Title says it all. The games I have played and witnessed (~10 so far) at 180 points generally devolve into Engineering Token + Command spam after turn 3/4 to keep the Victory Regenerating Shields and/or removing Damage Cards. I have yet to see a player kill a VSD in 6 rounds, although I have seen a few games where it got 5-6 damage cards at that point. You obviously get/keep the token from Tarkin/Yularen each turn. You can even throw in the title or the officer that let you swap engineering tokens for offensive ones if you aren't getting hurt enough and want the firepower.

The Rebels can do a similar trick with the Redemption, although the different defensive tokens usually mean it will eventually go down, especially if it gets hit hard a time or two.

So the question is: Is Engineering too strong with only the Core available? I suspect when you get 300 points and bigger ships this will be less of a problem, but at the moment it appears to be a bit strong and makes the game a bit less fun for the Rebel players.

Has anyone else noticed/had issues with this?

Yes, we played 5 games last night in which the Victory died twice. Granted the Nebulon didn't die ever, and the CR90 died in maybe 3 of those. When the Victory didn't die, it finished the game in almost perfect health.

It died once due to some ramming maneuvers from the rebels, and some lucky dice, and a lot of inexperience.

The other time the x-wings evaded the ties (who had been butchered by anti-squadron fire from the ships) and delivered 2 crits, which thanks to Dodonna were as brutal as possible.

We must also remember that this game is not centerd on destroying the enemy it is centered on objectives,

I did play 2 games 1 learn to play and 1 180 points game both without objectives and non of the capital ships died in fact only the cr90 even had a damage card at the end of one of the games, so next game will be with objectives and that will balance it out quite a bit

The other time the x-wings evaded the ties (who had been butchered by anti-squadron fire from the ships) and delivered 2 crits, which thanks to Dodonna were as brutal as possible.

Dodonna says a "friendly ship", so he doesn't affect Squadron attacks.

The other time the x-wings evaded the ties (who had been butchered by anti-squadron fire from the ships) and delivered 2 crits, which thanks to Dodonna were as brutal as possible.

Dodonna says a "friendly ship", so he doesn't affect Squadron attacks.

No, he doesn't. People really need to stop correcting people when they are going off months-old spoilers and not the card in the box. It's happening all over the forum.

Dondonna says no such thing. He effects enemy ships. Go look at the actual card the version previewed is not how he was printed.

We must also remember that this game is not centerd on destroying the enemy it is centered on objectives,

I did play 2 games 1 learn to play and 1 180 points game both without objectives and non of the capital ships died in fact only the cr90 even had a damage card at the end of one of the games, so next game will be with objectives and that will balance it out quite a bit

A good point. Only one of our games had objectives. While the Vic was healthy at the end, we tied on objectives. Since the CR90 was blown up the imps had the edge, but it wasn't as one sided as we had both expected by the middle of the game

And I agree with the OP given the lack of overall firepower the Rebels have, the fact that the Imp can gain 6 repair points a turn without sacrificing thier actually killing power is a Core Set issue.

No, he doesn't. People really need to stop correcting people when they are going off months-old spoilers and not the card in the box. It's happening all over the forum.

Whoa, whoa, my apologies. I'm only trying to help, there have been a lot of confused rules questions here. Obviously, I'm wrong and using an outdated source; I don't have the option of looking at the actual card yet. I know a bunch of point values changed, but nobody mentioned (that I saw) the card wordings having changed.

On another note, wow, that's a big change! And he's down to 20 points now, is that right? That's a pretty awesome upgrade from his original preview!

No, he doesn't. People really need to stop correcting people when they are going off months-old spoilers and not the card in the box. It's happening all over the forum.

Whoa, whoa, my apologies. I'm only trying to help, there have been a lot of confused rules questions here. Obviously, I'm wrong and using an outdated source; I don't have the option of looking at the actual card yet. I know a bunch of point values changed, but nobody mentioned (that I saw) the card wordings having changed.

On another note, wow, that's a big change! And he's down to 20 points now, is that right? That's a pretty awesome upgrade from his original preview!

Sorry about snapping. The same thing has just happened in like 5 different threads so far.

And I agree with the OP given the lack of overall firepower the Rebels have, the fact that the Imp can gain 6 repair points a turn without sacrificing thier actually killing power is a Core Set issue.

The game isn't a death match though, and it absolutely does sacrifice their killing power. Imps repairing for 6 repair points aren't commanding squadrons or concentrating fire or maneuvering you into their forward arcs. Yes, having to repair makes them tanky, but it doesn't really win them any objectives, even ones that you get all your points from killing, if I can force the Star Destroyer to repair constantly while I wipe the TIEs off the board? I'm going to win. I don't need to kill the SD so long as I can keep my own ships alive.

And I agree with the OP given the lack of overall firepower the Rebels have, the fact that the Imp can gain 6 repair points a turn without sacrificing thier actually killing power is a Core Set issue.

The game isn't a death match though, and it absolutely does sacrifice their killing power. Imps repairing for 6 repair points aren't commanding squadrons or concentrating fire or maneuvering you into their forward arcs. Yes, having to repair makes them tanky, but it doesn't really win them any objectives, even ones that you get all your points from killing, if I can force the Star Destroyer to repair constantly while I wipe the TIEs off the board? I'm going to win. I don't need to kill the SD so long as I can keep my own ships alive.

I think you are overestimating the amount of times the VSD needs to take the Engineering Command to pretty much certify it won't be leaving the table. I mean at most you are looking at just RDs 5 and 6. Maybe even just one of those. Every other RD, particularly the RDS where Squadrons will meet, you are free to take whatever.

The VSD is very lethal to either Rebel ship without ever utilizing the ConFire Dial.

And yes I absolutely see an issue with the current Core Set gameplay devolving to the Rebels avoiding the VSD and hoping to out point the Imp based on killing TIEs and hoping that it is an objective they can leverage. And if they lose a ship they likely can't overcome the points. The Imperials can both play the objective and actively destroy Ships and Squadrons for thier points, the Rebels really can't.

Now this would be a non issue if we didn't have this odd delay between Core and Wave 1, but it is what we are stuck with and is something I expect to be a non issue once we can actually play the game as actually intended.

I disagree. A couple X-Wings on a VSDs rear arc puts it in a ton of danger, let alone if a Neb-B gets back there and is smart enough to slow down and not fly by.

Frankly I don't really see the problem. Is a Victory tough to kill? Yes, but that's sort-of the point anyway. If you're absolutely dead set on killing one who's turtling, throw Overload Pulse onto a CR-90B. Without defence tokens you can start to make the shields of the Victory cut to ribbons in no time. Hell, use Luke and Dodonna's Pride! With a little bit of luck you can pick out crits that absolutely annihilate the damned Star Destroyer.

From both a gameplay and thematic perspective I'm not exactly bothered by the fact that it takes concentrated fire from lots of ships to take down a ship that large. On the subject of this subject, everybody was complaining the Rebels have too much power over the Victory and now this? I really, REALLY hope this forum doesn't devolve into endless topic after topic of complaining like the X-Wing forum has.

I have absolutely no problem with the idea that it is going to take 3 or so Corvette dog-piling on a Victory from one direction to overwhelm it and bring it down. Just that isn't possible playing out of the Core Set.

I find that thematically sound and very plausible on a full size board. But right now we aren't really playing the actual game. We are playing a glorified demo because of the port strike delaying Wave 1 and forcing FFG to release just the Core Set and compromise on the ruleset for the time being.

I have debated temporarily house-ruling that you only get half your engineering on the VSD for the commands. So 2 points for the command dial and 1 for the token. This still makes it so the command can be somewhat valuable (since you can still take a damage card away with both) but it limits the "tank all day" stuff. I feel that the learn to play in particular needs this, since most people I have seen play Rebels get frustrated 3-4 turns in when they get the idea that they will never kill the VSD. When I am playing a demo as the Imperials at the moment I have been forgoing the Engineering command entirely to help with this.

I am not necessarily trying to say its unfair right now (although it may be), just that many play the game to fight with capitals and it feels much less epic when you go into a game feeling like the VSD is either nigh-unkillable or that you have to take specific cards to have a chance of doing meaningful damage as the Rebels. Sure you can win games on the missions and stuff, but I think it's more fun when you actually have a battle that both sides have to consider the risks, versus just one side.

Again, I think Wave 1 and the 300 point level largely solve this since you will have enough ships/firepower to kill them if you desire/need.

Ion cannons are great for breaking down the more resilient targets.

I think it all boils down to learning the game and how to take down different types of ships with limited resources to do so. It will also be better once we have more options to field.

It's hilarious to me that we've got threads saying that the Imperials don't stand a chance in the core game, and then others saying they're OP.

It's hilarious to me that we've got threads saying that the Imperials don't stand a chance in the core game, and then others saying they're OP.

Probably a good sign that its balanced

It's hilarious to me that we've got threads saying that the Imperials don't stand a chance in the core game, and then others saying they're OP.

Probably a good sign that its balanced

Amusingly enough that very logical fallacy is addressed by Tycho Celchu in one of the EU books.

Just because one group says black and the other says white doesn't mean the answer is grey.

It's hilarious to me that we've got threads saying that the Imperials don't stand a chance in the core game, and then others saying they're OP.

Probably a good sign that its balanced

probably a better sign that people are jumping to conclusions after just getting the game

Dondonna says no such thing. He effects enemy ships. Go look at the actual card the version previewed is not how he was printed.

Many of us still don't have the actual cards to look at. (Yay Amazon!!)

This is the first I heard of a change to Dodonna. Is there anywhere that someone with the cards in hand has posted the released verisons of all the cards?

So in the 10 games I've played I've never dropped the Star Destroyer the best I ever did personally was getting 4 damage on it, by that time tarkin decided he would turn into a mechanic and would give himself a repair token, and do a command dial repair action and was removing 2 cards a turn (4 enginnering + 2 from the token)

Its a fine line I mean if you can get Dodonna inside with Dodonna's pride you can do some decent damage but Tarkin can remove it pretty quickly (And I've seen alot of people do nothing but adjust to speed 1 and then do nothing but repair since the VSD has pretty decent armament already)

I wouldn't say engineer is too strong, but Tarkin at small scale on a VSD is pretty good. I don't really find rebels don't have the firepower, but it's 6 engineer points each turn that you need to deal with, which in 6 turns is pretty hard to do so. Withouth Tarkin the VSD is perfectly killable.

I was lucky one game and got a crit that didn't allow him to use redirect or regen shields, and i already had the nebulon B on its back with a few xwing's at turn 4, from there, it was GG, but if he had Tarkin, it would had changed.

So in the 10 games I've played I've never dropped the Star Destroyer the best I ever did personally was getting 4 damage on it, by that time tarkin decided he would turn into a mechanic and would give himself a repair token, and do a command dial repair action and was removing 2 cards a turn (4 enginnering + 2 from the token)

Its a fine line I mean if you can get Dodonna inside with Dodonna's pride you can do some decent damage but Tarkin can remove it pretty quickly (And I've seen alot of people do nothing but adjust to speed 1 and then do nothing but repair since the VSD has pretty decent armament already)

The flgs I was at yesterday a friend of mine ran 2 corvettes and a nebulon, and got him down to 7 cards. If dodonna can pull certain crits it'll help, especially the no command tokens one. The take a damage to use your dial helps too. The main trick is to get an objective that's winnable without destroying it, so the collect tokens for 75 VP is good, adding extra dice to each of your attacks one, or the bomber focused one are all very winnable as rebels. The last thing is the amount of fighters at 180 is super low, so they don't add up to a lot if you keep a nebulon nearby to just pop side arc shots on them. With that you don't actually need x wings cause there's not much they will accomplish that the second corvette couldn't do better