It gets even worse when you consider that the Bwing will get more upgrades soon, like the crew slot. Also, Keyan has access to an EPT slot.

Sure, but those upgrades don't come for free. With advanced sensors he's already 32 points, add a major EPT and crew and you're looking at a 40 point ship with only 8 HP and one green die. It will do awesome things while it lasts, but it dies just as fast as a 22 point basic B-wing.

Focus fire on him COULD be done, if there werent someone called Biggs around. Or someone by the name of Wedge either.

Ok, and now you're committed to a 3-ship list. Remember all the usual drawbacks to that kind of list? And if you're keeping him in Biggs formation you aren't making use of his red maneuvers.

I don't think many small ships can survive that.

No, but most small ships also don't cost over 35 points. I'm perfectly content to let you spend a 35 point B-wing and a 30-ish point support X-wing to one-shot my rookie pilot, after which the B-wing dies to focused fire.

There are also other irritating naunces, such as Keyan + APTs + engine upgrade + PTL (+ optional advanced sensors). Watch him move, boost + TL into your range 1, unload with a APT of 5 hits, then rinse and repeat

Have you bothered to add up the point costs of that? Let's do it: 42 for PTL + engine + one APT shot, 48 for two APT shots, and an absolutely suicidal 51 points for two APT shots and advanced sensors. This is not even close to a relevant setup for competitive play.

^^^^He could be just trying it for fun^^^^^^^ it's not all about winning you know.

^^^^He could be just trying it for fun^^^^^^^ it's not all about winning you know.

If you ain't first, you're last.

^^^^He could be just trying it for fun^^^^^^^ it's not all about winning you know.

If you ain't first, you're last.

Turna out his dad was wrong about that. Heck, sometimes there's even fourth!

Seeing as how there's going to be a million billion ways to create stress with the releases of the new stuff from the Transport and others and how you can take advantage of enemy stress, I don't see him as terribly problematic to fight against. Why? Because we're going to see Flechette Torpedoes appearing left right and center in an absolutely overwhelming amount of lists, due to their low cost and ease of access (especially for the Rebellion). Is his ability really powerful? Yes, but it's not without flaws or that his ship is infallible (not to mention it's still possible to roll blanks on red dice, even with Target Locks spent). Shoot, my new Rogue Squadron list (with Wedge, Wes and Hobbie) is practically waiting to eat him alive when I see him on the board.

That being said, I'll be exploiting him too. :3

Ran some tests with Keyan, on the table as well as just dice simulations. This list in general was quite powerful, it's the list from my earlier post:

Wedge Antilles

+Wingman

+R2-D2

Wes Janson

+Veteran Instincts

+R3-A2

Keyan Farlander

+Opportunist

Only list I played against it that beat it was a TIE swarm, which honestly didn't surprise me.

Also tested this list. This list didn't perform as well overall, but Keyan was surprisingly lethal. Across a few tests, It lead to instant death for 2 undamaged x-wings, heavy damage (3+) for two others. I played against mostly the same opponent, so by the second match he began saving his focus for defense rolls, so his ships wouldn't do as much damage but would last longer against Keyan's beatstick.

Wes Janson

Hobbie Klivian

+R2-D6

+Opportunist

Keyan Farlander

++Opportunist

++Heavy Laser Cannon

5 Die Focused and Target Locked attacks are quite punishing, and Keyan can do it near-endlessly. It's like having an (expensive) unlimited Advanced Torpedo, and you only have to target lock to set it up.

I have posted on this before, but I am in the class that thinks you need eyeballs to active Keyan's ability and that the wording does not allow the leap to the way TL, Focus and Evade tokens are allowed to be used. For that leap, the word "token" would replace TL, Focus and Evade in the FAQ.

Until stated otherwise by an FAQ, we should take the literal wording of the card as true and not make assumptions that it works like an unrelated FAQ.

The wording clearly requires "eyeballs" to remove the stress token right now.

The card says "remove" 1 stress, not spend or use. Garvin says "spend" not remove. I think that the language is significant.

If I had to judge this situation at a tourney without an FAQ ruling to go off of, I would say that they would be functionally the same effect in-game. However, given the different wording between the two, I would not be surprised if FFG states that they are in fact different mechanics and you must have [focus] results to change in order to trigger the stress removal. Although admittedly, that is a pretty fine line.

I hope that they used that wording because stress is a negative effect and you don't "spend" negative effects in this game. If they make the effect contingent upon the wording of "remove" or "spend" this game is going to get awful rules lawyer-y awful quick.

Honestly, I'm coming around to see it as downright disgusting and am not a huge fan of its implementation either way, considering he can have advanced sensors and still have another action. One of the dials with most red in the game, on a very maneuverable ship - and that gets turned into asset? His reds become better maneuver choices than his greens! I doubt it's game breaking and I really like FFG's work but I really don't like the design choice here.

Sure, but as was pointed out when the card was first previewed he's a ticking clock. With only one agility you aren't dodging anything, so it's a question of when he dies, not if. And on a ship that costs 30+ points that's a pretty major drawback.

The cost is a drawback, I agree, but I'm not sure it's enough of one. Even if it were, that still doesn't persuade me that it would be good game design.

My future vision revealed that Keyan is still 1 agility (yes, 1) ship. Turns out they still PDQ to focused fire, even in the YEAR 2000. The YEAR 2000, Conan? Yes, Andy, the YEAR 2000.

This. ^^^

Keyan dies hard to focused fire. He's good, sure, but not ungodly so.

I'm sorry, but the notion of responding to everything that's challenging in a vacuum with "focus fire!" is becoming trite. Everyone knows this is not only a good tactic to use against your most dangerous target, it's a good tactic period. (Of course, the B-Wing is the least likely small ship to be taken out in a single round by such a tactic.)

If things were that simple, no expensive pilot with a good ability would be worth it. Not to mention that anyone who is a decent player will have strategies or counters in mind to such a tactic, whether it is Biggs or having equally nasty targets, etc...

Ion cannons wreak B-wings. A B-wing that really likes stress is going to spend a lot of time drifting.

It gets even worse when you consider that the Bwing will get more upgrades soon, like the crew slot. Also, Keyan has access to an EPT slot.

Sure, but those upgrades don't come for free. With advanced sensors he's already 32 points, add a major EPT and crew and you're looking at a 40 point ship with only 8 HP and one green die. It will do awesome things while it lasts, but it dies just as fast as a 22 point basic B-wing.

Focus fire on him COULD be done, if there werent someone called Biggs around. Or someone by the name of Wedge either.

Ok, and now you're committed to a 3-ship list. Remember all the usual drawbacks to that kind of list? And if you're keeping him in Biggs formation you aren't making use of his red maneuvers.

I don't think many small ships can survive that.

No, but most small ships also don't cost over 35 points. I'm perfectly content to let you spend a 35 point B-wing and a 30-ish point support X-wing to one-shot my rookie pilot, after which the B-wing dies to focused fire.

There are also other irritating naunces, such as Keyan + APTs + engine upgrade + PTL (+ optional advanced sensors). Watch him move, boost + TL into your range 1, unload with a APT of 5 hits, then rinse and repeat

Have you bothered to add up the point costs of that? Let's do it: 42 for PTL + engine + one APT shot, 48 for two APT shots, and an absolutely suicidal 51 points for two APT shots and advanced sensors. This is not even close to a relevant setup for competitive play.

Just a quick question: have you played against any time travellers who are using Keyan yet?

My future vision revealed that Keyan is still 1 agility (yes, 1) ship. Turns out they still PDQ to focused fire, even in the YEAR 2000. The YEAR 2000, Conan? Yes, Andy, the YEAR 2000.

This. ^^^

Keyan dies hard to focused fire. He's good, sure, but not ungodly so.

I'm sorry, but the notion of responding to everything that's challenging in a vacuum with "focus fire!" is becoming trite. Everyone knows this is not only a good tactic to use against your most dangerous target, it's a good tactic period. (Of course, the B-Wing is the least likely small ship to be taken out in a single round by such a tactic.)

If things were that simple, no expensive pilot with a good ability would be worth it. Not to mention that anyone who is a decent player will have strategies or counters in mind to such a tactic, whether it is Biggs or having equally nasty targets, etc...

I'm more so responding to the notion that the sky is falling with how good he is and how his opponents will be torn asunder but his ability and mere presence. I understand whenever you play you have to focus on the thing that seems the nastiest and try to kill them first. Sure, a good opponent will try to make that a difficult choice, but ultimately you're just going to have to deal with whatever target can hurt you the worst.

TL;DR He's a good pilot who costs a ton with upgrades and I wouldn't be worried about him at all. Especially in a three ship list.

Just a quick question: have you played against any time travellers who are using Keyan yet?

No, but I've played with him, and the concept here doesn't require much playtesting. He's effectively an advanced sensor B-wing (same red maneuver + focus ability) that doesn't have to do a green maneuver after a red as long as he has a target to shoot at. And he doesn't gain any improvement in durability (and likely loses a bit since you're never going to have defensive focus available), which is the most important factor.

If things were that simple, no expensive pilot with a good ability would be worth it. Not to mention that anyone who is a decent player will have strategies or counters in mind to such a tactic, whether it is Biggs or having equally nasty targets, etc...

But that's missing the point. It's not that "focus fire" magically makes anyone who isn't a base-PS pilot with no upgrades worthless, it's that you have to keep a sense of perspective and realize that most ships die if you shoot at them. This is not an unkillable god of combat, it's a 30-40 point B-wing with better guns. Shoot it and it dies just as fast as any other B-wing.

Now contrast this with Fel, who has a similar ability to turn stress into focus (ending the turn stressed, but with more greens and the ability to use that focus on defense), but also has way better defense. Fel's green dice and maneuverability advantage mean that he can often avoid damage entirely turn after turn, while Farlander is on a very limited clock once you start shooting at him.

The card says "remove" 1 stress, not spend or use. Garvin says "spend" not remove. I think that the language is significant.

No, the language is not significant at all. The reason Garven (and everyone else) can spend focus without having any eyeballs isn't some weird technicality about the focus token, it's the fact that there's an implied "if any" in "change your eyes to hits". This works the same way, until we hear otherwise: you activate the ability, remove the stress token, and turn any eyeballs into hits.

Well now, you'd think it was still Easter with all the egg hunting in this thread.

the issues I have with Keyan is that all this maneuvers are basically white, and when paired with the right upgrades, has extremely high quality attacks, on the level of Han Marksmanship Gunner, whilst still enjoying high PS and 8 hp, in a small point cost package of around a Bounty Hunter. Meaning, yes he may cost in the neighbourhood of 40 odd points, but he will easily take out an equal amount of points too. Sure, you can focus fire on him and he dies like any other Bwing (or any other ship in this game. Heck, other than ionizing into hyperspace, the only other way to kill ships in this game is to shoot it until it dies), but he WILL take out 1 of your ship on the 1st combat round, and take out another of your ship on the 2nd combat round before he dies, because of his high PS. Now, you just lost 2 rookie Xwings for 1 Keyan, and you have 2 soso-equipped ships (named or not) vs his 2 rather well equipped ships, assuming a 4 ship rebel vs a 3 ship Keyan list w/o Biggs. With Imperials it gets even worse, since anything short of a swarm would likely not have the firepower necessary to take Keyan out on the 2nd combat round, nevermind if Biggs is around or not.

Keyan is strong beyond belief, and there are no other comparable effects that are as broken as his in the game, both current or spoiled.

the issues I have with Keyan is that all this maneuvers are basically white

With one important restriction: they're only white if you have a target. Screw up your maneuver and lose your shot and you're dealing with the B-wing's limited greens while desperately trying to turn around to get back into the fight.

and when paired with the right upgrades, has extremely high quality attacks, on the level of Han Marksmanship Gunner

Only if you're willing to pay a huge amount of points and ignore the advantage of Han's 360* turret. And that's only looking at offense. Han is likely to stay on the table to keep using those attacks, especially since he can focus on flying defensively and let the turret do all the work of getting a target to shoot at. Farlander has to face his enemies to shoot anything, leaving him more exposed to return fire, and doesn't have as much HP to take hits on.

but he WILL take out 1 of your ship on the 1st combat round

Are we just pretending that green dice don't exist, and assuming that "focus" means a 100% chance to roll a hit? Even the ridiculously expensive HLC + opportunist setup only gets five attack dice. So even if you roll nothing but hits you're still relying on your opponent not rolling any evades if you want to one-shot a ship, and you can't do it at all against tougher ships like other B-wings.

Keyan is strong beyond belief, and there are no other comparable effects that are as broken as his in the game, both current or spoiled.

Remember a guy named Soontir Fel? You know, the interceptor pilot that turns stress into real focus, not just fake offense-only focus, has lots of green dice + evade tokens to stay alive, and has better movement actions to evade arcs entirely. Oh yeah, and he's even cheaper than Farlander.

But that's missing the point. It's not that "focus fire" magically makes anyone who isn't a base-PS pilot with no upgrades worthless, it's that you have to keep a sense of perspective and realize that most ships die if you shoot at them. This is not an unkillable god of combat, it's a 30-40 point B-wing with better guns. Shoot it and it dies just as fast as any other B-wing.

No, I get the point, and even an ability like Farlander's isn't going to break the game, but that doesn't mean I can't dislike the design choice. For reasons I've already mentioned (I don't like turning a negative consequence into a positive) but also because I think putting one of the best individual abilities in the game on a ship that is currently the most cost effective and popular (B-Wings appeared more in store championship winning list) Not to mention that it is best countered by its own side (rebels, with more access to stress inducement) is a questionable design decision.

Now contrast this with Fel, who has a similar ability to turn stress into focus (ending the turn stressed, but with more greens and the ability to use that focus on defense), but also has way better defense. Fel's green dice and maneuverability advantage mean that he can often avoid damage entirely turn after turn, while Farlander is on a very limited clock once you start shooting at him.

I think this is a very good comparison, but think it, in fact, shows why Farlander's ability is not as well balanced nor as well designed as Fel's. Fel's positive result (focus token) doesn't allow him to discard the stress. Even though he can clear it more easily than anyone else, he's still limited in that next turn, or will not be taking any actions if he goes with a white maneuver. Farlander has his entire palette of maneuver options available to him, including not really having to worry about red ones.

With just advanced sensors he's 32 points to Fel's 30 with PTL, so it is a very good comparison indeed, and I'm willing to be we'll see Farlander in more competitive lists than Fel. For me, if he didn't actually discard the stress, the option might be more balanced.

Another interesting comparison is adrenaline rush which essentially allows a pilot to ignore stress but must be discarded for one point. A Dagger is 24 if you pay one point per PS that gets you to 27 and means that his ability essentially costs 2 points. I think for something built in like this, that is not enough.

No, but most small ships also don't cost over 35 points. I'm perfectly content to let you spend a 35 point B-wing and a 30-ish point support X-wing to one-shot my rookie pilot, after which the B-wing dies to focused fire.

It might, but if, after losing one ship, you can kill a B-Wing with your remaining, you're rolling above average (9-12 dice left?). I think Farlander's offensive power, when part of an elite PS force is going to be tough to keep up with in terms of damage. By the time you get to the point of taking out Farlander, you've likely already lost two ships.

Again, while I don't like it, I don't think it's going to completely throw off game balance and am simply pointing some things out for purposes of discussion.

Remember a guy named Soontir Fel? You know, the interceptor pilot that turns stress into real focus, not just fake offense-only focus, has lots of green dice + evade tokens to stay alive, and has better movement actions to evade arcs entirely. Oh yeah, and he's even cheaper than Farlander.

As I already pointed out, there is a very large difference in this comparison. Fel doesn't TURN stress into focus, he gains a focus and maintains the stress. Farlander gets a bonus AND is allowed to remove the stress (maybe for simply attacking). He's then free to move as normal for the next round. Honestly, I really like the comparison because both are affected by stress, but I don't see how it favors Fel in anyway.

With one important restriction: they're only white if you have a target. Screw up your maneuver and lose your shot and you're dealing with the B-wing's limited greens while desperately trying to turn around to get back into the fight.

Very valid point, and it might be worth trying to avoid Farlander just for that reason, but I don't see it as quite a massive drawback. But, it may get more limited use because of it. Still good pilots are going to be able to use it effectively very often.

one of the best individual abilities in the game on a ship that is currently the most cost effective and popular

But something important to realize here is that generic B-wings are popular, the named pilots are virtually nonexistent (once each in 140 winners according to the store championships results thread) in competitive play. So yes, it's entirely reasonable to give the B-wing a boost, as long as it's in the form of viable unique pilots and not upgrades to the generic ones.

Even though he can clear it more easily than anyone else, he's still limited in that next turn, or will not be taking any actions if he goes with a white maneuver.

On the other hand Fel can always clear his stress as long as he picks a green maneuver (not much of a sacrifice on an interceptor dial), while Farlander is screwed if he misses his target and can't shoot.

Farlander has his entire palette of maneuver options available to him, including not really having to worry about red ones.

But remember that a B-wing's dial is already fairly limited. It's great at knife fighting in a small area, but that's it. The ability to use non-green maneuvers the turn after taking a stress token is mostly used up trying to make up for the interceptor's awesome greens and boost + barrel roll options.

Another interesting comparison is adrenaline rush which essentially allows a pilot to ignore stress but must be discarded for one point. A Dagger is 24 if you pay one point per PS that gets you to 27 and means that his ability essentially costs 2 points. I think for something built in like this, that is not enough.

I don't really see what's so bad here. AR is a one-use ability, but it's an unconditional ability to remove the stress and can be used on any ship. And 2 points for Farlander's ability isn't all that shocking when you look at other pilot abilities: 1 point for Wedge/Luke, 1 point for Fel, 1 point for Vader (arguably the most powerful ability in the game), etc. Farlander's ability only seems cheap compared to the laughably overpriced Ten Numb (3 points).

I think Farlander's offensive power, when part of an elite PS force is going to be tough to keep up with in terms of damage.

Well sure, but that's the whole point of an elite list. You only have three ships, so if you aren't getting above-average damage out of each of them then you're just making stupid choices. And it's not like Farlander is really doing anything impressive offensively compared to Wedge/HLCs/YT-1300s/etc. What makes him amazing is his maneuverability, not his firepower.

Remember a guy named Soontir Fel? You know, the interceptor pilot that turns stress into real focus, not just fake offense-only focus, has lots of green dice + evade tokens to stay alive, and has better movement actions to evade arcs entirely. Oh yeah, and he's even cheaper than Farlander.

As I already pointed out, there is a very large difference in this comparison. Fel doesn't TURN stress into focus, he gains a focus and maintains the stress. Farlander gets a bonus AND is allowed to remove the stress (maybe for simply attacking). He's then free to move as normal for the next round. Honestly, I really like the comparison because both are affected by stress, but I don't see how it favors Fel in anyway.

Especially considering all the stress inducing weapon and tactics coming soon enough on a table near you. Since Fel doesn't get rid of the stress token, getting a second one from a torpedo or a droid will be a risky buisness, he won't be able to shake it off until the second turn, assuming he doesn't get another one in the meantime. Also, he will get a focus token from the second stress token given, but will still lose it at the end of the turn.

Meanwhile, Keyan use the stress token. So, even if you are to give him a second stress token, odds are he will use the first one this turn and make a green maneuver to get rid of the second, so he can still do an action next turn, 2 if he took PtL to get another stress token.

So, on one side we have Fel that PtL to do two action, get a stress and a focus. Get attack by a stress inducing weapon. Next turn he do a Green maneuver to get rid of the first stress token, which leaves him predictable and without any token. Good chances he's dead at the end of this turn since he needs tokens to stay alive. On the second side, we have Keyan who PtL to Barrel Roll and TL, get a stress token. This turn he makes a TL+focus attack and get rid of the stress token. Someone attack him with a stress inducing weapon. Next turn he can either do a green maneuver to clear the stress so he can again do two action+stress OR he can make a white maneuver and still have a stress token to boost his next attack and get rid of it then. With 8 HP and 1 defense dice, he doesn't really need actions to stay alive so it's a viable choice and it leaves him less predicatable.

Both are really good and I don't think that Keyan will break the game, but given the choice between the two, I would pick Keyan without any doubt.

If Keyan didnt get to shoot at anybody on the next turn, he is not screwed at all, he just simply does another white maneuver to turn around and get back into combat again on the subsequent turn, he doesnt have to do greens at all.

If Keyan didnt get to shoot at anybody on the next turn, he is not screwed at all, he just simply does another white maneuver to turn around and get back into combat again on the subsequent turn, he doesnt have to do greens at all.

Ok, so now you've lost your action by keeping stress, and still can't use the red maneuvers that the B-wing often requires to turn around and get back into the fight. It's not an automatic ship loss obviously, but it's not a minor risk.

but you did not lose any actions per se, since your stress token is basically a focus token

The card says "remove" 1 stress, not spend or use. Garvin says "spend" not remove. I think that the language is significant.

I hope that they used that wording because stress is a negative effect and you don't "spend" negative effects in this game. If they make the effect contingent upon the wording of "remove" or "spend" this game is going to get awful rules lawyer-y awful quick.

The rulebook already uses very specific wording for "spending" a focus token. However there is no such wording of "spending" stress in the rulebook, so therefore it is impossible to "spend" stress. You may, however, remove stress to trigger an effect, which we have precedent for (Soontir Fel). So the wording here is consistent with the only possible wording that could have been used. There is no issue here.

This is the only real issue remaining. Can he remove his stress even if he rolled zero eyeballs?

The key here is in the meaning of the word "all". If I roll X eyeballs, then "all" eyeballs equals the number X , where X is any integer number including zero.

TL;DR:

The literal reading of Keyan's card allows him to remove one stress token during an attack even if he rolled zero eyeballs.

Garvin's ability was FAQ'ed to explicitly clarify that you may spend a focus token to change zero eyeballs.

It used to be that way. The latest FAQ uses a different wording:

When attacking, players may spend focus tokens or target locks and elect not to modify any attack dice. When defending, players may spend focus tokens and elect not modify any defense dice and may spend evade tokens to add evade results in excess of the number of hit and critical hit results.

The phrase " may ... elect not to modify any attack dice " does not mean that you modify zero dice. It means you do not modify in the first place.

Edit:

Not sure if that changes the ruling. Only pointing out that the FAQ changed.

Edit2:

The spoiler writes (emphasis mine):

Similarly, the tremendously skilled B-wing pilot, Keyan Farlander, enters the game with a potent ability of his own. Any time he attacks, he may remove a stress token in order to change all of his [] results to [] results. This not only allows him to convert a detrimental effect into a positive attack modification; it also permits him to perform stressful red maneuvers with impunity . If he chose, Keyan Farlander could potentially perform the difficult Koiogran-turn maneuver every round.

That text may tell us what FFG thinks.