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Critical effects should exist within a relatively tight band of effect, including probability of occurrence. Certainly, any given effect will have the potential for a given ship to be more affected than others, but that shouldn't be too extreme.

The game should, at its core, apply variance while leaving player skill as a deciding factor. Super-rare, super-extreme crits fail at this. You can argue whether they fit the term "balanced", but they certainly make for a bad game.

Finding the ideal point on the common+light effect<---->rare+hard effect scale is a subjective matter depending on personal preference. Given the current set, I would add the occasional rare+hard crit if they would ever actually change the damage deck. While I agree that player skill is an important factor, but so is chance (it's a dice game after all ) - also dealing with abrupt and unexpected losses is also part of the player skill. Besides it's fun having to rethink your strategy on the fly when things change on you, that doesn't make it a bad game.

But even then we are not talking about instant game enders - one crit = instant game loss, the example of geckos reactor breach applied to an expensive Han still requires the removal of the shields and even then you could survive a few rounds and it's only one ship.

just because my baron fel usually doesn't survive the first enemy contact - he loves rolling green blanks - makes them bad games, even if I already get a bit sad when putting him on the list knowing I written his death sentence.

I would not say the Deck needs more powerful crits, i would say it needs more diversity in crits. The idea of not only discarding secondary weapons but also modifications, system upgrades, crew, maybe astromechs would make sense, even if they would not affect every ship equally. This i guess is part of luck in a game of dice throwing, which is okay to me.

I mean of course for Dash it's worse drawing a munitions failure than for Han Solo. But that's just bad luck i suppose.

That being said the damage deck could be extended or a new one issued if the distribution issue couldbe overcome, but it's not a very urgent fix to the game. The old damage deck works fine in most cases and there are more urgent matters, like finding a way to improve ordnance or rebalance a few ships that occur to me!

I shuffled my deck too hard and worn it out, they need to sell a new one just so I can replace the old one.

Most (as in pretty much all) players who play in tournaments regularly have a second core set. Probably even 3 if they played in wave 1 and wanted 4 x wings or 7 ties.

I think the damage deck is fine as it is.

Regular advice for newbies was to "buy two starter sets", be a shame to then add "oh, and a third damage deck".

A crit is still damage, regardless of text, just count yourself lucky if that's all you take and smile on the inside when your opponent takes the full force of something. Laws of averages will deal with the rest

FTS Gecko

I like these save for the Reactor Breach. That is a bit too heavy handed for me. Plus, losing a 60 point Han to his first crit would really make a lot of people unhappy.

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actually I'm missing one hit crits, even if they are rare to balance them. Even one of those in your damage deck makes you sweat just a bit more just reaching for the deck. Of course depending on the occurences it has some influence on the balance of expensive ships, but that holds true for any currently miss combi replaced by an effect.

Geckos condition makes it a bit more interesting since it drags out the decision.

Yeah -you'd have to get incredibly unlucky for the Reactor Breach to cause an instant KO.

First, you need to take a critical hit anyway (so P-Bombs aside, your shields would already have gone).

Secondly,you'd need to actually draw the Reactor Breach card face up.

Thirdly, you'd need to roll another Critical Hit on an attack dice in a subsequent round.

The odds of all that coming off look pretty small (3,720-1?) to me, but it would add some tension and drama. In fact, if it DID come off, I'm willing to bet it would be pretty hilarious.

Finally, if a 30+ point Soontir Fell can be OHK'd, I don't see a huge issue with a Falcon getting KO'd over the course of 2+ turns by a Critical Hit effect.

Attack Wing actually has a Warp Core breach in the deck that does this. Only it has the addition of: "The ship gains the following Action: flip this card face down, the ship may only make maneuvers of 1 for the rest of the game". In other words an option to eject the reactor. I actually found it quite interesting.

If FF were to redesign the damage deck, I'd like to see cards written more broadly, so:

Ship: remove 1 system/munition/modification/cannon/turret upgrade card. If this ship has no upgrade cards, flip this card upside down and draw another face down damage card.

Pilot: remove one EPT/crew card. If this card has no such cards, reduce your attacks by 1.

There already is one critical effect which removes crew cards, but only for imperial ships: Its called Moff Jerjerrod.

Just wait for FFG to add the debris cloud obstacles to tournament play, then you can see how they would add stuff to the game which is only available through certain expansion sets.

I don't see a problem with the current damage deck ad will not pay money for another one. But munition failure sucked when my HLC outrider lost its Expensive HLC and became an ineffective ship with 2 attack die. The outrider spent the rest of the game barking at the imperials before being destroyed.

I like what they are doing by adding upgrades or weapons that increase the amount of crits being handed out. Like the advanced targeting computer, mangler cannon, etc.