How would it be worthless? It gives you another ship and gun when the HT is destroyed.

I did some rough math on it before recording the most recent NOVA episode.

In an untimed game where MoV isn't an issue, it is never going to be worth 6 points. This arises because the combat power of the two ships (Hound and Pup) add linearly, whereas the power of a squad is proportional to the number of ships squared.

The more expensive the mothership, the less attractive the Pup is. On the other extreme, if the Mothership was 0 points and was immediately removed from play and popped out the Pup, then obviously the Pup is a 6 point discount. The hypothetical break-even point where it would be worth adding the Pup would be if the Mothership only costed 9 points.

In this case, all else being equal, the combined combat power of the two ships would be:

(9/12)^2 + 1 = 1.5625

Compared to a single 15 point ship:

(15/12)^2 = 1.5625

The Hound is obviously worth well north of 9 points, so I don't expect the Pup to be worth much on it. You're better off getting 6 points of a cannon upgrade or something equivalent.

Now, in a real game in a timed match with MoV, it could be worth it to get the Pup title. If you are losing but the time is close, fly your ship around the board and don't let your opponent kill it, and you can just win on time instead. Personally I don't like Point Fortresses to begin with, and see that as pure cheese, but it is legal (pending how FFG rules MoV scored of course).

Pilot Skill affects the math in favor of the Pup, but not enough to justify it.

For a 35 point PS7 w/ EPT that is exactly "worth" its cost:

Total Value = 12*(1 + 7/24)*[(35/(1+7/24))^2 +1]^0.5 = 38.2

So the Pup costs 6 points and provides 3.2 points of value. Add more points to the Hound and it is less favorable.

Now here's the real question. What happens when the Nashtah Pup is the only remaining ship on the board?

Therw isn't a single other situation which leaves a ship worth zero points on the board after destruction. The rules as they are now do not cover this situation.

Nope, actually they do. I was just testing to see if you were paying attention.

From the Tournament Rules:

Each tournament match ends in one of the following three ways:

• All of one player’s ships are destroyed (respecting the Simultaneous Attack Rule, Rules of Play, Page 16). The player with at least one ship remaining immediately earns a Match Win, and the opposing player receives a Match Loss. If neither player has any remaining ships, the game ends in a Draw

If the Hound's Tooth player destroys all of their opponent's ship and only has the Nashtah Pup left on the table, they will get a full match win worth 5 points and an MOV of 100-100.

Remember that MOV only matters for tie breakers in Swiss and for matches that don't conclude before time is called, you don't actually use MOV to determine who wins a match before time is called.

Now here's the real question. What happens when the Nashtah Pup is the only remaining ship on the board?

Therw isn't a single other situation which leaves a ship worth zero points on the board after destruction. The rules as they are now do not cover this situation.

Nope, actually they do. I was just testing to see if you were paying attention.

From the Tournament Rules:

Each tournament match ends in one of the following three ways:

• All of one player’s ships are destroyed (respecting the Simultaneous Attack Rule, Rules of Play, Page 16). The player with at least one ship remaining immediately earns a Match Win, and the opposing player receives a Match Loss. If neither player has any remaining ships, the game ends in a Draw

If the Hound's Tooth player destroys all of their opponent's ship and only has the Nashtah Pup left on the table, they will get a full match win worth 5 points and an MOV of 100-100.

Remember that MOV only matters for tie breakers in Swiss and for matches that don't conclude before time is called, you don't actually use MOV to determine who wins a match before time is called.

Hounds Tooth blows up.... has Dead Man's Switch... takes out the last opposing enemy ship at range 1... the Pup comes out...

VICTORY!

I imagine FFG'll probably rule that the Pup is worth 6 points and the Tooth is worth 6 less.

Hounds Tooth blows up.... has Dead Man's Switch... takes out the last opposing enemy ship at range 1... the Pup comes out...

VICTORY!

now if only we can jury-rig a DMS to the pup...

I imagine FFG'll probably rule that the Pup is worth 6 points and the Tooth is worth 6 less.

Imo, this would be unnecessarily complicated.

Plus, rewarding all the M.O.V upfront would give opponents license to ignore the little bastard when they take out the big bastard. This could also be used to your advantage since it''d be an "anti-biggs effect" (not getting ****, so I'm not shooting it) but it's a Z-95, how bad can it really be?

If you could upgrade the pup (not likely, but it's possible) this actually gives your opponent incentive to ignore the HT in some situations... (just going off the top of my head)... this could mean that HT lasts until it's wingmen are all dead.

Hounds Tooth blows up.... has Dead Man's Switch... takes out the last opposing enemy ship at range 1... the Pup comes out...

VICTORY!

I would agree with this, except for the part where the Pup comes out. The Hound's Tooth says the Pup comes out after the ship is destroyed but before it's removed from the table, and the rules say that as soon as the last ship is destroyed, the game ends. You can't have abilities resolving in a game that has already ended. So the game will end before the Hound's Tooth's ability can resolve if the Hound's Tooth is the last ship in play for its controller, and that player will lose.

Removing a ship from the table happens as a result of a ship being destroyed, but the criteria for the game to end is met as soon as enough damage cards have been assigned to a ship. The destroyed ship does not need to be removed from the table for the game to end, thus the game will end before the Hound's Tooth title can resolve.

TL;DR, as the rules are currently written, if the Hound's Tooth is the last ship you control and your opponent blows it up, you lose no matter what. However, we cannot compare Hound's Tooth to any other card in the game because it is the first card to trigger "after this ship is destroyed but before it is removed from play", so FFG could easily FAQ this card to work in any way they want it to.

Edit: From a strategic standpoint, that means that you'd want the Hound's Tooth to be the last ship you destroy so you don't have to deal with the zombie Z-95 that you would have to kill to finish the game. Which turns the Hound's Tooth title from being overcosted to being a pretty interesting reverse-Biggs style durability buff that creates very interesting strategic decision for the player playing against the Hound's Tooth.

That's interesting, we'll have to wait for the FAQ to come out. It could matter for corner cases like simultaneous fire.

Each tournament match ends in one of the following three ways:

• All of one player’s ships are destroyed (respecting the Simultaneous Attack Rule, Rules of Play, Page 16). The player with at least one ship remaining immediately earns a Match Win, and the opposing player receives a Match Loss. If neither player has any remaining ships, the game ends in a Draw

They still don't cover what that actually does as far as placing a new ship on the board that is still technically a part of the old ship. For all intents and purposes itbcould be the same as if the old ship is on the board as easily as it can be considered the ship is destroyed.

I think the mistake you're making is thinking that the Pup and the Hound's Tooth are the same ship. They are literally not, even though they might have the same pilot. Neither is the Pup and extension of the YV-666. The pup is a ship that comes into existence because of the Hound's Tooth upgrade card. The Hound's Tooth title is a triggered ability (or ability that triggers, whatever), that lets you deploy (a currently undefined game term that will for sure be getting its own rules card) a new ship called the Nastah Pup, which may or may not have the same pilot you put in your YV-666 (we don't know yet).

The Nashtah Pup is not the same ship as the Hound's Tooth, nor is it an extension of the Hound's Tooth, it is a new ship that previously was not in the game being played (because it was sitting idle in the Tooth's cargo bay, duh), even though it might have the same pilot skill and abilities as the Hound's Tooth it was on (again, we don't know this for sure yet). Regardless of the philosophy, the Nashtah Pup gets put into play by the triggered ability of the Hound's Tooth title, not because of any game mechanics that come from the YM-666 itself.

I'm not going to get too wrapped up in the semantics until we get the full rules for "deploying" the Pup. I'm just glad they worked it into the game! I was really hoping they would find a way to implement this ship, since it's a fairly unique feature in the fluff.

I hope that you get to transfer your EPT (if you have one) and possibly a crew member of choice, since the Pup is modified to be a two-seater. Even if you get full points for killing the Hound's Tooth, having a "freebie" Z-95 running around with the pilot ability, PS rating, EPT and possibly a crew member is a neat perk for 6pts. A Z-95 might not do much (or anything if the HT was your last remaining ship, pending a FAQ or the deploy rule itself), but it would be so cool And if you can buy upgrades for the Pup, that could be cool too.

We'll have to wait and see, but in my books they get major points for making this work. I trust it won't do anything silly and break the game scoring system. They seem to know what they're doing 99% of the time. Nobody's perfect

How would it be worthless? It gives you another ship and gun when the HT is destroyed.

I did some rough math on it before recording the most recent NOVA episode.

In an untimed game where MoV isn't an issue, it is never going to be worth 6 points. This arises because the combat power of the two ships (Hound and Pup) add linearly, whereas the power of a squad is proportional to the number of ships squared.

The more expensive the mothership, the less attractive the Pup is. On the other extreme, if the Mothership was 0 points and was immediately removed from play and popped out the Pup, then obviously the Pup is a 6 point discount. The hypothetical break-even point where it would be worth adding the Pup would be if the Mothership only costed 9 points.

In this case, all else being equal, the combined combat power of the two ships would be:

(9/12)^2 + 1 = 1.5625

Compared to a single 15 point ship:

(15/12)^2 = 1.5625

The Hound is obviously worth well north of 9 points, so I don't expect the Pup to be worth much on it. You're better off getting 6 points of a cannon upgrade or something equivalent.

Now, in a real game in a timed match with MoV, it could be worth it to get the Pup title. If you are losing but the time is close, fly your ship around the board and don't let your opponent kill it, and you can just win on time instead. Personally I don't like Point Fortresses to begin with, and see that as pure cheese, but it is legal (pending how FFG rules MoV scored of course).

I think I'm missing something. If you can explain a few things, I would really appreciate it!

"This arises because the combat power of the two ships (Hound and Pup) add linearly, whereas the power of a squad is proportional to the number of ships squared."

I'm not sure if this is an axiom, or something so well proved that we can treat it as such. Either way, though, I would like to hear more about why this is true.

"In this case, all else being equal, the combined combat power of the two ships would be:

(9/12)^2 + 1 = 1.5625

Compared to a single 15 point ship:

(15/12)^2 = 1.5625"

Ok, so: 9/12 is (Cost of mother ship)/(???)^2{because of the thing I think I need explained to me} + (number of other ships?) =(combat power)

It's times like this that I wish I studied calculus instead of constitutional design.

A background in higher math would have helped with that, too, actually. But noooo... I had to study religion.

I wonder if we'll be able to see a freestanding deployment action- one that's not dependent on the destruction of the mothership. It would be awesome to have a CR90 mod that lets it drop a couple small ships into the fray.

Not to mention the Gozanti cruiser.

I think I'm missing something. If you can explain a few things, I would really appreciate it!

"This arises because the combat power of the two ships (Hound and Pup) add linearly, whereas the power of a squad is proportional to the number of ships squared."

I'm not sure if this is an axiom, or something so well proved that we can treat it as such. Either way, though, I would like to hear more about why this is true.

Really long answer:

You can use the differential equations of an ideal melee or a ranged combat force to arrive at that conclusion. Not generally recommended.

Alternative long answer here as applied to X-wing:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/128417-mathwing-comprehensive-ship-jousting-values-and-more/

Shorter answer:

Consider melee combat through a chokepoint. Team 1 has 300 Spartans on one side of the chokepoint. Team 2 has 10,000 Persians but they can only come through a few at a time.

Once the Persian ranks come through, say 10-20 at a time, all 300 Spartans beat them to death. (brutal!) But then more Persians keep coming. So if you double the number of Persians, then you double their overall durability, but their damage output is exactly the same. So the power of melee troops is proportional to the number of troops you bring, it is a simple linear increase. This is how the Hound and the Pup works. The Pup only comes into play after the Hound is done.

Now consider a battle of two armies. Each army is 100% comprised of ranged archers. If you double the number of archers on one side, you double both the durability and the damage output. So the combat power of the force is proportional to the square of the number of units in that force. This is the model that applies to standard X-wing, because everything can simultaneously shoot everything else. (Once everyone gets in range, and with some firing duty cycle, etc etc etc).

So, from the above, the combat power of an individual ship is proportional to the square of it's cost. I divide by 12 first to normalize to a TIE Fighter or Z-95.

Hounds Tooth blows up.... has Dead Man's Switch... takes out the last opposing enemy ship at range 1... the Pup comes out...

VICTORY!

I would agree with this, except for the part where the Pup comes out. The Hound's Tooth says the Pup comes out after the ship is destroyed but before it's removed from the table, and the rules say that as soon as the last ship is destroyed, the game ends. You can't have abilities resolving in a game that has already ended. So the game will end before the Hound's Tooth's ability can resolve if the Hound's Tooth is the last ship in play for its controller, and that player will lose.

Rulebook p 16: ships are destroyed immediately after receiving Damage cards

Thus, if the game ends immediately after the last ship is destroyed, then the game will end immediately after the last damage card is placed on the last ship, but before that ship would be removed from the table. So in your scenario with Dead Man's Switch, unless the ship that killed you is the same Pilot Skill as you, you actually just lose because the game ends before Dead Man's Switch can resolve.

Removing a ship from the table happens as a result of a ship being destroyed, but the criteria for the game to end is met as soon as enough damage cards have been assigned to a ship. The destroyed ship does not need to be removed from the table for the game to end, thus the game will end before the Hound's Tooth title can resolve.

TL;DR, as the rules are currently written, if the Hound's Tooth is the last ship you control and your opponent blows it up, you lose no matter what. However, we cannot compare Hound's Tooth to any other card in the game because it is the first card to trigger "after this ship is destroyed but before it is removed from play", so FFG could easily FAQ this card to work in any way they want it to.

Edit: From a strategic standpoint, that means that you'd want the Hound's Tooth to be the last ship you destroy so you don't have to deal with the zombie Z-95 that you would have to kill to finish the game. Which turns the Hound's Tooth title from being overcosted to being a pretty interesting reverse-Biggs style durability buff that creates very interesting strategic decision for the player playing against the Hound's Tooth.

All true, except we have a precedent in Gunner and Vader. In both cases, you are allowed to resolve the effects even when your ship is "dead" (in the case of simul fire especially). For example, you can shoot, miss, activate Vader to blow yourself up, and still fire one more time before you go. Alternately, a ship can activate Vader to destroy itself and even if it is the last ship on its side the Vader crit will occur (possibly destroying the target for a draw).

I don't like that particular rule interaction, I would prefer the game ends the "instant" your last ship goes away, but there it is. If they treat the Pup the same way, then you would be able to "finish" your deployment and prevent the game from ending.

Hounds Tooth blows up.... has Dead Man's Switch... takes out the last opposing enemy ship at range 1... the Pup comes out...

VICTORY!

I would agree with this, except for the part where the Pup comes out. The Hound's Tooth says the Pup comes out after the ship is destroyed but before it's removed from the table, and the rules say that as soon as the last ship is destroyed, the game ends. You can't have abilities resolving in a game that has already ended. So the game will end before the Hound's Tooth's ability can resolve if the Hound's Tooth is the last ship in play for its controller, and that player will lose.

Rulebook p 16: ships are destroyed immediately after receiving Damage cards

Thus, if the game ends immediately after the last ship is destroyed, then the game will end immediately after the last damage card is placed on the last ship, but before that ship would be removed from the table. So in your scenario with Dead Man's Switch, unless the ship that killed you is the same Pilot Skill as you, you actually just lose because the game ends before Dead Man's Switch can resolve.

Removing a ship from the table happens as a result of a ship being destroyed, but the criteria for the game to end is met as soon as enough damage cards have been assigned to a ship. The destroyed ship does not need to be removed from the table for the game to end, thus the game will end before the Hound's Tooth title can resolve.

TL;DR, as the rules are currently written, if the Hound's Tooth is the last ship you control and your opponent blows it up, you lose no matter what. However, we cannot compare Hound's Tooth to any other card in the game because it is the first card to trigger "after this ship is destroyed but before it is removed from play", so FFG could easily FAQ this card to work in any way they want it to.

Edit: From a strategic standpoint, that means that you'd want the Hound's Tooth to be the last ship you destroy so you don't have to deal with the zombie Z-95 that you would have to kill to finish the game. Which turns the Hound's Tooth title from being overcosted to being a pretty interesting reverse-Biggs style durability buff that creates very interesting strategic decision for the player playing against the Hound's Tooth.

All true, except we have a precedent in Gunner and Vader. In both cases, you are allowed to resolve the effects even when your ship is "dead" (in the case of simul fire especially). For example, you can shoot, miss, activate Vader to blow yourself up, and still fire one more time before you go. Alternately, a ship can activate Vader to destroy itself and even if it is the last ship on its side the Vader crit will occur (possibly destroying the target for a draw).

I don't like that particular rule interaction, I would prefer the game ends the "instant" your last ship goes away, but there it is. If they treat the Pup the same way, then you would be able to "finish" your deployment and prevent the game from ending.

Ok, but are you sure you can do that if the Vader/Gunner ship is your last ship on the table? That's the situation we're talking about, and I'm not so sure you can do that.

Edit: You're right that you can use Vader to destroy your own last ship in play, since Vader deals damage to both ships simultaneously, meaning your ship was still alive when it resolved the effect of Vader. What I'm iffy on is if you can then resolve Gunner's effect after your last ship is destroyed by Vader without getting cut off by the game immediately ending due to all of your ships being destroyed.

I've sent a rules question to FFG and Alex Davy to get an official answer

Ok, but are you sure you can do that if the Vader/Gunner ship is your last ship on the table? That's the situation we're talking about, and I'm not so sure you can do that.

I don't think the FAQ says anything about treating the situation differently if it is the last ship on the table.

So we will definitely need an FAQ for what happens if the Hound's Tooth is the last ship to get destroyed. How FFG rules on this will have major ramifications for how strong the title is and how players will want to play against it.

However, it seems clear cut that destroying the YV-666 itself will get you all of its MOV points regardless of whether or not you destroy the Nashtah Pup afterwards, which was the initial question on the Nova podcast.

Shorter answer:

Consider melee combat through a chokepoint. Team 1 has 300 Spartans on one side of the chokepoint. Team 2 has 10,000 Persians but they can only come through a few at a time.

Once the Persian ranks come through, say 10-20 at a time, all 300 Spartans beat them to death. (brutal!) But then more Persians keep coming. So if you double the number of Persians, then you double their overall durability, but their damage output is exactly the same. So the power of melee troops is proportional to the number of troops you bring, it is a simple linear increase. This is how the Hound and the Pup works. The Pup only comes into play after the Hound is done.

And, sadly, unlike the Romans, I can't just know straight off to hire a freaking goatherd to show me the way around. Learning the wrong lessons is what happens when you valorize the losing side of an army.

But! Yes, your point is well taken.

Now consider a battle of two armies. Each army is 100% comprised of ranged archers. If you double the number of archers on one side, you double both the durability and the damage output. So the combat power of the force is proportional to the square of the number of units in that force. This is the model that applies to standard X-wing, because everything can simultaneously shoot everything else. (Once everyone gets in range, and with some firing duty cycle, etc etc etc).

Right! The British Navy learned that if they fired twice as fast as everyone else, they could do much more damage than even a larger force. Which is an imperfect analogy, but so would be Agincourt.

Short version, I think I begin to see your point.

"In this case, all else being equal, the combined combat power of the two ships would be:

(9/12)^2 + 1 = 1.5625

Compared to a single 15 point ship:

(15/12)^2 = 1.5625"

So, from the above, the combat power of an individual ship is proportional to the square of it's cost. I divide by 12 first to normalize to a TIE Fighter or Z-95.

Ok, I had a feeling the x/12 part might be normalized to the Tie Fighter, but I wasn't sure. And I think all of this makes some amount of sense.

So:

Lets say that you have 4 19 point PS 1 X-Wing each with a 6 point title on it that summons a 12 point PS 1 Z-95 when the X-Wing is destroyed. You would effectively be paying 100 points for 124 points of ships. But! Since you would be fighting at a minimum of a 24 point disadvantage throughout the entire fight, getting the extra 48 points of ships after you've incurred at least 19 points of loss would be begging for defeat in detail.

So: to make it worthwhile to summon a 12 point ship, we'd want a 3 point title? And to make it worthwhile to summon a 60 point Fat Han, we'd want a title that costs no more than 26 points? I think I missed a step somewhere.

I'm guess this is all going to be (or at least should be)cleared up in the FAQ that comes out when the Hound's Tooth does. Until then all we're doing is speculating.

My take is that the Pup is going to be worthless for scoring with all of the YV-666's points getting earned when the ship is destroyed. Although it isn't deployed until the mothership is destroyed maybe we should look at the Pup like a torpedo that is fired after the ship is destroyed. It's points have already been scored but it may still hit and cause damage on its own and with the Pup that damage may even get repeated.

Do we cry when we have ordnance on a ship that is destroyed before it gets fired? Fair enough but now look at the Pup as a "missile" that will always get fired and just like a normal missile it's not worth anything on its own when removed from its mothership.

I'm guess this is all going to be (or at least should be)cleared up in the FAQ that comes out when the Hound's Tooth does. Until then all we're doing is speculating.

My take is that the Pup is going to be worthless for scoring with all of the YV-666's points getting earned when the ship is destroyed. Although it isn't deployed until the mothership is destroyed maybe we should look at the Pup like a torpedo that is fired after the ship is destroyed. It's points have already been scored but it may still hit and cause damage on its own and with the Pup that damage may even get repeated.

Do we cry when we have ordnance on a ship that is destroyed before it gets fired? Fair enough but now look at the Pup as a "missile" that will always get fired and just like a normal missile it's not worth anything on its own when removed from its mothership.

No matter the ruling, I think the title is overcosted and purely in the realm of casual. It's 6 points that doesn't make the YV-666 any stronger while it's still alive, and gives you a Z-95 in the late game which is when Z-95s are at their worst.

The card is super flavorful though, flavor home-run for sure, great design.

...

Do we cry when we have ordnance on a ship that is destroyed before it gets fired? Fair enough but now look at the Pup as a "missile" that will always get fired and just like a normal missile it's not worth anything on its own when removed from its mothership.

That is one of the many reasons Torpedos and missiles don't see much use. :/

Here I was thinking it was simply because they don't pack enough bang for their buck.

Of course that does nothing to invalidate the comparison. It may just be that the Pup ends up as an interesting game mechanic that may not be too competitive but which could be fun to play around with from time to time. Or are we now saying that everything FFG puts out need to be useful in a highly competitive environment?

...

Do we cry when we have ordnance on a ship that is destroyed before it gets fired? Fair enough but now look at the Pup as a "missile" that will always get fired and just like a normal missile it's not worth anything on its own when removed from its mothership.

That is one of the many reasons Torpedos and missiles don't see much use. :/

Here I was thinking it was simply because they don't pack enough bang for their buck.

Of course that does nothing to invalidate the comparison. It may just be that the Pup ends up as an interesting game mechanic that may not be too competitive but which could be fun to play around with from time to time. Or are we now saying that everything FFG puts out need to be useful in a highly competitive environment?