I'm failing to see how spending Focus tokens on attack makes the Defender/Rexlar any worse than another ship. I imagine most high pilot skill pilots will be spending Focus on offense vs defense, since that will be what the roll for first. Why is it worse for Rexlar than say, Wedge.

The thing about Rexlar you have to understand is that, it varies on when you should use his ability. You really need to know when to use it.

@MajorJuggler

Looking forward to Wave 5, I wonder if fleet officer will make Rex worth it.

Also fleet officer isn't unique, so could a list built around multiple FOs and Rex work?

I was considering building a list around Rex with a Fleet officer and maybe Decoy to get him to fire later.

Thanks in advance if you take the time to reply.

With Rexler, if you roll an eyeball on an attack, you're almost always better off spending the focus to convert it to a hit. So the question is how often do you still have a focus token?

...It just doesn't add up to me. Vessery at least gets a free Target Lock, you just have to build a squad around him.

I also prefer Vessery, but I think your analysis of Brath's value is missing a key factor by not considering the magnitude of the effect when things do line up. Suppose you're looking at only that 35% of results where Brath + Predator comes up with hit/hit/hit and no eyeballs; how many combinations of two or three face-up damage cards fail to clip the Falcon's wings?

2:1 odds against a result that will shift the game fairly dramatically in your favor, when that result can happen on any round once shields are down, is actually a pretty good bet.

I'm failing to see how spending Focus tokens on attack makes the Defender/Rexlar any worse than another ship. I imagine most high pilot skill pilots will be spending Focus on offense vs defense, since that will be what the roll for first. Why is it worse for Rexlar than say, Wedge.

.... because he will have his focus for defense even LESS often than any other high PS pilot. And he will be less durable, as a result, than 24 point of TIE Fighters. He has a very sporadic ability. It's situational at best, and not something you can build a squad around. It's more a bonus in that small percentage of time when you don't roll/reroll a focus, AND you're not in enemy arc that turn. Meh, whatever. His ability costs -1 compared to the normal cost progression, so I guess you can't complain too much.

So:

1. Unless you intentionally limit your damage output by not converting eyeballs to hits, the probability of having a focus token after attacking is rather low.
2. If you spend your focus token you are much squishier on defense. Rexler will be spending his focus token, one way or the other, almost all the time on offense. That makes him an extremely appealing 37+ point target to shoot at, who is effectively less less durable than 2 TIE Fighters (assuming they occasionally have focus for defense).

As much as I love the Defender and seeing that it did makes the Top 8 in some tournament, it is still too soon to say if it is indeed a good competitive ship or not. Like many said before, the game is currently in motion with the fear of the Phantom and YT-1300 all over the place. The Defender is a very good ship against low ship team and low agility ship. It has a harder time against concentrated fire. Once the game stabilise, we will see if the ship can really hold it.

It is also worth noting that it is mainly Rexler that we see, so we might have a case like Vader and the Advanced, named pilot good, Generic average.

And what Vorpal said is very true, the Defender currently suffer from a bad reputation so, not a lot of people use it, but also, not a lot of people expect to confront one. It might have helped it placing well in tournaments.

@MajorJuggler

Looking forward to Wave 5, I wonder if fleet officer will make Rex worth it.

Also fleet officer isn't unique, so could a list built around multiple FOs and Rex work?

I was considering building a list around Rex with a Fleet officer and maybe Decoy to get him to fire later.

Thanks in advance if you take the time to reply.

Fleet Officer should open up some possibilities for synergy all across the Imperial fleet. "A rising tide lifts all boats". Rexler still can't take a 2nd focus, so the only real benefit here would be for him to barrel roll or Target Lock. Predator and Target Lock are anti-synergistic, so there's not much there to help Brath unless you run him without Predator.

@MajorJuggler

Looking forward to Wave 5, I wonder if fleet officer will make Rex worth it.

Also fleet officer isn't unique, so could a list built around multiple FOs and Rex work?

I was considering building a list around Rex with a Fleet officer and maybe Decoy to get him to fire later.

Thanks in advance if you take the time to reply.

Fleet Officer should open up some possibilities for synergy all across the Imperial fleet. "A rising tide lifts all boats". Rexler still can't take a 2nd focus, so the only real benefit here would be for him to barrel roll or Target Lock. Predator and Target Lock are anti-synergistic, so there's not much there to help Brath unless you run him without Predator.

But if I'm remembering correctly, Fleet Officer's card reads to "assign a focus token" not for the ship to take a "focus action." That should mean that Brath can take a Focus action and then be "assigned" an additional token.

Fleet Officer should open up some possibilities for synergy all across the Imperial fleet. "A rising tide lifts all boats". Rexler still can't take a 2nd focus, so the only real benefit here would be for him to barrel roll or Target Lock.

Fleet Officer would eliminate your defensive concerns, though, reducing it to a question of which use of the token maximizes Brath's offensive output.

@MajorJuggler

Looking forward to Wave 5, I wonder if fleet officer will make Rex worth it.

Also fleet officer isn't unique, so could a list built around multiple FOs and Rex work?

I was considering building a list around Rex with a Fleet officer and maybe Decoy to get him to fire later.

Thanks in advance if you take the time to reply.

Fleet Officer should open up some possibilities for synergy all across the Imperial fleet. "A rising tide lifts all boats". Rexler still can't take a 2nd focus, so the only real benefit here would be for him to barrel roll or Target Lock. Predator and Target Lock are anti-synergistic, so there's not much there to help Brath unless you run him without Predator.

But if I'm remembering correctly, Fleet Officer's card reads to "assign a focus token" not for the ship to take a "focus action." That should mean that Brath can take a Focus action and then be "assigned" an additional token.

Yep, that is correct. You assign a focus token to 2 ship in range so, you can indeed take a focus action and get a second one with Fleet Officer.

With Rexler, if you roll an eyeball on an attack, you're almost always better off spending the focus to convert it to a hit. So the question is how often do you still have a focus token?

...It just doesn't add up to me. Vessery at least gets a free Target Lock, you just have to build a squad around him.

I also prefer Vessery, but I think your analysis of Brath's value is missing a key factor by not considering the magnitude of the effect when things do line up. Suppose you're looking at only that 35% of results where Brath + Predator comes up with hit/hit/hit and no eyeballs; how many combinations of two or three face-up damage cards fail to clip the Falcon's wings?

2:1 odds against a result that will shift the game fairly dramatically in your favor, when that result can happen on any round once shields are down, is actually a pretty good bet.

That's true enough. But it is still extremely situational. The stars have to all align for it to work out in the ideal case -- and an additional criteria there is that the Falcon is down to 5 or 6 (or below) out of 13 hull/shields.

I'm totally going to play around with it in casual play. I wouldn't ever build a tournament competitive squad around his ability though, since it is completely unreliable.

@MajorJuggler

Looking forward to Wave 5, I wonder if fleet officer will make Rex worth it.

Also fleet officer isn't unique, so could a list built around multiple FOs and Rex work?

I was considering building a list around Rex with a Fleet officer and maybe Decoy to get him to fire later.

Thanks in advance if you take the time to reply.

Fleet Officer should open up some possibilities for synergy all across the Imperial fleet. "A rising tide lifts all boats". Rexler still can't take a 2nd focus, so the only real benefit here would be for him to barrel roll or Target Lock. Predator and Target Lock are anti-synergistic, so there's not much there to help Brath unless you run him without Predator.

But if I'm remembering correctly, Fleet Officer's card reads to "assign a focus token" not for the ship to take a "focus action." That should mean that Brath can take a Focus action and then be "assigned" an additional token.

Thanks for the correction! I forgot about that. So yes, in that case the 2nd focus is essentially defensive insurance. A smart opponent will simply attack a different ship, especially if Rexler happens to be double-focused that round.

Thanks for the correction! I forgot about that. So yes, in that case the 2nd focus is essentially defensive insurance. A smart opponent will simply attack a different ship, especially if Rexler happens to be double-focused that round.

Or use it for offense.

Rexler with Predator and helped by Fleet Officer.

Roll attack dice. Reroll 1 or 2 with Predator depending on target PS. Use Focus if need be. Use second Focus to trigger ability. If the second Focus was not needed (no focus rolled or no damage card dealt), keep it for defense.

Rexler Brath + Predator (40pts)

Shuttle + Fleet Officer (24pts)

Academy Pilot x 3 (36pts)

I kind of wish Brath had Khans ability from AW even if he had to be bumped in points. IE: When spending a Focus token on attacks, convert all "Focus" results to "Critical", rather than "Hits". He would still be vulnerable on the defense, but his ability would at least be consistent (if the enemy has no shields anyways).

Thanks for the correction! I forgot about that. So yes, in that case the 2nd focus is essentially defensive insurance. A smart opponent will simply attack a different ship, especially if Rexler happens to be double-focused that round.

Or use it for offense.

Rexler with Predator and helped by Fleet Officer.

Roll attack dice. Reroll 1 or 2 with Predator depending on target PS. Use Focus if need be. Use second Focus to trigger ability. If the second Focus was not needed (no focus rolled or no damage card dealt), keep it for defense.

Rexler Brath + Predator (40pts)

Shuttle + Fleet Officer (24pts)

Academy Pilot x 3 (36pts)

Yup, also pretty brutal. He could theoretically spend 2 focus tokens plus a target lock while attacking!

I kind of wish Brath had Khans ability from AW even if he had to be bumped in points. IE: When spending a Focus token on attacks, convert all "Focus" results to "Critical", rather than "Hits". He would still be vulnerable on the defense, but his ability would at least be consistent (if the enemy has no shields anyways).

Ouch! To be honest, I think I prefer the way it currently is.

Yup, also pretty brutal. He could theoretically spend 2 focus tokens plus a target lock while attacking!

Brutal indeed.

Thanks for the correction! I forgot about that. So yes, in that case the 2nd focus is essentially defensive insurance. A smart opponent will simply attack a different ship, especially if Rexler happens to be double-focused that round.

Or use it for offense.

Rexler with Predator and helped by Fleet Officer.

Roll attack dice. Reroll 1 or 2 with Predator depending on target PS. Use Focus if need be. Use second Focus to trigger ability. If the second Focus was not needed (no focus rolled or no damage card dealt), keep it for defense.

Rexler Brath + Predator (40pts)

Shuttle + Fleet Officer (24pts)

Academy Pilot x 3 (36pts)

I had the same thought, but changed it slightly:

Rexler Brath + Predator (40pts)

OGP + Fleet Officer + Engine Upgrade (28pts)

Howlrunner + Swarm Tactics (20pts)

Academy Pilot (12pts)

Keep them fairly close so that the Fleet Officer can support both Brath and Howl, Howl's ability can help anyone in range, and either the Space Cow or the Academy Pilot can fire at PS8.

MajorJuggler made a good point previously that Brath's ability is -1 on the point cost progression. I'm still thinking that his biggest bonus is the fact that he's PS 8 on a pretty fast, tough, and punchy small-sized ship. B-wing Aces are slow and vulnerable to swarms and X-wing Aces aren't as nearly as tough and don't have a cannon option.

MajorJuggler made a good point previously that Brath's ability is -1 on the point cost progression. I'm still thinking that his biggest bonus is the fact that he's PS 8 on a pretty fast, tough, and punchy small-sized ship. B-wing Aces are slow and vulnerable to swarms and X-wing Aces aren't as nearly as tough and don't have a cannon option.

That actually helps justify the situational nature of his ability. You can definitely play an entire match without executing it, especially against ships with a lot of shield and little hull.

MajorJuggler made a good point previously that Brath's ability is -1 on the point cost progression. I'm still thinking that his biggest bonus is the fact that he's PS 8 on a pretty fast, tough, and punchy small-sized ship. B-wing Aces are slow and vulnerable to swarms and X-wing Aces aren't as nearly as tough and don't have a cannon option.

That actually helps justify the situational nature of his ability. You can definitely play an entire match without executing it, especially against ships with a lot of shield and little hull.

I was taking it as subtext, but I'm glad Biophysical made it explicit: you wait, with Brath's ability, until you can use it to absolutely nuke someone. It's great when it triggers, but you can afford to wait; the additional buy-in was only what you'd pay for the PS bid on almost any other chassis.

MajorJuggler made a good point previously that Brath's ability is -1 on the point cost progression. I'm still thinking that his biggest bonus is the fact that he's PS 8 on a pretty fast, tough, and punchy small-sized ship. B-wing Aces are slow and vulnerable to swarms and X-wing Aces aren't as nearly as tough and don't have a cannon option.

That actually helps justify the situational nature of his ability. You can definitely play an entire match without executing it, especially against ships with a lot of shield and little hull.

I was taking it as subtext, but I'm glad Biophysical made it explicit: you wait, with Brath's ability, until you can use it to absolutely nuke someone. It's great when it triggers, but you can afford to wait; the additional buy-in was only what you'd pay for the PS bid on almost any other chassis.

Yeah I think that would have to be the approach. Cost is the great equalizer. Unfortunately he's still 37 points at PS8 for what amounts to ~24 points of stat line value @PS1. You're still paying a lot for that white K-turn.

Speaking of cost, the main drawback of double focus or even triple token stacking on Brath is cost:

Triple token represents a 43 point investment into one shot: 37 for Rexler, 3 for Fleet Commander, and another 3 to get another action onto Brath. Or a 2nd Fleet Commander to double focus, and let Brath TL.

Even with 1 Fleet Commander that's still 40 points for one attack. YT-1300 costs more, but you typically get Gunner and more durability along with it, not to mention the 360 degree arc.

(still annoyed about how I rolled two crits attacking a shuttle after Vader stripped it's shields)

My experience with the Defender shows that it will not be a super top tier fighter, which the meta revolves around. That's fine. But so far, the Defender, or more truthfully Rexlar, has been very good. The only times he hasn't been very effective was when I screwed up piloting him, making him lost too many attacks or actions.

Thinking about MajorJuggler's 24 point jousting value at PS1:

The easy explanation is that the white K-turn costs 6 points, although you need to modify this by the cost modifier of the red short turns and the otherwise pretty expansive dial (it's really only missing the 1-forward). For simplicity's sake, we call it 6 points for the white K-turn. Could there be anywhere else those six points could be coming from? I wonder if there was an assumption during game design that Cannons would be equipped. An HLC costs 7 points (and an Ion Cannon 3), no matter what ship it's on. So a B-wing that's pretty slow and a Bounty Hunter that likes to fight from the rear are not getting the same sort of mileage from that HLC as the Defender is. Keeping it's current stats, but using MajorJuggler's jousting value, we'd have an HLC armed Defender at 31 points. That seems pretty nuts given the Defender's dial options (it can go fast or slow, and pull the white K-turn to always keep the HLC pointed the right way). The question then becomes what is the theoretical jousting value of an HLC armed Defender? Is it 31 points? Its it 37 points? Is it somewhere in between?

In short, is the Defender less overcosted when armed with a Cannon than it is with it's base stats?

Thinking about MajorJuggler's 24 point jousting value at PS1:

The easy explanation is that the white K-turn costs 6 points, although you need to modify this by the cost modifier of the red short turns and the otherwise pretty expansive dial (it's really only missing the 1-forward). For simplicity's sake, we call it 6 points for the white K-turn. Could there be anywhere else those six points could be coming from? I wonder if there was an assumption during game design that Cannons would be equipped. An HLC costs 7 points (and an Ion Cannon 3), no matter what ship it's on. So a B-wing that's pretty slow and a Bounty Hunter that likes to fight from the rear are not getting the same sort of mileage from that HLC as the Defender is. Keeping it's current stats, but using MajorJuggler's jousting value, we'd have an HLC armed Defender at 31 points. That seems pretty nuts given the Defender's dial options (it can go fast or slow, and pull the white K-turn to always keep the HLC pointed the right way). The question then becomes what is the theoretical jousting value of an HLC armed Defender? Is it 31 points? Its it 37 points? Is it somewhere in between?

In short, is the Defender less overcosted when armed with a Cannon than it is with it's base stats?

24 points is just for the raw stat line. I have the numbers for HLC as well. I would have to check the thread, or scripts at home, but I believe that a HLC will do around 2.5x damage as 2 attack dice (3 dice is ~1.76x), calculating attack dice as 4 at all ranges and no defensive bonus at range 3 for the defender. That would put the 4*/3/3/3 HLC Defender stat line value at 29 points.

The exponent I'm using could cause the points calculation to be low by a point or 2 at that high stat value, so it could be closer to 31 points of stat value. You're still paying a lot for the white K-turn.

Also note: the designers don't use my formulas. So who knows how they decided what the ship (or white K-turn) should be valued at. In general, the HLC is nice on the Defender and Firespray because you're around long enough to keep using it. Unfortunately both shops close quickly since they can't slow-roll, so they can't just loiter at range 3.

Speaking of cost, the main drawback of double focus or even triple token stacking on Brath is cost:

Yup, also pretty brutal. He could theoretically spend 2 focus tokens plus a target lock while attacking!

Brutal indeed.

Triple token represents a 43 point investment into one shot: 37 for Rexler, 3 for Fleet Commander, and another 3 to get another action onto Brath. Or a 2nd Fleet Commander to double focus, and let Brath TL.

Even with 1 Fleet Commander that's still 40 points for one attack. YT-1300 costs more, but you typically get Gunner and more durability along with it, not to mention the 360 degree arc.

Can't disagree with you, making this combo work cost too much for my taste and, more importantly, put a big red target on Rexler's head. Once you lose Rexler, you would be left with a Shuttle and the 36pts or less escort you chose. Not my kind of gamble given that a Defender can be taken care of relatively easy if he doesn't roll like a God.

Only build I would make to help his ability is with Howlrunner and Predator, 2 dice reroll+focus for ability. But quite frankly, I don't think you should use Rexler with the idea of using his ability often, just if the perfect situation rise, which might not happen in a game. It is still a Defender with a PS8, that should be reason enough to take him. Although for my part, I prefer Generics and Vessery.

Thanks for the correction! I forgot about that. So yes, in that case the 2nd focus is essentially defensive insurance. A smart opponent will simply attack a different ship, especially if Rexler happens to be double-focused that round.

Or use it for offense.

Rexler with Predator and helped by Fleet Officer.

Roll attack dice. Reroll 1 or 2 with Predator depending on target PS. Use Focus if need be. Use second Focus to trigger ability. If the second Focus was not needed (no focus rolled or no damage card dealt), keep it for defense.

Rexler Brath + Predator (40pts)

Shuttle + Fleet Officer (24pts)

Academy Pilot x 3 (36pts)

I had the same thought, but changed it slightly:

Rexler Brath + Predator (40pts)

OGP + Fleet Officer + Engine Upgrade (28pts)

Howlrunner + Swarm Tactics (20pts)

Academy Pilot (12pts)

Keep them fairly close so that the Fleet Officer can support both Brath and Howl, Howl's ability can help anyone in range, and either the Space Cow or the Academy Pilot can fire at PS8.

As I said to Major, Rexler is too much of a juicy target here, he should go down fast. The Shuttle is really easy to outmaneuver and keep for the end, so you are then really left with Howlrunner and an Academy Pilot. That's not the odds I like. But I don't particularily like the Shuttle so, it might affect my judgement.