I dont think turret weapons make us dumb,

but they take away a lot of what this game is about, imho.

A build with 2 YT-1300 & Gunner makes a lot of Empire-Builds just useless. For the rebel player it comes down to winning by lucky rolls and not tactics, wheres the empire player can't use the usual (so-called) advantages of his ships.

What good are barrel-rolls or push-actions or flanking against a turret? At least the blaster & ion turret only have a range of 2, but the YT has a range of 3. Thats ridiculous.

I have flown builds with 3 of those freighters and I tell you, its no fun for the empire player. You can just waltz right in an pick off ship after ship. You don't have to care about maneuvering or positioning at all.

Just my .02$

It's a great ship to get people interested with. People discussing the fact it's a crutch and dowsn't teach skill are arguing that the best way to teach someone to swim is to kick them off the cruise ship three miles off the coast. The Falcon teaches the game rules without being frustrating, and has a whole lot of cool factor to go with it. Once players are familiar with actions, turn order, avoiding asteroids, and the like moving them to a more advanced setup(maybe three games in) will help garner their interest and makes for a great beginners course.

The X-wing and TIE fighter are the starter set. They're what FFG themselves think are good ones to start on. The deep end would be the handing them a whole rebel deck full of HWKs and Y-wings and saying "build." The Falcon does not teach the game rules because at a beginner level maneuvering doesn't matter to it. If you want to teach someone how to just not hit things give them a single X-wing and an asteroid field.

I reiterate that the Falcon isn't bad and it is beginner friendly, but it's beginner friendly in the same way you choosing their moves is beginner friendly: they won't learn. That, and the gambling on maneuvers is half the fun of the game. The Falcon takes that away. If the Falcon player is new he's likely to get bored. If the Imperial player is new they'll also get bored as their TIEs go boom, and they won't learn a thing about TIEs and barrel rolls.

X-wing is not difficult at Starter level. There's a reason the starter is the X-wing and the TIE fighter. Obsidian Pilot, Rookie Pilot and Academy Pilot are your entry ships, not the Falcon.

The main reason most people recommend the YT-1300, is because with 2 core sets, and the YT you have everything you need to fly a good list. Plus the YT is one of the most iconic ships in the SW universe.

Ion turrets are nice, but they're hardly a crutch, because it's hard to win games doing 1 point of damage per attack

The YT in the right build can do a ton of damage, but you still need to land hits with the X's so it's not like you can park you YT in the middle of the board and say "I win."

It's a great ship to get people interested with. People discussing the fact it's a crutch and dowsn't teach skill are arguing that the best way to teach someone to swim is to kick them off the cruise ship three miles off the coast. The Falcon teaches the game rules without being frustrating, and has a whole lot of cool factor to go with it. Once players are familiar with actions, turn order, avoiding asteroids, and the like moving them to a more advanced setup(maybe three games in) will help garner their interest and makes for a great beginners course.

The X-wing and TIE fighter are the starter set. They're what FFG themselves think are good ones to start on. The deep end would be the handing them a whole rebel deck full of HWKs and Y-wings and saying "build." The Falcon does not teach the game rules because at a beginner level maneuvering doesn't matter to it. If you want to teach someone how to just not hit things give them a single X-wing and an asteroid field.

I reiterate that the Falcon isn't bad and it is beginner friendly, but it's beginner friendly in the same way you choosing their moves is beginner friendly: they won't learn. That, and the gambling on maneuvers is half the fun of the game. The Falcon takes that away. If the Falcon player is new he's likely to get bored. If the Imperial player is new they'll also get bored as their TIEs go boom, and they won't learn a thing about TIEs and barrel rolls.

X-wing is not difficult at Starter level. There's a reason the starter is the X-wing and the TIE fighter. Obsidian Pilot, Rookie Pilot and Academy Pilot are your entry ships, not the Falcon.

Your experience differs wildly from mine then. I stand by my point that stripping out one of the game's main mechanics and the part of the game that actually involves player decision rather than random number generation (firing arcs and maneuvering) is not a good way to teach it.

One of the things I think we can all agree on: when the casual gamer walks by and sees this really cool game being played one of the first things they can identify with is an iconic ship such as the Falcon.

In that respect, I think it is fine to use it in maybe a beginner game with an added x wing In order to get them hooked.

After all we want them to buy into this game and spend their money on ships and mats, not buying yucky expensive jewelry or paying the bills.

But some where along the line (maybe during the second or third demo game) it would probably help to let them know that not all ships have turrets and perhaps show them other ships or demo just the starter contents.

The falcon sitting on a table off to the side does get alot of conversation started, I use it to pique their curiosity.

Then I get them hooked......and send them up to the counter at my LGS and watch their credit card melt .

...

The falcon sitting on a table off to the side does get alot of conversation started, I use it to pique their curiosity.

Then I get them hooked......and send them up to the counter at my LGS and watch their credit card melt .

You're evil my friend yes... yes... let hobby flow through you...

I think the Falcon it's a good intro ship, probably the most visually appealing of all (best hook to bite), for all the reasons mentioned on previous posts, it lets a new player experience a glimpse of the game mechanics just as well as any other ship, but it is up to the person running the intro-game to stress on the importance of arc of fire and whatever other game basic aspect, all can be teach with the Falcon just as easy.

Now if a new player comes to me and asks for help to run his/hers first full games most likely I would use the core-set ships, then again if it is the Falcon what they want to use, I'd be more than happy to adjust and do my best to make an enjoying game and lend a hand with the learning curve.

Back to the OP's topic....

Turrets are a part of this game, and a balanced part at that. There are pros and cons to them. For normal sized ships, they only have a R 1-2 range. Blaster turrets require a focus to use and action denial is a big part of playing the Empire. Only the YT has a primary turret with R 1-3. Unless you spend half your points, it is only rolling 2 attack die. To add to this, the YT is a big ship and running into things is pretty easy to do. If the opposing player clusters his asteroids in the center and then forces the action around them, the YT running into them becomes a real danger and ships hiding behind them get an extra defense die. To boot, the YT is almost impossible to miss! It only rolls one defense die and the base is huge.

Do turrets make players who use them dumb? No. It is a different skill and not as easy as just flying into the middle of things. Furthermore, your YT taking 6+ points of damage a round is a very real danger.

I couldn't agree more. It's a different skill set, but one that is no less useful. If I go by the logic some people are using, small ships make us dumb because they're easier to avoid asteroids with.

Boost is dumb because it let's you move more.

Barrel rolls are dumb because they let you get out of firing arcs.

Shields are dumb because they let you avoid crits.

Agility dice are dumb because they let you defend against attacks instead of just avoid firing arcs.

And the list goes on, ad nauseum.

Yes, but none of those significantly harm ship playability. Turrets alter the game significantly more than Boost and Barrel Roll Combined. In fact they counter most uses of Boost and barrel roll.

That's why people see them in a different light than your list. But no, they don't make people dumb. They just make High cost ships based on manuevering to avoid firing arcs less playable.(Whether they balance said ships or imbalance them is a whole nother question.)

I said a bit before but will just add: "How much fun is LOSING because you can't play this STUPID GAME with all of it's complex maneuvers and firing arcs?" Unless the new player is extremely motivated to learn the game going down to what may seem like a simple error can turn someone off the game forever.

If you have two new players with almost experience between them start playing you can do just fine putting one X-Wing against a pair of TIE Fighters. Most likely both sides will make mistakes and can learn from them before they just turn things around and go again. Unfortunately, not all people are going to be learning the game this way.

The more likely scenario is you have an experienced player trying to teach the newbie how to play. Here the experienced player is going to naturally suck at the game, really dumb down his play, or over coach the newbie to make an experience anything like two green players first going at it. Now if you give that new player a ship that "simplifies" the rules but is still within the rules then the experienced player need not hold back, at least not as much, to provide a good game experience.

Give the newbie Chewbacca with a Gunner and a little something more and then fly Howlrunner, Dark Curse, and Backstabber and you can still have a good fight while teaching the newbie about some of the important things concerning the game. I guess the classic "something more" had been Marksmanship but give Chewie Determination and Anti-Pursuit lasers and you help teach the value of blocking and importance of card types.