Rexler: in order to use his ability, you have to focus, not spend it on attack (so you're main attack has to roll well), also not save it for defense, the target can't have shields left, and you take a ~50/50 chance of it pulling an ineffectual crit. Sounds extremely close to saboteur to me (and we know how often that gets used). Granted, if two hits go onto hull (or you hit Chewy), then it could be worth it. I just don't see his ability being used more than once a game.

Unlike Saboteur, it's not costing you 2 points and taking up a valuable crew slot; unlike Saboteur, it doesn't have a 50/50 chance of working; unlike Saboteur, it can apply to multiple damage cards; unlike Saboteur, the action you take is flexible (you can spend your focus token to modify your roll, spend it to change hits to crits, or keep it for defense).

Obviously his usefulness is bounded by the general usefulness of crit-fishing, but it's the best crit-fishing ability in the game by a long shot.

Vessery: thankfully not as bad as Rexler. However, you have to have another ship TL the same target Vessery is going to attack, and ideally one with a PS of 6 or less since usually you want to use your TL on the attack. Although that doesn't sound as hard, you still have to have other ships that can TL. Which is either a firespray (pretty much a 3 ship list), a bomber (which has its own problems with getting TL reliably against high PS), or the shuttle (probably the best bet with say weapons engineer, but can't joust which is what the Defender is doing). Thankfully, the wording allows you to spend the TL to immediately re-roll your current attack.

So the requirement to get a full extra action out of Vessery, every round, with no stress, is that you include a ship on PS1-6 with the target lock ability. That means a Firespray, Defender, Bomber, Lambda (potentially with the ST-321 title, which completely eliminates PS/TL issues), TIE Advanced (yeah, I know), TIE Fighter + Targeting Computer, or TIE Interceptor + Targeting Computer.

I don't see that as a huge limitation.

I suppose you're right Vorpal, I just keep seeing the price tag on these guys, and needing the synergy to make them work well...the cost is starting to make my head hurt >_<

Outmaneuver and Predator are both nice cards for Vader and also Mareek.

Vader especially, nice reroll against pesky rebels with a focus and an action left or one less agi die on your opponent, which makes you 2 v 1 on X-Wings and 2 v 0 on B-Wings.

I am liking those odds with Mr. Vaders ability to move :-)

Outmaneuver and Predator both are going to make the new, double EPT A-wings nasty.

Not that I think it would be the most effective squad, but:

5x Green squad + refit + predator

would fire like a howl swarm.

Disgruntled, on 09 Apr 2014 - 11:51 AM, said:

Or 70% of a Howl swarm, at least.

True, but on the plus side it doesn't lost it's offensive buff for everyone when a ship dies.

Indeed, predator will be good. Not quite power creep or broken, since you need to invest in pilots with EPT slots, lowering overall points, but good. Itll certainly make your ace pilots a bit more meaningful, which can only be a good thing.

It can be put on ships instead of Gunner, which might be nice for the Firespray when you want Kath's crew slot to be used for something else.

Predator on Kath with a rebel captive will be a nice combo. especially against those pesky Blue B's :-)

I suppose you're right Vorpal, I just keep seeing the price tag on these guys, and needing the synergy to make them work well...the cost is starting to make my head hurt >_<

Part of my mind is calculating the costs, while another keeps going "Is this... is this what being a Rebel player feels like?"

Outmaneuver and Predator both are going to make the new, double EPT A-wings nasty.

GSP + Cluster Missiles + Predator = the new hotness.

"Want to see a magic trick? I'm going to make this B-wing disappear!"

I suppose you're right Vorpal, I just keep seeing the price tag on these guys, and needing the synergy to make them work well...the cost is starting to make my head hurt >_<

Part of my mind is calculating the costs, while another keeps going "Is this... is this what being a Rebel player feels like?"

Let's take a look at the new stuff:

Dial

It has nearly a full complement of speed 1, 2 and 3 maneuvers. But most turns are red. The only green maneuvers are straight. Good for jousting but not much else. Most/all existing ships will turn 2 without hesitation. But the defender favors speed 3. That will be a new experience.

Rexler Brath

Seems very powerful. However, he requires a focus token. And he has no way of gaining an second focus token. So the ability only works if he does not use focus for anything else. Like for defense or for getting more hits. Counters not only chewbacca but determination as well.

Colonel Vessery

He needs support which can TL. So no fighters or interceptors. A phantom with FCS and weapons engineer might work wonders. His ability allows rerolls for "discard TL" missiles.

Outmaneuver

Wedge is cheaper. Powerful on everyone. Vader with TL, focus and outmaneuver. How about green squadron with assault missile, PTL and outmaneuver? Expensive, yes, but ...

Predator

Free reroll for all weapons. Does not cost an action and causes no stress. Can replace PTL in several builds. In addition to that, it allows a reroll for "discard TL" missiles or torpedoes. Imagine a proton torpedo with predator (and TL action) without any supporting ships: One or two rerolls, a focus-like ability and no stress. Unlike PTL, predator even works against successful action-denying.

The PS6 ability looks OK, it is a free action but its conditional. The PS8 ability is a little strange, I am not sold on it. You are generally going to be spending your [edit] focus when you perform the attack, to get more hits. With 3 dice you only have a 42.2% chance of rolling zero eyeballs. When rolling 4 dice that decreases to 31.6%. Ah, if only the Imperials had Kyle Katarn....

That's where the new shiny Predator card comes in. It lets you reroll the dice to free up the token to turn the hits face-up.

Keroko is on the money here: Predator is the equivalent of TL 84% of the time with 3 dice, and 74% of the time with 4 dice.

But moreover, I think you're burying the lede with that math. Even attacking with naked dice--which, I'd argue, any good Brath list will go out of its way to prevent--his ability means that with 3 dice you have a 42.2% chance of turning every hit result into a crit. That's going to be really, really nasty against Large ships (including Chewie, as noted upthread), due to those nice long hull tracks, and it's potentially devastating against something like a TIE Fighter. And it's not going to help with your first shot against a B-wing, but your second or third shot is going to suck for the poor guy. (Heh, heh.)

Provided he isn't facing off against ships the flip those Crits back down. Given that X-wings, Y-wings, E-wings all have astromech slots. They can pile in the Astromech that flips faceup damage cards back down at the end phase. Chewie also ignores those effects, because of his ability. Which means even if you do flip it up? Chewie flips it back down, regardless. (At least I think, if flipping a damage card up counts as being "Dealt" a card then yes. FAQ will need to clear that up I think. I could be wrong about it..depends on wording.)

To further buff this, if you take Janson then his ability comes into play. So long as he shoots first, he can strip that focus away. Completely nullifying Rexlar's ability. Which means you just have to rely on his shooting, and that is alot of wasted points if you strip away his ability.

The PS6 ability looks OK, it is a free action but its conditional. The PS8 ability is a little strange, I am not sold on it. You are generally going to be spending your [edit] focus when you perform the attack, to get more hits. With 3 dice you only have a 42.2% chance of rolling zero eyeballs. When rolling 4 dice that decreases to 31.6%. Ah, if only the Imperials had Kyle Katarn....

That's where the new shiny Predator card comes in. It lets you reroll the dice to free up the token to turn the hits face-up.

Keroko is on the money here: Predator is the equivalent of TL 84% of the time with 3 dice, and 74% of the time with 4 dice.

But moreover, I think you're burying the lede with that math. Even attacking with naked dice--which, I'd argue, any good Brath list will go out of its way to prevent--his ability means that with 3 dice you have a 42.2% chance of turning every hit result into a crit. That's going to be really, really nasty against Large ships (including Chewie, as noted upthread), due to those nice long hull tracks, and it's potentially devastating against something like a TIE Fighter. And it's not going to help with your first shot against a B-wing, but your second or third shot is going to suck for the poor guy. (Heh, heh.)

Provided he isn't facing off against ships the flip those Crits back down. Given that X-wings, Y-wings, E-wings all have astromech slots. They can pile in the Astromech that flips faceup damage cards back down at the end phase. Chewie also ignores those effects, because of his ability. Which means even if you do flip it up? Chewie flips it back down, regardless.

To further buff this, if you take Janson then his ability comes into play. So long as he shoots first, he can strip that focus away. Completely nullifying Rexlar's ability. Which means you just have to rely on his shooting, and that is alot of wasted points if you strip away his ability.

And the R2 that flips crits is mostly wasted points. Only Y-Wings have enough Hull for it to come up and they have better options.

The PS6 ability looks OK, it is a free action but its conditional. The PS8 ability is a little strange, I am not sold on it. You are generally going to be spending your [edit] focus when you perform the attack, to get more hits. With 3 dice you only have a 42.2% chance of rolling zero eyeballs. When rolling 4 dice that decreases to 31.6%. Ah, if only the Imperials had Kyle Katarn....

That's where the new shiny Predator card comes in. It lets you reroll the dice to free up the token to turn the hits face-up.

Keroko is on the money here: Predator is the equivalent of TL 84% of the time with 3 dice, and 74% of the time with 4 dice.

But moreover, I think you're burying the lede with that math. Even attacking with naked dice--which, I'd argue, any good Brath list will go out of its way to prevent--his ability means that with 3 dice you have a 42.2% chance of turning every hit result into a crit. That's going to be really, really nasty against Large ships (including Chewie, as noted upthread), due to those nice long hull tracks, and it's potentially devastating against something like a TIE Fighter. And it's not going to help with your first shot against a B-wing, but your second or third shot is going to suck for the poor guy. (Heh, heh.)

Provided he isn't facing off against ships the flip those Crits back down. Given that X-wings, Y-wings, E-wings all have astromech slots. They can pile in the Astromech that flips faceup damage cards back down at the end phase. Chewie also ignores those effects, because of his ability. Which means even if you do flip it up? Chewie flips it back down, regardless. (At least I think, if flipping a damage card up counts as being "Dealt" a card then yes. FAQ will need to clear that up I think. I could be wrong about it..depends on wording.)

To further buff this, if you take Janson then his ability comes into play. So long as he shoots first, he can strip that focus away. Completely nullifying Rexlar's ability. Which means you just have to rely on his shooting, and that is alot of wasted points if you strip away his ability.

Fair point, but the astromech only flips one per turn. Brath just has to stay ahead of it.

Provided he isn't facing off against ships the flip those Crits back down. Given that X-wings, Y-wings, E-wings all have astromech slots. They can pile in the Astromech that flips faceup damage cards back down at the end phase.

R5 does not work for all damage cards.

Chewie also ignores those effects, because of his ability. Which means even if you do flip it up? Chewie flips it back down, regardless.

He does not. Both Chewbacca and determination trigger when being dealt a faceup damage card. Rexler triggers after the attack. Face-down cards have been dealt. Now they are flipped up without triggering Chewbacca or determination. Just like saboteur.

They can pile in the Astromech that flips faceup damage cards back down at the end phase.

There's 1 astromech that does that. It can only do it for with the Ship trait, and only 1 card at a time.

Chewie also ignores those effects, because of his ability.

No, he only gets to do that when dealt a face up card. Flipping an existing card doesn't count.

No, evade dice certainly are the problem. Statistically they are awful, at high and low numbers. Yes, if they have focus Outmanuever might be better. Maybe. But them having focus isn't reliable in the least. Predator comes up on something like 75% of attacks at 3 dice. Half of them at two dice, and is made better by focus... It's even more useful against a Tie-Swarm and other low PS lists. Meanwhile Outmanuever is useful in a small number of attacks, can be played against, making it vulnerable to player skill versus just straight dice modification.

I don't think Outmanuever sucks. But Predator is better in most situations. Especially on interceptors and other ships without access to TL. Outmanuever strikes me as best on A-wings and other flankers with TL.

Statistically, green dice are only slightly worse than red dice. The missing "success" result does make a difference, but the game mechanics penalize green dice far more than the actual dice themselves do--in particular, the fact that a defender typically only gets a single action to defend against multiple attackers (who each get an action).

Basically defense dice don't suck; unmodified dice suck. It's an atypical situation to find yourself throwing unmodified attack dice against modified defense dice, but you wouldn't expect it to do much (and it doesn't). But we fairly often see modified attack dice against unmodified defense dice, and we don't see a lot of success happening, so we perceive green dice as unreliable. But what makes it look that way is the game's action economy.

Back on topic: if you want to compare Outmaneuver and Predator directly, that's easy to do. I'll assume each EPT is on a ship with 3 Attack (e.g., Defender or Interceptor) and a Focus token or TL to modify the attack dice; similarly, I'll assume the Defender has PS3+, and has a focus token for defense.

And here's what it looks like for ships without a focus token to spend for defense:

So Outmaneuver is always at least as effective as Predator, and often substantially more effective--when it triggers. Outmaneuver seems likely to trigger less often, but as I noted upthread, it creates tactical forks for your opponent in a way that Predator simply doesn't.

So has the information that dropped on the Defender, and its uprade cards, changed the number of expansions you plan to get at launch (or soon thereafter)?
I might get, in total, four Defender expansions.

They can pile in the Astromech that flips faceup damage cards back down at the end phase.

There's 1 astromech that does that. It can only do it for with the Ship trait, and only 1 card at a time.

Chewie also ignores those effects, because of his ability.

No, he only gets to do that when dealt a face up card. Flipping an existing card doesn't count.

I'll often put an R5 astromech + Hull Upgrade on Y-Wings. For only 4 points total, it makes all those Ship crits very easy to manage and greatly increases the Ys life expectancy.

I'm still waiting for the Epic rules for the final # of Defenders I want. Still happy with the three I'm getting right now.

You know how we talk about ships that are easy to fly, but are hard to master? The TIE Defender is my new example for this. You can ram it into a joust without a thought and walk all over anyone who accepts, but if your opponent tries to dogfight and you aren't ready for it it'll be a rough day.

The dial is really interesting, it definitely helps further the aggressive posture of the ship. I'm not sure how I feel about the red 2-speed turns and total lack of green banks from a fluff perspective, but it's going to be really fun to handle!

And the Elite Pilot Talents! I want to run one or two Black Squadron Pilots with Outmaneuver. Use 3-speed banks or turns to close the distance and then barrel-roll out of arc. Skip the first pass entirely and go straight to the dogfight.

Life is going to get very interesting when Wave 4 comes out...

EDIT: And now that my reasoned response is out of the way...

If the metagame is a chess set on a table, FFG just lit it on fire and flipped it across the room!

For the sake of completeness: R5 works for 19 of 33 damage cards.

R5 does not work:

8 pilot cards

6 cards which are flipped down immediately

R5 works:

8 cards which may get flipped down via an action. R5 saves one or more actions.

4 cards which reduce maneuverability (red turns or risk damage on red maneuvers). You may not care about these damage cards, especially if you have a turret.

7 direct hits

Yeah, ld forgotten that Failsafe was a mod. Not sure why the evade token.

Could be that the un revealed pilot cards has an ability that might grant one?

The unrevealed card isn't a named pilot so no pilot ability there.

Not 100% true there.. it may have an EPT slot..

True, but that wouldn't explain the evade, would it?

No it wouldn't, but I was responding to the idea that just because it is an unnamed pilot, it doesn't mean it won't have an EPT. That's all

No, he said being generic it would not have a pilot ability. EPTs are something else entirely.

I was really hoping they would spoil the Onyx Squadron pilot. I would really like to know its cost and whether it can take an EPT upgrade.

other than that I guess I'm set to print a couple dials and start playtesting with my shapeways defender models

Does Rexlers ability apply to the 1 ion cannon damage?

No, evade dice certainly are the problem. Statistically they are awful, at high and low numbers. Yes, if they have focus Outmanuever might be better. Maybe. But them having focus isn't reliable in the least. Predator comes up on something like 75% of attacks at 3 dice. Half of them at two dice, and is made better by focus... It's even more useful against a Tie-Swarm and other low PS lists. Meanwhile Outmanuever is useful in a small number of attacks, can be played against, making it vulnerable to player skill versus just straight dice modification.I don't think Outmanuever sucks. But Predator is better in most situations. Especially on interceptors and other ships without access to TL. Outmanuever strikes me as best on A-wings and other flankers with TL.

Statistically, green dice are only slightly worse than red dice. The missing "success" result does make a difference, but the game mechanics penalize green dice far more than the actual dice themselves do--in particular, the fact that a defender typically only gets a single action to defend against multiple attackers (who each get an action). Basically defense dice don't suck; unmodified dice suck. It's an atypical situation to find yourself throwing unmodified attack dice against modified defense dice, but you wouldn't expect it to do much (and it doesn't). But we fairly often see modified attack dice against unmodified defense dice, and we don't see a lot of success happening, so we perceive green dice as unreliable. But what makes it look that way is the game's action economy. Back on topic: if you want to compare Outmaneuver and Predator directly, that's easy to do. I'll assume each EPT is on a ship with 3 Attack (e.g., Defender or Interceptor) and a Focus token or TL to modify the attack dice; similarly, I'll assume the Defender has PS3+, and has a focus token for defense. And here's what it looks like for ships without a focus token to spend for defense: So Outmaneuver is always at least as effective as Predator, and often substantially more effective--when it triggers. Outmaneuver seems likely to trigger less often, but as I noted upthread, it creates tactical forks for your opponent in a way that Predator simply doesn't.

Beyond that I hit modified defense ships with unmodded attacks ALL the time. But even modded defense dice never seem to pan out. Statistically there is a huge difference between 3/8ths and 1/2. Yes, cutting a defense dice when they have a focus is better. But reliability of use is king, and Outmanuever requires a manueverable ship with the ability to reroll dice to come anywhere near as effective as Predator, which is great on every ship in this game. There are... Two of those. A-Wings and the Defender. Maybe the Firespray. Maybe.