People miss the main problem with autothrusters is it takes a ship that relys on mobility and arc dodging and makes your opponent limit your movements as you try to stay at range 3. Good luck on staying out of my firing arc when I have a pretty good idea of where you are going to be. And large base ships have a much larger primary firing arc to avoid. In the end you are just putting more points into a ship for more survivability while limiting your mobility. So when faced with ships like a fat falcon you will still lose the margin of victory fight because I just need to kill your interceptor that costs 1/3 of your list and you still have to kill a fat falcon that's over 1/2 of my list points.

The only way to beat a fat falcon in a tournament is to burn it down before it has time to regenerate. I don't see that happening from autothrusters but do with 4x advanced lists. And 4x advanced has issues with arc Dodgers and then the Rock Paper Scissors game begins. As turrets disappear from the meta whisper and Echo lists become more dominant. I do however see hybrid imperial lists using vadar, fel, or echo being extremely popular over the meta mid 2015.

I think you miss the point of Autothrusters. An Interceptor still wants to get out of arc, even with ATs. You aren't suddenly going to be able to joust with squints. However, it will help at range 3 when arc-dodging really isn't an option. Your interceptor won't suddenly explode when your opponent rolls a couple dice at it.

Even Fat Han will have a difficult time putting any consistent damage on an interceptor with ATs. Soontir will have at least 2 guaranteed evades against a Falcon each turn. That is including the automatic one you get with AT and the evade action.

Edit: **** super ninja'd

It's going to help but it will not suddenly change the entire meta like the op of this thread portends. The falcon doesn't have a bad dial and its primary firing arc is huge. It's going to get a shot on your interceptor regardless han, gunner, predator, luke whatever you use is going to take down a squint.

The difference now is that the squint might survive, especially Fell, ideally taking 1 damage a turn where before they'd just pop

Auto-thrusters is a consistent damage reduction (unless you roll 3 focus...) that works even through gunner if need be. Without gunner, the fat asses are going to have a very difficult time landing damage for their price unless they actually care about their facing (hah). With gunner, there's no R2-D2 + C3PO stacking (and on the YT-2400, there is no gunner ).

Decimator Vader (yay rhyme) would be the new hard counter, but the trade off is that the 16 combined health is going to be dropping a lot faster than normal.

While I doubt mass Interceptors will ever be the norm (auto-thrusters costs 2, after all) there is at least the option to fly one without shooting yourself in the foot, giving the imperial player an elite ship in the low 30 point range that they didn't have access to before (phantoms cost at least 35/37 and frequently more because of the system upgrade and crew slot). Tossing the Advance on top of that for even more low 30ish pilots (unless you go HAM on vader) is just icing.

Point is, more viable options should add to the meta. At least,there will be more decisions to make than the rather brainless fat ships that the Phantom and Wave 5 farted on us.

I agree there will be more variety just don't see the fat ships leaving thier pedestal yet.

That I see going away with 4x advanced lists because there is no easy way for a fat falcon to regenerate back from 12+ red dice a turn on a ship with 5 hit points each with 3 green die. It's going to take at least two rounds or more of shooting from a fat falcon list to kill 1 advanced. The falcon can't endure that much red dice. And when you are reliable able to burn a falcon in 2-3 turns of direct fire then c3p0 is no longer worth his cost and you might as well start using chewie again. In which case the fat falcon build has a hard counter.

Just got done playing a game and I counted the total number of evades I got from Autothrusters 9. Of the 9 free evades 6 stopped a damage that other wise would have hit me. So now lets compare the value I got from this 2 point upgrade. 6 prevented damage lets call these 6 hits hull upgrades, that means in this game I got the total of 18pts worth of hits for 2 points. that is a net profit of 16pts. this was against a YT-2400 and 2 B-Wings. Sontir lasted to the end of the game with 2 hull left on him with a total of 13 attacks thrown at him. How many times can you remember an Interceptor lasting that many shots at him?

*but then again I'm over selling the usefulness of Autothrusters*

5 x Alpha w/Autothrusters might be fun but I'm sure as hell not buying another four Interceptors to try it out. Not being able to fly the five Interceptors I have in a list is bad enough, I don't need nine of them.

Wait.

So the fact that I got 3 Squint boxes, and 3 Imp Aces boxes is abnormal? Like: everyone doesn't have 9 Tie Interceptors?

Oh man. I'm kind of embarrassed now.

5 x Alpha w/Autothrusters might be fun but I'm sure as hell not buying another four Interceptors to try it out. Not being able to fly the five Interceptors I have in a list is bad enough, I don't need nine of them.

Wait.

So the fact that I got 3 Squint boxes, and 3 Imp Aces boxes is abnormal? Like: everyone doesn't have 9 Tie Interceptors?

Oh man. I'm kind of embarrassed now.

and yet you still can't fly 5 Alphas with those 9 Squints you have

Don't be churlish. I'm well aware of what his card says. I also know he can only lose one stress at a time and his survivability is very much depended on him getting an action.

But he gets his focus action when you give him that stress. If he shoots before you then woo for him.

Yes, next turn however he will not be able to do actions and can't "Fel up." He becomes significantly easier to kill from that point on. And if you can keep putting stress on him it's even better.

Don't get me wrong. Fel is great. I run him with autothrusters and stealth devise myself and he does well. The point to take away from my post is that there are still counters to bring to that set up. It's premature to simply declare Phantoms obsolete due to autothrusters. They are more than able to adapt to the changing meta with their crew and sensor slot.

5 x Alpha w/Autothrusters might be fun but I'm sure as hell not buying another four Interceptors to try it out. Not being able to fly the five Interceptors I have in a list is bad enough, I don't need nine of them.

Wait.

So the fact that I got 3 Squint boxes, and 3 Imp Aces boxes is abnormal? Like: everyone doesn't have 9 Tie Interceptors?

Oh man. I'm kind of embarrassed now.

and yet you still can't fly 5 Alphas with those 9 Squints you have

And that was the only thimg I thought was stupid about that box...

The best thing about Autothrusters: it gives extra help to those who roll worst. Have a "friend" (who is in no way yourself) that _always_ rolls blanks at the worst possible time? Well! Fantasy Flight has an upgrade for you! them!

Phantoms won't become obsoletes, but given the added reliability of the Interceptor, there will be a new set of lists that should do fairly well. Even if Phantoms are going to be _better_ than squints, it seems plausible that a good list with a Squint might be better than a good list with a Phantom. Or, if not better, then at least as good as. And if those two lists have to be countered sufficiently differently, that should break things up on the Rebel and Scum sides as well.

5 x Alpha w/Autothrusters might be fun but I'm sure as hell not buying another four Interceptors to try it out. Not being able to fly the five Interceptors I have in a list is bad enough, I don't need nine of them.

Wait.

So the fact that I got 3 Squint boxes, and 3 Imp Aces boxes is abnormal? Like: everyone doesn't have 9 Tie Interceptors?

Oh man. I'm kind of embarrassed now.

and yet you still can't fly 5 Alphas with those 9 Squints you have

Quiet, you!

5 x Alpha w/Autothrusters might be fun but I'm sure as hell not buying another four Interceptors to try it out. Not being able to fly the five Interceptors I have in a list is bad enough, I don't need nine of them.

Wait.

So the fact that I got 3 Squint boxes, and 3 Imp Aces boxes is abnormal? Like: everyone doesn't have 9 Tie Interceptors?

Oh man. I'm kind of embarrassed now.

I too have 9 intys, but I did 5 and 2 imp aces. Don't be embarrassed. There is a support group on Thursdays.

It's a "support group" in that we all bring our Squints + 1 lambda, and have an epic brawl, right?

I only have eight. But, I am resisting the siren call of a 3rd and 4th Imperial Aces pack...

I was thinking of a four v four (each with four PTL'd RGP's) in an epic furball. Or we can invite that guy we know with the one x wing...

I only have eight. But, I am resisting the siren call of a 3rd and 4th Imperial Aces pack...

Why resist? If you get 4 more Squints, you'll have a full Squadron. Led by Baron Fel.

I only have eight. But, I am resisting the siren call of a 3rd and 4th Imperial Aces pack...

FFG should implement a program. If you send them four proofs of purchase from Imperial Aces, they'll mail you the cardboard for four Alpha Squadron Pilots.

Don't be churlish. I'm well aware of what his card says. I also know he can only lose one stress at a time and his survivability is very much depended on him getting an action.

But he gets his focus action when you give him that stress. If he shoots before you then woo for him.

Yes, next turn however he will not be able to do actions and can't "Fel up." He becomes significantly easier to kill from that point on. And if you can keep putting stress on him it's even better.

Don't get me wrong. Fel is great. I run him with autothrusters and stealth devise myself and he does well. The point to take away from my post is that there are still counters to bring to that set up. It's premature to simply declare Phantoms obsolete due to autothrusters. They are more than able to adapt to the changing meta with their crew and sensor slot.

Ah, but if you keep putting stress on him you keep giving him a focus, so it's never that bad Besides, the Interceptor's dial has plenty green!

Just got done playing a game and I counted the total number of evades I got from Autothrusters 9. Of the 9 free evades 6 stopped a damage that other wise would have hit me. So now lets compare the value I got from this 2 point upgrade. 6 prevented damage lets call these 6 hits hull upgrades, that means in this game I got the total of 18pts worth of hits for 2 points. that is a net profit of 16pts. this was against a YT-2400 and 2 B-Wings. Sontir lasted to the end of the game with 2 hull left on him with a total of 13 attacks thrown at him. How many times can you remember an Interceptor lasting that many shots at him?

*but then again I'm over selling the usefulness of Autothrusters*

If you lost then yes you are overselling autothusters since your claim was autothrusters would end up killing off phantons and fat turrets. That's your oversell not the fact that autothrusters are a good and useful upgrade on interceptors. I'm pretty sure everyone agrees on that.

Just got done playing a game and I counted the total number of evades I got from Autothrusters 9. Of the 9 free evades 6 stopped a damage that other wise would have hit me. So now lets compare the value I got from this 2 point upgrade. 6 prevented damage lets call these 6 hits hull upgrades, that means in this game I got the total of 18pts worth of hits for 2 points. that is a net profit of 16pts. this was against a YT-2400 and 2 B-Wings. Sontir lasted to the end of the game with 2 hull left on him with a total of 13 attacks thrown at him. How many times can you remember an Interceptor lasting that many shots at him?

*but then again I'm over selling the usefulness of Autothrusters*

Who won the game? And what ships were left standing at the end other then soontir?

If you lost then yes you are overselling autothusters since your claim was autothrusters would end up killing off phantons and fat turrets. That's your oversell not the fact that autothrusters are a good and useful upgrade on interceptors. I'm pretty sure everyone agrees on that.

Oso said Soontir lasted to the end of the game with two hull left, so in other words, Oso won.

Either way, a sample size of one isn't really a sample size at all

I'm sure juggler or mathwinger has the effectiveness of thrusters algorithmed out here, somewhere

Just got done playing a game and I counted the total number of evades I got from Autothrusters 9. Of the 9 free evades 6 stopped a damage that other wise would have hit me. So now lets compare the value I got from this 2 point upgrade. 6 prevented damage lets call these 6 hits hull upgrades, that means in this game I got the total of 18pts worth of hits for 2 points. that is a net profit of 16pts. this was against a YT-2400 and 2 B-Wings. Sontir lasted to the end of the game with 2 hull left on him with a total of 13 attacks thrown at him. How many times can you remember an Interceptor lasting that many shots at him?

*but then again I'm over selling the usefulness of Autothrusters*

Who won the game? And what ships were left standing at the end other then soontir?

If you lost then yes you are overselling autothusters since your claim was autothrusters would end up killing off phantons and fat turrets. That's your oversell not the fact that autothrusters are a good and useful upgrade on interceptors. I'm pretty sure everyone agrees on that.

Oso said Soontir lasted to the end of the game with two hull left, so in other words, Oso won.

Unless the game ran to time.

5 x Alpha w/Autothrusters might be fun but I'm sure as hell not buying another four Interceptors to try it out. Not being able to fly the five Interceptors I have in a list is bad enough, I don't need nine of them.

Wait.

So the fact that I got 3 Squint boxes, and 3 Imp Aces boxes is abnormal? Like: everyone doesn't have 9 Tie Interceptors?

Oh man. I'm kind of embarrassed now.

I have 11. I had 3 and then bought 4 aces boxes so I could run 4 of like color. I only recently stopped regularly playing interceptors when I autothrusters got announced because I just couldn't run them knowing that upgrade was coming (and the meta got worse for them in that time). But, yes, I have a problem and will see the rest of you on those Thursdays-- and there's no other ship I like better or have even close that many of and I'm one of the more conservative purchasers I know of X-wing ships in general (only one of each large ship, two of most others).

Either way, a sample size of one isn't really a sample size at all

I'm sure juggler or mathwinger has the effectiveness of thrusters algorithmed out here, somewhere

Nothing that I have made public yet, mostly just some experiments in my script environment. Eventually I'll quantify the question "Hull or Stealth?", but because of Vader crew I will probably be erring on the side of Hull regardless.

Auto Thrusters do look amazing in the current meta. The counters to them are mostly sub-par: autoblasters, deadman's switch and bombs for example. Vader looks great and feedback array is promising.

The main counter to Auto Thrusters is keeping things in your arc and at range 1-2. That's kind of what you want to be doing anyway.

Auto Thrusters are amazing, but are reliant on your ability to fly better than your opponent. On 3 dice they give an average of 0.75 extra evade results when applicable. But again, they don't apply at range 1-2 while in arc.

You know, reading this thread REALLY makes me want to pre empt the inevitable and just start up a "Let's fix the falcon" thread now...it is an "iconic" ship you know!!