Again, a maneuver never before seen on a dial does not equal completely new maneuver that needs new rules. And considering that the Phantom has 3 rules cards, I'm not seeing the issue of not including a third with the Defender.

Also, the Boost/Ion cards are included because of the upgrades. Why isn't it possible for the Evade to be part of either the Elite Talents or one of the Pilot abilities?

There isn't an issue with including another rule card for the Defender, but there isn't one seen in the card fan. It's quite possible that the Evade token is related to a pilot ability or EPT. I actually think that's more likely because I don't think they're going to introduce some sort of "yellow" maneuver or anything that would need new rules.

There is also that they went out of their way to say never before seen 'on a dial', which pretty strongly indicates that it has been seen before on some kind of action or special ability, which makes me think speed 1 k turn, but then, wouldn't they have made the same claim about the b wing?

A 1 K turn would be rather disappointing, in my view... after giving it as an ability (or part of a sliding ability rather) I find it highly unimaginative..

There is also that they went out of their way to say never before seen 'on a dial', which pretty strongly indicates that it has been seen before on some kind of action or special ability, which makes me think speed 1 k turn, but then, wouldn't they have made the same claim about the b wing?

FFG didn't make this claim in their marketing materials for the B-wing, but that doesn't imply that they couldn't have done so.

I've wondered if the "never before seen maneuver" wouldn't be a spot on the dial that actually allows you to choose from a couple maneuvers. Admittedly that wouldn't help when moving first but it would be great on higher PS ships and combining maneuvers would allow more maneuvers to be included on the dial.

As things stand I believe the ONLY maneuver we haven't seen on a dial that would require no additional explanation or new templates is that 1K. I don't consider changing colors to be "different" maneuvers and while the idea of an angled k-turn is pretty easy to explain and doesn't really require new templates it would require some rules. Besides, if you add one banked k-turn wouldn't you then need to add the other one as well or are you going to tell me it can pick which side it goes to the moment it perform that maneuver or that it can only do it to one side.

Just at the point costing level the Defender would need something pretty special to make sense. 30pt PS1 with 1 more hull and 1 more attack than a tie advanced? and no evade? That dial is going to need to have white kturns or an "evasive" maneuver to be worth those points.

Give a tie advanced boost instead of evade, a shield upgrade, and a Heavy HLC (I know it can't actually take it) and you're at 31pts. Take away it starting at PS 2 and you're exactly at 30pts. Not an exact comparison but pretty darn close (4 dice at 2 ranges with no agility buff at range 3> than 4 dice at range 1). Wisdom on this forum has cited the Advanced at 2pts too high... while an interceptor dial might make up 1 of that you're still looking at a wonky ship price.

Build it ground up from an Alpha interceptor: Same across the board stats with 3 shield upgrades tacked on and loss of evade action (gain of cannon and missile upgrade is not a fair trade in my opinion).

3, 3, 3, 3 is just too vanilla without that dial having something really special for 30pts.

There won't be any new icons or rules. No new colors, no combo dial maneuver/freebie action icon. You can see the cards that the Defender comes with, and it doesn't include a rules card for anything we haven't seen before.

I'd be utterly shocked to see a white K-turn, ever. A ship that could just K-turn over and over without anything to slow it down would be a HUGE advantage in a joust. We close, we both K-turn. You're stressed, I'm not, advantage me. Next turn you have to do a short green to clear it, I K-turn again - now we both have actions, but you have no shot. Next turn you K-turn again to get a shot, while I do a short green, and once again we both have shots but you lack an action. A white K-turn would be horrible for the game.

We've never had a green 3 turn/bank. I'd lay money on that, personally, or possibly a 1 K-turn on the dial. Cowall's ability isn't just the 1-speed K-turn, it's the ability to choose the speed on reveal. I don't think it's far fetched to think we'd see another ship with the 1 K-turn.

This is a very reasonable post. And i don't say this because i came up with that green 3 turn idea.

A white Koiogran would be very powerful indeed. Even if you could counter the maneuver with superior ship numbers and/or by outwitting the Defender player, for example just going full throttle and run away when you see he would do the second koiogran in a row, it would indeed be a difficult task to find a counter to that.

On the other hand the Defender will be really expensive. But a White K-Turn would be a huge advantage against other elite ships including other elite ships including the E-wing.

Also i don't believe that they will include a new template or combine templates.

I think the most probable would indeed be either the 1 Koiogran or the green 3 turn. The first would speak for a very manoeuvrable ship, and the green 3 turn would speak for a lot of greens ob the faster range bands and a very fast ship. This would also be a nice contrast to the E-Wing where i rather think that it will have a lot of green options on the lower range bands.

Is it possible that they underestimated how batty this was going to drive people, and that everyone is digging into one teasing comment WAY too closely?

"It's a banking fuschia 9k - I just know it. What else could it BE???"

I don't consider changing colors to be "different" maneuvers...

Well technically speaking it is a different maneuver. A white 3 K Turn is a new maneuver.

I don't know for sure what will happen with this, but my prediction is that the maneuver never seen before will be a disappointment to at least a few people.

I don't consider changing colors to be "different" maneuvers...

Well technically speaking it is a different maneuver. A white 3 K Turn is a new maneuver.

I don't know for sure what will happen with this, but my prediction is that the maneuver never seen before will be a disappointment to at least a few people.

In fairness, the people who love the Defender tend to be such big fans of it from the video game that it could be 5/5/5/5, have an entirely green dial, and poop lollipops, and it would still disappoint them because it didn't live up to their expectations.

most people still talking about it at this point are pretty reasonable. I played the video games pretty minimally and don't particularly remember them but just googling around for a bit reveals how superior the Defender is supposed to be. 3, 3, 3, 3 at 30pts isn't really scary unless it's packing something special. A long range kturn, especially white, with a heavy laser cannon is a bit more scary, but it's also 37pts minimum for a PS1.

I like the idea of a "maneuver" that gives you a choice of 2 moves, but even that would require a rules card.

Do you guys think it would require a rules card if the maneuver dial included the symbol for a barrel roll?

Sigh, yeah it would, you would have to explain whether the ship could set its dial to that maneuver and then perform the action as well.

I'm calling the maneuver now. "You reveal a 1 whit forward and your opponent craps his pants." Auto-win.

I like the idea of a "maneuver" that gives you a choice of 2 moves, but even that would require a rules card.

Do you guys think it would require a rules card if the maneuver dial included the symbol for a barrel roll?

Sigh, yeah it would, you would have to explain whether the ship could set its dial to that maneuver and then perform the action as well.

In all seriousness there doesn;t have to be a rules card for a new maneuver. They could instead include a paper packet to show the new rules like the Bigs Ships and Lambda 0 maneuver. I really think the door is wide open for anything.

Just at the point costing level the Defender would need something pretty special to make sense. 30pt PS1 with 1 more hull and 1 more attack than a tie advanced? and no evade? That dial is going to need to have white kturns or an "evasive" maneuver to be worth those points.

This confuses me, because I thought I double-tapped this argument the first time it came around.

Give a tie advanced boost instead of evade, a shield upgrade, and a Heavy HLC (I know it can't actually take it) and you're at 31pts. Take away it starting at PS 2 and you're exactly at 30pts. Not an exact comparison but pretty darn close (4 dice at 2 ranges with no agility buff at range 3> than 4 dice at range 1). Wisdom on this forum has cited the Advanced at 2pts too high... while an interceptor dial might make up 1 of that you're still looking at a wonky ship price.

You're completely right. I mean, all you have to do is take a Rookie Pilot, give it Push the Limit, Expert Handling, R2-F2, and a Hull Upgrade, plus make it immune to stress, and you have a TIE Defender! And since a Rookie Pilot with those modifications and 1 less pilot skill would cost 31 points, the TIE Defender is clearly… um, wait a minute here.

Okay, I guess I picked the wrong ship for a starting point. Let's take a Prototype Pilot, and add always-on, action-free Expose plus a Stealth Device, plus a Hull Upgrade and a Shield Upgrade. That gives us a cost of 31, which means the Defender is… okay, that example doesn't do it either. Gosh, what am I doing wrong?

Here's the thing: the only people who have any idea whether the Defender is too expensive, not expensive enough, or just right work for FFG in some capacity and know a lot more about the ship than we do right now. Comparing it to the TIE Advanced requires asserting that you know exactly how much it ought to cost for a ship to go from 2 Attack to 3 Attack; comparing it to the Interceptor requires the claim that you know exactly what happens to game balance when you more than double the HP durability of a ship with 3 Agility; comparing it to an X-wing (which no one is doing, but bear with me) requires pretending you understand perfectly what the right cost adjustment is when you simultaneously increase Agility and hit points.

And particularly given the extra uncertainty introduced by the discussion of its dial, talking about how poor the Defender's value looks compared to its cost just sounds improbably hyperbolic.

(EDIT: Fixed "hp" when I meant "durability"…)

In all seriousness there doesn;t have to be a rules card for a new maneuver.

There has to be something to tell us how to the new maneuver works. Either on the text of a pilot card, or some place else. There's nothing like that on any of the cards as far as we can see.

They could instead include a paper packet to show the new rules like the Bigs Ships and Lambda 0 maneuver.

That kind of insert is a lot less efficient then a rules card like the ion card. Why include an insert unless the rules are fairly complex and can't fit on a card? So it seems fairly unlikely that we'll see anything really different. Unless they didn't include a rules card in the fan for some reason.

If the new maneuver involves a free evade token, or using a turn or bank with a K-Turn, there would almost have to be a rules card or something to explain it. Even a new icon wouldn't really work... I mean we could likely figure it out, but someone new to the game would have issues.

FFG seems pretty consistent on providing everything you need, all the rules, parts, tokens, ect... So I can't see them putting in a brand new type of maneuver without rules to explain it.

In all seriousness there doesn;t have to be a rules card for a new maneuver.

There has to be something to tell us how to the new maneuver works. Either on the text of a pilot card, or some place else. There's nothing like that on any of the cards as far as we can see.

They could instead include a paper packet to show the new rules like the Bigs Ships and Lambda 0 maneuver.

That kind of insert is a lot less efficient then a rules card like the ion card. Why include an insert unless the rules are fairly complex and can't fit on a card? So it seems fairly unlikely that we'll see anything really different. Unless they didn't include a rules card in the fan for some reason.

If the new maneuver involves a free evade token, or using a turn or bank with a K-Turn, there would almost have to be a rules card or something to explain it. Even a new icon wouldn't really work... I mean we could likely figure it out, but someone new to the game would have issues.

FFG seems pretty consistent on providing everything you need, all the rules, parts, tokens, ect... So I can't see them putting in a brand new type of maneuver without rules to explain it.

I would actually disagree about the efficiency aspect of just including the rules on the paper insert. It's cheaper and FFG now has a history of doing it 3 times instead of a card (Firespray, Falcon, Lambda). Based on those past three experiences, which actually were very simple rules and could have fit on a card, I wouldn't put it past FFG to take the cheaper route.

In all seriousness there doesn;t have to be a rules card for a new maneuver.

There has to be something to tell us how to the new maneuver works. Either on the text of a pilot card, or some place else. There's nothing like that on any of the cards as far as we can see.

They could instead include a paper packet to show the new rules like the Bigs Ships and Lambda 0 maneuver.

That kind of insert is a lot less efficient then a rules card like the ion card. Why include an insert unless the rules are fairly complex and can't fit on a card? So it seems fairly unlikely that we'll see anything really different. Unless they didn't include a rules card in the fan for some reason.

If the new maneuver involves a free evade token, or using a turn or bank with a K-Turn, there would almost have to be a rules card or something to explain it. Even a new icon wouldn't really work... I mean we could likely figure it out, but someone new to the game would have issues.

FFG seems pretty consistent on providing everything you need, all the rules, parts, tokens, ect... So I can't see them putting in a brand new type of maneuver without rules to explain it.

I would actually disagree about the efficiency aspect of just including the rules on the paper insert. It's cheaper and FFG now has a history of doing it 3 times instead of a card (Firespray, Falcon, Lambda). Based on those past three experiences, which actually were very simple rules and could have fit on a card, I wouldn't put it past FFG to take the cheaper route.

Well the big ships have all come with inserts because big ships have some special rules as far as things like ion, multiple fire arcs, turrets,etc, between them. So every big ship pretty much has to come with one of those. And they throw in a new scenario and whatever as long as they're doing it.

They have so far not ever done that with a small base ship before. It's been a card or nothing. Plus the packaging means that if they did one of the full size rule/scenario inserts they'd have to fold it down to card size, which would be awkward.

It's cheaper and FFG now has a history of doing it 3 times instead of a card (Firespray, Falcon, Lambda).

You think a full sized sheet of paper that's printed on both sides and folded to fit in the package of a fighter is cheaper then a single card?

Because I can tell you from personal experience having worked as a printer, it's not.

Also if they were going to include an insert, they wouldn't bother including the other rule cards, because those could be printed on the insert itself.

Those are the 3 large ships, whose packaging have space for a large rules inserts. The small ships, including what we see in wave 4, have rules cards. If they were going to do a rules insert then they wouldn't also be including cards.

Edit: multi ninja.

It's cheaper and FFG now has a history of doing it 3 times instead of a card (Firespray, Falcon, Lambda).

You think a full sized sheet of paper that's printed on both sides and folded to fit in the package of a fighter is cheaper then a single card?

Because I can tell you from personal experience having worked as a printer, it's not.

Also if they were going to include an insert, they wouldn't bother including the other rule cards, because those could be printed on the insert itself.

I think there's some miscommunication going on here. I wasn't talking about a full sheet (nor do I think any new rule they put out will require a full sheet). What I'm saying they could do, which doesn't preclude some new rules coming out, is printing out the new rule on the paper insert that comes in EVERY expansion. Even the new rules on the big ships were not more than a paragraph so can probably fit on the smaller insert in the smaller expansions with proper formatting. This entire point was brought up in response because some brought into doubt what the new maneuver could be since there is no rule card for it.

-Edit- Upon closer inspection it actually looks like the more complicated rules changes get cards. The Insert rules for the big ships were all very simple rule addendums, while the rule cards seem to have been limited to more complicated rules like Ion Tokens and the upcoming Cloaking Device, which seem to cover multiple paragraphs. A simple new maneuver rule could easily be covered in paragraph and included in the insert.

is printing out the new rule on the paper insert that comes in EVERY expansion.

That's not how FFG does things though. They don't include the Ion Rules with every ship, even though every ship can be hit by a Ion. They don't include Boost rules with every ship, even though they can all use an Engine Upgrade card to allow them to boost.

They include all the rules that ship needs, but don't include rules that don't apply to that ship.

So there is no reason they think they'd change that now. They wouldn't come up with a paper insert for every ship, because no other ship will be able to do this maneuver. It also doesn't make any sense to change the method they use for printing rules in the first place. They print out a whole sheet of Ion Rules and include them with the ships that need them.

Making a change like you're suggesting simply doesn't make sense. It would also cost more money then simply making a new rules card. Because now they have to change their printing method, sorting method and packing method. That's a lot of work for a new maneuver for a single ship.

This entire point was brought up in response because some brought into doubt what the new maneuver could be since there is no rule card for it.

Yes and since we don't see a new rules card included with the card fan for the Defender, that means one of two things.

Either A) There is nothing that requires a new rule. Or B) They're going to change how they've packaged every other fighter released so far. A seems the far more likely option of the two.

is printing out the new rule on the paper insert that comes in EVERY expansion.

That's not how FFG does things though. They don't include the Ion Rules with every ship, even though every ship can be hit by a Ion. They don't include Boost rules with every ship, even though they can all use an Engine Upgrade card to allow them to boost.

They include all the rules that ship needs, but don't include rules that don't apply to that ship.

So there is no reason they think they'd change that now. They wouldn't come up with a paper insert for every ship, because no other ship will be able to do this maneuver. It also doesn't make any sense to change the method they use for printing rules in the first place. They print out a whole sheet of Ion Rules and include them with the ships that need them.

Making a change like you're suggesting simply doesn't make sense. It would also cost more money then simply making a new rules card. Because now they have to change their printing method, sorting method and packing method. That's a lot of work for a new maneuver for a single ship.

This entire point was brought up in response because some brought into doubt what the new maneuver could be since there is no rule card for it.

Yes and since we don't see a new rules card included with the card fan for the Defender, that means one of two things.

Either A) There is nothing that requires a new rule. Or B) They're going to change how they've packaged every other fighter released so far. A seems the far more likely option of the two.

I guess you are still missing my point. I'm not suggesting they do anything that different. I pointed out that every expansion already has a paper insert. Not that they start including one.

Every expansion so far has a paper insert that comes within the plastic. It is unique to each ship because it has the maneuvers printed out for that particular ship. I was just suggesting that if they decide to stick on rules for a new maneuver, they may do it there since it will probably not be more than a paragraph. They don't really have to change their packaging process at all.

But why should they? When the card method has been shown to be their preferred method.

But why should they? When the card method has been shown to be their preferred method.

Because they can? Because it might save them some money since it looks like the Defender will be a slightly bigger model? Maybe because they might not deem an a card necessary since the maneuver will be unique to the defender just like the Lambda 0 move?

Ultimately, only FFG would know that answer but they've done it multiple times before so there appears to be a distinct possibility.