Agreed. Although god knows why. They can make buckets more money selling 8 TIE LNs to each consumer... But I agree with that move. Nobody ever dreamed of being a PS1 Academy Pilot - many dreamed if being Luke or Wedge, however.

May not be the case, since your upgrade cards are tied to specific ships, and you will need to get those ships if you want to use them.

take the case of Wedge R2 PTL EngineUpgrade. that's Xwing / Ywing / Awing / Falcon just to make 1 ship

That's still cheaper than one core set and 6 TIE expansions for none of the cards , just the ships.

Although, I would be interested to see if they've had a dip in sales driving this meta back toward fewer, better ships or if it's an idealistic piece once they observed the meta of 'quantity over quality'. I agree with the shift regardless because I hate loosing Soontir or wedge to a blue squadron or some academy pilot that invariably has a red shirt underneath his flight suit.

I didn't see this mentioned explicitly (or may have missed it), but am I right in thinking Farlander could use Opportunist, take the stress token, roll the extra die, then remove that same stress token to activate his ability? Both effects specify "when attacking," but one clearly affects the Modify Dice step, so it seems like the timing would work. Or do "when attacking" effects have to be announced and used at the same time?

I didn't see this mentioned explicitly (or may have missed it), but am I right in thinking Farlander could use Opportunist, take the stress token, roll the extra die, then remove that same stress token to activate his ability? Both effects specify "when attacking," but one clearly affects the Modify Dice step, so it seems like the timing would work. Or do "when attacking" effects have to be announced and used at the same time?

That's how it works. Keyan can use the stress token from opportunist to modify the very same attack roll that originated it.

And that's precisely the combo the OP was referring to:

Keyan takes a target lock on its target. Since Wes Janson and Keyan have the same Pilot Skill, Wes fires first and strips Keyan's target from evade/focus tokens. Then, Keyan opens fire with Heavy Laser Cannon, using opportunist to get a 5 dice attack shot with Target Lock to reroll blanks and burning its stress to convert all eyes to hits.

I love slow news weeks on FFG. It let's debates like this burn awhile . My original question was whether or not his ability would receive the same rule treatment a Garvin. I personally feel he's a really good pilot, broken or overpowered No. Naked with no upgrades he's 29 points with just 1 upgrade he holds a third of you squads points. That does not matter so much to me. The argument for the stress is not as good as a focus is a little silly. When you compare Sontir and Farlander the the interceptor really needs that focus on defense. 3 hull points means you can't afford a bad defense roll. B-Wings have a little more meat on their bones to with stand a few hits.

Thanks, I misread that first post and thought Janson was somehow responsible for the effect working.

Providing "nothing besides stress removal" is a DRAWBACK?

Yes, when you're deliberately putting stress tokens on Farlander so that you can spend them as "focus" tokens. Farlander's ability encourages you to take stress even when you don't need it. For example, even though a 2-turn would get you where you need to be you make a 1-turn to gain a stress token. Removing that stress token without modifying any dice is pointless because you only had it in the first place because you wanted to modify dice.

Now, obviously clearing stress is valuable if you needed to take that stress anyway, even without the dice modification, but let's not pretend that Farlander's "focus" is as good as a real focus token. Being useless on defense is a very real drawback compared to, say, Fel's ability to turn stress into a real focus token.

Yeah, still there. Now we're into the "WTF are you smoking" part of this discussion.

Too bad you seem to have skipped over the "paying attention to context" part of this discussion. The context here is comparing Farlander to Fel: Fel gets a true focus token but has to start the next turn stressed, Farlander starts the next turn stress-free but can only use his bonus "focus" on offense. This makes Fel's bonus focus clearly more valuable than Farlander's. That makes the question (at least in terms of which pilot ability is better) whether or not Farlander's ability to start the next turn stress-free makes up for getting a weaker bonus "focus".

Okay first, you don't have to take a stress every turn with Farlander. If you want to do so, you must have Adv Sensor to really take advantage of it so you can barrel roll or target lock prior to the move. Other than that, just do your white move and focus after, no need to be stupid.

But the free focus is not the big bonus from this ability, it's the stress removal part. Both are very nice ability that I would be happy to get on a ship, but with Keyan, we get both at the same time. You are actually rewarded for taking a stress token without any flaw, you just need a target. This means you can effectively do a red maneuver every turn. You effectively remove the drawback of the B-Wing AND get a bonus out of it.

Now, for comparing Fel and Keyan ability, you can't really be serious in wondering which one is better. Just do a little exercise. First, take two B-Wing and give Fel's ability to one and then Keyan ability to the second. Tell me which one you would take. Now, do the same with the Interceptors and tell me which one you would take. Just Imagine Fel with Keyan ability: You move, take a focus and evade, or barrel roll or whatever combination fit your game at this point, get stress. Combat phase you attack and get rid of your stress. Next turn you have access to ALL your dial and still can do your 3 actions thing. You are not limited to your straight and 2 moves. THAT is huge! There is really no question here. Fel's ability is currently one of the best in this game, if not the best. Keyan's ability is just better. At least Fel is in a ship that has a hard time being competitive, not one of the most used ship in the game.

the ability should be a consolation prize, not a perfect replacement for Focusing.

It isn't a perfect replacement for focusing because it doesn't work on defense. You're going to be kind of disappointed when you "focus" an attack with zero eyeballs to clear your stress token and then roll an eyeball on defense.

I like that you're really keeping your head in here and not getting pissy with everyone while still defending your view.

Really though, my main beef with the ability is that it gives players an incentive to take on stressful maneuvers like the kiogran turn. The whole point of something like that is that you're supposed to trade off your action for getting a really good shot on someone without really having to juke or maneuver for it. You trade attack ability for potential. With this, there's absolutely no reason not to, especially if you have a target lock from a previous round. (this is actually the reason why i'm fairly upset that the vaunted 'never before seen maneuver' was a white kiogran, so I don't feel i'm being biased against rebels here).

the ability should be a consolation prize, not a perfect replacement for Focusing.

It isn't a perfect replacement for focusing because it doesn't work on defense. You're going to be kind of disappointed when you "focus" an attack with zero eyeballs to clear your stress token and then roll an eyeball on defense.

I like that you're really keeping your head in here and not getting pissy with everyone while still defending your view.

Really though, my main beef with the ability is that it gives players an incentive to take on stressful maneuvers like the kiogran turn. The whole point of something like that is that you're supposed to trade off your action for getting a really good shot on someone without really having to juke or maneuver for it. You trade attack ability for potential. With this, there's absolutely no reason not to, especially if you have a target lock from a previous round. (this is actually the reason why i'm fairly upset that the vaunted 'never before seen maneuver' was a white kiogran, so I don't feel i'm being biased against rebels here).

Honestly I think you're looking at this sideways. You're seeing the ability to clear stress as amazing. It is. Somewhat... But compared to say, Wedge's ability, it's pretty balanced. He can only use it if he's stressed. Meaning he needs Advanced Sensors to take full advantage of it with red manuevers or PTL to take advantage of it reliably when he doesn't want to use a red manuever. That's an extra 6 points to keep up with roughly, Wedge's damage potential on an ability that works every turn...

And moreover, you're paying 35+ points to get full use of Keyan's ability at PS7, rather than Wedge's ability at PS9 (or Fel's, for that matter). So the gap between Keyan and other top pilots is actually even a bit bigger than you've stated here.

All of this solidifies my conviction on the interpretation that you MUST roll eyes to burn his stress. He would be silly otherwise. His ability encourages you to take stressful actions (I agree that advanced sensors are a must), but if you don't roll what you need, you just went out of your way to stress-lock your own ship. It's a good balancing point, IMO.

All of this solidifies my conviction on the interpretation that you MUST roll eyes to burn his stress. He would be silly otherwise. His ability encourages you to take stressful actions (I agree that advanced sensors are a must), but if you don't roll what you need, you just went out of your way to stress-lock your own ship. It's a good balancing point, IMO.

There is no rule or ruling precedent that says you have to gain a benefit from activating any ability. Exactly the opposite.

Silly or not, "it would be silly" is not an argument which is founded in the rules. By every ruling we currently having, Farlander can spend his stress at will on any attack, even a Blinded Pilot.

The relevant rules only ever mention Focus, Evade, and TL tokens, not just tokens in general. Assuming they meant "oh and also stress tokens, but we forgot to say that" is silly.

The relevant rules only ever mention Focus, Evade, and TL tokens, not just tokens in general. Assuming they meant "oh and also stress tokens, but we forgot to say that" is silly.

That doesn't change the fact Garven's precedent is pretty strong. As the rules function now, without a FAQ entry for Farlander, the best option is to let him spend it, regardless of eyeballs. Any other method makes him functionally, pretty crappy. He's got under a 50% chance of having an eyeball come up on any range 2-3 attack as is.

The relevant rules only ever mention Focus, Evade, and TL tokens, not just tokens in general. Assuming they meant "oh and also stress tokens, but we forgot to say that" is silly.

Because it's the first time that stress token can be use to modify a dice roll. Before Keyan, only Focus, Evade and TL could do it. Same would go if instead of using a stress token to activate his ability, it would be a ion token. When they created the game, it wasn't meant as a beneficial token, only an hindrance. Now it can be.

So the best thing to do is make an assumption, and then use that assumption to scream "HE'S OP!!!"

No thanks. I'll play what the rule literally says.

The relevant rules only ever mention Focus, Evade, and TL tokens, not just tokens in general. Assuming they meant "oh and also stress tokens, but we forgot to say that" is silly.

So, we have a mere three examples of cases where you can spend something or activate an ability even if there's nothing specifically for it to act on.

Are there any counterexamples? Are there any cases in the rules where you can't spend a token of some form when you have the opportunity unless there's a result for it to change?

I can't think of any. So literally every example we have of cases where you can change a result or modify dice, you can do it even if you don't actually change or reroll a die. Every single one.

If you want to argue that Farlander can't spend his stress unless there are eyeballs, you're welcome to, but you're going to need some actual rules to back that up because you're going against a whole lot of precedent there.

So the best thing to do is make an assumption, and then use that assumption to scream "HE'S OP!!!"

No thanks. I'll play what the rule literally says.

All of this solidifies my conviction on the interpretation that you MUST roll eyes to burn his stress. He would be silly otherwise. His ability encourages you to take stressful actions (I agree that advanced sensors are a must), but if you don't roll what you need, you just went out of your way to stress-lock your own ship. It's a good balancing point, IMO.

Did you read my earlier post? There is absolutely zero way to interpret his card text that way. Whether or not it is overpowered is a different issue entirely, but just because you don't like it, doesn't change reality.

Put another way, his text reads:

When attacking, you may meet this [condition], to cause this [effect].

[condition] = remove 1 stress token

[effect] = change all your eyeballs into hits.

The effect has absolutely no bearing on the condition. If the condition can trigger, then you resolve the effect. The effect is to change all of the eyes to hits. If the number of eyes is zero then the effect is to change zero dice.

What you are suggesting is:

1) resolve [condition]

2) check to see if [effect] changes anything.

3) if [effect] doesn't change anything, then go back to step 1 and un-do resolving the condition.

This "interpretation" or "conviction" makes absolutely no sense. This is an open and shut case. Keyan can remove 1 stress token when attacking. Period. End of discussion. Anything resolved during the [effect] stage is after the [condition] has resolved, so the stress is already gone. In fact, the FFG commentary on his ability even says that he can perform a K-turn every round.

Now, is it overpowered? Maybe. But that's a completely different issue.

Edit:

Read my first post on page 3. The literal reading of the rule states that he can remove 1 stress regardless of how many eyeballs he rolled. He could remove 1 stress even if he rolled zero dice from blinded pilot.

So the best thing to do is make an assumption, and then use that assumption to scream "HE'S OP!!!"

No thanks. I'll play what the rule literally says.

"...may...to change all {Eyeball} results on the attack dice to {Hit} results."

"...may...to change all of your {Eyeball} results to {Hit} results."

One of those is the rulebook entry for focus tokens. One of them is Farlander's ability. Can you tell which is which without looking them up? And even if you can, can you explain why you think there's a difference in how we should play what is effectively identical wording?

Overpowered? No. I don't think so.

Overshadowing other pilots? Yes. And that's what irritates me.

What you are suggesting is:

1) resolve [condition]

2) check to see if [effect] changes anything.

3) if [effect] doesn't change anything, then go back to step 1 and un-do resolving the condition.

This "interpretation" or "conviction" makes absolutely no sense.

To be fair to Sekec, this is not an uncommon rule in CCG-style rules. The recent Star Wars LCG FAQ added clarifications to require exactly this - you can't pay a cost just to pay a cost, you have to be able to complete at least some part of the result.

And that's actually a fine and good rule - but it very explicitly doesn't exist in X-wing. We have had multiple rulings, every one of them consistent, that you CAN pay a cost to activate an ability even if you're doing zero of whatever you're allowed to do.

Fair enough. You guys want to panic, feel free.

I'm gonna play it as it reads. I'm 100% positive FFG will FAQ it the opposite way. I'd rather not make every victory I get when using him from now till then a hollow one.

Fair enough. You guys want to panic, feel free.

I'm gonna play it as it reads. I'm 100% positive FFG will FAQ it the opposite way. I'd rather not make every victory I get when using him from now till then a hollow one.

Translation: I have absolutely no rules to back up my view, much less seriously challenge every other precedent for similar situations and wording in the game, but I'm going to claim victory anyway and you'll all be sorry when dad gets home!

I'm 100% positive FFG will FAQ it the opposite way.

Well that's bold confidence! Are you an insider at FFG?

No need to panic, I already called the Spanish Inquisition; they're on their way.