Well.. I dont play GW games..

Good for you. Not one of the Dark Side you are. But I beg to differ concerning your praise of wiggle room. In my experience, hard choices make for a good game.

All I can say concerning GW:Holy crap! The prices!

We would also accept holy crap the rules!

This would be step 2.

Liking the synergy between Strom and Carnor Jax at R1. Strom takes away the bonus shot while Jax takes away your Focus/Evade tokens. Add in something pesky like a Phantom hanging back and throwing 4 dice down range.

Something like:

Strom, X1, ATC, PTL, Engine Upgrade. (34)

Jax, Title, Autothruster, PTL. (31)

Echo, ACD, VI. (35)

I'd even consider Mauler Mithel + Predator and Winged Gundark instead of Echo ^^

I agree. I'd go with Mauler MIthel, but also consider Dark Curse. He will be even harder to kill now. I'd also make sure to throw in at least one Academy for blocking.

If I suddenly see an opportunity to shoot another target without being shot at.. I'll take the change and use it to my advantage.. more maneuverability isn't training wheels, its called advantage...

Any 12-year-old can do that. Before you had to predict correctly the maneuvers of your opponent to get this sort of advantage. More maneuverability means a better dial, it has nothing to do with hindsight. Another step away from maneuvering skill to picking the right ships.

This is so GW.

Well.. I dont play GW games.. and I like options.. and face it.. we dont always predict what our opponents do.. as good as I feel I am, I still, sometimes, choose a bad move. Her ability allows some wiggle room when its needed..

Though I will say, that in todays games I managed to keep my enemies in my sites, and skirted some asteroids, and came millimeters from overlapping a couple of ships, all on purpose...

I see her ability as just one more way to finetune moves to get within range one of another ship... or bounce to range 3, or out of range .. options.. they are always a good thing...

I have to say, not only are the comparisons to GW incredibly off base, but complaining about the reduced importance of maneuvering because of Juno sounds like bull at best

FFG already broke the importance of predicting maneuvers/generally outplaying your opponent over its knee when it introduced primary turrets, and yet the game continues on as amazing as ever (provided you don't have the misfortune of playing against those boring bastards)

and while turrets approximate the dice-fest of your typical early ed 40k match, at least they do so with very concise rules that don't require the convening of an eldritch council every time two models interact

Strom with AC and Intimidation anybody?

I am pretty satisfied with the Advanced pilots.

I don't see an underdog amongst them.

Can't wait to command them in battle.

FFG already broke the importance of predicting maneuvers/generally outplaying your opponent over its knee when it introduced primary turrets,

And phantoms. And one faction with significantly more post manoeuver repositioning ability than the other 2. Now Juno can literally do most of the moves in the game and significantly mitigates dial choice risk.

I won't argue against the point that fat turrets are most boring to play and play against. But since wave 1 the Imps have always had the edge in movement, but paper thin hulls to compensate. The fairly bleh dials of rebel ships meant that turrets have been one of their primary defenses. Only the A has managed to compete anywhere near the level of Imperial agility. E and B have some strengths, but are not as good whilst the Z and X suffer from complete lack of post dial repositioning and bar a few obvious characters rebels have pretty weak pilot abilities to select from. Scum is somewhere between as it has Sloops and some pretty agile ships along with some bricks.

I play and own all 3 factions. I liked the TIE Advanced since wave 1 and it deserved its fix. It's been well worth the wait and my 3 advanced (4 with the raider expansion) will see much more table time.

I just can't help but feel that this was a bit too much of a power creep expansion. The new pilots are pretty stellar. I can see plenty of potential for abuse with Colzet and FCS. The ability to damage/kill any already damaged ship within range 1-3 simply by taking a TL action is pretty stinking. Not sure how he achieves that. Maybe he has a really good sound system and plays elevator music at the other pilot until their heads explode.

Juno is nice but undermines the risk in dial choice: SOT and her ability will mean all you have to do is choose a range 2 manoeuver and you're set. Not happy? Change it to any move at speed 2 and then change the speed to suit. So you get a stress? So what. Choose a green move next turn and modify away to your hearts content. Meanwhile a free FCS with X1 title means that the target you're chasing still faces modified attack dice rolls. You now have a shielded heavy fighter which can capably arc dodge AND has a dial choice to rival an interceptor, all without much of the risk inherent in flying 3 HP papier mâché spaceships. For her price, that's pretty **** good.

I hope there is something pretty worthwhile in store for the X Wing after this. I'd love an X Wing fix with pilots of this caliber for the rebels.

Ffg rolled back the phantom pretty well imo

As for the advance, I can't really see power creep. I see a previously worthless paper weight becoming competitive.

Concerning Juno, her ability has NOTHING on pre errata phantoms. She can only adjust speed not change her maneuver, whereas the phantom basically had 3 positions that it occupied simultaneously and could pick at its leisure on top of a 4/4 profile.

Compared to interceptors especially of similar price, she lacks boost and green hard turns (plus the synergy that has with ptl) and (most of all) auto thrusters

If you take FCS, you still have a crappy 2 die ship

If you take AC, you wontbhave the ceptor's damage potential

If you take ATC, you have to fenangle with the tl restriction

Consider the asking price of v.I, thruster thurr, I'd say she seems quite fair

I still feel a swarm tactics command ship build to give corset(it's forever his name now) a high PS is the best way of playing him.

Vessery is my favourite for this, for obvious reasons.

Here's what I got. It's not totally ideal but should work, and balances the hurt.

100 Points

FFG Shut up and take my money!!!

Vessery is so cool with HLC and Outmanoever.

Expensive, yeah - but so satisfying when the defender gets 0 defence dice in range 3

35 points

Maarek Stele

TIE Advanced

TIE/x1, Predator, Engine Upgrade, Advanced Targeting Computer

You can swap the EU's for HLCs on vessery as is your want, if you prefer firepower to mobility.

I would. I don't see EU being that effective on Maarek. You want to spend your action on TL, Focus, or Barrel Roll. I think EU has better action economy on Col V due to the fact that he will get the TL if he can fire at the same target. So, let Maarek TL and the Col can boost to keep that guy in range arc.

He can fly on a shuttle. Yup.

Did you hear about that one time he got Jar Jar into the senate? Good times...

Palpatine's ability: The rebel squad must include Jar Jar Binks.

Jar Jar Binks: Crew. Does not require a crew slot. Whenever your dice do not roll all of the same result activate Jar Jar Binks. When Jar Jar Binks is activated your opponent may barrel roll one of your ships in any direction; if it overlaps an enemy ship, that ship gains a focus. If it overlaps a friendly ship, roll 1 dice and suffer the results.

Strom with AC and Intimidation anybody?

I'm kind of liking him with AC and Draw Their Fire. Use him to protect more vulnerable ships and still do some decent damage himself.

Ffg rolled back the phantom pretty well imo

As for the advance, I can't really see power creep. I see a previously worthless paper weight becoming competitive.

Concerning Juno, her ability has NOTHING on pre errata phantoms. She can only adjust speed not change her maneuver, whereas the phantom basically had 3 positions that it occupied simultaneously and could pick at its leisure on top of a 4/4 profile.

Compared to interceptors especially of similar price, she lacks boost and green hard turns (plus the synergy that has with ptl) and (most of all) auto thrusters

If you take FCS, you still have a crappy 2 die ship

If you take AC, you wontbhave the ceptor's damage potential

If you take ATC, you have to fenangle with the tl restriction

Consider the asking price of v.I, thruster thurr, I'd say she seems quite fair

Agreed, the phantom errata was an elegant solution.

Juno doesnt have the choice that the phantoms had, but with access to Stay On Target she can change her dial and modify the speed. Its not that much of an opportunity cost given you can buff your offense through the systems slot, leaving the EPT slot free. Yeah fine 2 red dice; but picking your own move at PS 8 means getting range 1 shots isnt that difficult and FCS means that you will be able to modify them quite easily. It still gives the player a choice of (at least) 3 positions to be in when they reveal the dial. The only similar pilot ability before this was Simon Tetran Cowell. Juno can do a similar ability with her own K and every other move on the dial. As you said, it just takes away the element of skill in dial choice.

Agreed, there is less green on the advanced dial but outside of ordnance requirements (TL and Focus) there isnt a definite need for generating stress with PTL on an Advanced, especially with access to system slot now. 5 HP behind 3 greens with evade and BR is still a tough nut to crack. Interceptors have a better dial due to the hard green turns, but they also dont have 2 shields giving them crit resilience and system slots to boost their damage potential. The Advanced has the same choice of moves and can take full advantage with Juno.

Without SOT I actually dont have a problem with Juno. I have more of an issue with Captain Corset, Hazmat or Cozlet or whatever he calls himself. If his ability was range restricted, say range 1 or in arc, I dont think it would be a problem. As it is all he has to do is cruise around taking target locks on damaged ships in range and trading them in for crits. He doesnt even have to shoot anything....The other 2 pilots are pretty nice actually

I dont think the sky is falling or anything, its just that this fix really raises the bar for any future pilot releases and makes imbalance more likely.

Does strom also deny the range 3 bonus die from other ships attacking ships within range 1 of strom?

No, he doesn't. I thought that too at first, but then when I reread the card I saw that it specifies when the enemy ship is attacking.

Well.. I dont play GW games..

Good for you. Not one of the Dark Side you are. But I beg to differ concerning your praise of wiggle room. In my experience, hard choices make for a good game.

Then you must really HATE x-wing...

Between boost, barrel roll, boba Fett, navigator, stay on target, phantoms, SLAM, turrets, Nara, inertial dampeners, etc there are literally scores of combinations of ways to make your dial choice change or irrelevant after you set your dial.

All I see is whine for the sake of whine

Agreed, the phantom errata was an elegant solution.

Juno doesnt have the choice that the phantoms had, but with access to Stay On Target she can change her dial and modify the speed. Its not that much of an opportunity cost given you can buff your offense through the systems slot, leaving the EPT slot free. Yeah fine 2 red dice; but picking your own move at PS 8 means getting range 1 shots isnt that difficult and FCS means that you will be able to modify them quite easily.

unfortunately, 2 red dice even with FCS will mean that you could set her dial after everyone else has moved and she'd still be roughly as valuable as a tie fighter. She'd be fun, no doubt, but the other 70 points of squadron would be really upset to see that they basically have to down the opponent by themselves.

Plus, against a turret, her capabilities are pretty much meaningless

offense is essential for making a points-relevant impact especially with expensive named characters

S.o.T is cute with her, but imo there are far better EPTs available (outmanuever, predator, push the limit). S.o.T gives you the entire dial, but it can only be used every other turn.

The only pilot who turns S.o.T into a thing of beauty is Keyan Farlander, and possibly the new YV-666

FFG has done their homework very well, especially after the phantom

For a GW analogy, SoT Juno would be like taking a fast skimmer with land raider stats and then arming it with a lasgun (and nothing else)

Funny enough the below statement has now been removed from the article. So no Raider anytime soon .

"The Imperial Raider Expansion Pack is on its way to retailers everywhere."

Fair point; low offensive output isn't going to make her game breaking by any stretch. But she will still offer a lower skill threshold to effective manoeuver, which will be annoying if nothing else. Even that I don't mind in itself, except that it now means 3 imp pilots have similar capabilities. Boba, Tetran Cowell and now Juno (not taking crew into account).

The new raider pilots are bringing a lot to the imps in terms of pilot abilities, on a par with the best in the game so far. Which is great, except that I don't see anything like that good coming for the rebels, unless the the X Wing boost supposedly on the way comes with another batch of pilots as good as these. Scum is still in flux and the spoiled wave 7 kvrxkavksxsVk (or whatever) pilot seems to have a pretty good ability, so it seems that good pilot abilities are lined up for 2 of the 3. I just hope there is something to even the scales for rebels. The game will suffer if there is not balance. But FFG know what they are doing I guess.

Turrets negate everyone's movement, your original point still stands and fat turrets are dull, boring and get wheezy walking to and from the buffet....

Well.. I dont play GW games..

Good for you. Not one of the Dark Side you are. But I beg to differ concerning your praise of wiggle room. In my experience, hard choices make for a good game.

Then you must really HATE x-wing...

Between boost, barrel roll, boba Fett, navigator, stay on target, phantoms, SLAM, turrets, Nara, inertial dampeners, etc there are literally scores of combinations of ways to make your dial choice change or irrelevant after you set your dial.

All I see is whine for the sake of whine

I want my X-Wing back. You list a lot of add-ons which changed the game for the worse. I don't like the direction this is going. Reigning in the Phantom was a step forward. Juno Eclipse is a step backwards.

I want my X-Wing back.

You can have your X-Wing back. Play with just the core set or whatever expansions you prefer. No one's forcing you to buy a Raider or field Juno Eclipse.

Don't assume the rest of us will do the same, though. Or would even want to, for that matter.

The named x-wing pilots are still strong it's the generics that suffer.

The named x-wing pilots are still strong it's the generics that suffer.

I agree completely. Wedge and Wes are among the best pilots in the game. Luke and Tarn are certainly up there. The generics simply can't compete with the B wing only being one more point.

No love for Porkins?