There's a reason the only 3 agility ship to see regular competitive use is the Tie-Fighter.

There's a reason the only 3-HP ship to see regular competitive use is the TIE Fighter.

That's what you meant to say there, or at least what you should have said.

The 3-agility ships aren't touchy in competitive play because they rely on agility - they're touchy because they rely entirely on agility. They have no shields and very little overall life, meaning that even a slightly bad die roll is very bad news, and a moderately bad roll can be catastrophic. The Defender does not have this problem. A TIE Fighter or Interceptor can potentially die in 2 uncanceled hits, with the right crit. The Defender requires a minimum of 5. That's a rather massive difference.

And yes, this is a game based on positioning. But the Defender isn't good at that. Turns are incredibly important. Especially 2 turns. With the linear nature of the defenders dial it's named pilots are going to suffer from being blocked.

The balance issue here is how similar the Defender is to a Firespray, which is among the best ships in the game. The Firespray's rear arc isn't as good as a White K-turn, but it has more uses. Being able to take a 90 degree turn andand fire behind me is amazing. Crew slots are also amazing.

If it had something to offer that truly made it different from the Firespray, say Boost, or sensor upgrade, it would be an equivalent ship. But just having a small base doesn't cut it. Barrel roll is good, but works best combined with turns, boosts, cheap swarm ships, Sensor slots, and large base ships.(Silly as it feels) It doesn't feel right on the defender.

We already had Rock Paper Scissors... The rebels really only had access to Rock (tanky turrets), Imperials only had Paper (swarm), and both sides had access to scissors (xxbb, interceptors, aabbb). Hopefully we're adding Lizard (defenders!) and Spock (Phantoms) while giving the rebels some paper and the imperials a little rock (still no turrets!).

I like that new styles will show up. I'd much rather see 6 good lists, 2 great lists, and 2-3 rogue lists than the current 4-5 (yes there are a lot of options in this game, but does swapping out stealth for elusive for hull for PTL REALLY change the game play of a list?).

I'm all for a more diverse Meta... hopefully the defender, phantom, and at least the cards that come with the z95 (good enough on it's own) and ewing will do just that.

There's a reason the only 3 agility ship to see regular competitive use is the Tie-Fighter.

There's a reason the only 3-HP ship to see regular competitive use is the TIE Fighter.

That's what you meant to say there, or at least what you should have said.

The 3-agility ships aren't touchy in competitive play because they rely on agility - they're touchy because they rely entirely on agility. They have no shields and very little overall life, meaning that even a slightly bad die roll is very bad news, and a moderately bad roll can be catastrophic. The Defender does not have this problem. A TIE Fighter or Interceptor can potentially die in 2 uncanceled hits, with the right crit. The Defender requires a minimum of 5. That's a rather massive difference.

No. It's because Tie's are cheap and you can lose one. A-wings and Advanced's can go down like chumps too. I mean, I've had Vader get two shot.

And yes, this is a game based on positioning. But the Defender isn't good at that. Turns are incredibly important. Especially 2 turns. With the linear nature of the defenders dial it's named pilots are going to suffer from being blocked.

The balance issue here is how similar the Defender is to a Firespray, which is among the best ships in the game. The Firespray's rear arc isn't as good as a White K-turn, but it has more uses. Being able to take a 90 degree turn andand fire behind me is amazing. Crew slots are also amazing.

If it had something to offer that truly made it different from the Firespray, say Boost, or sensor upgrade, it would be an equivalent ship. But just having a small base doesn't cut it. Barrel roll is good, but works best combined with turns, boosts, cheap swarm ships, Sensor slots, and large base ships.(Silly as it feels) It doesn't feel right on the defender.

The defenders dial isn't Linear at all, it is linear when you need to clear stress granted, but otherwise has access to a large number of whites with a massive range of speeds. If you are worried about being blocked k turning or clearing stress spend a turn white 3 turning before hand, which should clear the furball most times.

The defender dial is interesting, it is going to be something new, the a-wing and interceptor are flankers, but they have to break off fairly late or risk a large part of the enemy squad turning to meet them and once the initial flank has been achieved most become knife fighters to make up for the A-wings 2 dice and the interceptors glass jaw. Meanwhile the Defender wants to start away from it's enemies, it is tanky enough that it would take a good number of ships to reliably take it out and that would open them to a flank by the main force, and it's high speed and the K-turn mean that rather than engage it is going to be a strafer, It doesn't need range one like an A-wing or to be close enough to maximize arc dodges like an interceptor and can focus entirely on doing fly by attacks and pouncing on wounded ships.

There's a reason the only 3 agility ship to see regular competitive use is the Tie-Fighter.

There's a reason the only 3-HP ship to see regular competitive use is the TIE Fighter.

That's what you meant to say there, or at least what you should have said.

The 3-agility ships aren't touchy in competitive play because they rely on agility - they're touchy because they rely entirely on agility. They have no shields and very little overall life, meaning that even a slightly bad die roll is very bad news, and a moderately bad roll can be catastrophic. The Defender does not have this problem. A TIE Fighter or Interceptor can potentially die in 2 uncanceled hits, with the right crit. The Defender requires a minimum of 5. That's a rather massive difference.

No. It's because Tie's are cheap and you can lose one. A-wings and Advanced's can go down like chumps too. I mean, I've had Vader get two shot.

And yes, this is a game based on positioning. But the Defender isn't good at that. Turns are incredibly important. Especially 2 turns. With the linear nature of the defenders dial it's named pilots are going to suffer from being blocked.

The balance issue here is how similar the Defender is to a Firespray, which is among the best ships in the game. The Firespray's rear arc isn't as good as a White K-turn, but it has more uses. Being able to take a 90 degree turn andand fire behind me is amazing. Crew slots are also amazing.

If it had something to offer that truly made it different from the Firespray, say Boost, or sensor upgrade, it would be an equivalent ship. But just having a small base doesn't cut it. Barrel roll is good, but works best combined with turns, boosts, cheap swarm ships, Sensor slots, and large base ships.(Silly as it feels) It doesn't feel right on the defender.

The defenders dial isn't Linear at all, it is linear when you need to clear stress granted, but otherwise has access to a large number of whites with a massive range of speeds. If you are worried about being blocked k turning or clearing stress spend a turn white 3 turning before hand, which should clear the furball most times.

The defender dial is interesting, it is going to be something new, the a-wing and interceptor are flankers, but they have to break off fairly late or risk a large part of the enemy squad turning to meet them and once the initial flank has been achieved most become knife fighters to make up for the A-wings 2 dice and the interceptors glass jaw. Meanwhile the Defender wants to start away from it's enemies, it is tanky enough that it would take a good number of ships to reliably take it out and that would open them to a flank by the main force, and it's high speed and the K-turn mean that rather than engage it is going to be a strafer, It doesn't need range one like an A-wing or to be close enough to maximize arc dodges like an interceptor and can focus entirely on doing fly by attacks and pouncing on wounded ships.

but does swapping out stealth for elusive for hull for PTL REALLY change the game play of a list?).

PTL totally does.

If you say so. But it looks pretty linear to me. It has one White turn, and it's the hardest to use, especially in an up close fight, from there clearing the stress from the slower turns will make continued flanking tough. In my experience with the shuttle, which also has a linear dial, banks don't do a whole lot for turning, only positioning. The defender wants to move fast. Fast in this game, is rarely good. (Except on K-turns and firesprays.) Even then I've hadhad major issues trying to get a 4 forward to clear a furball.

Doesn't fit interceptor tactics but that's because it's not an Interceptor+. It's built to fly in, shoot, come hurtling out the other side, effortlessly flip over and charge again. Pair it with the right ships that compensate for its weaknesses and it could be lethal.

There's a reason the only 3 agility ship to see regular competitive use is the Tie-Fighter.

There's a reason the only 3-HP ship to see regular competitive use is the TIE Fighter.

That's what you meant to say there, or at least what you should have said.

The 3-agility ships aren't touchy in competitive play because they rely on agility - they're touchy because they rely entirely on agility. They have no shields and very little overall life, meaning that even a slightly bad die roll is very bad news, and a moderately bad roll can be catastrophic. The Defender does not have this problem. A TIE Fighter or Interceptor can potentially die in 2 uncanceled hits, with the right crit. The Defender requires a minimum of 5. That's a rather massive difference.

No. It's because Tie's are cheap and you can lose one. A-wings and Advanced's can go down like chumps too. I mean, I've had Vader get two shot.

And yes, this is a game based on positioning. But the Defender isn't good at that. Turns are incredibly important. Especially 2 turns. With the linear nature of the defenders dial it's named pilots are going to suffer from being blocked.

The balance issue here is how similar the Defender is to a Firespray, which is among the best ships in the game. The Firespray's rear arc isn't as good as a White K-turn, but it has more uses. Being able to take a 90 degree turn andand fire behind me is amazing. Crew slots are also amazing.

If it had something to offer that truly made it different from the Firespray, say Boost, or sensor upgrade, it would be an equivalent ship. But just having a small base doesn't cut it. Barrel roll is good, but works best combined with turns, boosts, cheap swarm ships, Sensor slots, and large base ships.(Silly as it feels) It doesn't feel right on the defender.

The defenders dial isn't Linear at all, it is linear when you need to clear stress granted, but otherwise has access to a large number of whites with a massive range of speeds. If you are worried about being blocked k turning or clearing stress spend a turn white 3 turning before hand, which should clear the furball most times.

The defender dial is interesting, it is going to be something new, the a-wing and interceptor are flankers, but they have to break off fairly late or risk a large part of the enemy squad turning to meet them and once the initial flank has been achieved most become knife fighters to make up for the A-wings 2 dice and the interceptors glass jaw. Meanwhile the Defender wants to start away from it's enemies, it is tanky enough that it would take a good number of ships to reliably take it out and that would open them to a flank by the main force, and it's high speed and the K-turn mean that rather than engage it is going to be a strafer, It doesn't need range one like an A-wing or to be close enough to maximize arc dodges like an interceptor and can focus entirely on doing fly by attacks and pouncing on wounded ships.

If you say so. But it looks pretty linear to me. It has one White turn, and it's the hardest to use, especially in an up close fight, from there clearing the stress from the slower turns will make continued flanking tough. In my experience with the shuttle, which also has a linear dial, banks don't do a whole lot for turning, only positioning. The defender wants to move fast. Fast in this game, is rarely good. (Except on K-turns and firesprays.) Even then I've hadhad major issues trying to get a 4 forward to clear a furball.

The point is to not get in an up close fight, holding the range ruler and 5 straight up next to each other the 5 is exactly two range bands wide, a four is nearly that. If you use the 3 turn to set up a strafe on where you expect the fighting to be and use banks to adjust you should be able to shoot past in a quick attack, k-turn around, bank to adjust, and repeat. Low cost ships keep them busy or even better they ignore them to target the defender. With practice and probably more skill than I have you should be able to negate the need to touch your reds until near the endgame.

I mean, you could be right, but I think you are discounting the dial too quickly, out of all the other ships only 4 have access to every turn, granted, two of them have greens in there but they are the two most maneuverable ships in the game, it is their entire gimmick. Of the nine that have two or the turns none have greens and 3 have a red. Won't bother with the ones that only have one turn. Now maybe the reds aren't the problem, maybe it's the greens, fair enough, there is no denying they are all straight. Which is why I'm suggesting maybe the best use for the defender is strafing, if you intentionally aim to get your target in the outer 15 degrees of your arc and go as fast as you can while still getting a shot off then you can probably count on the angle to shield you a bit from reprisal while only really needing banks and the occasional turn to stay on target.

but does swapping out stealth for elusive for hull for PTL REALLY change the game play of a list?).

PTL totally does.

To clarify:

On an interceptor or Awing yes it will change the way you fly that ship... on most other ships it's almost the same as a hull/shield/stealth. It's almost always extra defense or used to make ordnance easier to get off. If you changed ALL your 3pt upgrades to a different one then you'd have a new playstyle, but changing 1 for 1 isn't going to reclassify the entire list. Even changing 3 interceptors from stealth to PTL doesn't actually reclassify the list from "Scissors" to "Paper".

In the games I've played against the Defender, it seems legit. I've been impressed by the amount of effort it takes to focus fire that thing down. It's a fantastic anvil for an interceptor list. It's got respectable damage and its moves ARE somewhat obvious

And for those saying the PS 1 version is too low to be any good, remember that it is MUCH harder to block. If you want to prevent its K-turn you have to block it the turn previous, because it moves first . Which means you first have to guess where it is going to move in the first turn, then put your ships in the way of that potential K-turn so it doesn't have that option. That is really friggin hard.

If it didn't have those red turns, it would be out of control. The white K turn combined with the ability to change facing in a tight area, would be ridiculous! Those reds keep it in check, but only a little bit.

It should start in the middle of the DZ and draw attention to itself with a big charge up. This will draw players towards it as the "immediate threat" while the interceptors hang lazily back, ready to counter-attack. If you deploy it in the middle, the tight turns aren't as necessary. You can adjust to the enemy using banks for the most part.

I think it probably will be over-shadowed by the phantom but I still think it's solid.

There's a reason the only 3 agility ship to see regular competitive use is the Tie-Fighter.

There's a reason the only 3-HP ship to see regular competitive use is the TIE Fighter.

That's what you meant to say there, or at least what you should have said.

The 3-agility ships aren't touchy in competitive play because they rely on agility - they're touchy because they rely entirely on agility. They have no shields and very little overall life, meaning that even a slightly bad die roll is very bad news, and a moderately bad roll can be catastrophic. The Defender does not have this problem. A TIE Fighter or Interceptor can potentially die in 2 uncanceled hits, with the right crit. The Defender requires a minimum of 5. That's a rather massive difference.

No. It's because Tie's are cheap and you can lose one. A-wings and Advanced's can go down like chumps too. I mean, I've had Vader get two shot.

If you think the reason A-wings and the Advanced don't see competitive play has anything to do with their agility... <shrug> Not really sure what to say at that point. You're pretty much living in your own little world.

There's a reason the only 3 agility ship to see regular competitive use is the Tie-Fighter.

There's a reason the only 3-HP ship to see regular competitive use is the TIE Fighter.

That's what you meant to say there, or at least what you should have said.

The 3-agility ships aren't touchy in competitive play because they rely on agility - they're touchy because they rely entirely on agility. They have no shields and very little overall life, meaning that even a slightly bad die roll is very bad news, and a moderately bad roll can be catastrophic. The Defender does not have this problem. A TIE Fighter or Interceptor can potentially die in 2 uncanceled hits, with the right crit. The Defender requires a minimum of 5. That's a rather massive difference.

No. It's because Tie's are cheap and you can lose one. A-wings and Advanced's can go down like chumps too. I mean, I've had Vader get two shot.

If you think the reason A-wings and the Advanced don't see competitive play has anything to do with their agility... <shrug> Not really sure what to say at that point. You're pretty much living in your own little world.

The defender does not strike me as a potent arc dodger, given my experience with the Advanced, the lack of turns and boost will make that very difficult. Barrel Roll helps, and is cool, but it doesn't synergize well with the Defenders dial.

Combine that with a low reliability factor over several games, and low offensive potential without the benefit of the crew slot that makes the Firespray and Falcon function, and you have a recipe for ship that needs something that sets it apart. So far, the Defender lacks that. Because the Firespray can do most of what it does, and a whole lot more.

So its white K-turn makes it good against snub fighters, but against a turret list it'll default to its jousting value. It should, in theory, get hard countered by turrets even more than Interceptors do, since the Defender makes such a poor jouster.

I guess the way I see it is this. The Defender is amazing 1 on 1 against non-turret, non-firespray ships. It's good in epic play, where high agility matters more, and its pilot abilities can be put to better use.

What it isn't is good in 100 point matches. Although it will punish low ship, high Pilot skill lists, which are bad already, but appear to be the way people want to counter the Phantom.

Regrettably this may in fact push us towards a YT heavy meta again... It counters the empires best ships other than Firesprays, and plays well against everything they have.

I wish YT turrets were only two range...

It's part of it. Ability to take dodge shots means very little in this game. Avoiding firing arcs and putting out damage are what matters. A-Wings have better offense for the cost than the Defender. It was correlated with my earlier statements about the offensive cost the defender pays, and how the only small base ship worse off is the Advanced. I shouldn't have to reiterate my whole argument every post just to make sure you're seeing the whole thing.

Oh, I see your whole argument. I just think you're very wrong.

You cannot simply remove half of the math and declare victory because of that one time at band camp you saw Vader get violated. A-wings do NOT have better offense for the cost, because it's not linear. Mismatches in die counts have an outsized impact on the damage result, and being on the short end of the 2:3 split means that you're frequently going to do nothing.

You've seen some bad rolls on evade dice, decided evade dice are useless, and therefore can be discarded from consideration. Your entire argument is based on outliers and rare events, and deeply flawed for it.

A-wings do NOT have better offense for the cost, because it's not linear.

Actually, after the refit, they do. See earlier in this thread: the average damage of 3 dice is about 1.75x that of 2 dice, taking into account an average of the meta for various agility defenders, and a variety of action economy scenarios.

2 x 1 = 2 > 1.75

So on average and across the entire meta game, 2 A-wings do slightly more damage than one ship with 3 attack dice. This is before considering the effect of the white K-turn on the Defender's action economy.

So its white K-turn makes it good against snub fighters, but against a turret list it'll default to its jousting value. It should, in theory, get hard countered by turrets even more than Interceptors do, since the Defender makes such a poor jouster.

Well, there's a counter argument here that a defender can slip behind it, flip around and still keep it's action and have it's full dial after that, whereas most ships become vulnerable and predictable with such a move.

A-wings do NOT have better offense for the cost, because it's not linear.

Actually, after the refit, they do. See earlier in this thread: the average damage of 3 dice is about 1.75x that of 2 dice, taking into account an average of the meta for various agility defenders, and a variety of action economy scenarios.

2 x 1 = 2 > 1.75

So on average and across the entire meta game , 2 A-wings do slightly more damage than one ship with 3 attack dice. This is before considering the effect of the white K-turn on the Defender's action economy.

The metagame is not an average. It doesn't matter how well you do against ships you're not playing against right then. "Average over the meta" means you'll do well against some ships, but horrible against others, and horrible against others costs you games.

It's part of it. Ability to take dodge shots means very little in this game. Avoiding firing arcs and putting out damage are what matters. A-Wings have better offense for the cost than the Defender. It was correlated with my earlier statements about the offensive cost the defender pays, and how the only small base ship worse off is the Advanced. I shouldn't have to reiterate my whole argument every post just to make sure you're seeing the whole thing.

Oh, I see your whole argument. I just think you're very wrong.

You cannot simply remove half of the math and declare victory because of that one time at band camp you saw Vader get violated. A-wings do NOT have better offense for the cost, because it's not linear. Mismatches in die counts have an outsized impact on the damage result, and being on the short end of the 2:3 split means that you're frequently going to do nothing.

You've seen some bad rolls on evade dice, decided evade dice are useless, and therefore can be discarded from consideration. Your entire argument is based on outliers and rare events, and deeply flawed for it.

How hard is to grasp that something that happens 1 in 20 times(3 blanks) isn't a factor in individual games, but is over the course of 8?

That's a huge part of competitive list building.

The more times you roll attack dice the more damage you will do.

The more times you roll defense dice the more damage you will take. Rolling green is bad. Relying on green is bad.

That's basic understanding of the metagame.

No matter how badly I roll, a 22 Point B-Wing takes 8 damage before death. It might take 16. But I can't plan on it.

The same thing applies to the Defender. It's probably going to take 9-10 hits to take down. It will 7 games out of 8. But game 8, where it takes 6, wherever it sits in the tournament, I've probably lost. That's an unnacceptable gamble in competitive play. 1 Game is enough to lose a tournament.

I don't think green dice are bad. I think they can't be counted on. They're harder to modify, harder to roll succesfully, and the Defender doesn't have what it needs to be reliable because of how much its durability relies on them.

A-wings do NOT have better offense for the cost, because it's not linear.

Actually, after the refit, they do. See earlier in this thread: the average damage of 3 dice is about 1.75x that of 2 dice, taking into account an average of the meta for various agility defenders, and a variety of action economy scenarios.

2 x 1 = 2 > 1.75

So on average and across the entire meta game , 2 A-wings do slightly more damage than one ship with 3 attack dice. This is before considering the effect of the white K-turn on the Defender's action economy.

The metagame is not an average. It doesn't matter how well you do against ships you're not playing against right then. "Average over the meta" means you'll do well against some ships, but horrible against others, and horrible against others costs you games.

1. A ship's point cost and value are based off the overall meta game, not specific matchups. If they were based on specific matchups then you could legitimately argue that the TIE Interceptor should cost +2 or -2 points in either direction.
2. You seem to be implying that there are "horrible" scenarios where two 2 dice ships do significantly less damage than one 3 dice ship. Was this your intent? I'm assuming "yes" since you stated that 2 A-wings do not do more damage than one Defender. Citation / numerical analysis is required here.

No, that is math. That is not analyzing the metagame. Analyzing the metagame is more psychological than mathematical, which is why I don't agree with how Major Juggler is analyzing the winning squads. Nothing I've seen in this mathematical analysis says anything about how well a Defender will fly in a squad. I'm willing to test it out, and I'm sure others will have success with it.

Do not underestimate the Ion then white K-turn.

No, that is math. That is not analyzing the metagame. Analyzing the metagame is more psychological than mathematical, which is why I don't agree with how Major Juggler is analyzing the winning squads. Nothing I've seen in this mathematical analysis says anything about how well a Defender will fly in a squad. I'm willing to test it out, and I'm sure others will have success with it.

Do not underestimate the Ion then white K-turn.

What do you mean by "how Major Juggler is analyzing the winning squads"? Are you referring to the Regionals / store Championship lists, or the Lanchester's method of ship value prediction?

How hard is to grasp that something that happens 1 in 20 times(3 blanks) isn't a factor in individual games, but is over the course of 8?

That's a huge part of competitive list building.

The more times you roll attack dice the more damage you will do.

The more times you roll defense dice the more damage you will take. Rolling green is bad. Relying on green is bad.

That's basic understanding of the metagame.

Actually, it's a pretty flawed understanding of the metagame. Or a flawed understanding of the basic math of the game which you're trying to spin as metagame, anyway.

Triple blanks may come up 1 in 20. That doesn't mean it matters 1 time in 20. Triple blanks on a desperation HWK-290 main gun shot isn't a big deal. On a range-1 F+TL B-wing it matters quite a bit.

B-wings and Falcons don't reduce the randomness, they just push it all over onto the red dice. If anything, it makes it worse, because you give your opponent the opportunity to control those dice.

"Number of hits before death" isn't a relevant evaluation. Number of attacks before death is.

And while you obsess over the low end of the distribution, you completely ignore the high end. Do you want to plan your entire game around a triple evade roll that keeps a ship alive well past when it should have died? Probably not. But whether you plan for them or not, those situations are going to happen. I've seen just as many games decided by good outliers as bad.

And that's the big difference between the Defender and the other 3-agility ships. It has the durability to survive that 1-in-20 bad, and make that 1-in-20 good into a nightmare for the opponent.

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." - Socrates

"Number of hits before death" isn't a relevant evaluation. Number of attacks before death is.

This! I'm adding it to my mental to-do list to add this functionality to my scripts. It would actually be pretty simple to calculate the net PDFs. Technically the distribution goes to infinity, but I could cut it off at 0.1% outliers. I have almost all the plumbing already to do this anyway, including multiple attacks per round and the resulting focus-token saving between shots.

1. A ship's point cost and value are based off the overall meta game, not specific matchups. If they were based on specific matchups then you could legitimately argue that the TIE Interceptor should cost +2 or -2 points in either direction.
2. You seem to be implying that there are "horrible" scenarios where two 2 dice ships do significantly less damage than one 3 dice ship. Was this your intent? I'm assuming "yes" since you stated that 2 A-wings do not do more damage than one Defender. Citation / numerical analysis is required here.

Point cost may be based on the whole game, but it becomes irrelevant once it's in a game. Once the game starts, cost doesn't matter - only what it can do against what's in play.

I'll pass on the time to crunch all the possible scenarios of 2v3 attack, because it can only take you so far - there are a large number of different scenarios, and unless you can quantify the occurrence of each of those scenarios the math falls apart and fades to fiction when you try to distill it down to a single number. You're also digging out a single value and weighting the entire cost of the ship against that one value in isolation of anything else in the game state. Which is a better attack for the cost, a Rookie with an R2 or a Blue Squadron? In isolation, the answer is that they're identical. But that completely ignores the extra durability of the B-wing, or the better maneuver of the X-wing. I prefer not to invent mythical numbers just for the sake of having it.

How hard is to grasp that something that happens 1 in 20 times(3 blanks) isn't a factor in individual games, but is over the course of 8?

That's a huge part of competitive list building.

The more times you roll attack dice the more damage you will do.

The more times you roll defense dice the more damage you will take. Rolling green is bad. Relying on green is bad.

That's basic understanding of the metagame.

Actually, it's a pretty flawed understanding of the metagame. Or a flawed understanding of the basic math of the game which you're trying to spin as metagame, anyway.

Triple blanks may come up 1 in 20. That doesn't mean it matters 1 time in 20. Triple blanks on a desperation HWK-290 main gun shot isn't a big deal. On a range-1 F+TL B-wing it matters quite a bit.

B-wings and Falcons don't reduce the randomness, they just push it all over onto the red dice. If anything, it makes it worse, because you give your opponent the opportunity to control those dice.

"Number of hits before death" isn't a relevant evaluation. Number of attacks before death is.

And while you obsess over the low end of the distribution, you completely ignore the high end. Do you want to plan your entire game around a triple evade roll that keeps a ship alive well past when it should have died? Probably not. But whether you plan for them or not, those situations are going to happen. I've seen just as many games decided by good outliers as bad.

And that's the big difference between the Defender and the other 3-agility ships. It has the durability to survive that 1-in-20 bad, and make that 1-in-20 good into a nightmare for the opponent.

It's not flawed, it's Murphy's Law. And it's how you have to plan if you want to play at your best. The Defender's high cost doesn't tangle well with this, the same way Interceptors don't.

a ship worth 1/3rd of your fleet cannot depend on luck.

Low agility ships are more action economic. They have no need to save that focus for defense, their defense lies on how many hits they take.

High agility ships with high hull/shield to cost ratios need to save as many of those as they can, weakening their offense.

Everything about the way red and green dice work, works against the Defender. Everything about how squad building works says that taking a ship that can die in 6 hitsm and banking on it holding up 30% of your squad is risky. High risk high reward is great. It wins games hands down, sometimes without taking a hit. But You can win 5 Perfect games in an 6 game round robin section of a tournament, lose that sixth game, and not make top 8. No matter how good those other five games were, losing one still cripples you.

Dependability is key. The Defenders durability isn't dependable.

The Defender's Offense is low for its cost. A 21 point X-Wing hits just as hard as the Defender.

The Defenders dial is unique, but it clears stress badly, and honestly looks uncomfortable and predictable to play. The dial is the only part of the defender that looks at all good, and I honestly don't like it. It's weird, and does all the things I don't do in play. At 30 Points I want more than the Defender offers in a 100 point game. If I'm putting that much of my squad into something, it had better do something cool. The Defender doesn't.

The reason I discuss the number of hits before death is because of how much that changes between a Tie-Swarm and a 4 ship rebel build. I know roughly how many attacks one is from each, but I have yet to do the math.