My gut is telling me that the VSD will not go extinct. Yes the ISD can do everything a lone VSD can do, only better. However the points difference will still keep the VSD a very solid choice in many lists. Want to include a dangerous area-denial ship in your list? 120+mods for an ISD is a heck of a lot of points to sink into that. 73+mods for the VSD-1 is a much more reasonable alternative.

Also, once you get over the monstrous front arc firepower on the ISD, it's not so superior to the VSD. I would even argue that the 2 reds in the rear of the VSD may be superior to the 1 red and 2 blue that the ISD gets.

Defensively, the ISD has a major advantage with a total of 5 extra health. It also gets that nifty contain defence token that will help preserve it from critical hits, but not from any other nifty card-based critical effects. Other than that the ISD has the same defence tokens as the VSD. Importantly as well, both the VSD and ISD have 4 engineering, so both ships recover from damage taken equally well.

Manoeuvrability wise, yes she is much better on paper than the VSD. Once ships and obstacles start getting in the way of that big base however, we might find her to be less manoeuvrable or easily predictable. With the size of the base it will make getting double arc shots against the ISD quite easy mitigating the ISD's health advantage to a certain degree.

Don't give me that harebrained fluff gibberish. This is about balance. An ISD will kill simply kill Nebulons, even Corvettes will have a hard time running from it. And they can push their squadron value to six. 6 bomber squadrons with Rhymer, next the ISD which has nothing to fear closing in and no trouble at all staying in command distance. And the ISD can easily maintain formation with Gladiators. The Victory has become a waste of points. Way to go, FFG.

I know that is is probably too much to ask on these boards, but could you play with the model at least once before coming to the conclusion that it invalidates another ship. I mean I feel that is reasonable to ask of you. With you know the higher point format, the base size you have never played with, upgrades that you don't even know what they might do. Or are we sticking with the knee-jerk reaction based on a marginal amount of information?

Higher points format is invalidating objectives. Making the ISD even stronger. There is no upgrade for the VSD the ISD can't take.

Don't give me that harebrained fluff gibberish. This is about balance. An ISD will kill simply kill Nebulons, even Corvettes will have a hard time running from it. And they can push their squadron value to six. 6 bomber squadrons with Rhymer, next the ISD which has nothing to fear closing in and no trouble at all staying in command distance. And the ISD can easily maintain formation with Gladiators. The Victory has become a waste of points. Way to go, FFG.

I know that is is probably too much to ask on these boards, but could you play with the model at least once before coming to the conclusion that it invalidates another ship. I mean I feel that is reasonable to ask of you. With you know the higher point format, the base size you have never played with, upgrades that you don't even know what they might do. Or are we sticking with the knee-jerk reaction based on a marginal amount of information?

Higher points format is invalidating objectives. Making the ISD even stronger. There is no upgrade for the VSD the ISD can't take.

Oh and as for objectives. They won't get invalidated. They just get better.

We are also unaware of the new upgrade cards the ISD expansion will bring, they will probably really expand the roles for the Imperial ships (even the Glads ad the Vics).

It's a steep price compared to the VSD2, but it's definitely not a bad ship. It will turn as well as an AFMK2 (obviously, it's not as nimble, but that's not the point of an ISD), will have more area denial due to a larger base which expands where its front arc can shoot. 14 hull points with Motti, Advanced Projectors, Wulff and spamming Engineering Commands will make it one hell of a flagship to kill.

Now, imagine the Relentless title, reducing the Command Value to 2 at speed 3 and we have a very interesting flexible ship.

It does not reduce the command value just reduces the amount of command dials you set per turn. So you get a ship that can have 3 tokens but only needs to have 2 dials set.

I am pretty sure on some of the cards. They fit along the lines of what needs to be there to address some current issues (squadrons for one) but we shall see how it all turns out.

I expect spoilers after the 8th. Likely that Friday or Monday afterwards

Presumably those that have won their wave2 ships, won't be able to play them in tournaments, until wave2 is on general release?

I wonder how many Imperial players will own up to flying straight off the board at speed 3 in the first month of wave 2???

Presumably those that have won their wave2 ships, won't be able to play them in tournaments, until wave2 is on general release?

Products are not tournament legal until official release.

Sure, you won't table Motti, but at 120 points you only need to kill one. Remember, they only get one shot out of each arc, and at 2.5 tines the cost of a nebulon, and you need to kill three before you lose the one.

I'm calling the 3 ISD+ Motti list the Tarkin Doctrine. Rule through the fear of force, rather than force itself.

Seeing that list across the table might give you pause, to doubt your ability to handle it. Canny players will realize that careful analysis will reveal a variety of thermal exhaust port wide vulnerabilities.

I probably have some more analogies i could use here but i'm having a brain fart.

Don't give me that harebrained fluff gibberish. This is about balance. An ISD will kill simply kill Nebulons, even Corvettes will have a hard time running from it. And they can push their squadron value to six. 6 bomber squadrons with Rhymer, next the ISD which has nothing to fear closing in and no trouble at all staying in command distance. And the ISD can easily maintain formation with Gladiators. The Victory has become a waste of points. Way to go, FFG.

I know that is is probably too much to ask on these boards, but could you play with the model at least once before coming to the conclusion that it invalidates another ship. I mean I feel that is reasonable to ask of you. With you know the higher point format, the base size you have never played with, upgrades that you don't even know what they might do. Or are we sticking with the knee-jerk reaction based on a marginal amount of information?

Higher points format is invalidating objectives. Making the ISD even stronger. There is no upgrade for the VSD the ISD can't take.

You are aware that while able to equip the same upgrades not every ship gets the same mileage from them correct? I feel that is a fairly basic concept.

Presumably those that have won their wave2 ships, won't be able to play them in tournaments, until wave2 is on general release?

FFG dropped the ball on this one. There are things that are hard to balance: Hull points vs speed, firepower vs mobility. But you can't give the ISD who has more hitpoints and more firepower than the VSD even more mobility, that is not rocket science.

Sure you can. It fits the source material, and it fills out the Victory as a -Cheap, but not as good- Alternative.

ESPECIALLY when you look at the points costs involved... I mean, I can get a Vic and a Glad for the Cost of an Imp-2.... That's some trade off to consider.

In space, ships maneuver quite differently than in atmosphere. Bigger engines= bigger thrust. I can actual see that a ISD maneuvers quite quickly. Note that a ISD was able to keep up and capture Leia's CR90, and it went the same relative speed as the M F (except when the MF dove into the asteroids- the Imperials have a hard time thinking in three dimensions it seems). If it maneuvers so slow, it would be useless in the game.

that is not rocket science.

No but that's why they have a point system. What you say would be true if all ships cost the same, but they don't and so there's room for that type of "imbalance".

You can in fact have a unit that is better in every way, then a different unit. But have it balanced if the super unit's cost is high enough to counter it's superiority.

FFG dropped the ball on this one. There are things that are hard to balance: Hull points vs speed, firepower vs mobility. But you can't give the ISD who has more hitpoints and more firepower than the VSD even more mobility, that is not rocket science.

Yes, you can. You just make it cost more. How is that going over your head?

Every one of your posts in this thread is just more not sound reasoning to try and prop up untenable, premature conclusions.

Those poor poor ISD's. . . They are going to hit all the obstacles. . .

@Lyraeus: Dangerous Territory would be an easy choice then?

Beyond that I reserve judgement as there will be 4 ships in the save and they may all move quite fast. I am also quite unsure just what impact on the game playing with large bases will have.

The one effect I can see is a large ship at speed 3 will require more of a gap between it and other ships, because you aren't moving on a center point but on the left or right front. So the base tends to fishtale. If you take the gap as being about 20cm (8") to allow two ships to remain in formation and turn 90 degrees then if you flank the pair you are almost out of range to the partner. This will also make it difficult to run a fleet with VSDs' and ISDs' and keep the overlap of fire arcs without hitting each other.

You can get away with it for up to a 90 degree turn as thw two ships rotate together, but beyond that one has to speed up or slow down and with a command of 3 you'll need to practice and cordinate the turn. If you go side to side and remain reasonably close then you are still looking at about 10cm from the port side of one ship to the port side of the other.

I think the ISD is like a space magnet for laser shots. I believe Alex Davy also mentioned this at GenCon. So what will happen is that a lot of your ships will be able to get double arcs on it. That's tremendous potential for damage.

Not to mention, with the larger base size, it might be easier to piggyback-ride squadron, definitely with speed 2, perhaps even with speed 3.

What I mean is, it will be very easy to shoot an ISD. What you have to do is bring enough firepower to take it out. What happens for me at 300 pts quite often is that I have a lot of firepower concentrated on one spot (ship's hull zone), but then I destroy that ship and the rest of the firepower becomes long range on another ship. So if I purposefully point more guns at a ship now (to account for bad dice), I can probably also do a lot more damage to an ISD, since I just bring everything!

Apart from the ISD-2, I think it is also important to consider the fact that the pre-release event is in 35 days. This means that in 35 days we will know all the new stats and cards of the new expansions! Even more important, FFG also knows that we will know all the cards and stats by October 2, so if they want to do previews, it makes sense to do them prior to October 2. Given that we get five products they'll probably do five previews. And because it's only 35 days left that means a preview exactly once per week!!!!

Now that I think about it, they released the Massing at Sullust preview on monday 6 weeks in advance of the event. If 5 previews follow, tI think it is quite likely that they follow a fixed schedule; which would mean a preview every monday. So my money is on these dates:

Monday August 31: Preview 1

Monday September 7: Preview 2

Monday September 14: Preview 3

Monday September 21: preview 4

Monday September 28: Preview 5

Weekend of October 2-4: Full spoilers!

Babs out!

Sure you can. It fits the source material, and it fills out the Victory as a -Cheap, but not as good- Alternative.

ESPECIALLY when you look at the points costs involved... I mean, I can get a Vic and a Glad for the Cost of an Imp-2.... That's some trade off to consider.

Some trade off. Just imagine them fighting each other. The Gladiator will go down first, it can't run from a ship as fast as itself with longer range and on a not that large playing surface and then it's a still fully functional ISD against a VSD, because it will take more time for both VSD and Gladiator to make a dent in the ISD than it will take the ISD to vaporize the Gladiator as the VSD will have trouble to even get a shot. So much for the ISD being properly costed.

In space, ships maneuver quite differently than in atmosphere. Bigger engines= bigger thrust. I can actual see that a ISD maneuvers quite quickly. Note that a ISD was able to keep up and capture Leia's CR90, and it went the same relative speed as the M F (except when the MF dove into the asteroids- the Imperials have a hard time thinking in three dimensions it seems). If it maneuvers so slow, it would be useless in the game.

Both "source material" and real physics are immaterial to the working or not working of game mechanics.

The Armada model of movement in space is fun but has nothing to do with physics, just as the movies. In space, the energy you need to change your bearing is negligible compared to the energy needed to propel the spacecraft. So acceleration depends on the ratio of engine power to mass, but all ships can change the bearing easily and equally so. Pretty much the opposite of Armada.

Sure you can. It fits the source material, and it fills out the Victory as a -Cheap, but not as good- Alternative.

ESPECIALLY when you look at the points costs involved... I mean, I can get a Vic and a Glad for the Cost of an Imp-2.... That's some trade off to consider.

Some trade off. Just imagine them fighting each other. The Gladiator will go down first, it can't run from a ship as fast as itself with longer range and on a not that large playing surface and then it's a still fully functional ISD against a VSD, because it will take more time for both VSD and Gladiator to make a dent in the ISD than it will take the ISD to vaporize the Gladiator as the VSD will have trouble to even get a shot. So much for the ISD being properly costed.

OOR, the players are competent. The Glad and Vic can exploit activation to have the opponent move into gun range on an unactivated ship, and that is a total of 4 attacks vs the Impstarduce's two. If the glad is being flown with the title or agressivly, it can sink in 8+ black dice, and a vic2 double arc shot (will be easy with the huge base) can throw 5 red and 4 blue, plus another from cf commands. That is a total of 17-19 dice being thrown at the Impstarduce, and with only one brace and 2 redirect tokens for dealing with 4 attacks... To make it simple, let's say each attack only is 4-5 dice, and only deals 3 damage each. You can brace 1 down to 2, and redirect 2 of the attacks to your side shields, but after the dust settles, you only have the 2 shields left on your rear and you have taken your first hull damage. And that is assuming you can have optimal defensive token usage, and each role is mediocre.

Now, if the ImpStarDuce has gunnary team, it could make use of its front arc on both the glad and the Vic. 8 dice is powerful, but you will average only 1 accuracy from the blue and 1/2 accuracy from the red, and they both have 3 defensive tokens. Assuming you deal 8 damage each attack and can accuracy a brace, the glad will evade/reroll a double hit, then take 5 damage on the shield and 1 on the hull. The victory without the brace fares worse, with 6 on the shield and2 on the hull.

But both have some shields left on one of the sides and the rear, and both survive to maul your shieldless star destroyer next turn. You might get lucky and pop one before it gets to fire. But that is assuming a great roll, with accuracies and double hits to reach 8 damage. Realistically, expect 4-5 hits and an accuracy, which still is powerful. Just don't brag to paragon with EA, sensor team, CF command, and Advanced gunnary team if your lucky. Because Paragon will blow you out of the water, time and time again.