So, let's assume that I have a 400 point list with an MC80 or two and an AMFKii or two. I form a giant conga line and do battle against the empire at medium-long range.

Now, let's assume that a VSDI, ISDI, or Gladiator come barreling at my conga line, ready to do battle at close range with a flood of black dice. I could use the tractor beam to decrease their speed, and thereby stall their ability to close the distance, right? Keeping the imperials at bay seems really useful. What do you think?

Slow the lead ship if they are in line and watch the formation scatter as they attempt to avoid ramming each other.

I think that the best use for the Tractor Beam is to slow down fast ship rather than keep enemies at bay. Too bad you can't drop ships to speed 0 (no defense tokens) but I understand there would be lots of abuse.

So for Rebels it might be used to slow down ISDs. The problem with slowing down ships is that they pivot better usually, so it's easier to bring their front arc to bear on you when you're trying to avoid them. Consequently, I'd rather capitalize on tanking shots and keeping the speed ratio not too spread out so you can play on angles and fly away..

You assign commands after fleets are deployed. If you notice enemy has tractors beams you just go with nav commands for the whole game (first bank token later use commands to speed up after getting tractored)

You assign commands after fleets are deployed. If you notice enemy has tractors beams you just go with nav commands for the whole game (first bank token later use commands to speed up after getting tractored)

Or you could plot all concentrate fire commands (if you have lots of long-range shooters) or squadron commands (if you have lots of bombers) and focus-fire the ship with tractor beams. Either way, though, it'll be something you have to account for.

I think slowing down incoming imperials is valid, especially VSDs. I usually lose when my VSDs go up against assault frigates, simply because they can maintain range. At the least, you are forcing them to burn their commands just to maintain speed, so they aren't squadroning or concentrating fire. Like Edsel pointed out, if you are conga lining across his front and you slow the ship at the end of the line you are heading for it will cause chaos in their formation.

Think will also be useful for light ships like corvettes, they wlll have to be careful not to get slowed down and stuck in front of your guns.

You are still at long range but that is roughly where you want to be as rebels. With Akbar those ships are looking at 5-6 red dice from the Assault Frigates and 5-7 dice on the MC80 (I am taking a shot that the MC80 Assault Cruiser replaces a blue all around for a red).

I don't know about you guys but 20+ red dice a turn is a lot of pain

You are still at long range but that is roughly where you want to be as rebels. With Akbar those ships are looking at 5-6 red dice from the Assault Frigates and 5-7 dice on the MC80 (I am taking a shot that the MC80 Assault Cruiser replaces a blue all around for a red).

I don't know about you guys but 20+ red dice a turn is a lot of pain

Many more sensor teams I believe, very underrated now but with all those reds, im sure to spend some blanks into accuracies

You are still at long range but that is roughly where you want to be as rebels. With Akbar those ships are looking at 5-6 red dice from the Assault Frigates and 5-7 dice on the MC80 (I am taking a shot that the MC80 Assault Cruiser replaces a blue all around for a red).

I don't know about you guys but 20+ red dice a turn is a lot of pain

Many more sensor teams I believe, very underrated now but with all those reds, im sure to spend some blanks into accuracies

I haven been using sensor team to great effectiveness on my Paragon

Remember if your mc 80 and the ISD are each heading straight at each other at soeed 3 each. The tractor beam slows the mc80 down to speed 2. It says reduces speed by 1 to a min of 1. So speed 4 becomes 3 speed 3 becomes 2 and so on.

However nav tech might still let you get the extra speed one move.

Can you put one on an Insidious? I can't access the site so i cant tell

Can you put one on an Insidious? I can't access the site so i cant tell

Its an Offensive Upgrade.

Gladiators do not have Offensive Upgrade slots

Tractor beam would be very limited on a GSD anyway. It only works on ships that are the same class or smaller (i.e. Large can tractor beam any ship, medium can only tractor beam medium and small, and small can only tractor beam small)

with one or 2 tractor beams on the field Tarken just became a much better commander

I think Tractor beams look amazing - particularly if deployed in numbers. You could easily slow down threats like Demolisher, with two tractor beams you can take him down from speed 3 to 1 in a single turn! Very powerful for the rebels to maintain distance when fighting red dice vs an imp black dice list.

The other aspect is that it makes squadrons more viable for tackling the faster ships - keeping a Demolisher or an Assault Frigate at speed 2 is going to give your squadrons a better chance at nailing it as it can't clear the danger zone as quickly.

B-Wings have a friend in Tractor Beams!

Tarkin is the Imperial counter to Tractor Beams, do the Rebals have a counter?

Tarkin is the Imperial counter to Tractor Beams, do the Rebals have a counter?

I dont see it as a counter. I am forcing you to give 1-2 ships a nav token per turn, wasting the full effectiveness of Tarkin and his flexibility.

If it costs you 38 points and some of the benefits of an upgrade to counter a 6 point upgrade I am HAPPY to let that happen. That is as much as 14 points not spent elsewhere.

I would make a list with the ISD, find the nearest Tantive IV CR90 with Leia in it, and tractor beam/destroy it asap.

Bonus if the opponent cheated and put Raymus in there as well.

In all honesty, though, I wonder if the ISD I's two offensive retrofits would allow it to have two tractor beams. Suddenly close range doesn't seem that difficult to achieve.

I would make a list with the ISD, find the nearest Tantive IV CR90 with Leia in it, and tractor beam/destroy it asap.

Bonus if the opponent cheated and put Raymus in there as well.

In all honesty, though, I wonder if the ISD I's two offensive retrofits would allow it to have two tractor beams. Suddenly close range doesn't seem that difficult to achieve.

Was FAQ'd, no dublicate of upgrade cars, and only one modification of any kind per ship. So no akimbo-tractorbeaming for you!

Tarkin is the Imperial counter to Tractor Beams, do the Rebals have a counter?

I dont see it as a counter. I am forcing you to give 1-2 ships a nav token per turn, wasting the full effectiveness of Tarkin and his flexibility.

If it costs you 38 points and some of the benefits of an upgrade to counter a 6 point upgrade I am HAPPY to let that happen. That is as much as 14 points not spent elsewhere.

Wall of text incoming. You are forewarned...

@Daft Blazer: Garm can generate 1 Nav token for each ship in the first and fifth rounds, so he's something of a mitigator. Tantive IV can give its token to another ship within distance 5, so if Tantive activates before the tractored ship each round, plots a navigate command each round, converts it to a nav token each round, and then gives it to an affected ship each round, it can also mitigate (although it has no effectiveness if the affected ship already has a nav token banked, as you can only have one of each token at a time). Those are the two obvious counters that I'm aware of right now, though they're actually mitigators (your opponent has to work harder to tractor that ship) than a hard counter (the ship can't actually be tractored in any meaningful way).

@Lyraeus. Well, I suppose it's a "counter" in the sense that you can choose to use Tarkin to constantly spam nav tokens for all your ships, in the event that one, a few, or all of them (depending on how many are on the table) are targeted by a tractor beam once. Whether it's a "sufficient" and "efficient" counter is a larger question. If a ship isn't targeted, you'll be wasting the tokens (unless you spend the one you spammed from last turn on your last turn, you're not going to be able to bank another one), and if it's targeted by more than one tractor beam (speed reduced by 2-3, instead of one), then you won't be able to counter that either with Tarkin only (just reduce your speed reduction from 2 to 1, or 3 to 2). Plus, you're paying 38 points for Tarkin, so it's an investment. To be fair, Tarkin can function as far more than a Nav-spam tractor counter, so it's a little short-sighted to value him just on his ability/inability to keep your ship speed up, but he can't be a tractor-counter and wide-spread fleet booster (repairing 1-6 shields, rerolling 1-6 dice, activating 1-6 more squadrons, or saving any of the above for a future turn...) in the same round. All said, I don't think slapping Tarkin on your fleet and saying, "ok, I'm safe from tractors" is a sufficient or efficient counter for tractor beams. Like Garm, Tarkin's more of a mitigator than a hard counter (albeit a more constant--and expensive--mitigator than Garm).

Personally, if I have a ship that I need to be at a certain speed (Demolisher?), or will die if it gets slowed down (an objective ship?), I'd rather put old Wulff Yularen on it for 7 points, as others have said, get the Nav-token once, then re-spend it multiple times. If that ship gets targeted by only one tractor beam, fine. If it's focused down, that'll stink, but at least it can be mitigated somewhat, and that means the rest of my fleet is (hopefully) free to maneuver while my poor Demolisher is focused.

For a speed 3 Glad, at least, Engine Techs can actually be a hard counter to tractor beams, but it's a bit counter-intuitive, so it's worth discussing in some detail.

Suppose I'm a Glad I Demolisher with Engine Techs, no Wulff, and a banked nav token moving at speed 3, and I get hit by a tractor beam (unlikely, I know). The first impulse is to spend the nav token, then heckle the opposing player's feeble attempt to slow you (because you're the unstoppable baddie Demolisher). Of course, if you do this and there's another enemy ship with tractor beams, you've almost assured yourself that you will be tractored again (between your counter, your response, and the fact that you are the unstoppable baddie Demolisher), so that reduces your speed to 2, and you have no response. Then, worst-case scenario, there's a third tractor which, of course, focuses you (for all the reasons stated above). Now you're speed one, have no token, and unless you plotted a nav command (which you might have), you're at speed 2. If you have the nav command, you can use ETs to get to speed 3. You have, at that point, burned three tractor beams that could have been used on the rest of your fleet (depending on fleet size, how fast your ships were moving, what size of ship your opponent has tractor beams on, the size of ships in your fleet, etc.), so maybe that's a tactical win overall, but any immediate tactical advantage ET's speed burst would usually provide would have been lost.

Now consider what would have happened had you acted counter-intuitively and not spent the nav-token when you were tractored (remember, unlike Ion Cannon Batteries, tractor beams aren't an automatic resource depletement-- you can choose to burn the nav token or reduce your speed). You would have taken, at most, two tractor beams (because your speed can only be reduced to 1, so maybe another beam is used elsewhere). Losing speed sucks, but tractors can't reduce speed to 0, so you'll never lose the ability to use defense tokens from a tractor beam. Your speed is reduced immediately when hit by a tractor beam, but that doesn't have any game-play implications until your ship's maneuver phase (because, again, you can't be reduced to speed 0). So you activate and reveal a command. Then you do whatever your first attack is, then maneuver (because you're Demolisher and this is what you do). You spend the token that you didn't spend earlier to increase your speed from 1 to 2. Then, use ETs to get to 3, and you're at full-speed. If you had a navigate command plotted, you can increase your speed to 3, then use ETs for the additional maneuver at speed 4. And voila. For eight points, you've eaten 12 points of tractor beams, kept the rest of your fleet mobile, lulled your opponent into a sense of safety, and emerge at the end of the day without suffering any gameplay disadvantage.

Once the basic principle is there (have ETs + save nav token + plot nav command = hard counter to multiple tractor beams), it's easy to flavor to taste to fit your fleet. Add Wulff to one Glad, and you can do this indefinitely as long as you plot a nav command each turn (or without a nav command, if the enemy gets tired of your hard counter and ceases his futile attempts to tractor you). Add Tarkin, and a fleet of ET-enhanced Glads can reliably go speed 4 each turn with plotted Nav commands if they act counter-intuitively and save their nav token when tractored (even if the enemy has tractors on every ship and targets every Glad twice (the maximum)...). I suppose your opponent could use Ion Cannon Batteries to strip your nav token... but at that point, your opponent is investing at least 17 points (two tractors, one ion cannon batteries) for upgrades that can, at best, slow your glad from speed 4 to speed 3 (if you plot a nav command and use ETs).

And then, there's this: all of the above assumes that you always want to be moving at speed 3 (with an additional speed 1 maneuver, if you have ETs). But there are any number of strategic and tactical reasons why a Demolisher (or any other fast-moving ship) might have ordinarily wanted to slow down or vary its speed at a given point in the encounter (setting up double-arcs, avoiding a ram, boxing a target). In those situations, maybe the tractor beam is helping me accomplish my strategic objectives, or setting up a tactically superior attack than what I'd have if I continued to move at my prior speed. Slowing an enemy Glad from 3 to 1 at long range is fabulous. Slowing an enemy Glad from 3 to 1 while he's crossing your front at close range... not so much. I see this having fascinating gameplay implications for the future.

Finally, for the sake of being thorough, there's a third hard counter, I suppose: run three large ships. A large ship can only be tractored by another large ship, so as long as you plot a navigate command each turn, your enemy will need to use at least two large ships to reduce your speed in any way (three if you have Tarkin giving a nav token, or Wulff conserving a nav token). At worst, only two of your ships will be affected by tractors in any significant way, since your opponent can't field more than three large ships in a single fleet (unless an MC-80 variant clocks in at under 100...).

------------------------

All of this raises some interesting tractor beam strategy questions. For the tractoring-party, is it worth running more than one tractor beam on your fleet? Sure seems like it, atm, but it also means excluding other modifications like Enhanced Armaments, which poses an interesting dilemma for AFIIs, as well as whatever other modifications are coming in Wave II. And if so, is it better to target one ship with multiple beams to focus it down, or to spread the goodness around, slowing the entire fleet down and reducing everything to a slow crawl? For Rebs, I'd be inclined to think focus-slowing on something like a Glad will be more valuable (focusing an ISD would require having at least 2 MC-80s, due to the size of the target). For the Empire, though, I wonder if their tractors would be better-served hitting the entire fleet, requiring that everything slows down in your large front-arcs (a win), or everything can't maintain optimal range (a win), or everything clusters together (a win), or everything panics and scatters (a win). Really, the only Rebel ship that significantly benefits from speed 1 is a forward-facing Neb-B (and in all likelihood, they'll be at speed 1 anyway). The approach on three or four speed 1, conga-lined AFIIs will still be awful, but with gunnery-teams and ISD/VSD front arcs, your close will be at least as brutal.

The real danger with tractor beams however is that to effectively counter them ALL your ships need to take steps to counter them - or your opponent will simply target the one without Wulf/token/whatever. But you do need to be careful that you don't actually do your opponent a favour - I typically slow my gladiators with engine techs down to speed 2 on their second move to give better turning capability - so an opponent could help you out there!

I think they are going to be great

Would be even more amusing if you could use the tractor beam to speed up ships!!

I'd like to point out to Tranentrum's very smart idea of multiple tractor beams : https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/187124-is-the-vicsd-out/?p=1774260

Defend against one, then eat the other 3 to the face.

Amazing analysis Rythbryt!