I introduced a friend to tournament play today, and over three rounds he faced 2 different decimators with a captive on board. His only complaint was that Rebel captive have him fits.

So what do you think? Inexperienced player? Or is there more to this?

He is indeed too powerful, that's why he's held captive.... Imagine if he were released!!!

It's annoying more than anything. You just have to plan for it.

hard to say without knowing the situations, lists, etc. Rebel captive is just the first enemy ship that shoots at it right? could be he played it wrong and gave stress for everyone. its really just there as detterent for phantoms, as they get stressed so no cloak which means an exposed admiral can shoot at 2 agility phantoms with 4 attack dice, and deny its mobility strengths.

A bit of both.

Rebel Captive is a PITA to deal with, but it's not over powered. What it does is force an opponent to fly differently than they had wanted to. That's the exact sort of thing an inexperienced player is going to have difficulty with.

Not OP at all...

It's only the first shot and it's unique.

What else could be done to restrict it? Make it one use only? Then it would be worthless.

Rebel captive only affects the first ship that targets the ship he is on. You need to have more than one ship to attack it.

Captive hurts lists with two pilots, it shuts down the action economy of Fat Han or another Decimator. It specifically irritates high PS pilots because they have to shoot it first. Not broken though. Just irritating.

Rebel captive is neat because it so thoroughly hurts phantoms and other aces. It's a great card that the game needs more of. Really hurts some list elements without necessarily defining the list it is in.

No.

No, I think its powerful, it's definitely a tournament staple in many lists, but i don't think its overpowered. I think in an environment dominated by two ship lists its efficacy goes up significantly.

In a swarm list, it will stress normally 25-33% of the rebel list, or even 12.5-15% of a full blown tie swarm, but when the average tournament list i have, and many others I'm guessing, have seen lately is 2 ships, it effectively stressing 50% of the list, and i think that is what makes it seem probably a little more powerful than normal.

IMO, No in general. But really close IF, it is put on Whisper. It then kinda penalizes the opponent for bringing some of the few responses to said Whisper by hurting the specific tools you brought to fight it. Like a Wedge or a VI B-wing or some such, or yes a Fat Han. Which ties in with the two ship list thing. And once again we see a Phantom covering it's own (and few) weaknesses rather handily. Cue debate on whether Phantom is broken or not, which is where this thread was likely going to end up anyway. ...

not OP, if anything it's a point to expensive.

The real question is, will there be rebel and imperial captives for the a Scum ships.

Am I the only one who wants a "Loyalist Captive" for when you're in an Imperial mirror match? I like to pretend that I'm going after Zaarin or Harkov's forces.

The captive can decide games against phantoms, for sure, but outside of that case, it's something you can deal with.

Do you want to live in a world with one less reliable option for dash and phantoms? Or the soon to be steroid interceptors?

It's fine. Just the typical new player response to anything that beats them a couple times in any game ever.

"I was Keyan's wingman the other day, and we were attacking this shuttle. All of a sudden, Keyan just goes wild! So I ask him, like, hey dude, what's going on? There's a prisoner on that ship, he says, and he opens fire like the thing has to go down no matter what! He knew there was one of us on board, but it just made him go postal on that ship. You know, Keyan's a nice guy, but sometimes he scares me."

"I was Keyan's wingman the other day, and we were attacking this shuttle. All of a sudden, Keyan just goes wild! So I ask him, like, hey dude, what's going on? There's a prisoner on that ship, he says, and he opens fire like the thing has to go down no matter what! He knew there was one of us on board, but it just made him go postal on that ship. You know, Keyan's a nice guy, but sometimes he scares me."

Those who are foolish enough to allow themselves to be captured are without honor and deserve to be punished.

Ultimately, it applies stress. So it's not important by itself; what matters is how the list you're flying copes with unexpected stress tokens.

This is no different to fletchette weapons, tactcican crew, etc, etc. A rebel medium fighter wing with R2 astromechs can keep flying normally and probably won't even lose an action.

By comparison, an elite pilot with a specific modification or talent which results in you pulling a stress token (Push The Limit) or which grants free actions (Advanced Cloaking Device) gets penalised by it.

By comparison to the comparison, some pilots actively thrive on having stress tokens. Ibitsam is a good example.

No.

There are ways to handle the stress and a cheap filler ship works great at taking the stress,

Academy Tie Pilot or Banded Z-95.

Let's face it rebel captive is hardly as annoying as 3PO, he's also not new the cards been around yonks now and I've never seen the flood of complaint threads we had with old golden rod.

Issue is until wave five there was no fat decimator to worry about, you gotta shoot it because you don't want it alive end game but it will exact it's toll.

Well, that would depend on whether Rebel Captive will stress out Scum pilots as well...

Well, that would depend on whether Rebel Captive will stress out Scum pilots as well...

I cannot see why it wouldn't work on them rules wise, it works on the empire.

Narrative, maybe they were hired to retrieve the Rebel Captive alive and unharmed.

No reason it shouldn't.

Getting stress (even multiple) is not "the end of the world", not knowing when to take the stress on who, and how, is.