Let's make things Viable

By Jo Jo, in X-Wing

Design a card or pilot ability that makes an existing upgrade or pilot viable.

I'll start with the EPT Elusiveness:

New pilot ability - When defending, you may remove 1 stress token to change all of your Focus results to Evade results.

Mirrors Keyan's ability but for defense. Works nicely with Elusiveness as you can get the stress, but then turn around and spend it.

EDIT:

I think people are missing the point of this thread.

Take an existing pilot or upgrade that goes relatively unused, like Winged Gundark Then come up with an upgrade that would make that pilot a lot more viable or

Alternatively come up with a new pilot ability that would synergize and make a rarely used upgrade (Merc. Co-pilot, Intimidation,etc) viable.

Edited by Jo Jo

Give that to Keyan Flanders along with AdvS. AdvS target lock or barrel roll and then perform a red maneuver onto debris. Double stress, one for attack and one for elusiveness.

Alternatively, give that to Tycho Celchu or Jake Farrell with awing test pilot and PtL.

Marksmanship

4 points

When you spend focus tokens on attacks you may change one hit to a crit.

Back in the day, I considered a pilot that could change his/her hits to focus results. Not really that good, unless you want Marksmanship to trigger.

Also considered pilot abilities that directly referenced Upgrade cards. For instance, "If you are the recipient of a free action via Squad Leader, the ship equipped with Squad Leader may also take a free action"

Neither one of these is very elegant, though.

Alternatively, give that to Tycho Celchu or Jake Farrell with awing test pilot and PtL.

You're miss reading what the OP posted (I did the same thing at first). He's proposing a NEW pilot, with the ability to spend a stress to change focus to evade. As such, Tycho couldn't use elusiveness and get consta evades.

However, said pilot would have to have 1-2 agility, as that could get OP really fast. Each attack gets to trigger elusiveness, and then he always has a focus token for defense. The only way to make it not-OP would be to limit it to once per turn. Elusiveness would still have a niche since PTL would generate a stress regardless of whether you were getting shot at or not, so if you weren't, then you'd have to deal with the stress token. Whereas elusiveness would only generate stress if you were shot at, and as such you could always dump it when you roll your greens.

As for a new card... Let's take a look at Expose! How about a pilot ability like: When attacking with a primary weapon, you may roll twice as many attack dice. If you do, the defender rolls twice as many defense dice.

Put him in a 2 attack ship. Now you're not losing any efficiency on the expected attack results: 2F = 1.5 <boom>, 4F = 3 <boom>, 3 = 1.5 <boom>, 6 = 3 <boom>. But he can absolutely crush low agility targets, especially if he puts EI or SL or something to modify the attack. But he still sucks against high agility targets.

EPT to make viable: Daredevil

New Pilot Ability: When executing a hard maneuver, you may assign an evade token to your ship.

And put it on a Decimator...

YAY FOR 16 HIT POINTS AND DOUBLE EVADES EVERY TURN FOR NO REASON!!!

Alternatively, give that to Tycho Celchu or Jake Farrell with awing test pilot and PtL.

Doesn't work on Tycho.

EPT to make viable: Daredevil

New Pilot Ability: When executing a hard maneuver, you may assign an evade token to your ship.

And put it on a Decimator...

YAY FOR 16 HIT POINTS AND DOUBLE EVADES EVERY TURN FOR NO REASON!!!

Daredevil is viable. On Tycho at least.

Hmm, interesting topic...

Adrenaline Rush + Any Torpedo

on an X-Wing Ace, Ability: When an upgrade card instructs you to discard it after use, do not discard it.

Same ability on a HWK with Leia or on a Lambda with Jerejerrod.

Hmm, interesting topic...

Adrenaline Rush + Any Torpedo

on an X-Wing Ace, Ability: When an upgrade card instructs you to discard it after use, do not discard it.

Same ability on a HWK or YT with Leia or on a Lambda with Jerejerrod.

Hang on, changed my mind on the YT. This YT could take Countermeasures and Cluster missiles. Ouch.

Edited by pickirk01

Elusiveness on a StarViper with the Virago Title, Sensor Jammer, and Auto Thrusters.

So many upgrades here that are perfectly viable.

Elusiveness is great for Ibby

DD is amazing with Tycho

Opportunist (4)

At the start of the Combat Phase the player declares whether this ship will use its Pilot Skill or fire at PS0 instead. When attacking, if the defender does not have any focus or evade tokens, you may receive 1 stress token to roll 1 additional attack die. You cannot use this ability if you have any stress tokens.



Expose (1)

Action: Until the end of the round, double your primary weapon value and reduce your agility value to 0. Discard this card after use.

Edited by Radzap

Linked Ion Cannon
(Cannon, TIE Defender only)

After you have attacked with your primary weapon, you may attack the same target with the Linked Ion Cannon.

Same effect as a normal Ion Cannon (Range 1-3 and 3 attack dice)

Cost: 0

EPT to make viable: Daredevil

New Pilot Ability: When executing a hard maneuver, you may assign an evade token to your ship.

And put it on a Decimator...

YAY FOR 16 HIT POINTS AND DOUBLE EVADES EVERY TURN FOR NO REASON!!!

Donr joke that'll be in decimator aces now

Pilot(s) to be made more common: Dace Bonearm and Jan Ors)

Card type: title (HWK-290 only)

You may remove one stress token from your ship during the end phase.

You could make R4-D6 much more usable by adding a Ywing pilot that had an ability that read "when attacking, you may pass one of your stress tokens to the defender". This would be insane on a warthog Ywing, stress yourself to block hits then pass two of the stress tokens onto an enemy.

So many upgrades here that are perfectly viable.

Elusiveness is great for Ibby

DD is amazing with Tycho

Is Ibby even viable? For 1 more point you can get Keyan who's just flat out better.

Captain Kagi's ability would intercept Target Locks acquired with FCS. Even though it doesn't, it's worded such that if an FAQ were to rule that it does intercept FCS TL's, it wouldn't cause a discrepancy with the card.

Colonel Jendon's target lock hand off would be range 1-2, maybe even 1-3.

Defenders' primary weapons would also have the ion effect, and wouldn't be damage capped.

Predator would only work against ships of lesser pilot skill. This balances Predator a little, doesn't affect its ability to curb swarms, and also makes sense thematically.

Free Target Locks acquired from FCS would be granted at the end phase, to prevent gunner/IG88B and Corran double tap from abusing the combo. You might see a little more variety in systems upgrades then.

Oh, and Enhanced Scopes would be a zero cost.

Edited by ParaGoomba Slayer

Any TIE Defender:

Integrated Cannons. Modification. 0 points. When you make a primary weapon attack, you may make a Cannon secondary weapon attack against the same target.

Generic X-Wings:

X-Wing Trainer Variant. Title. 0 points. X-Wing only. Gain 1 Hull. This cannot be equipped to any ship with PS 5 or greater.

Droids that require an action to use:

Enhanced Droid Interface. Modification. 1 point. Actions used to activate a Droid ability count as Free Actions.

Expendable Ordnance:

Linked Firing Circuits. Modification. 1 point. When you make an attack with a missile or torpedo secondary weapon, you may make a primary weapon attack againt the same target.

An elite upgrade for Gemmer Sojan (usable with A-Wing Test Pilot)

Fierce Brawler, 2 Points

Every time your agility value gets increased, gain 2 attack dice on your primary weapon until you get attacked.

I don't know if that would buff any other ships and make them OP. so i might need towork on the formulation.

I dont actually want stealth device to trigger this, nor the cloak action, because who would want Soontir with 5 or Phantoms with 6 dice. I would not mind someone using the Astromech that buffs your agility to trigger it because that is not used either and if you can pull that off without getting shot at, be welcome to fire 5 dice with your X-Wing until you take fire.

The idea is that Gemmer gets ignored most of the time when he gets his buffed defense. With this EPT you can not afford to ignore him or he will shoot 5 dice at you range 1. So you have to deal with the Tank before dealing with the rest. It would also hurt to get arc-dodged by him with this skill because there are conditions where he can become a nightmare. But it is situational and if you mess up you wont get anything out of the skill. That's what balances it out!

Edited by ForceM

Any TIE Defender:

Integrated Cannons. Modification. 0 points. When you make a primary weapon attack, you may make a Cannon secondary weapon attack against the same target.

Generic X-Wings:

X-Wing Trainer Variant. Title. 0 points. X-Wing only. Gain 1 Hull. This cannot be equipped to any ship with PS 5 or greater.

Droids that require an action to use:

Enhanced Droid Interface. Modification. 1 point. Actions used to activate a Droid ability count as Free Actions.

Expendable Ordnance:

Linked Firing Circuits. Modification. 1 point. When you make an attack with a missile or torpedo secondary weapon, you may make a primary weapon attack againt the same target.

All very nice. If I may, I would suggest a rewording of your Linked Firing Circuits...

"When you attack with a missile or torpedo secondary weapon, you may roll additional attack dice equal to your primary attack value."

This rewording means the defender only rolls defense dice once instead of twice. Ordnance moves into a dice range of 5-8 depending on the load and ship its on. Just might be enough to take the chance on it even without modified dice.

Any TIE Defender:

Integrated Cannons. Modification. 0 points. When you make a primary weapon attack, you may make a Cannon secondary weapon attack against the same target.

Generic X-Wings:

X-Wing Trainer Variant. Title. 0 points. X-Wing only. Gain 1 Hull. This cannot be equipped to any ship with PS 5 or greater.

Droids that require an action to use:

Enhanced Droid Interface. Modification. 1 point. Actions used to activate a Droid ability count as Free Actions.

Expendable Ordnance:

Linked Firing Circuits. Modification. 1 point. When you make an attack with a missile or torpedo secondary weapon, you may make a primary weapon attack againt the same target.

All very nice. If I may, I would suggest a rewording of your Linked Firing Circuits...

"When you attack with a missile or torpedo secondary weapon, you may roll additional attack dice equal to your primary attack value."

This rewording means the defender only rolls defense dice once instead of twice. Ordnance moves into a dice range of 5-8

depending on the load and ship its on. Just might be enough to take the chance on it even without modified dice.

That might make cluster missles too good though...how would this interact with that...

Any TIE Defender:

Integrated Cannons. Modification. 0 points. When you make a primary weapon attack, you may make a Cannon secondary weapon attack against the same target.

Generic X-Wings:

X-Wing Trainer Variant. Title. 0 points. X-Wing only. Gain 1 Hull. This cannot be equipped to any ship with PS 5 or greater.

Droids that require an action to use:

Enhanced Droid Interface. Modification. 1 point. Actions used to activate a Droid ability count as Free Actions.

Expendable Ordnance:

Linked Firing Circuits. Modification. 1 point. When you make an attack with a missile or torpedo secondary weapon, you may make a primary weapon attack againt the same target.

All very nice. If I may, I would suggest a rewording of your Linked Firing Circuits...

"When you attack with a missile or torpedo secondary weapon, you may roll additional attack dice equal to your primary attack value."

This rewording means the defender only rolls defense dice once instead of twice. Ordnance moves into a dice range of 5-8

depending on the load and ship its on. Just might be enough to take the chance on it even without modified dice.

That might make cluster missles too good though...how would this interact with that...

Clusters on a YT-1300, 2x6dice attack, you mean? Pretty darn good, but then when have you ever seen missiles on a YT in a tournament??? I may be the only one, but I would be willing to take the good with the bad.

How about this build.

4X Scimitars with extra munitions, Clusters, flechettes and this mod coming in a 100pts. IF they can somehow just get a few of those Flechettes off at R3, then double 5 dice attacks with the clusters up close...

Ok maybe make it a 2 pt mod.

Its just that I have all these missile and torp cards sitting in my case collecting dust.