and strategy could have been better. Tom on the other hand had flown Parattanni a lot in the early part of the year. Really a case of knowing me, knowing you.

It was slightly annoying to see the games slipping through my fingers near the end but still good R & D and I enjoyed my matches. The best one was playing Nic Harris in round 4 with his Nym/Miranda build and Thweek went down to a good block from Miranda at the death by getting caught in the kisses of fire from her Bomblet generator.

This was the only game that didn’t go to time as half Miranda versus half a scout does not end well for the scout.

I Have a Dream

Is Thweek good? Will Thweek provide a happy new year at Yavin?

Thweek isn’t bad, not as originally perceived but we both couldn’t quite put our finger on it. I’m not head over heels with Thweek although the barrel roll mechanic was really good at making Thweek some kind of dancing queen and FCS helped keep the pressure on targets. Is Thweek that dream, the super trouper that takes me one step closer to yavin glory? Err no.

We both felt that Fenn Rau would have delivered more. Pete Wood of the 186th, who beat Tom in Swiss, but then lost to Tom in the Semi final, was running a variant on Fenn, Teroch and Manaroo. The following day he took mind linked Fenn, Thweek and a mind linked contracted scout to another Q4 event of similar quality and finshed 4th out of 30 on 4-1. It wasn’t quite another town, another train as you still had a large number of top bods in the London area there, another tough field.

Even then, Pete said that he couldn’t quite put his finger on it about whether Thweek was worth it or not. Pete had added Glitterstim on Thweek, which going forward I would staple to him with Auto Thrusters and Fire control systems.

Move On

When all is said and done Thweek Parattani is not for me. If going forward with it I would go down the Fenn, Thweek and Scout route. Net listing and tweaking is quite often the name of the game and I feel this could have legs:

Fenn Rau: Attanni Mindlink, Title, Auto thrusters

Thweek: Firecontrol systems, Auto thrusters, Glitterstim, Virago and MK2 titles

Contracted Scout: Attanni Mindlink, Intel Agent, Counter measures, EMP device

96 points

I was not leveraging the damage output from Ventress as well as I could when under attack and the above list would suit my recent style of flying better than Thweek Parattanni. More so perhaps was the lack of action economy on Thweek that was making me cry mama mia at having to decide between barrel rolling and focusing. Quite often both would be the optimum choice hence glitterstim adds a bit of flexibility.

The Winner Takes it All

Thweek has won a few events from New Zealand Nationals ,(42 players) to recently a regional in Norway, (15 players).There is a good piece on Episode 42 of the Carolina Crates podcast, (possibly my favourite podcast at the moment), around 2.3 hours in where they discuss why Thweek is bad. The main reason Thweek is bad is that moving last does not guarantee winning. If that were the case every time you faced an opponent with a higher PS ship in their list you would be wondering about whether I should laugh or cry.

I feel Thweek’s inherent weakness in the age of action efficiency is just that. Quite often to leverage the advantage of moving last the barrel roll is the all-important weapon to try and bring about your opponent’s Waterloo. Tied to the one action even with Fire control you are sacrificing offence in the age of high defence or offense ships. You are effectively hoping for a lot of natties or near natties, (is there such a term?), with Thweek to get the value out of it.

Arrival of Waves 12 & 13: Money, money, money

Or On and on and on with new toys. I didn’t understand the excitement about people going gimme, gimme, gimme a gun boat but I feel the generic PS 2 ship could slot into the Imperial alpha strike list quite happily. There are some nice cheap 25 point builds out there. I’m not overly excited about the Tie silencer although I’m sure we will see a lot of it on the tables for a few months. The PS 7 Blackout could form a happy couple with RAC the way old friends do but I wonder how effective the Silencer will really be?

There are some interesting cards in the other releases which offer other options for the Rebel triple tens. With regionals and the Christmas shut down looming experiments with Thweek are being pushed to the back of the travel bag as list number three.

Closing thought

If Thweek was standing there saying take a chance on me, I’d have to say no for now. Thweek is not bad but at the same time unreliable in carrying out the heavy lifting which you would want from effectively your top ace ship.

Further reading and listening

Round one match report where Thweek blanks out at the death whilst chasing down a one health QuickDraw or sad times:

https://squadronsquadron.wordpress.com/2017/11/26/2-broak-the-intense/

Rebel trip Tens- the list I should have been flying:

http://stayontheleader.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/use-your-harpoons-and-tow-cables.html

Why Thweek is bad: https://carolinakrayts.libsyn.com/episode-42-salt-trap